Authentic Collaboration: Unlocking Team Brilliance and Creativity with Trish Cerrone & Edward van Luinen
Tricia Cerrone - Co-Lead of Authentic Collaboration
Courage and collaboration are hallmarks of Tricia’s global leadership experience, whether it is leading a project, innovating new designs, or overseeing a portfolio of work. With a keen eye for talent and more than 20 years on the business and production side of designing and delivering technically challenging projects at Disney and other Fortune 500 companies, Tricia is adept at inspiring and motivating teams toward successful outcomes while advancing careers and developing new leaders.
Edward J. van Luinen, Ed.D - Co-Lead Authentic Collaboration
Edward is CEO and Board Advisor of Global Talent Builders, LLC, a worldwide recruiting, change, DE&I, and workforce development company in Pasadena, California. His corporate talent and change experience features Walt Disney Imagineering, Sony, Heineken, and Avon Products, Inc. Edward’s collaboration motto is “advance a team member when you advance yourself.” He has worked in Africa, Europe, and North America. Edward collaborates in both French and English.
Do you know what it feels like to collaborate with someone that you didn’t have anything in common with, who seemed the opposite of your personality, who didn’t get your jokes, and quite frankly— probably made your eye twitch on a regular basis? Well our guests today understand this challenge deeply when they came together to collaborate at Walt Disney. They respected each other—but they didn’t want to work together. Only the stakes were high, and they needed to collaborate whether or not they liked or trusted each other. From this experience and surprising success, the Authentic Collaboration model was born.
In this episode we’re speaking with Edward van Luinen and Tricia Cerrone - two former Walt Disney Imagineering leaders on Authentic Collaboration.
In this conversation Edward and Tricia share the five key behaviors of Authentic Collaboration, and help us understand these by exploring their real world experiences. Together they’ve developed a new way to work based on five behaviors, and teach practical skills you can use immediately to create stronger, more collaborative teams while developing your people and energizing your work place. Their goal is to make everyone love their job!
This episode will debunk your misconceptions about Authenticity and Collaboration, we’re excited for you to hear it so let’s dive in.
Learn more about Tricia Cerrone and Edward van Luinen here:
Connect with Tricia Cerrone on LinkedIn.
Connect with Edward van Luinen on LinkedIn.
Learn more about Authentic Collaboration here.
Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Alexis Zahner: Do you know what it feels like to collaborate with someone you didn't have anything in common with? Who seemed the opposite of your personality? Who didn't get your jokes and, quite frankly, probably made your eye twitch on a regular basis? Well, our guests today understand this challenge deeply when they came together to collaborate at Walt Disney.
[00:00:28] Alexis Zahner: They respected each other, but they didn't want to work together. Only in this case, the stakes were high and they needed to collaborate whether or not they liked or trusted each other. From this experience and the success they had, the authentic collaboration model was born. I'm Alexa Sarna and welcome to the We Are Human Leaders podcast.
[00:00:50] Alexis Zahner: Together with my co host, Sally Clark, in this episode, we're speaking with Edward van Loonen and Tricia Cerrone. Two former Walt Disney Imagineering leaders on authentic collaboration. In this conversation Edward and Tricia share the five key behaviors of authentic collaboration and they help us understand these by exploring their real world experiences.
[00:01:16] Alexis Zahner: Tricia Cerrone is a former Walt Disney Imagineering Creative Executive. She's an award winning author, professor, and leadership coach. Edwin van Loonen is founder of Global Talent Builders. He's a board advisor and former human resource leader at Disney and other Fortune 500 companies. Together, we are They've developed a new way to work based on five behaviors.
[00:01:41] Alexis Zahner: And in this conversation, they teach us the practical skills that you can use immediately to create stronger, more collaborative teams while developing your people and also energizing your workplace. Their goal is to make everyone love their job. Now, this episode will debunk some of your misconceptions around authenticity and collaboration.
[00:02:05] Alexis Zahner: We are so excited for you to hear it. Now let's dive in.
[00:02:10] Sally Clarke: Tricia and Edward, welcome to We Are Human Leaders. We're really excited for our conversation with you both today. And we'd like to start as always by getting to know each of you a little bit better and to understand the journey that's brought you to the important work we're doing today.
[00:02:24] Sally Clarke: And I'd love to throw this question to Tricia first.
[00:02:27] Tricia Cerrone: First of all, thank you for having us both here, but I'm ready when you are.
[00:02:30] Sally Clarke: Awesome. Yeah, I know. So we'd love to sort of hear a little bit and make it as personal or as professional as you like a little bit about your backstory that's brought you to the work that you and Edward are doing today in the field of authentic collaboration.
[00:02:42] Tricia Cerrone: Absolutely. Thank you. That's a great starter question. Edward and I both have sort of this DNA of collaboration and our stories. I'm a designer and a storyteller. So through all of my work and career, primarily at Walt Disney Imagineering, which is an organization where you have to collaborate to create, and it has like over 120 different disciplines, you have to figure it out, right?
[00:03:05] Tricia Cerrone: So, and the, Things that I was doing were all about interactive design and how we work together to create stuff. And so I was very much interested in this face to face attraction experience or activity or how you work together to succeed and to have fun together and to create together. So a lot of how I got into the industry was through interactive and experience design.
[00:03:28] Tricia Cerrone: And so you have to collaborate to create the experience, but you're trying to actually create an experience. That makes people work together, which is, that's all about collaboration. And I think Edward and I are both like these life learners, but when we were thrown together at Disney, we weren't expecting it.
[00:03:46] Tricia Cerrone: And I was very direct in the producing field. It's like, you get it done or you get out of my way type thing. And you don't have time sometimes, you know, when you're designing and telling stories, collaborating is great. But when you're trying to get stuff done, it's just, I had a different personality. So when my leader asked me to collaborate with Edward, I was just Like shaking my head silently and panic going.
