Blueprint for Progress: Sculpting Tomorrow's Team Dynamics with Dane Groeneveld

Speaker 1: Welcome to The Future of Teamwork podcast, where we explore cutting edge strategies to keep teams human- centered, drive innovation, and empower you with the tools and insights need to help your teams excel and thrive in today's rapidly changing world. And an exciting twist for this episode, we're flipping the narrative, your regular guide and authority on team dynamics, Dane Groeneveld, will share his insights not as the host, but as our guest. Steering the conversation is former, The Future of Teamwork guest and Leader's Chief Customer Officer Kurt Landon, eager to tap into Dane's extensive expertise in shaping high performing teams. In this special edition, they'll explore first, team dynamics in 2024, Dane analyzes emerging trends and fading practices in team management for the year ahead, offering practical strategies to keep your team adaptive and ahead of the curve. Second, AI and technology and teamwork. Dane and Kurt will discuss how these tools reshape, collaboration, problem solving and productivity, offering guidance on harnessing their potential while navigating associated challenges. Third, embracing challenges. Gain insights into Dane's approach to problem solving and resilience in teams. Discover how adopting a proactive stance on challenges can transform how your team perceives and tackles obstacles, turning potential setbacks into opportunities for learning and growth. So teamwork makes the dream work and we're here to inspire your next collaborative breakthrough. Gather your team or put on your headphones and let's dive in together.

Dane Groeneveld: Welcome to The Future of Teamwork podcast. My name's Dane Groeneveld, CEO of the Huddl3 Group, and today I'm joined by Kurt Landon again, and it's a little bit different. Kurt is actually going to be swapping seats with me. He's the host today and I'm the guest. So welcome back Kurt, and thanks for jumping in the hot seat.

Kurt Landon: Thanks, Dane. Excited to flip the script today and turn the camera on you, you ask you some probing questions about your viewpoints on a bunch of different things. I was thinking today, maybe, we could touch base on a few topics in particular. The first really being about your outlook on this new year of 2024, and specifically, I wanted to ask you some questions about teams since that's one of your many areas of expertise. And I think let's just jump right in to the first question that I wanted to ask you on this topic, which is at the risk of chasing trends and fads, which is always a little bit of a dangerous prospect, what do you see as being really in and out this year from your perspective on the topic of teams, things that you think we're going to be hearing a lot about and seeing in action, maybe some things that we've talked about in the past related to teams that's going to be somewhat faded glory this year and beyond.

Dane Groeneveld: Yep. No, you bet. I've got a bunch, so why don't I just rattle them off and you can dive in on anything that catches your ear. So what's in, I think leadership behaviors. I think we've seen a lot of change in the role of leadership post pandemic, and there were some behaviors, some were good, some were bad, some were trying new things. But this year I think it's going to be really tight and focused on how leaders are showing up for their organizations, and their customers. Re- skilling and innovation is real and a lot of companies are probably going too heavy on the whole AI hype cycle, remote work. There's lots that's gone on there. So I think teams really driving that investment in their people is going to be big in'24, I think the codification of behaviors is another one. I think you look at performance culture and Gary Ridge, who's been a guest in the past says it very well. " Culture equals values plus behaviors times consistency." So really explaining those behaviors so everyone knows how to live them will be big. And then I had another one I guess, that I'll finish on, which is it's more my wife, Claire's language. It's coping mechanisms. There's a lot of talk about the need for resilience in teams right now, and sometimes you can't solve a problem, but if you can give the team really good coping mechanisms, they're going to come at the problem, celebrate it, and find ways to overcome it as a team. So I think they're my big ins for'24.

Kurt Landon: Lots of good stuff there I want to dig into, and we'll come back to the technology and megatrend of AI in a moment. There's so much discussion about that in this field, so let's make sure we come back to that in a moment. But I'm really intrigued by your comment about target behaviors both for leaders and also for teams. So maybe let's play in that space a little bit first, and I love Claire's comment about coping mechanisms and so I'd love to dip into that a little bit as well. But maybe for starting with leaders, one of my observations is that in recent years we've been asking leaders to show up in such new and different ways, especially in the aftermath of the pandemic, leaders were sort of invited into people's homes and expected to demonstrate that people first set of behaviors and mindsets. How do you see that now in 2024 where there's still lingering aspects of the pandemic, of course, but where we sit today and as we kick off this new year, how do you see target behaviors shaping up for leaders? What are some of these new behaviors, building on what we saw maybe during the pandemic, that you're seeing top of mind?

