We-ness: The secret cause of Psychological Safety

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0:54Katrien Fransen: This is Eat, Sleep, Work with Pete. It's a podcast about workplace culture. Hello, I'm Bruce Daisley. A good person to follow on LinkedIn is Professor Rob Briner. He's a professor of organisational psychology at Queen Mary's University in London. But he posts quite a lot of stuff about evidence-led people interventions, trying to dispel the idea that quite often some of the things that we talk about and say are helpful have limited evidence in their favour. You know, you'll see this on other podcasts. People talk about, oh, you need to do this. You need to do this. And in fact, from a lens of someone like Rob, there's just no evidence that these things work.

1:36Katrien Fransen: He posted something recently, which I've included at the top of the show notes, which was a post about psychological safety. psychological safety must be the term that is most used in cultural interventions, discussions about workplaces. It's become sort of like the foundational part of workplace discussions. But the interesting thing, as he said in his post, was that even Amy Edmondson, the person credited with popularising the term, says that there's no accepted and proven copybook for how to bring about psychological safety. Well, today's guest feels that they have the answer to this. And for me, it's one of the most compelling forms of system thinking about psychological safety that I think you can achieve.

2:25Katrien Fransen: We're all familiar with the notion that a idea in hindsight seems immediately obvious. And the thing that Katrien is going to take us into is a discussion about how actually psychological safety is an output of feeling a shared sense of group identity. Effectively, it's when we've got a sense of us, a sense of we-ness to our group, that we unlock psychological safety. And she's demonstrated this quite compellingly in a couple of papers that I've included in the show notes. The model that she suggests in the show notes is the leaders forge a sense of the group's identity. This weenus results from it and then psychological safety comes from that.

3:10Katrien Fransen: In fact, in the processes they discuss in the paper, they say the absence of that weenus or when people don't necessarily feel perceived and significant to the coach, that's when burnout comes. So we've got a couple of interesting things going on there. The thing that really strongly comes out is if we're thinking about creating a sense of we-ness, a sense of the collective, a sense of group identity. The most important people are not the nominal leaders. They are not the managers. And for me, this really resonated with my own experience of really strong, cohesive teams. You might have someone in the team who's like the energizer, someone in the team who's the funny person, someone in the team who just helps hold it all together because they've got the tactical now, so they've got the insight, or maybe they've got the marketing contribution.

3:59Katrien Fransen: It's really interesting that leadership is collectively owned and it strongly comes out in her paper. For me, it was a really important consideration. I saw it as a piece with mattering. The mattering stuff, and I actually discussed this with Katrin, but the mattering stuff for me feels like the entry point to a team is feeling like we have a me in the team. I'm significant to the leader. I'm seen by the leader. My work is considered to be important. That unlocks the opportunity then to start building a we. We start building the collective around us. And from there, what we see is, as Katrien talks about, we unlock psychological safety.

4:43Katrien Fransen: We unlock resilience. Conceivably, that might be the entry point, I think, to where sort of group motivation comes from, the idea that we unlock autonomy. me. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. It was a really compelling discussion. If you've got the sort of the appetite for it, reading a couple of the papers or even dropping the paper into something like Notebook LM would give you a really compelling way to try and explore it a bit further. This is my discussion with Katrien Franson.

5:17Katrien Fransen: Thank you so much for joining me. I wonder if to kick off, you could introduce who you are and what you do?

5:21Rob Briner: Good afternoon. I'm Katrin Franzen. I'm a professor in leadership and coaching at K-Leuven in Belgium. And my research mainly focuses on leadership in teams. So particularly the role of peer leaders inside of teams and how they can influence team functioning, performance and well-being. So most of my research has been conducted in sports teams because they are such a fascinating environment to study team dynamics, I find. But we've also looked at the same leadership processes in other contexts like organizations, academic teams, even walking groups in older adults. And what's actually striking is that many of the same principles seem to apply across all these different settings.

6:05Katrien Fransen: So we are going to go into some specifics about sports teams and you've sort of bridged it a little bit there. But when you're thinking about the application of discoveries in sport and applying them to the workplace. Are there any health warnings that we need to have before we sort of start considering these things?

6:23Rob Briner: I'm not sure. I thought there would be like more major differences, but whenever we look at the things of like leadership, of shared leadership, of identity leadership in sports, but then also in organisations, for example, we see that the same principle applies. So it seems that the same theoretical framework and its applications can be very worthwhile in both sport teams, organizations, but also in other contexts.

6:52Katrien Fransen: That's quite helpful, isn't it? Because I guess sport gives us a straight line where we can see results, straight line where we can see rapid evolution of practices. But if we end up concluding that broadly these are human behaviors that we're witnessing, sport gives us the opportunity to house them to some extent.