[00:04:06] Tricia Cerrone: I don't know. I don't think it's a good idea. Like no one has actually done that or, and we'll share a little bit more of our story as we go along. But I think just this idea that work can be better and life can be better. I learned through designing experiences for other people, because I think that action that we have when that happens is where life happens and it's that most important thing.
[00:04:27] Tricia Cerrone: And it took me a long time in my career to figure that out. But now that I do know it, it's like. Most important thing in our lives to bring to anything, any experience that I'm part of.
[00:04:38] Sally Clarke: Amazing. There are so many questions that immediately come flowing out of that story. Tricia, thank you for sharing. So, but before we delve into those, Edward, can you share a little bit of your journey that's brought you to this work?
[00:04:49] Edward van Luinen: Absolutely. Thank you, Alexis and Sally, for this opportunity. I began my career in the United States Peace Corps, which was a program Kennedy started in the 60s to send young Americans overseas to work in agriculture, education, and health. And I was sent to the Republic of Guinea, West Africa, as an English as a foreign language teacher in the 80s, so now you know how old I am.
[00:05:11] Edward van Luinen: And the first time I stood in front of the classroom as a new teacher, I had two overriding emotions. One was fear. Edward, these kids are listening to you. Are you making any sense? If not, you better start making sense really fast. And then after a few months, I said, I think I found something I enjoy fast forward 30 plus years.
[00:05:31] Edward van Luinen: I'm still doing what I love, which is helping leaders, teams, and companies be better. But I began my career after the Peace Corps in human resources. More so. specifically in instructional design. And that's where Trish and I begin to overlap with our stories years before we met in the design space. Now, instructional design, of course, is to create learning opportunity and experience, but also very targeted for leaders to be better.
[00:05:55] Edward van Luinen: Better communicators, better collaborators, which is essential. So I began my design experience that way. But like Tricia, I always felt it was collaborative to Peace Corps. You have to collaborate with the locals. You don't know anything. You just got dropped somewhere that you've never thought you'd be dropped.
[00:06:10] Edward van Luinen: You must get out of your house and collaborate and do something. a secondary project. So I feel like, like Tricia, our DNA was in collaboration years before we met. And then, you know, once she began the story about us meeting at Disney, it's like, okay, now we're going to do something exciting and important in this space.
[00:06:26] Sally Clarke: Incredible. Thank you so much for sharing that bit of the backstory and how it sort of came together in your work at Disney. And we'll definitely look at unpacking that a little more deeply. And I think, you know, what I'm hearing is this, this, sort of mutual perhaps discomfort at first with the process of truly collaborating, of being open to that and the perhaps delays that it might bring up or the, you know, loss of control to some extent, these different things that kind of crop up and make us uncomfortable.
[00:06:51] Sally Clarke: But it sounds like it's something that's also very intrinsic to who you both are.
[00:06:55] Tricia Cerrone: I would absolutely agree with that. And I think one of the reasons we were actually successful at first. First was because at least we were at minimum, both polite, but then I would say the better side of that is, you know, we had done a lot in our careers and Edward was really kind of the first to, he did something after our first meeting when my Arlie just put us together to collaborate.
[00:07:17] Tricia Cerrone: All I could see is we were both over a little busy. I went, say, we're pretty busy and you're told, okay, there's this big initiative. We didn't know it was going to last even three years, even though people at Imagineering collaborate. They don't share that leadership and it's always someone has to be accountable.
[00:07:34] Tricia Cerrone: So how do you do a leadership where you're both accountable, where all ships rise or you fail together? And also we're a matrixed organization where we really reported up to different leaders. So then how do you share that information with your leaders without them knowing something before the other, there's a lot of politics that you have to navigate.
[00:07:52] Tricia Cerrone: So we made some choices about how we shared always the same information at the same time or together, and we did a lot of things, but after that first meeting, Edward invited me to a coffee and I'm like, I actually do have time. So let's do it. do that. And he just did some simple things of like, you know, what is your workload?
[00:08:08] Tricia Cerrone: How do you like to communicate text or email or meet or things like we're just like, okay, he sees me, right? And he's offering this generous spirit to me and this openness of being willing to work with how I want to work, which in turn makes me want to reciprocate. So we had this like Generosity from the beginning and we built on that specific behavior and that was one of our first behaviors that we realized was really important to just set the fertile ground and the environment for us to feel safe with each other and actually be able to then do things.
[00:08:42] Alexis Zahner: Mm. Thanks for sharing that, Tricia. And it sounds like at an interpersonal level, Edward and you had a lot of mutual understanding of one another and the positions that you were coming from. And so that sort of collaboration started to come together in quite a natural way. And I'd love to dive into the term authentic collaboration a little more with you and you've Both spoken a little bit about collaboration and that being very central to both your roles and also sort of the way you like to work.
[00:09:11] Alexis Zahner: But I'd like to zoom in on the word authentic a little bit before we go too far more into the collaboration piece, just to get an understanding of what you mean. In my experience, I think authenticity can be used as a bit of an excuse for poor behavior. Certainly I've worked with people who have done things and, and their reasoning for certain behaviors is, this is who I am.
[00:09:32] Alexis Zahner: This is authentically me. So can you help us unpack the word authentic a little bit first and just get a little discerning between what is authentic and what is perhaps poor behavior or just bad behavior? Being an asshole, .
[00:09:44] Tricia Cerrone: Edward, would you be okay if I started that? And I'll let you add first I feel sorry for anyone who's like, well, this is just me because you should be growing every day, , you know, you always wanna be changing and growing and I think that there's candid and honest in in a way that's useful and there's a way that it's not useful.