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, you bet. It's interesting. I think the pandemic and going virtual or remote and just the general economy, the whole techmagedon and people doing massive layoffs. Leaders have been given challenges, I think you call out correctly, but they've also been given a lot of freedom to go and do a lot of different things, and certainly speaking on my own behalf, but seeing it in other peers in the industry. That means that at times you kind of lose your way with clarity and checking in with the team more regularly with inviting the team to be part of the leadership journey. I think it would be fair to say that a lot of leaders have kind of come through more of a siege mentality of the last few years, whatever they were tackling, and now we need to say, " Hey, that is well and truly behind us now, how are we showing up every day for our teams and our customers?" So I think there's a little bit more accountability. I think employees, team members are looking for leaders to be a little bit more visible and in the trenches with them in'24.

Kurt Landon: Let's pull on that thread a little bit about a really great point about people expecting leaders to be in the trenches. Can you kind of put some teeth in that?

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Kurt Landon: What does that maybe look like on a practical level? And I think we are seeing all ends of the spectrum, lots of organizations bringing people back into the office either fully or partially, but we still also have a lot of leaders who are leading teams remotely. They've never even necessarily met some of the people who they're managing. What are some either practices, or actions, or mindset, or behaviors or all of the above if you wish, in terms of what you think leaders should be doing with the current environment?

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, yeah, bias for action's a big one. So when I say in the trenches actually, you hear that old management saying lead by walking around. I think leaders should be leading by doing right now. There's a lot of tools, there's a lot of technology, there's a lot of great team members that they can be actually in working with on key projects. And by extension of that, I think the reverse mentoring principle and concept is huge. I know you've been a big fan of that and we had a meeting in Houston late last year where you encouraged us to bring some more junior team members into the boardroom and it's a fascinating way to be in there doing the work together and getting their read and their input straight away. So that would be another example. And if I'd add one more, the beauty of being remote and using Zoom and these tools is that you can dive into a lot of activity in the business and with customers, but you can only dive in so deep. So I think leaders actually getting out in market with key vendors, with key customers spending time, getting back to building relationships, getting back to identifying problems to solve together, I think team members are going to be excited about leaders who are displaying those behaviors and are really in there with them.

Kurt Landon: I love that. And I think underlying some of those different concepts that you just shared, I really heard connection, right? So really being out there and connecting with these different groups of stakeholders. Just building on that, one of the things I've observed as we've gotten to know each other better is you've talked a lot about really a non- hierarchical kind of mindset. And so for leaders who are leading people probably now more than ever, two colleagues working together almost as business partners trying to solve problems in the trenches. You see that as being related to what we're talking about here?

Dane Groeneveld: I do. I love it. I'm glad you called out human connection. And I think what I've seen through all of the guests that we've been talking to on The Future of Teamwork podcast, what I've seen through some of our businesses over the last couple of years is this concept of shared leadership is very real. It allows you to build that connection and I think not only does it drive psychological safety, that's a big catchphrase keyword right now for everyone, but I think it drives a little bit more comfort and confidence in knowing how we each like to work and how we can lean into doing our best work. And I think that's a big factor in driving through what is a rapidly changing landscape out there that we're all running our businesses within.

Kurt Landon: Yeah, the thought that comes to mind as we talk about less hierarchy, more bias for action in the trenches, connection, less of this more traditional hierarchical mindset, psychological safety. If you kind of think about all that where it takes my mind, I'm curious, your perspective about this is it fits quite nicely with what I've heard and what I think we're perceiving about the newer generations coming into the workforce and some of their values, and ideals, and expectations even. Does that resonate with you or you see that differently?