7:10Rob Briner: Yes, yes, that's absolutely right. We have for most sporting competitions each weekend, there is a game and you get a very clear win or loss. And those things might be less visible in organizations. I think there might be a bit of a difference, obviously, that people choose to belong to sports teams. And often they also choose to belong to work teams. But some people might just do it to earn a living, for example, and might not really feel they belong there or want to be there. and often if you have that in sports teams, it might be easier for them to quit and to go and look for another team. We're going to go in depth

7:49Katrien Fransen: and look at two papers in particular and I've also linked to those papers and I've linked to your book in the show notes. I guess one of the things that really comes out from the work that you've done exploring this is that the notion that leadership is, that leadership is quite a complex idea to understand in that quite often when we're thinking about leadership, We think about managers, we think about coaches in sport, but quite often in your paper, the most effective leaders are actually not the people who are nominally the boss, but who have some sort of leadership role inside the team. And I wonder if you could use that to describe this idea of identity leadership and where leadership actually lives.

8:34Rob Briner: Yeah, that's absolutely right. And it's a very good point that you're making, because if we think about leadership and leadership across all different kinds of settings, whether it's in organizations or whether it's in sports, we think about the coach, we think about the manager, the CEO, etc. etc. But what we see from our research, and we've compared it quite a bit, like the leadership of the coach and the leadership within the teams, is that actually the leaders within the teams have an absolutely incredible impact on a various number of things, on the performance of their teams, on how they function, on how they collaborate, even on the well-being of the people within the team.

9:13Rob Briner: So those leaders within the team can definitely not be underestimated. Yeah, that's very correct.

9:19Katrien Fransen: I'd love to sort of go in and explore that. So what do you think, we're going to go through the things that result from this, but what are the attributes that build a leader? What are the things that make someone be perceived as a leader by their peers?

9:34Rob Briner: They're quite different things. And when we ask people on what they expect from leaders, for example, from their team captain, they look at a various number of behaviors. They say like, okay, you know, we need them to give us tactical advice, technical advice, like to make us play better on the team, to work better together. But we also need them to motivate us to make sure, even if we are behind the game, that we still can be motivated to do our job as good as possible. But we also need them to create a social atmosphere within the team to make sure we are a good group that hangs well together.

10:11Rob Briner: And we also need them to represent us outside the team, to represent the team to others, to sponsors, to media, for example, to the club management, et cetera. So we expect a lot of different type of behaviors of the leaders. And actually, we categorize these behaviors into four different leadership roles. So we have a task leader giving tactical advice, technical advice on the field. We have a motivational leader who's really good in motivating them to do their utmost best. We also have a social leader who is responsible for creating a good team atmosphere within the team. Also a bit acting as a trusting person when some players are in conflict, for example, then they can help to resolve it.

11:00Rob Briner: And we have finally an external leader who is actually responsible for representing the team towards these outer parties like club management sponsors media etc so these are a bit of the different leadership behaviors and and when you when we think about leaders we often only think about the task leadership aspect like what they actually uh do like giving advice to make the performance better but what we see is that also these other leadership behaviors leadership roles are very important. So people can actually lead in a big variety of ways. And each of these leadership roles is really important.

11:39Katrien Fransen: It strikes me that there's a really interesting thing that we need to understand that's often overlooked in the way that we construct teams, in that some of these roles, motivational leader, social leader, are in many ways the appointment of the team themselves. You can't be appointed as the motivational leader quite often by a team. You need to kind of earn that position. You need to be perceived as that within the group. And this idea that a team will choose someone who represents them or can re-energize them in this way is kind of lost from the way that we think about management right now. A new team will be constructed or reorganized.

12:24Katrien Fransen: And it won't take into account the idea that someone previously was essential for motivation or someone was essential for making everyone laugh. And these things don't seem to be adequately considered either in the world of sport or in the world of work.

12:40Rob Briner: I think you make a splendid point there is that we often don't look at those leadership behaviors or we don't think about really appointing them. But I think there is exactly one of the biggest problems in under utilizing the leadership potential that you have in the team because if you ask people like what do they expect from having a good team captain or a coach etc they would mention all these behaviors so what is actually happening is that we expect the the former leader of the team whether it's a coach a captain or a manager in the team to do all those leadership behaviors. And that's actually, that's just not feasible, not possible.

13:22Rob Briner: We actually have done a research within the sports context and we asked about 4 ,500 players and coaches, like to what extent their captain was actually the best leader across those four different leadership roles. So we asked him like, who is the best leader? Because we expect the team captain to provide tactical advice. We expect the team captain to motivate us when we're on the field, but also in the dressing room to make sure that there is like a good team atmosphere. And when, for example, the press has to ask someone of the team to represent the team after the game, that's also often the team captain.