[00:10:01] Tricia Cerrone: But when we talk about authentic, it's authentic. We were born whole and good, and that's the direction we always wanna go toward. And when people. Have this bad behavior. It's like, imagine like a person with barnacles all over their body. They're not authentic anymore. They've had these life experiences where they've been frustrated at work or they had a bad leader.
[00:10:22] Tricia Cerrone: There's all these different things. And so they get these barriers of insecurity or ego or pride. is, and those are all these barnacles, right? So they're not authentic anymore because they have these barriers and those barriers become a filter to how they see other people and how they act. So with the behaviors that we are instilling, we're just like, we're ripping the barnacles off, right?
[00:10:43] Tricia Cerrone: Until it's the true you and the you that's always getting better. So it's a little bit about that. And I'll let Edward, is there anything you want to add, Edward?
[00:10:49] Edward van Luinen: Thank you. I love that imagery about barnacles. And I feel that we have done that to our leaders and. Teams, because the modern organizational structure is based entirely on competition.
[00:11:01] Edward van Luinen: Well, we can't fault people for having, we've set this up and authentic, positive intent. If I assume positively that I'm going to interact with you in a generous way. Full of gratitude, but still get things done with action. Then I feel that that's a good starting point, but we also differentiate collaboration and census and cooperation and teamwork.
[00:11:22] Edward van Luinen: And we can talk about that a little bit later, but I feel that the authentic is like, I'm positively intended on making something successful and not start from a place of competition or negativity or ego as Trish says. So that's how we. It's overemphasizing, maybe an exclamation mark on the positive because workplace can be very competitive as you both know.
[00:11:43] Sally Clarke: Absolutely. And I think it's something that we do see too often in organizations, a kind of, you know, people are pitted against one another and it very quickly creates a team environment of sort of a split. Scarcity mindset of uncertainty, distrust, and many other sort of outcomes that sort of grow from that.
[00:11:58] Sally Clarke: So I really love how you've both elucidated very clearly what it actually means to be authentic, but also to deal with other people and their authenticity in the sense of assuming positive intent and really looking for the truth behind the barnacles. You know, sometimes I use the metaphor of sort of like I'm an onion and I'm peeling off these layers coming closer to my true self, but I love the barnacle one as well, because it just.
[00:12:20] Sally Clarke: It just speaks to the fact that there can be multitudes of these happening all at once. So thank you for really sort of clarifying that because I think we hear the term authentic a lot in leadership at the moment, almost to the point where people are questioning what it truly means, but I think it is such a powerful term.
[00:12:34] Sally Clarke: It really resonates. For us at, we are human leaders too. So it's something that, you know, I think is really excited to unpack further and sort of hinting back to the, how we opened this conversations, your connection together at Disney. We'd love to sort of zoom in a little bit on your experience together at Disney and how this is sort of.
[00:12:53] Sally Clarke: It's really driven and shapes your vision on authentic collaboration, basically. What happened?
[00:12:58] Tricia Cerrone: Well, you know, so we were just talking about this recently, Disney is like this microcosm of collaboration and every collaboration problem there is. And so they've done everything possible to solve it. They try to put teams together.
[00:13:10] Tricia Cerrone: They give support. They give you classes, they try to design special collaborative rooms and everything like this. And every company in the world has been doing that and spending money on it and it's not solving the problem. Because those are all external things. Even like HR compensation isn't solving the problem.
[00:13:26] Tricia Cerrone: And so I feel like with Edward and I, when we got this assignment, and we're actually super desperate. Different people, like different politics, ideologies, genders, styles, personalities. Thankfully, we both have a sense of humor, but, you know, he's like so sweet and like the influencer in PC and I'm like, okay, whatever, like, let's just go, you know, so I was like, I don't know how this is going to work, but we started to see in each other these things that could work, right?
[00:13:56] Tricia Cerrone: So anyway, when we started collaborating, we started working this generosity piece and then we both took action and then we both started sharing resources. And then we came up with ideas together and we sort of listened and built on them. And then we would thank each other. And they just like, that's, it was like the essence of what we did.
[00:14:13] Tricia Cerrone: Started and it started, those were the behaviors of collaboration that we were already doing and kind of not realizing, but we were able to build on the, and I'm going to let Edward maybe just jump in because I think that sort of sets a little bit about what it was like at Disney and then how we started working together, but we definitely saw as we did this and as we brought people onto our team, their emulation of us was also changing them and we just had.
[00:14:41] Tricia Cerrone: And it's like, so we kept observing that and so Edward, you jump in and share a little bit.
[00:14:47] Edward van Luinen: We had care as what was driving our collaboration, our authentic collaboration. First we cared for. We acknowledged where we were coming from. Trish had a portfolio of work, which astounding. And I knew that I needed her because she was the business leader who got talent.
[00:15:03] Edward van Luinen: I was the talent leader who got business. So I needed a partnership on this project and we took on this project. Our leader asked us to, but at first it was care. And I feel that our team members, as Trish said, saw that we cared for each other and the first meeting was not about, here's your list of tasks.
[00:15:19] Edward van Luinen: Come back and do them. And if don't even have the meeting, if you don't do your tasks, it was on who you are, what you bring to the table, what unique skill, which then excited all the colleagues to say, Oh, I can learn something from them. I'm going to become a friend to this person. And as you know, if you have a friend at work, that's the big differentiator of retention engagement.
[00:15:38] Edward van Luinen: But I feel that we were being different people. And that's why authentic collaboration special, Trish and I are different, but she also had action. As one of her strengths, and I saw her in a meeting before and she had the data, she was making things happen and she was already an early collaborator. A lot of her colleagues kind of were just sitting around in the meeting and like, okay, I see something different in her.