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, no, actually I love it. I love that you brought that up and we read a lot about intergenerational teams. I was just thinking over the weekend that there was a lot of talk going a couple of years back about Gen Y and Gen Z. There was a lot of complaint and noise and it's disappeared. I don't see it as much anymore, and I think there's good reason for it. So to your point, there's psychological safety, the shared leadership, reverse mentoring, all being in there together. It is powerful because it creates a lot of readiness in the organization. And actually, I was on the phone talking to Jenna Cohen, our colleague, this morning, and she actually hit on that readiness word in the context of where we were talking about our new business LEAD3R and the LEAD3R business, which has come together through acquiring your team at Inspira and putting our search business together. We've set out saying we're all about helping leaders transform businesses, but as of this morning, I'm thinking we're all about helping leaders get ready for transformation. It's a little bit presumptuous for us to say, " We're going to be there and drive the transformation journey with you." We're only a small group of people that love to do great work, but we can absolutely get in with leadership teams and help them get ready. And I think that readiness is going to be part of the wider behavior set that excites the new generation. But let's also be honest, there's a lot of boomers and Gen Xs that are sitting there looking at AI, and I know we're going to come back to technology later, but they, they're sitting there looking at technology and the changing landscape of the workplace and they're probably sitting there thinking, " How am I going to re-skill and remain relevant too?" So I think it has a big generational context.

Kurt Landon: I love this topic of readiness. So maybe we will pull on that thread a little bit more as we go. What are you using the word readiness? What are you ready to see go away from a trends perspective when it comes to teamwork and teams in 2024? What are maybe some things that have been embraced and ascribed to that you see probably fading away a little bit as we get further into this year and beyond?

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, it's funny, I'm not a big one to prep, but I did write notes for today and without us having had this conversation, my very first one was Gen Y, Gen Z talk. So it's amazing that you just hit that generational button. I think intergenerational teams and workplaces are going to become far cleaner, far more inclusive, far more accepting, and that's exciting. I think that's super exciting. So that's one. I think we're going to just stop talking about return to office too, because there's been a lot of chat, there's been a lot of noise, people go back and forth on it, but at the end of the day, there are going to be some companies that decide office is where they need to be, and there are others. They're going to be hybrid and others fully remote. And I think that's just all going to filter out and companies are going to determine their identity and just get on with what they've chosen to be or what they've found works best. So I'm glad to hear the end of that noise, I think. The other two I had were interesting. One was wellness in a vacuum. I've personally been guilty particularly through the pandemic of trying to address wellness in and of itself in isolation and in a vacuum, and therefore, it doesn't tie in to the way that we do our work. It is hard to really make space and time for because it becomes a bit of a box ticking exercise. So I think wellness is going to start to be woven into the way that we do work, the way that we organize our teams and our workplaces, and I think that's going to be better than it's just happy, glad talk about wellness. So I think that'll be gone. Then the final one, I had top- down change. So it would be hard to think that there are businesses out there or leaders out there that are not change. Fatigued right now. I certainly am, and I think we've driven a lot of change from the top- down, almost, we were forced to think about when that pandemic hit. We had to drive new ways of doing business, new systems, new tools, and we had to move quickly. But I actually think we started to over- index on top- down change. So I think we're going to see that slide out of focus a little bit more and we're going to see more change led from the fringes. So that's where my outs are probably coming from.

Kurt Landon: And when you say change led from the fringes, so for the benefit of our listeners, what does that mean to you?

Dane Groeneveld: You and I have both had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Ernesto Sirolli, and so I'm probably borrowing from his language there, but Ernesto talks a lot about people are brilliant, right? Whether they're in an entry level role, whether they're on the periphery serving customers or working in a manufacturing environment away from the corporate center. And it's the brilliance of those people that see opportunities for them to grow and for them to bring new innovations and ways of working to the team. So I think that's what we're going to see. I think we're going to see more change being led from outside of the corporate center. It doesn't mean bottom up LED change, it just means it's not top- down. It could be coming in from the sides, it could be coming in from our vendors. It could be coming in from our customers driving change. I mean, that's another big topic that Ernesto talks about is don't get caught up driving change you're excited about. Find out what the customer wants and build for the customer in public. So that's probably my view of what the new version or the directional shift should be looking like.