14:01Rob Briner: So there's a lot of pressure expectations from that team captain. But when we look in practice, we see that only in 1 % of the teams, so 1 in 100 teams, the team captain is actually able to meet these expectations. The other way around, in almost half of the teams, so that's 44%, the team captain is not perceived as best leader, not in any of those leadership roles. So not on the field to give tactical advice, not to motivate the people, but also not of the field to create a good team atmosphere within the team or to even represent the team towards others. So really it is the informal leaders that are way more important than the team captain, for example, to actually do these leadership behaviors.

14:50Katrien Fransen: It really springs to mind. I did a podcast a few years ago now, which was talking about the Oxford and Cambridge boat race. I'm not even sure that you'll have even heard of that outside of the UK, but there was a really interesting phenomenon where I think the team in 2000 fired their trainer, their coach, and they appointed someone else themselves. And it was largely credited with a really warm, entertaining, funny team member who was by no means the best in terms of the metrics, but he was like the social leader, the motivational leader in the team. And they just decided to reinstall this person into the team and to fire their manager.

15:32Katrien Fransen: It was just a really interesting example of when when the authority leader, when the named leader doesn't actually have the authority with a in a group anyway, they ended up going on to win the boat race. But it was just a really interesting example for me that, you know, leadership lies in many different places. And often it's a coincidence if those two things lie together. In fact, quite often, it's because we often perceive a high performing team is when someone is able to manage to be both the motivational coach and the nominal coach. It's those rare instances where one individual manages to do that.

16:11Katrien Fransen: But your research seems to suggest that that's by no means the norm.

16:15Rob Briner: No, no. And I think the issue is a bit that we always expect everything from the leader and it's clear the leader is not able to do it. And we could say, you know, we have to do something about the selection criteria, for example, of our team captain, of our former leader, and make sure he really manages all of the different aspects. I think there are two issues there. The first is it's not really feasible because we would expect a very different talents of our leaders. We would expect them to master the skills that make us perform better, but at the same time, having the empathic talents to create a good team atmosphere within the group, to have really good communication skills and we expect way too much so it's not feasible in one person to have each of these different things when we expect those things um that also means that other people within the team might not get the the support base might not not be legitimized as leader now the cases that you yeah you told of the boat team for example there they really said to one person now you're the social leader and that gives also some credit and that person knows is supported to provide that leadership and that will also help that person to perform better.

17:34Katrien Fransen: I'd love to get into some specifics so this idea of we-ness of like us feeling like we're all in this together we're part of an us we're thinking about the collective identity rather than our own individual identities. It sounds like the sort of idea we can relate to. And yet when you describe it to someone, or when I would describe it to someone, it sounds so vague that it doesn't necessarily feel like it's something that you can replicate. What do you think the stages are to create that we-ness, to create that sense of gathering? Is it just about these different leadership roles? What would help someone to start feeling like they're part of a group in this way?

18:16Rob Briner: I think the leadership there is indeed a very important angle again and what you mentioned there the importance of those leaders to create a weeness is really essential so we have those four different leadership roles but if we look at what makes these leaders actually exceptional leaders then it's exactly the creation of that we-ness that really matters. It's the extent to which they are identity leaders, the extent to which they are able to create that sense of belonging, that sense of team within the team. And that is what makes them exceptional leaders. So if you ask what are the different steps, I would return to the four different dimensions of identity leadership that are distinguished in literature.

19:01Rob Briner: So the first one is identity prototypicality. typicality is the idea of being one of us so that means for example that an athlete leader of to the same extent peer leader a team member in organizations shows what it means to belong to the team for example by by modeling it by working hard and living the team values and trainings and practices then as a second we have identity advancement it's the idea of doing it for us So an athlete leader actually stands up for the team by representing teammates' interests when decisions are discussed with the coach, for example. Then as a third dimension, we have identity entrepreneurship, the idea of creating a sense of us.

19:44Rob Briner: That's the athlete leader that builds the feeling that we are one team, that creates that sense of we, of us, by reminding teammates of the team's shared goals and what the team stands for. And then finally, we also have identity impresariorship. It's actually bringing that team identity into practice, making us as a team matter. So it can be done by leaders creating moments where the team identity really comes alive. For example, by organizing activities or rituals, for example, team dinners, pregame traditions, et cetera, really things that bring the team together. So it's actually by those four aspects, four dimensions of identity leadership that leaders not only become perceived as better leaders, but also create a big leverage for important team outcomes such as well-being, performance and so on.