[00:15:58] Edward van Luinen: But that was also born out of how we started our collaboration and started to generate some of those behaviors that we gave to each other every day. Generosity and action and gratitude.
[00:16:09] Alexis Zahner: Thank you both for that insight. And something that I very much resonate with is. Having worked in companies that do invest a lot of money in creating what I feel to be the proxies for productivity, a sort of pseudo environment whereby collaboration should work well and should be happening.
[00:16:27] Alexis Zahner: That is great paychecks, fancy rooms with, you know, you can lock yourself in and there's all the gadgets and all the things that should create an environment for great work. But being overworked, too many clients, too many projects on the go at once, too many expectations, and then also working in a team where each individual is really responsible for their own contribution, which I imagine is still part of the authentic collaboration piece.
[00:16:51] Alexis Zahner: However, we're almost doing that in competition with one another. So it's. diminishing and sort of eroding our capacity to work together in that environment as well. So I love that you touched on the fact that Disney seems to have invested a lot in having some of those external things present for you to create the space where this could happen.
[00:17:09] Alexis Zahner: However, it's really about understanding How people come together and work together and the other stresses and pressures they have on them to deliver in a creative way and how that really needs to be focused on. And probably primarily the key part of the puzzle.
[00:17:23] Tricia Cerrone: Does it feel like I've kind of summarized that?
[00:17:26] Tricia Cerrone: Well, I think that's exactly it because you know, Edward and I, when we were thrown on this initiative, we actually didn't have much of a budget. Our team was spread out all over. We didn't have any special tools or anything. So we had nothing external going for us. And I think that we didn't actually need it.
[00:17:43] Tricia Cerrone: And it was interesting this year, Prime East article came out talking about collaboration tools and stuff, because there's been billions, almost like 40 plus billion spent on collaboration tools. And this article was saying that it's actually made the problem worse, right? Cause now we're adopting.
[00:17:59] Tricia Cerrone: Behaviors, we're dehumanizing each other and we're for technology and everything. I just think that you have to understand that collaboration, the basic unit of collaboration is the person. And so until your behavior is set to engage with other people and to use the technology. to make everyone better and stronger and brighter, then it's a band aid on everything.
[00:18:22] Tricia Cerrone: And Edward and I always talk about collaboration is, you know, putting everyone together toward a common goal and using like all of your talents and abilities and resources and potential, you know, united together so that all ships rise. And it doesn't matter what you're, Title or your role or your responsibility is you're all in it, right?
[00:18:42] Tricia Cerrone: And that doesn't also negate that you're responsible for certain things, but you're always there to make sure everyone else succeeds. And to our earlier part of the conversation, Edward and I just hoping our book will come out in the next year or so. And we've sort of tentatively titled it Collaborate to Compete because when you're Competing internally, it's the wrong way to go.
[00:19:01] Tricia Cerrone: There's a lot going out in the world and we have to get better at realizing we're not competing with each other here in our own company. We're all in the same team, literally, and we should be collaborating. And if we did that, we would have more fun, more connection, because this whole thing about work being separate than the rest of our life doesn't work for us as humans.
[00:19:19] Tricia Cerrone: We spend eight hours a day in this office and no one's solving for making that experience one that's actually human.
[00:19:26] Sally Clarke: I love that attrition. I think that really, you know. to our vision really as well that work is we have this pervasive narrative in our culture that work is work sucks works a pain, you know, thank God it's Friday and we want to avoid it as if it's something to be suffered through.
[00:19:41] Sally Clarke: But it's really exciting to see these kinds of developments taking place. And there is. You know, to the statistic that you mentioned earlier as well about this sort of incredible boom of software to collaborate, but bringing it back to the humans, the human needs, the human potential that can be unleashed when we really work together.
[00:19:58] Sally Clarke: And I think that also comes back to the word that you touched on Edward as well, which is collaboration. caring as the sort of primary starting point, when we care for each other, when we care for what we're doing in terms of purpose, in terms of meaningfulness, then really amazing things can transpire.
[00:20:12] Edward van Luinen: I agree.
[00:20:13] Edward van Luinen: And one could even be so bold to say these return to office work mandates for five days a week, while desiring possibly collaboration, do they still know how to do it? Even once they're back in the office. So we've talked about this a lot. How do we as leaders do the work to be an authentic collaboration leader?
[00:20:34] Edward van Luinen: Yeah. The, our team members to want. To go back in the office to work with us, not have to, because people have a lot of choices these days with COVID, as you said, work and life is blending more people have choices now. So that falls on the leader to create the environment where people want to be their best and when they're their best authentic, best positive behaviors, then amazing things happen, which we found to at Disney and with our authentic collaboration behaviors and process.
[00:21:01] Alexis Zahner: That's a brilliant insight, Edward. And I can't help, but think leaders aren't asking the right questions to really understand that. And that is another whole conversation I'm sure we could have. Now you both have come up with a brilliant model for authentic collaboration that includes five factors. I'd love for us, if we could, please take a bit of a deep dive now into these five factors.
[00:21:21] Alexis Zahner: And if at all possible, we'd love to hear some examples of what that looks like sort of in a real live working team as well.
[00:21:28] Edward van Luinen: Absolutely. So after Tricia and my three year project, we got together, as she said, we wrote a book, and we thought, you know, what we did as leaders, co leaders of authentic collaboration at Disney, something really special happened there.
[00:21:40] Edward van Luinen: And we spent a lot of time identifying what those behaviors are, and they're the five that, you know, you're referencing here, and it's generosity, resourcefulness, Co creation, action, and gratitude. And individually, you might see some of those in some competency models, some performance management skill models on their own.