Kurt Landon: And I want to pivot in a moment to start to talk about technology and AI. I know for many of our listeners, I'm sure that's top of mind, but just one more area of focus on this. You briefly mentioned reverse mentoring. We're talking about maybe not having these delineations around intergenerational dynamics quite as kind of neatly defined as some of these interactions in the past. Now we're talking about change coming in from the fringes versus top- down. So I think there's a lot of ways in which those concepts kind of interrelate with one another. Just on a practical point here, for some of our listeners who maybe aren't as familiar with reverse mentoring or let's say rotating seats on executive teams for more junior staff, I know recently you took on some reverse mentors. That's something that I did a pilot on in the past. I took one of our most junior employees and asked/ begged her to be my mentor. Maybe could you just share a little bit one click more with our listeners about how that works, what that means and why you're interested in it?

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, absolutely. So what I'm learning because I am still new to it, is that if you get reverse mentoring, right, you bring a more junior team member or perhaps a team member that has deep specialism and expertise but isn't in that leadership group; because they could be 30, 40 years into their career, but just bring a different mindset and you bring those into work with the leadership team on real life problems. And it doesn't have to be a live fire project with a hard deadline. It could be just looking at board pack reviews. It could be talking about the technology landscape. It could be talking about culture and driving behaviors in the business. But you're now as a leader, having this interaction with an individual who isn't normally in those conversations and done well, they're going to bring insights and really help you address some blind spots that you or any leader are naturally going to have because you've been busy driving change from the other side of the zoom lens or wherever it might be.

Kurt Landon: So I know from a traditional standpoint, years ago, this would've seemed like a blasphemous thing to do and you have to have a certain level of security in yourself, being able to embrace some vulnerability to maybe have a more junior staff member truly mentor and guide you, teach you, give you feedback, and I think that feels very contemporary, very modern. So maybe let's use that as kind of a bridge to this next topic of technology and AI, which is on everyone's mind. A lot of the conversations I've been a part of on this topic, there's a lot of fear and it reminds me of some of the fear that I observed when I first started hearing about the reverse mentoring concept. People said, " Well, I have to make myself vulnerable. I'm going to share my flaws and my gaps with a junior member of my team, but then I might have to provide performance feedback to them later. How's that going to work?" So I think it's certainly something we all know to be true, that when there's a significant change in something that's new, they can obviously be laden with fear. So love to dig into this topic of AI first, just at a basic level, how are you thinking, you Dane, how are you thinking about how AI is going to start to show up and make its way onto teams? Literally figuratively, conceptually, how do you see this kind of playing out this year in 2024?

Dane Groeneveld: It's a great question. Alicia and I have been talking what, for 18 months since we started this podcast about this concept of technology as a team member. And we're not there yet, but I think we're headed in that direction. I read the other day, and I'm terrible at remembering stats, but I read the other day that most businesses already have AI in play. It's just stealthy right now. Their teams are using what's free or they may have personally paid for a subscription or maybe a department's picked something up. So it's in play. And that's exciting because that's a perfect example of the innovation potentially coming from the fringes. It's not being driven out by corporate IT, or learning, or operations. Now if it's in play, hopefully what that means is that in 2024, we as leaders can go out and do a bit of investigation, Hey, who out here today is finding a tool? Who's found a use for AI? Personally, I've found that I'm often surprised when I ask a team member, " Hey, how did you produce that? I've seen three really sharp good posts from you in the last two days on social media." And they're like, " Oh, well, I pulled this article together and I threw it into ChatGPT, and I asked for it to give me this lens." And bang, they're punching out work that for a lot of people, it would've taken them 2, 3, 5, 7 hours and they're punching it out in half an hour. And there's almost a, I don't want to say it's a false sense of confidence, but there's also a sense of freedom that hey, AI's produced this. I'm seeing a lot of this type of content. I'm just going to try something. So that's exciting. And I think as leaders, if we catch people doing great things and we can go out there and embrace it and celebrate it and ask them to teach someone else or teach me, going back to reverse mentoring, I think that's really where it goes. I think it should be very sort of democratic and organic in'24, but that's my view. I know some people are going much heavier on the scanning the environment and bringing tools in more formal ways.