20:40Katrien Fransen: There's this extraordinary penny drop moment in one of the papers that I've linked and I'm talking about today. And it's related to the idea of psychological safety. And psychological safety is, certainly in the last sort of 10, 15 years, it's been probably one of the most widely discussed areas of organisational behaviour. not least the original research by Amy Edmondson but then I think the Google implementation the project Aristotle certainly helped make it famous but one of the interesting conundrums about psychological safety is that it's been very difficult to direct people how to create it to say that these are the components that happen and there's this remarkable penny drop moment in your paper where I think it's like all ideas once it's been established it seems immediately and transparently obvious but you describe that this we-ness is actually the entry point to psychological safety the idea that we can have safe interpersonal communication between each other we can speak candidly without consequence the the idea that all of these things actually are facilitated by weenus once you say that that's the entry point it becomes immediately obvious and so i'd love you to just explore that with us because we're these these other things that i think the absence of weenus can cause a consequence of but this idea that weenus is the prerequisite for psychological safety i don't think has been widely reported and for me it's such an important part of your research.

22:16Katrien Fransen: Can you just describe to me the processes that are taking place?

22:20Rob Briner: Yes, absolutely. We found that in our research and I thought it was very interesting too, because a lot of papers and also the work of Edmondson look at the benefits of psychological safety. And we all know that if at least if team members feel comfortable speaking up, asking for help, admitting mistakes, but also like taking risks, this has a lot of benefits for performance, for example. So we were actually curious to look at what are the antecedents and what makes a team, team members feel psychological safe and how we can help leaders in further developing that psychological safety. So what we found indeed was a team identification.

23:02Rob Briner: So the feeling that people have that they belong to a team, that a team is important for them, that led to psychological safety. So in other words, it's actually because of a common belief and a shared confidence that all members are making a concerted effort to do their best and to help the team to be successful. That's actually a high team identification. Athletes also perceive that they can take risks, discuss problems and engage in constructive conflict. This really helps. And also the fact that identity leadership, we know if we can help leaders to become better identity leaders, then that will increase the extent to which athletes or team members identify with their team.

23:51Rob Briner: So that is actually a very nice precursor because this is something that we can control, can work on. And that would then lead to higher psychological safety with all its benefits after it.

24:02Katrien Fransen: There's an interesting bifurcation that you describe that when athletes or team members don't necessarily feel respected, considered, part of a group, largely because of the coach's actions, the leader's actions. That's one of the things that can contribute towards burnout and sort of demotivation. that's really interesting for me so the idea that that sense of alienation from the group or in particular from the leader is one of the things that activates burnout could you could you explore that for me and describe what you're seeing there i think it's it's it's what people

24:44Rob Briner: also feel whether it's in a sports team or an organization if you don't feel safe to risks to make risks or to voice your opinion, for example. Yeah, then you also don't feel well and you might be more prone to burnout as well. I think the teams in which people really, really thrive are the teams that they feel safe. So they can take risks, they can try out new things. And even if they don't work well, they won't get punished immediately. So they will try again and try again. And that is the only way in which they can improve, get better individually and as a team as well. And that's actually what we found in this model as well.

25:31Katrien Fransen: Because the thing that got me thinking in my head was, I wonder if there was a me before the we, in the sense that I needed to feel like the coach cared for me, respected for me, that I mattered to the coach, that that was an important entry point to then feeling part of the we. So it was like me feeling seen as an individual was an entry point to then me feeling part of a group. Would you see it that way? Or is that just semantics? How do you see that? It's interesting.

26:00Rob Briner: It could be that it's a bit of an antecedent. But what I would say is more often the other way around. So what we see in our research, but there's also some more research around it, is that the dynamic is going the other way around. So when leaders create a strong sense of we, of us in the team, people start to feel that they matter to that group. Because what we do always, always or nearly always helps works in context of groups. Because suddenly at that point, their contribution becomes meaningful for something bigger than themselves. so rather than individual mattering being a prerequisite the shared identity often creates that feeling I feel so when people feel this is our team they naturally start thinking my role here matters so the collective identity can actually be I think the engine of it that

27:00Katrien Fransen: generates that individual mattering the interesting way that I would bring some anecdotal data to that is that quite often when you witness professional sports teams, the person who's on the sidelines who maybe isn't getting to play as much or maybe isn't starting matches or maybe is an unused substitute, the fact that they don't feel spotlit or they don't feel like they're getting attention or they don't see that their contribution is as much seems to demotivate them. And, you know, the elite managers are the ones who really make those players feel a sense of me, a sense of contribution. even if their on-pitch contribution isn't as strong.

27:41Katrien Fransen: So that was where I was coming from specifically on that, is that in as much as the leader there could really try and amplify the group and celebrate the importance of the group, if the individual doesn't necessarily feel like their own sense of mattering was important, it could be one of the things that serves to demotivate them. That was where my perspective was there.