[00:21:59] Edward van Luinen: But we actually hired a researcher and she said she has not seen any of these five behaviors as a cluster, as together. Well, that is sort of the superpower differentiator, which makes authentic collaboration original. It makes it innovative and deeply transformative that in combination, now, of course, you see action for example, is in many competency models.
[00:22:22] Edward van Luinen: But prepared first with generosity as Trish meant earlier and gratitude, they really get to the top of the title of your podcast, which is we are human. These are human behaviors, which have been either forgotten or denied their importance in the workplace. So that we came up with these and we feel they're original and the book goes into detail on what they look like, but just some typical examples, generosity.
[00:22:45] Edward van Luinen: And I feel that both of us were strong leaders. Trish and I were capable leaders. You don't get into. Disney Imagineering, if you're not, and that sounds like a snobby statement, but it's kind of true because you're surrounded by excellence too. So you want to do really well, but generosity is when we agreed.
[00:23:00] Edward van Luinen: And Trish alluded to this earlier, when both of us had to do updates to executives or lead a big team meeting, which we couldn't do all the time. We agreed who would do it. That doesn't make you feel sometimes a little jealous because you'd like to do it. You know, you'd like to be in front of executives, but giving that generosity of airtime, it was really important.
[00:23:19] Edward van Luinen: And also the first meeting, letting that person shine with their skills and sharing what they have and giving them the time to introduce themselves and say how great they are. And their contribution to the team and the noble purpose of the team was, I think, very generous. And they were surprised that we weren't handing out tasks and lists of tasks in the first meeting.
[00:23:37] Edward van Luinen: So I feel that was a generous way to do that as well. Gratitude, you know, we all talk about 24 hour feedback, give feedback immediately, Pacific, but Trisha and I, in our project, we made it a habit and we did this to give written thank you notes, actually physical thank you notes to the leaders that were contributing to our project.
[00:23:55] Edward van Luinen: And I think within 24 hours, because the time element I think was helpful to co creation is another one where we obviously we collaborate, but co creation is creating things together and not typically just once a quarter, a brainstorm meeting around a new project. Every conversation is an opportunity to co create.
[00:24:12] Edward van Luinen: Oh, let's take this idea, but then act upon it. And then that's generous because you've listened to that co creators ideas. You've acted upon it and your share gratitude later. So you see how they all weave together. So more. who created than you think they can be. It's more informal. Resourcefulness is an interesting one and that's, are you curious?
[00:24:32] Edward van Luinen: Do you notice the problem? And then as we know, all of us in the corporate world, Oh gosh, I don't want to solve that problem. I got enough to do. However, I care about people suffering. And they said, Oh gosh, we've noticed that problem for years, but Trisha and I were resourceful. And that doesn't mean having resources.
[00:24:49] Edward van Luinen: Actually, you're more resourceful when you don't have resources. As you know, learn from the Peace Corps too. And when Trish said, you know, we started with no budget, we were pretty resourceful, but that curiosity, problem solving, and then solving problems that is important to the company and is recognized.
[00:25:04] Edward van Luinen: So those are two examples. I know, Trish, you have more examples. I did a few.
[00:25:07] Tricia Cerrone: You know, I would just add what we've seen, like there's some great leaders who will do some of the things right and be able to collaborate with some people, but then they don't repeat it or sustain it. And I think it's because they don't understand.
[00:25:19] Tricia Cerrone: What they did and why it worked and so as You have to understand why it works. Even if you see no reaction on someone's face, there's something going on inside them. There's even things being triggered in our brain. So the generosity creates this sense of safety for people to problem solve and take risks and contribute might not normally, you know, when there's resourcefulness, that is a skill that also builds your own resilience and comfort, and then adds to that, um, sense of safety and confidence and co creation is something where, yes, you are listening and building, but it also is a space of play and play releases stress, right?
[00:25:57] Tricia Cerrone: So you can clear your mind and actually problem solve and innovate better. And then action, when your team takes action, it's really scary at first, like so many times people don't want to do anything, but then when they do it and they get a little bit of success, that builds confidence. And the Team sees each other doing that you end up with this team that is confident in themselves and in each other and then the gratitude piece.
[00:26:18] Tricia Cerrone: Yes, we're celebrating and we're thinking and that's an awesome thing. But that also provides this moment of us to recover just like a high performance athlete, that moment, gratitude and celebration. We all need to like have a break after a big milestone and like rejuvenate. And so there's the. For reasons why, as we explored why these were working, these are things that happen to us as humans and also in our actual biology and in our brains.
[00:26:46] Tricia Cerrone: And so you get these different neuropathways by doing these things, and then it becomes more natural to you and easier, and you just have this happier team.
[00:26:54] Sally Clarke: Amazing. I love that there is this, as you alluded to as well, that they're all so good. Clearly interwoven and really build on each other. And I think as you alluded to as well, Trish there, that there's a lot of stress that we experience in the workplace of a lot of us have got a lot on, but being able to sort of intrinsically build in some moments of rest, the outbreath, the kind of, you know, that space to sort of gather ourselves again for the next project, I think is so important.
[00:27:17] Sally Clarke: And, and so I'm really delighted to hear that that's kind of baked into this. beautiful framework that you two, you two have shaped. And I'm so excited to read your book when it comes out, but I'd love to just also, you mentioned that, you know, for a lot of leaders, it's kind of this willingness to embrace authentic collaboration, but perhaps because they're not seeing or knowing what to look for exactly as they're implementing it, that it can kind of Peter out, can you share with us?
[00:27:43] Sally Clarke: So what, how can leaders. See, I guess I get that feedback that they are indeed having an impact, that things are changing. What might that look like and how can they make sure that they don't fall at the first hurdle?
[00:27:54] Edward van Luinen: Great question. I feel our times are really appropriate right now for leaders to be bold.