Kurt Landon: I love this concept of AI as a team member. I was at a conference recently, and this was quite the topic of conversation and the person leading the discussion said, " Think of AI and facilities like ChatGPT as really being almost like an intern on the team." You wouldn't go and do what you just mentioned with the article being modified and then just go straight to sending that out. You would review the work in the same way. If you had a more junior team member, like an intern who worked on something, you would review it, you would refine it, and so there's utility and value in that, but it's not one and done and then you ship that documents or that deliverable without looking at it. Do you see that similarly or you see that differently?

Dane Groeneveld: 100%. And let's go one step further. I think AI as an intern is a really cool model. It's also very freeing because all of a sudden you're going out to your teams and team members who have traditionally not had a great deal of resource. You wouldn't normally give a two- year experienced administrator an intern, but now they've got this intern that they turned on for free and they took some initiative and they built something. So I think that's super exciting, which is, it may be a bit bold, but here's the kind of tagline, " Hey, go and find your own intern."

Kurt Landon: Yes. I love it. I love it.

Dane Groeneveld: What could you do with your intern today? And it humanizes the technology and it also places a bit of sort of autonomy and also I would say belonging in the hands of the team member.

Kurt Landon: I was actually in a conversation with Alicia on our team and she was referring to an AI facility that she's working with as a team member with a name, I think it was Kit. And she said, " I've been talking to Kit, and working with Kit, and this is what Kit contributed to what we're discussing." And that was the most sort of raw and real sort of in your face experience I've had as I'm also acclimating to this. And it was amazing. It was really incredible to see that. And I know that part of what we're seeing now are advents of new jobs that didn't exist before, which is integrating AI and technology with other human team members, and it puts a whole new lens on what it means to be an inclusive leader. So I think part of the future, curious if you agree, is a new challenge for leaders is you leaders are going to this year and beyond need to think about inclusion sort of amped up. So inclusion on a team of humans, technology, how do the two interrelate? Once the technology starts complaining about the way they're being managed, then I guess that creates more HR work to do with employee relations.

Dane Groeneveld: It really does. It does. And I know you say that a bit tongue in cheek, but I have heard people talking about building handbooks for the bots because there are going to be some malicious actors out there. We don't know how every tool and program works. And so we probably do need to be doing, as we kind of push this out and let it happen in the fringes of our teams, we probably do need to be going out there as leaders and as leadership teams and doing some checking, making sure there's no bias creeping in, making sure that people aren't being led down a path that means that actually the technology is starting to encroach upon the way that they're interacting with their colleagues. There's some real nuance there.

Kurt Landon: Right. Excellent. Yeah, it's interesting. I'm just thinking about this part of our conversation in relation to what we were talking about before in terms of bias for action, non- hierarchical being in the trenches, getting the work done. Do you see the advent of technology and AI in particular, as being congruent with that? Do you see it as being in conflict with that?

Dane Groeneveld: No, I think it's entirely congruent with it. I think, let's be honest, there are some leaders out there who have become detached from doing the work. They've been out of a sales seat for 10 years, they've been out of the manufacturing floor for 10 years. And with AI and other technologies, it's not all just AI, but now they can find ways to get back in and be working with their team members meaningfully. And it can actually create a lens of focus and activity around which people can all share their insights, their experience, their hopes, their beliefs, their frustrations. So I actually think if you use team technology as a team member in a right way, it gives leaders a reason to invite themselves back into environments that they've been removed from.

Kurt Landon: I love that, Dane. I think kind of a reference back to this topic of reverse mentoring, because I would imagine some of those individuals who you might engage to reverse mentor might be quite astute at how to utilize technology could probably help those of us that are a little bit later at career stage understand how to use these new technology tools.

Dane Groeneveld: There's actually a great case study. I think HBR put it out again just recently, they recirculated it and it was talking about GE running reverse mentoring in the 90s when the internet first came out and they had younger professionals teaching the execs how to do email and how to use the internet. So we're back there again, maybe it's 30 years on, but the same dynamic holds true, and it's a great opportunity again, to be leading by doing and again, handing off a bit of autonomy and belonging to team members that aren't traditionally interacting with those executive levels of talent.