28:04Rob Briner: Yeah, that's great. And I think a great example and some things that really often happen and where leaders struggle with it is the people sitting on the bench and not contributing enough or having the feeling that they contribute. I think it's absolutely the key responsibility also for a leader to make sure that these people really perceive as being part of the team. And by being part of the team, they might also feel more valued. So this is really a relationship that I think can go both ways, even though there's more evidence for like the pathway of feeling as part of the team and by doing so also feeling that they matter.

28:47Rob Briner: if I think of my own experience I used to coach the university team here at K. Leuven for over a decade and I think what made that team so special is that we had a very big team so we would train weekly but then when there was a competition also some elite players would join the team to make it better also members of K. Leuven but couldn't come to the weekly trainings so that was actually a situation where we had a team with a lot of bench players training every week, but still you needed to keep them motivated, even if they knew they wouldn't be playing at the major competitions. So I tried at that time to invest a lot of, at that time I was not doing my PhD and my research, so I didn't know how to label it.

29:37Rob Briner: But when looking back, that was actually the thing that make a difference to to really invest in that identity leadership in creating rituals making sure that everyone was feeling really part of the team whether they played or not but it also comes with really emphasizing that for example at games even if like only a core set of players played and won the championship for us that we would say this is really the merit of the entire team and everyone contributed whether it was on the field or whether it was on the sidelines to give feedback to motivate the other players um so so i do think that as a leader and and it becomes yeah especially true in in the dimension of identity leadership that we call impresariorship as i told you before that is really about making us matter so when leaders create those moments where the team identity really comes alive by organizing rituals, team dinners, traditions.

30:42Rob Briner: Yeah, those shared experience actually reinforce the feeling that this group matters and that each person's roles within it matters too, so that they feel that they matter, that they are seen.

30:57Katrien Fransen: I'm interested in sort of the things that might serve to undermine identity leadership. You know, So one of the things that you've described is like this idea, it's a touch jargony, but this idea of leader prototypicality, the idea that the leader feels like one of us. And there are certain things, I think, in all manner of places where the leader doesn't feel like one of us. In sport, especially in professional sport, the leader can feel a long way away from us. It can feel like elevated or in work. Wage inequality can be something that makes the leader feel like they're operating in a completely different economy to us.

31:42Katrien Fransen: What are the things that serve to undermine that prototypicality, that sense that the leader is one of us?

31:48Rob Briner: Yeah, good question. I think there are quite a lot of ways in which you can undermine the team identity. It's basically just by doing the opposite. It's by thinking, for example, in terms of your own benefits. And I think that happens a lot. So, for example, someone wants to make a promotion and would ask that much of employees just to get that promotion for its individual benefit. But that would not about to be like, as a team, how can we perform better? but also like, how can I help you as my employees, for example, to perform better as a team and to make sure that everyone feels well. So I think thinking of their own benefits instead of advancing those of the team is a very important one.

32:38Katrien Fransen: One of the things that often is a trigger of identity, especially in a close-knit team, if we're thinking of groups of seven to 20 people, one of the things that often signals whether people are in group is humour. Whether people get in jokes, whether people know which things are funny or which origin stories are sort of part of the legend of a team. Do you see that as something that's culturally universal or is that just specific to certain? Is that just an Anglo-Saxon lens or a British lens that I'm applying to? Are things like humour an important part of team identity?

33:16Rob Briner: I think it could be one of the things. It could be one key value of a certain team identity. But I think team identities can also have very different natures. For example, other team identities could be like, you know, we're all really putting in as much effort as we can. Or we are known because we persevere when things get difficult. And even in those difficult situations, we still stand by each other and motivate each other. um so i've worked with a couple of different teams like in sport teams but also in organizations and and one of the exercises from our leadership program that we then actually do with the people is let them think about their team values it's like what makes your team unique and what are the key key norms and values that that we want to model as a team and and humor could definitely be one of them for some teams that might even be the characteristic that really unites them but at other teams it could be entirely different values and as long as it has meaning is important for that particular team it doesn't really matter what those values are and it might be different for each of the teams so I don't think it would help for a team that might not be so humorous or not share the same humor to really, you know, impose that top down.

34:39Rob Briner: It's really important that it comes bottom up, what is important for the team, and then we can further strengthen those things.

34:45Katrien Fransen: You described something interesting there. So, you know, when you're trying to create this or embed this or train this and asking a team to articulate what's unique about them, it requires a degree of team formation before they can articulate that. You can't ask a team that's freshly assembled, standing in a line, meeting each other for the first time to describe to us what's unique about them in anything other than aspirational sense. And I suspect these things work best when they're not aspirational. We're going to be the best team ever, but rather learned memory and learned experience. Do you want to just talk about, I'm interested in the idea that you might teach this, train this, develop this.