[00:27:59] Edward van Luinen: We believe our authentic collaboration model and behaviors are really bold. And I think the first step is to acknowledge that as Trish said, we are the unit. of collaboration, people, leaders, team members. So where am I operating right now? Collaboration as an authentic collaboration leader. We're not typically starting from scratch, you know, when we choose to do learn a new skill or take a new role or make a major change in our lives.
[00:28:25] Edward van Luinen: So taking a look at the five behaviors, we are asking leaders to initially say, what resonates with you? What's your strongest behavior? What's your behavior that Presents the best opportunity for you to make an impact and where are you seeing it in the organization? Because it's tiring many of our audience is a single HR directors operating alone.
[00:28:45] Edward van Luinen: I mean by herself typically. So how is she seeing authentic collaboration in the organization with other leaders as well? Because that's a tough job to be the lone HR director of a company, mid sized company, you know, you need a lot of resources. So we're asking leaders to identify where are they Collaborating right now, what behavior resonates with them.
[00:29:04] Edward van Luinen: And as Trish said, vital importance, repeat it. Don't make it a one off or just not sure what happens. I'm not going to do it again. Try it again and get a pattern for yourself that's making a difference and all the behaviors together.
[00:29:18] Tricia Cerrone: Practice it and catch yourself and think about it very intentionally.
[00:29:22] Tricia Cerrone: It's like, if you want to grow anything, it's the intention of tensioning. You didn't have the intention to do it over and over again, you know, just like lifting weights and then it gets easier, but we always provide lots of little like tips of do this today, do this today, make sure you thank your assistant before you leave, you know, coach one of your people on the way back from a meeting because development.
[00:29:43] Tricia Cerrone: Is one of the most important things for people to grow and grow their resume and grow their skills, you know, Edward mentioned, you know, give people an opportunity to shine, talk them up to their other leaders or colleagues, all those things, you know, those are things that you do. And it might take a week or two, or maybe just a day for you to get feedback to go.
[00:30:03] Tricia Cerrone: Thank you. That meant a lot. Or, you know, I've had my team, members of my team, when I would do something for them, they're like, no leader has ever done that for me. And I'm like, wow, in your 20 year career, that makes me feel very sad. But it's surprising. Once you do it, you will get feedback. And so that's great, but don't do it for the feedback.
[00:30:20] Tricia Cerrone: Because, you know, people are still uncomfortable admitting that they needed help or that that meant a lot. And they don't always get it. go to their leader because they assume their leader, that's their job and they do that for everyone. Right? So sometimes people don't know how to say thank you to their leader.
[00:30:34] Tricia Cerrone: So anyway, I just think you have to be very intentional about it and practice it. And you're going to see the change on your team immediately.
[00:30:42] Alexis Zahner: I couldn't agree with that more, Tricia. And I have been that person who's worked for a leader, um, you know, in a very thankless position where I've never felt valued.
[00:30:51] Alexis Zahner: I never felt seen. I never felt like my contributions made a difference. And then I've been on the flip side of being led by a leader who even the smallest things like, wow, we really appreciate that whether it's verbal sort of confirmation written. And, you know, as someone who lives a life of not needing help.
[00:31:06] Alexis Zahner: And I say that with inverted commas, I'm very independent. I'm very used to doing things my way. It was such a drastic difference in my career to feel like, Oh, wow, what I did was actually seen by someone else. And you don't realize sometimes as that sort of fiercely independent pendant person that you actually did need that little bit of validation as well.
[00:31:23] Alexis Zahner: Sometimes that's a barnacle for you as well to think, no, I can do this alone. And then you actually feel that and you're like, Oh, that was so lovely to feel valued and to feel like my contribution means something.
[00:31:34] Tricia Cerrone: And that reminds me, and there's another piece that Edward and I talk about too, with our method, because the five behaviors are great for you as a leader to practice.
[00:31:41] Tricia Cerrone: But when you want to design it onto a team, your team needs to know what the noble purpose of their project is. Like, what is their mission? Because we all need. Purpose and meaning in our life. And also to know that our conversation specifically matters. And so the noble purpose is this combination of vision and mission, but it's really even bigger.
[00:31:59] Tricia Cerrone: It's like identifying who am I really helping down the road? You know, I work for a diaper company and I'm making an app for the diapers, but your leader is going to go, look, these women, it's like their first child. They have no sleep. They are exhausted. If we. Get these diapers in eight hours to their houses by tomorrow, you know, they're going to be stressed out Their baby's gonna have diaper rash like you make it personal So we always like like really doing that matters, right?
[00:32:25] Tricia Cerrone: Because what are we doing with our lives? We want to make sure our work matters But then to exactly what you're saying alexis is like for every person on the team Your role and what your skills that you're adding in your role and those things that are uniquely you That you're adding are what make a team Everything worked together on a team.
[00:32:43] Tricia Cerrone: And so as leaders, we are always making sure we recognize that because no one does it alone. Right. And so even in, when we're doing gratitude or having a special event, you know, that administrative assistant or secretary or whoever else, they all come and they matter. Like. Because if that mail wasn't delivered special delivery, we would have missed that deadline.
[00:33:03] Tricia Cerrone: If that food wasn't ordered for my cranky team, they wouldn't have been able to stay that extra hour and have their breakthrough. Like, all those little things matter, and those are the things, like, you want to constantly be aware of as a leader and be thanking each other for and recognizing.
[00:33:18] Sally Clarke: Amazing. And I think this really feels like a call to action to my ears, to leaders, to really, when there is that opportunity to share recognition, to offer that specific feedback and that encouragement to people.
[00:33:29] Sally Clarke: We so often take for granted that people just know it already, or we're really busy and we rush through that moment. But I think, you know, being able to sort of pepper your day with those kinds of moments for your team can transformational impact. So. So that's an amazing takeaway there.