Kurt Landon: Love it. And I think there's a linkage between this and really being committed to lifelong learning. We never really sit still. We're constantly needing to adapt, and I think these are such interesting times where it can feel often, that the ground is moving swiftly under our feet. It's somewhat of a cliche that you either have to keep moving and adapt or we don't really survive. But I'm hearing a lot from our customers and teams that people are feeling just sort of an unprecedented amount of speed and change. And I think part of what I've heard from you and learned from you is just the openness to adaptation and learning and that that's really a lifelong commitment is really another expectation that we should have of not only leaders but also of teams. So target behaviors really around lifelong learning. Can you maybe share with our listeners a little bit about your philosophy about lifelong learning? Would be curious to hear from you about that?

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, I'm probably an addict in that realm. I just love what personal growth creates for individuals and the teams that're a part of, because learning just the act of learning in a business context or in a team context. It could be sports team or not- for- profit, whatever. Again, it's a catalyst. It creates a reason to be talking about things that are in today's job, and it gives you context through which you can, when you spot a problem, bring some ideas, bring some case studies, bring some stories. So I think that, that's probably the essence of learning that I enjoy. And I think you're absolutely right with, in fact, that's probably one of the big ins in 2024. I think learning moves from a box ticking exercise of, Hey, here's your LinkedIn learning subscription. Hey, I ticked the box, you've done it. To actually, let's learn together. Let's share our learning. Let's try and innovate a little bit. We don't have to execute and implement everything we learned, but let's try and learn some patterns and learn some new tips, techniques, approaches, and see how that works for us.

Kurt Landon: I'm curious just to help our listeners maybe get to know you a little bit better in this realm. I think different people, different leaders have different philosophies about learning and lifelong learning that's often informed by maybe how we grew up or some of our formative career experiences. Anything in your past how you came through the world that informed this kind of commitment to lifelong learning?

Dane Groeneveld: It's funny, right? Because learning as a young child learning wasn't big for me. I was more about play. And then when I was in my sort of middle teenage years, I became more about learning. But because it was a game, I wanted to get into the top class or get the better grade, but that was really the driver. I was fascinated by some subjects, but really that wasn't it. I didn't enjoy college at all. University. I kind of got through it, but it just wasn't my place. So I'm not big on formal education. Where I've really found fascination with learning is being able to work for great leaders, work in organizations that are dynamic, and changing, and growing, and to be able to learn in practical settings. And I think what's fascinating about learning in a practical setting, and I hope to see more of that feed into our sort of early education programs in the future too, but in today's business world in my life, doing that learning together, really getting back to basics, really solving for today's problems for customers and internal teams. You see the human impact of the learning. And for me, that's the real fuel is that if we can learn something and it helps us achieve a milestone together, perform great for a customer, allow someone to move up in their income bracket and buy that first house, it comes to life, right? And hopefully, that's the energy that you can perpetuate in your team.

Kurt Landon: I love this concept of not only lifelong learning but learning together. I think that's really powerful and I think that's the approach that we take a lot with our clients, our customers, with a lot of our leadership development work we do and other things is really trying to create a climate where it's not daunting, but everyone's vulnerable. We're in it together. Leaders and their people, as we talked about, more junior staff, helping more senior leaders learn. So I love this concept of learning together. I think that's really, really powerful. I'd love to pivot for a moment and talk a little bit about, you already touched on wellness a little bit, but I'd love to go a little bit deeper on that, and talk about the interplay between wellness and performance. Might be or might not be an obvious connection point as we think about that. But how do you think about the balancing act between performance, drive for results and then really kind of a people first mindset and the wellness of individual team members, also the collective wellness of an organization or a team? Any thoughts on that that you'd like to share?

Dane Groeneveld: Oh, so many. We had Mike Lee on the show not so long ago, and he does some great work on wellness and performance and where they meet. He's worked with some superstars out there, does a lot of keynote speaking. And I think the way he approaches it is just the reality of if you drive wellness in and of itself, then you have going back to that earlier word that we had readiness, you have readiness as an individual and as a team to perform when the time's right, you can't be performing 100%, 110% every day. So if you're putting that time into the wellness, you're going to be ready to have those 80%, 90%, 100% days and you're going to be sharp when that time comes. And when you do put three, or four, or five, 80% to 100% days in, you're also going to have a family and friends to go home to put the time into your recovery as well. So at a high level, I think that's where my thoughts are. If I go a touch deeper than that on wellness, I think there is a really interesting tension between I'm going to change the word performance to productivity between productivity and between human connection and impact. And I think if you go too far in one direction, you lose the other. But if you can keep in a sweet spot of driving productivity and driving that human connection and impact, I think that's where you actually create some glue. You create a bit of gravity around being able to sustain both. And I don't see us talking enough about that in industry. I'm struggling with it personally, and I've had some great health coaches, I've had some great professional coaches, but I rarely find someone who can help me weld the two together. And I feel like if I can do that, it's going to be like fusion energy. It's just going to keep producing.