35:29Katrien Fransen: Do you want to talk about the process and the stages that you would consider when you're trying to embed this

35:33Rob Briner: in teams so so you're right i think the timing is it's an important one but it's also not just a one-time thing so it's a bit of a recurrent process so if you can start early with it i think it can help to to build the team further as well it's a bit the same as as you know with our leadership for example at the very start of the season we might have new players so people cannot really assess the leadership qualities of the new incoming players. So what we would do is to wait a bit, like after a few months in the season, for example, they have had their preparation, they have had their practice games, maybe some competition games as well.

36:13Rob Briner: And I think that would be a very good moment to start. So what would be the different phases there is that, as I said, it's not just a coach, it's definitely not just a captain, but it's really another layer of informal athlete leadership that we really want to capture and make the most out of. So what we do is we ask all of the players to rate the leadership of the other players. So that can be as a task leader, but we also ask them to rate the motivational leadership of each of their teammates and so on. And with this information, we can actually form some visual networks. networks that visualize the leadership structure within the team so that makes it very clear like who actually is in the center of that leadership network regardless of any formal roles of captain or vice captain etc but who is the real task leader in the team who is the real motivational leader etc and based on that we actually implement the structure of shared leadership so we really appoint the best task leaders, the best motivational leadership and leaders and so on.

37:23Rob Briner: And then in the next phase of the program, we would actually train those leaders how to become better identity leaders.

37:31Katrien Fransen: That's interesting. I think when I read that in your paper, that's done anonymously initially. Is that right? That people sort of, they rank their colleagues initially without everyone knowing what the scores were.

37:44Rob Briner: Yeah, that's right. And we do that on purpose and I think it's an important aspect because you you could you know just discuss it openly in the group but what you'll probably hear here is the the loudest voices and what you not might not hear is the people that really think differently but don't dare to speak up because their captain or vice captain is on the room in the room and it's really difficult then to say you know I'm really really not behind you so we feel that we get the most honest answers when organizing it in an individual, anonymous way.

38:19Katrien Fransen: Fascinating. And then you seek to try and develop, enhance what they're already telling you is there.

38:26Rob Briner: Yes, that's right. It might be there to a certain level, but what we often see is that people that are not assigned as a leader, they don't, yeah, dare to demonstrate that leadership because they think it might not be accepted by their team members or perhaps they're afraid they're missing the support base or it's not allowed from the captain or the coach. Actually, from my own experience, might be a personal story there. I used to play in a volleyball team quite a long time ago and it was on a nearly elite level. So we played at a quite high level. We had a captain there. the captain was not really one of the um the four leadership roles as i discussed um there was to a certain degree informal leadership in the team at the time um so i could say i felt i was the the task leader because at that point um i was studying my master in movement sciences i had almost the highest degree in in training so even a higher degree as my coach so it was only logical when the coach had some questions about tactical choices for example he would come to me and ask for advice but at that point it was not really accepted by the team members all the time because they would think like why would you go to Katrin why would you not go to the captain obviously the captain had not at all the tactical insight but it was very difficult for me to actually do my role even if I wanted it even if I dared to do it it was just not possible because it was not accepted by the teammates and then the next year actually the captain was yeah she had to leave the team because she was not playing that well and that was the first time that people actually thought about like oh we don't have a captain so we should could should choose one because the the captain that left she had always been the captain so the question was never asked before whether that was a good choice or not.

40:36Rob Briner: Then the team chose. I was lucky to become elected as the team captain. And I noticed myself the immense difference. So once I got that formal leadership position, certainly everything that I did was not just accepted, it was also expected. So that meant that I also could do way more with the expertise that I had. So I could really feel the difference when you do have the qualities, but you're not nominated as a leader versus when you actually are nominated. And more importantly, when you're nominated based on the support base that you have in the team.

41:18Katrien Fransen: One of the things that becomes clear as you're talking for me is that But all of these processes require a sense of group and a sense of collective attention, really. We've got to think about things, we've got to watch the dynamics. And bringing some application of this to the nature of contemporary knowledge-based work, quite often we're preoccupied, we're doing other things, we're distracted, we're not necessarily giving full attention to things, we're doing other things at the same time. And it strikes me that actually the intentional efforts of team building, the intentional efforts of trying to form a we are maybe neglected by a lot of leaders.

42:06Katrien Fransen: They're not giving enough time to these often seemingly unproductive things of just people getting to know each other, people interacting with each other, people maybe disagreeing with each other. And I just wonder, as you're thinking about the applications of your work to the world of knowledge work, people sitting on Zoom calls all day, is there anything about the attention that's required to do this effectively that you think about?