[00:33:44] Tricia Cerrone: It does keep them inspired and motivated because they want to do good for you and for each other and for themselves.
[00:33:49] Tricia Cerrone: Right.
[00:33:49] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:33:50] Tricia Cerrone: Now every
[00:33:51] Alexis Zahner: team tends to have the archetype that can sometimes drive us crazy. And that is the naysayer or the devil's advocate. And I have been this person perhaps more in my barnacle days. then so much now, but I'd love to understand the role of the naysayer a little bit. Firstly, can a naysayer on a team be a blessing?
[00:34:11] Alexis Zahner: And if so, as a leader, what can we do to actually elicit an impactful contribution from this person on our team?
[00:34:18] Tricia Cerrone: I'll jump in on that one. So yes, that naysayer can be the most valuable person. Person on your team. And if you think of the behavior of resourcefulness, you want to put that in there and some generosity, because what makes a naysayer is like, they were you maybe 10 or 20 years ago, they're upset and they're angry or they're hurt, and they're telling you this project isn't going to work because they had that experience before and they were either shut down or it was bad timing or there was no funding and they have different feelings about it.
[00:34:46] Tricia Cerrone: So it's like, it's still an open wound when you're doing that naysayer bit, it's because they still. still bleeding. And so you have to like first see that, see them like, okay. And what I do for a practical sense is if it comes up in a meeting, I will just say, you know, I really want to learn more about like what happened and see, you know, can I take you to a coffee and make that sure that happens right away because you don't want them getting to the water cooler and making poison before you get a chance to get to them and heal them.
[00:35:12] Tricia Cerrone: So, you know, you have a coffee with them and just kind of let You want to ask all the questions about what happened before. And you're not offering solutions. You're keeping your mouth shut and you're listening. And you're having empathy. And you're saying, you know, what was the environment at the time?
[00:35:25] Tricia Cerrone: Is there anything that you think the leaders or you could have done differently? Or what do you wish you had done differently? And just dig into all those questions. And so we have like a list of questions that we go through. But then I think there's also the piece. of the healing where you're expressing empathy of, you know, that sounds like it would have been a really amazing project.
[00:35:43] Tricia Cerrone: I'm sorry, like they didn't see that or I'm sorry those circumstances happened. And so have the empathy, but then keep asking questions until it's all out. You want to get it all out of them. And then at that point, you can share, you know, I feel like you would really be able to help us navigate some of the issues now?
[00:36:00] Tricia Cerrone: And is there anything that you see in me that you think might be, you know, a barrier or an obstacle to us being successful now? And would you want to work on this team? And so there's a lot that you can move them into it, and they might have more hope. You're not restoring hope to a person who's been broken, basically.
[00:36:16] Tricia Cerrone: And there's going to be, like, where you can't change them. But I would say 99 percent of the times, they want to change. To be changed they want to do this thing and make a difference and be part of this team but if they Are not that way then you just need to like understand all their objections And make sure that you speak to your leader or your team and say look these are objections that were in the past But we're aware of them and we're going to do it differently because you don't want that poison To give someone a lack of confidence or make your leader lose confidence.
[00:36:46] Tricia Cerrone: So you want to make sure that you are always letting people know that you have already been aware and you're addressing these issues.
[00:36:53] Sally Clarke: I can see Edward nodding emphatically. Would you like to add anything?
[00:36:56] Edward van Luinen: You know, that was a great description of the naysayers. If you think about it, there's many roles people have at companies and some leaders and team members are historians.
[00:37:05] Edward van Luinen: So when tripped. Excellent description of meeting with a naysayer and demonstrate generosity and resourcefulness. You may be meeting with a naysayer who's a historian who's been there 20 or 30 years and has a lot of insight. That, as Trish says, you can learn in, besides demonstrating caring and healing for that person that would like to share and has earned the right possibly to share the insights, although being a naysayer could be very helpful.
[00:37:32] Edward van Luinen: So I just would add that because many people choose not just to, Oh, you get categorized. You're a naysayer. I'm not even going to talk to you. I got a lot to do. I'm just going to keep on going and sorry, you're now in the naysayer mental category and you're never going to leave that space. And I feel that that's a generous and a unique part of authentic collaboration too, is that we're all in this together and we have contributions.
[00:37:53] Edward van Luinen: Even the naysayer who you don't want to talk to, but you should.
[00:37:56] Alexis Zahner: Yeah. Edward, I can't help. Something you said there about the historian and as someone who's worked in organizations who have been through big change management processes in the past, restructures and all of the fun things that cause people a lot of stress.
[00:38:09] Alexis Zahner: And often cause it may say is in organizations who may have been there for 20 or 30 years to really be triggered by some of these changes. And quite often what they're seeing is a new leader or the same pattern repeating itself time and time again. And that to both of your points can be so powerful to utilize those people to say, well, what has gone wrong time and time again, and how can we do those parts differently from your experience as the person who may Being through this change multiple times.
[00:38:35] Alexis Zahner: And just one more thing that I heard you say, Trish, that I think was so powerful was asking them the question of, do you want to be a part of this team? Do you want to be a part of this project? Because getting someone's personal willingness and buy in, it sort of flips it. They're not there under duress anymore.
[00:38:50] Alexis Zahner: If that's how they were feeling, they're not there because they're being forced to be there. They're actually being asked the question and having to intentionally reflect on that and say. Do you know what I do want to be part of this team? And I think then as a leader, it allows you to step into the position of being able to hold them accountable to that promise and that intention as well, because, you know, there's been this verbal sort of social contract set, and I think that's such a beautiful question.
[00:39:13] Alexis Zahner: So I really just wanted to elicit or pull out those two points. If you will. Thank you both so much for that.