Kurt Landon: Well, and I think I've had a privilege to have a front row seat observing how you navigate your days now. And one of the things I've observed is you try and start almost every day from a wellness perspective. Surfing I think is something that you try and do-

Dane Groeneveld: Surfing, yep.

Kurt Landon: ...Each morning if you can, even if the weather's not permitting. My perception, but you only for sure what's going on internally, but it seems like that's kind of your version of putting your own oxygen mask on first and then you come into the workday with heightened wellness and readiness to then create that connection, drive productivity for yourself and for others. Am I thinking about that the right way?

Dane Groeneveld: Oh, absolutely. I think you framed it better than I could have. What I would add to that is that I like that oxygen mask concept by putting that oxygen mask on, by doing something for myself, by settling myself for the day, I'm super excited. But if I just run out excited, I'm going to hit a wall. So if I take that time to settle, make sure I've had a moment to be thankful and be grateful, I can then come into work and really be ready to serve, because I've kind of built this energy and I'm ready to go, but I need to reset and do it every day. Claire will literally just point to the door on the days that I don't surf and be like-

Kurt Landon: Get out.

Dane Groeneveld: ... "You got to getout of here and get in the water. Just go." Because I'll start to run too hot and get agitated and get really focused on that productivity performance lens, and I can't let it go. So I find that you do it every day to start the day well, but you have to do enough hours in every week of that personal time and recovery so that you can manage that agitation and anxiety and stress that invariably every leader's going to be running into regardless of their family circumstance or business choices.

Kurt Landon: I think you just touched on probably the last topic we have time for today, which is this road that lies ahead for leaders and teams is most certainly going to have new and different challenges than we've seen. And I heard someone say the other day, " I'm pretty sure 2024 is going to be the year with fewer challenges." And I tend to disagree. I think one thing is certain there will constantly be more challenges that are thrown our way. What are some just very practical tips that you'd like to share with some of our listeners that you found to be helpful in navigating challenges with teams, with leadership, with organizations during these highly dynamic times and kind of independent of what the nature of the challenges are, just any tips or a playbook of sorts that you can share for how to navigate challenges that lie ahead for leaders and teams?

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. Again, I'm an eternal student. I'm excited about this stuff. I think you and I were talking the other day, one of the big ones is just to celebrate problems. I sat on a plane with a great entrepreneur the other day and he was just like, " When you find a problem in your team, everyone should just stop and high five, just celebrate because you just found something that could have lurked underneath the surface and caused attrition or loss of customer or product quality issues. You just found it. So celebrate it. Don't make it scary." So I think that's one. I think the second one is creating that sense of clarity in the team by talking about and being very visual about what it is that you're doing. And as you're doing it, you've got to blend that kind of distant horizon. This is why we're going somewhere and where we're hoping to get to, and the right now we're going to get there, but I'm not going to show you every step on the map. Right now, this is what's important and here are the things we don't know that we want to know more about. Maybe that'll encourage people to go find those problems for you. So find the problems to be visual, be real and get the time bounding, right. And then I think the third one, which is the really fun one, is try some stuff. Take some risks along the way. Give the team an opportunity to bring a fresh idea and give it some space because that's where the magic's going to come from. You create that space for a bit of magic in the team and don't be too precise. I think in today's age, going back to technology as a team member, it's also an enemy when it inhibits us from taking action on the basic human connection and instincts that we have. So let those fresh ideas kind of come up and within reason, you can't give someone in the middle of a manufacturing line process a whole bunch of scope to change what could be a massive impact, but find those safe spaces for the team to try on a fresh idea.