42:34Rob Briner: I think there might be different stages there. I think you raise excellent, excellent points. Sometimes when I talk about it with people, it's one, they don't know about it. you know historically we just focused on the coach we just focused on the job of a leader and the former leader then the manager the ceo we all know that it's important and we expect a lot of leadership behaviors but we just have not consciously thought about the other options that people within the team can also contribute and might even contribute more than the coach so i think there's a lack of knowledge that plays a part um i often hear when for example coaches follow some medication I gave this.

43:18Rob Briner: You know, I've never thought about it. That's right. Now I think about it. My captain is just the captain and already the captain for five years, 10 years. And we just never thought about it, whether it was the right choice or whether there would be other leaders that might do like a way better job. So that's a bit of an eye opener sometimes and that might help. At the other hand, we're all super busy. We never have time for anything. So we just focus on the priorities or the priorities that we see. And those are often the things, the task aspects that need to happen at that point. So the whole team building experience or the time that should be invested in that team building might be a bit under the radar.

44:08Rob Briner: And I agree that that's a real pity because if we see also from our research, the impact that you can get from really harnessing that leadership potential within your team, from really building that shared feeling of we and us, but not just for feeling well, what people often think, but also for really performance that a team will perform better when you invest time in those things. um yeah that's a pity and i would definitely advise um leaders to make more time for it because it will definitely benefit you in the end i'd love to sort of as we're getting towards

44:47Katrien Fransen: the end but i'd love to think about impact specifically which is sort of what comes from what you said there i want to think about it in two ways actually firstly in terms of the impact of the experience of work and so you know what i'd love you to explore there is notions of resilience or notions of sort of team energisation, you know, like the sort of the emotional impact of work. I'd also separately love to explore impact in terms of results base. Is there something that gives you a strong sense that a group that has this sense of weeness, this cohesion, this bond is producing better results?

45:26Katrien Fransen: Can we go through those in turn? So firstly, you know, whether it's resilience, whether it's psychological safety, the outputs of feeling like a cohesive group, are there any things that you think we are not necessarily thinking about enough? Or, you know, would you ascribe resilience as an output of this, for example?

45:43Rob Briner: Yes, resilience is definitely one of the outcomes. I think across our works, we have investigated really a number of different outcomes. We've looked at a team cohesion, resilience, and the subjective performance the actual performance the well-being parameters like like um uh an improved health a lower burnout just feeling better etc those are all different outcomes that we have found that resulted from that feeling of belonging that shared team identification um there's also if i think about one of my practice examples is that we've worked with an elite level rugby team within Australia. And after going through that program, the coach came to us and said, you know, in all these years that I've coached the teams, actually this year something specific happened.

46:36Rob Briner: It's like there was an in-group conflict and some people had not followed the norms that were set within the team. And normally, he said, those people would always come to me and ask me as a coach to go and solve it. But this was the first time that actually the leaders that were appointed really took their responsibility and solved it within the team itself, which is actually much more strong for a coach as well. It's a huge benefit as a coach when people will try to resolve things within the team. It really makes the team stronger. So I think that's also really one of the benefits, not just from creating that team shared sense of team identity, but also from creating that shared leadership structure to really empower those leaders within the team.

47:32Rob Briner: And if you do it based on like the support base of the team, they really feel that their leadership is accepted by the team, what they do. So they will dare to, you know, be better leaders and to do more of their leadership. But it's also expected. So also in difficult situations, you will see that those leaders will stand up. And I think that's the biggest difference compared to when you just rely on your informal leadership structure. It all goes well when everything is going well. You know, in sport teams, when you're ahead, all the team members will motivate each other, give some tactical advice, etc.

48:13Rob Briner: And it's all OK. But when we get to the problematic situations, the difficult situations, then you see that you all get those isolated islands. And there's no one that at those difficult times will still stand up and take the lead. And I think when implementing a real structure of shared leadership, dividing those responsibilities, you'll get a whole different situation. And people will still take up their responsibilities, even when times are tough. And you'll get that in sports teams. But I also strongly believe that that will hold for organizations as well.

48:51Katrien Fransen: And so let's round off, certainly in terms of my main questions, the idea of evidence of impact of this. Have you seen sort of direct line through to results of teams channeling this? Does it lead to greater effectiveness? Because I guess, you know, if all it does is makes teams feel better, then people might say, well, so far, but so irrelevant. Is there evidence that you've got that this cohesiveness, this sense of us has a straight line through to better results?