[00:39:18] Sally Clarke: Yeah. That really amazing reframing from potentially some resentment being held by that person or sort of that the wound that's still there and being able to actually transform that into a powerful component of the co creative process and the collaborative process that you enter into together as a team.
[00:39:35] Sally Clarke: Now, We could definitely keep having this conversation for hours and hours. And I would actually like to go a little bit off piste with the last question that we had actually prepared and shared with you, but I would really like to understand sort of a, an individual leadership level from each of you, how the journey of authentic collaboration has changed or.
[00:39:54] Sally Clarke: Potentially can change the experience of leadership for the individual. How does that actually shift our experience of leadership as individuals?
[00:40:03] Edward van Luinen: It's a great question. I feel that so many of us throughout our careers have been busy trying to get promotions, to get bigger roles, to be very focused. And what suffers is lack of awareness, reflection.
[00:40:16] Edward van Luinen: Why did things happen? To me and my career or this company or with this team, what results did I get? And what deeper results did I get beyond sort of the performance review? I feel that leaders have been on that trajectory for a long time. But one thing we did for interviews for our book, we've interviewed about 15 global leaders in all industries and markets and geographies and genders and different career stages.
[00:40:40] Edward van Luinen: And what we found, and we had done this, Trish and I separately before we met too, is that a lot of. Authentic collaboration leaders are operating by themselves. I'm collaborative, but I don't know how many other people are collaborative. I'm resourceful. I'm generous. I display gratitude, but it feels like a very lonely road.
[00:40:57] Edward van Luinen: And I feel that our movement, if I may be so bold toward authentic collaboration, collaborate to compete is let's bring people together because in our interviews for the book, They were so excited because they'd been operating in isolation. And I feel that we had an opportunity, like we're having now a lovely conversation of like minded growth mindset people about what's possible with collaboration.
[00:41:18] Edward van Luinen: So I feel that first of all, recognizing going back to one of your earlier questions about how authentic and collaborative am I as a leader, which behaviors do I demonstrate, and then how do we get more of us together to then change a team? Like we did, but also change a company before starting out.
[00:41:34] Edward van Luinen: Let's not start with some sort of ossified competency model. Let's start with these behaviors and we don't have to fix anything. That's right. So let's get this right, but with more people at all different management levels and all different teams.
[00:41:46] Sally Clarke: Amazing. Thank you, Edward. Trisha, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
[00:41:49] Tricia Cerrone: I feel like my journey has been very personal. I think we always think we're nice people. I was a nice person. I think I was a good leader, but I wish I could go back and do it differently with the things you know now, right? I think the behaviors and thinking about it being forced to collaborate means you're always forced to think about the other people.
[00:42:04] Tricia Cerrone: And so much when you're at work, it's like you're thinking about the project and the ROI completely, sometimes exclusively of the people. And the more you use the behaviors to collaborate, you change, right? We're always looking for everyone else to change and then I'll do it differently. But. As soon as you change, everyone around you changes.
[00:42:23] Tricia Cerrone: And I think for me, it was a very deep emotional and relationship and spiritual journey to becoming this different leader who, yes, I want to get the best out of people, but I want to get the best out of them now because I know it's in them and it's going to bring them joy and purpose and meaning in their life.
[00:42:39] Tricia Cerrone: And then I get to see this great conquest and celebration of what they can achieve together. And. Versus like, you know, even when we first met, I was like, gotta get this done, this done, this done. And I was doing things for my team, but it was just different, right? And so, it's just, I've grown so much as a human.
[00:42:56] Tricia Cerrone: And so, I feel like all the work I do out in the world, all this external stuff, is much more meaningful to me and to the people that I'm working with. And it gets back to something, this metric that Edward came up with when we used to do metrics. And it's like, I know when I'm working with people that I can ask them, do you love your job?
[00:43:14] Tricia Cerrone: And they will say, I love my job. That was Edward's. Give him credit for that. He's like, people should be able to say, I love my job. That's our metric. And I'm like, that is our metric. I love my job.
[00:43:23] Alexis Zahner: Yeah. Wow. Trisha and Edward, thank you both so much. Such a profound explanation for the benefits of that. And what I love the most is that it transcends the basic ROI and KPIs expected of us as leaders to actually.
[00:43:38] Alexis Zahner: Delve into what makes work meaningful, what gives us vitality and what as a human being actually connects us both at a deeper level to ourselves and the contribution that we can bring forward into the world, but also how we can shine our light and allow others to do the same. And at human leaders that for us, we know is at the core of what helps people to thrive at work.
[00:44:01] Alexis Zahner: So thank you both so much for being with us and we are human leaders. It's been an absolute. Delight to sit down with you today.
[00:44:09] Tricia Cerrone: Thank you. It's been a pleasure. We really appreciate it.
[00:44:11] Edward van Luinen: Thank you, Alexis. Thank you, Sally. It's been very fun. Thank you.
[00:44:14] Sally Clarke: Thank you.
[00:44:22] Alexis Zahner: We hope this conversation has shifted your perspective on how to show up authentically and how to create an environment where collaboration can thrive. As we discussed in the episode, whether you're in a formal leadership position by title or not, you still have an opportunity every day to choose how you show up at work.
[00:44:41] Alexis Zahner: And be the type of person that inspires authentic collaboration in your workplace. To learn more about this incredible work of Tricia and Edward, head to our show notes at www. wearehumanleaders. com where you will find all the links to connect to them directly. And as a reminder, if you loved listening to this episode, we'd be so grateful for a rating and review on whichever platform you're listening from.
[00:45:08] Alexis Zahner: This really helps us to secure fantastic future guests to the show. We're grateful to have you with us for this conversation on We Are Human Leaders and we will see you next time.