Kurt Landon: I love this whole concept of tilting on its head, how we think about challenges and problems, and we were just talking about that the other day and for leaders and members of teams waking up in the morning and saying, " Part of my job and part of my passion is finding those problems and solving them." And that may even involve in the beginning having to sort of trick your mind a bit to find play and joy in that. But I've seen that sort of firsthand that if you look at your day as being full of problems, not, I hope I get through the day without any problems to solve. I mean, that's not so much fun, is it?

Dane Groeneveld: It's not so much fun. And actually your approach of just come in and be ready for it. It's kind of the ancient philosophers, Seneca, they really talk about that. If you steal yourself ready for the problems, then when they come, you're ready. And when they don't come, you're excited. You're well ahead, but you don't let the emotion get in your way. And I think that's where the stoics are really trying to go with that.

Kurt Landon: So much that we've talked about today. I think maybe let's try and recap a few of these key takeaways for our listeners. A few that come to mind for me, I think as we started our conversation today and we talked a little bit about leadership, and teams, and what's hot and not in this 2024 year, I heard you share a lot of really good tips and insights about non- hierarchical leadership bias for action, really getting out in the trenches and working directly with team members. And I think we talked about the fading of some of these siloed, intergenerational dynamics, the need for human connection hopefully fading away from some of the conversations about top- down leadership and change and that coming from sort of all directions. So I think that was one really big thing that we talked about that I think is important for our listeners to take away. I loved our conversation about lifelong learning and some of what informs that for you personally. And I think there's vulnerability in that, and that connects really well with the advent of technology and AI and not really seeing that as something to be afraid of or a threat, but more in service of commitment to lifelong learning. And I love this idea about learning together. I think I'm going to steal that from you and use that. And then I loved our conversation about wellness, and I think a lot of people think of wellness and performance as this sort of opposing forces, but I really loved how you shared how you see that as really replacing the word performance with productivity and then human connection, and that using wellness as that starting point to really inform those other two desired outcomes, I think is super powerful. Anything that you'd love to re- highlight for our listeners that I left out there?

Dane Groeneveld: No, I think you did a great job. It's fantastic being in this seat and being on the other side. I think you can take over for me anytime you want.

Kurt Landon: I will probably inaudible.

Dane Groeneveld: There's probably one word, that's it. Successor, let's say successor, but there's one word that I really enjoyed us touching on in addition to those key points, which was readiness. And my biggest learning of today, this conversation reinforces it, is that if we all focus on the readiness to go on a journey rather than the transformation and the destination we want to get to, it's going to be great for all leaders, for all team members. And I'm excited to be working with you, Kurt, in our new organization, LEAD3R and doing a lot of this work out there with our customers and community members. So thanks for having me on my show to talk about my views.

Kurt Landon: Well so much we can all learn from you. And one thing I've heard you say many times as you wrap up your podcast, so I'm going to share it back with you. This has been an insightful conversation. I feel like we could have gone on for hours on this topic, and if people want to follow up and be in touch with you sitting in this seat, what's the best way for people to get in touch with you on any of these concepts?

Dane Groeneveld: You bet. So LinkedIn is where I spend most of my time. So Dane Groeneveld, you'll see the small kangaroo in between my name or names, thefutureofteamwork. com. You'll see The Future of Teamwork on all of the main podcast streaming channels. Huddl3 Group is our group of companies, and I'm super excited to be jumping in the CEO seat and actually working in the LEAD3R business with you, Kurt. So that's LEAD3R, L- E- A- D- 3- R. com. So yeah, come find me, come find us and love to be able to work, and contribute, and learn together with any of the listeners.

Kurt Landon: Thank you for being a guest on your own podcast and letting me sit in this seat today. It's been a pleasure. Have a great day. Thanks so much.

Dane Groeneveld: Thanks, Kurt.

Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us. Remember that by embracing vulnerability, trusting our intuition, and approaching challenges with compassion, we not only strengthen our teams, but also pave the way for a future where collaboration thrives. If you're hungry for more insights, strategies, and research on collaboration, head over to thefutureofteamwork. com. There you can join our mailing list to stay updated with the latest episodes and get access to exclusive content tailored to make your team thrive. Together we can build the future of teamwork. Until next time.