49:26Rob Briner: Absolutely. And I think that's something that we not just found in one study, but really seen across of different studies. we found it in cross-sectional work but we've also done some experiments for experiments for example where we asked leaders to you know show high confidence in their team really show that they believe in what the team could do in the team identification and the other side when they really showed a lot of doubts like negative negative leaders and we really see in terms of performance that when the leader is confident, that confidence travels, spreads around the team, and that makes also the players score as much free throws as in the other situation.

50:12Rob Briner: We've also compared rugby teams in Australia, absolute elite level of rugby teams. And we've seen there that if they have more leaders, they have better leaders, people will also identify stronger, but we could also see this reflected in the end classification, in the ranking of the competition of those teams. So we really have some very strong effects on the objective performance as well. Not just feeling better, but also functioning better as a team, being more cohesive, working better as a team, being more resilient when things get tough. And all those things together leads also to a better performance.

50:53Katrien Fransen: It's so interesting for me. It's like an outsider who's endlessly fascinated with social identity theory and the findings of this. The results are continually so impressive and so robust that it's just astonishing that it isn't necessarily regarded as right at the heart of mainstream thinking in all these areas. You know, you'll hear people talk about psychological safety, but they won't necessarily do the joined up thinking of saying, oh, well, social identity is something that contributes to psychological safety. And, you know, that final step isn't there. I end up, when I read through papers like yours, reading these experiments and these tests, I think, OK, that's so fascinating.

51:36Katrien Fransen: And I'd love to know, the interest that I have is, if money was no object for you as a researcher, what would you be trying to research? What would you be trying to, or what different methodologies would you be trying to think of to try and make this stuff more impactful and stand out more?

51:56Rob Briner: Well, I think on the research side, we've already done a lot of research that provides very convincing evidence. And that's not just our work. I think like groups of Alex Haslam, Kat Haslam, they have done a terrific job. There is Matt Slater, Jamie Parker, etc. So there's a whole research community that has delivered a lot of great research evidence. I think what still needs to happen and can be happened more is actually to bring it into practice. And I think, for example, you with your podcast and having interviewed people like Alex Haslam, Jeremy Holt, etc. I think that really helps in bringing the message to the people.

52:39Rob Briner: It should not only be in research articles. Now it should be really practiced on the field and people that try to translate those feelings, those research insights into practice. I think that's massively important.

52:55Katrien Fransen: I'm so grateful that you took the time to talk to me today. I've linked to a lot of the stuff that we've discussed in the show notes, including your book that you wrote with Alex. But I'm immensely grateful. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to someone who isn't necessarily in the field, but I greatly appreciate you, Bobby.

53:16Rob Briner: Thank you very much for the opportunity as well. I feel very humble and honorable, but also I really like the efforts that you are making in getting those research insights from these articles and really try and make them work within practice. I think that's really valuable for the field. So we are really thankful to you.

53:36Katrien Fransen: I've linked to your website and you do work with organizations, you work with companies, you work with all manner of different teams. So what sort of things should people get in touch if they're interested in exploring?

53:47Rob Briner: I think we do have a leadership expertise center, Leading Insights. You have put the website there. I think what we try to do is, one, not make any profits. I think it's very clear we don't earn a thing of it. Our main aim is basically to make sure also the research insights can be used in practice. So all our research articles are there. You find a lot of information, but also how to implement the structure of shared leadership within your team, how to strengthen that team identity, that feeling of belonging. If you're interested, I'd say go and have a look and you'll find much more information there.

54:26Katrien Fransen: With almost half a million customers and over a trillion dollars of secure payments, Bill isn't new to intelligent finance. It's the proven way to simplify bill pay and maximize cash flow. Want to learn more? Visit bill.com slash proven for a special offer. Catherine, I'm so immensely grateful. Thank you.

55:16Katrien Fransen: Notebook LM, you'll know that effectively it allows you to interrogate, to play around, to explore a bit of knowledge. And because this is sort of superficially quite esoteric, I thought it might give you a good entry point. Anyway, I tried that. It didn't work. I don't know how to give access to it. However, I would suggest that if you do want to explore, if you do want to gift yourself a degree more AI expertise, then dropping this discussion into Notebook LM might give you a a way to sort of explore your understanding of the concept. I really love it. I'm not kidding when I say there's a huge penny drop moment.

55:51Katrien Fransen: And for me, actually understanding that we-ness and psychological safety are of a piece with each other was a really important realization. Really grateful to Katrien for taking the time. She does work with organizations. And if you want to check out her work, you can see that all on the link in the show notes. I've been Bruce Daisley. Thank you for your company. I'll see you next time.

56:19Katrien Fransen: Over 90 of the top 100 U.S. accounting firms trust Bill to simplify and secure BillPay. That's proven financial infrastructure built on over a trillion dollars of secure payments. Visit Bill.com slash proven for a special offer.