Professional Learnings NSWPPA Educational Leadership

The Tao of Teams: Building Trust and Synergy in School Leadership

• NSW PPA Professional Learning

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What happens when you gather a group of educators in a room and call them a "team"? Usually, not much. Despite our best intentions, many school leadership teams waste countless hours in meetings without achieving their potential impact - because simply assigning people to work together doesn't make them a team.

Rob Stones, with over 35 years of educational leadership experience including 22 years as a principal, shares his transformative approach to building genuine teams in schools through "The Tao of Teams." Drawing from extensive research and practical application, he reveals how vulnerability-based trust forms the foundation for teams that can tackle complex educational challenges with remarkable effectiveness.

The conversation unpacks four essential steps to team formation that transcend superficial team-building exercises. Beginning with establishing trust, Rob explains how teams must learn to navigate conflict productively before developing commitment and accountability. His practical activities - like using quote discussions to reveal thinking patterns and "compass point" exercises to understand conflict styles - provide immediate tools for school leaders to implement.

Most compelling is Rob's explanation of the "law of requisite variety" - why a diverse team inherently possesses greater problem-solving capacity than even the most capable individual leader. Through consensus decision-making techniques like "five-finger voting," he demonstrates how to harness this collective intelligence while ensuring everyone has a genuine stake in outcomes.

Whether you're struggling with a dysfunctional leadership team or simply want to elevate your already solid team to new heights, this episode offers concrete strategies you can implement immediately. Ready to transform your school's leadership approach? Listen now and discover how investing in true team development can dramatically improve your school's effectiveness and student outcomes.

Links and References:

To view our Professional Learning Offerings, visit:
https://www.nswppa.org.au/professional-learning

To view our latest offerings, visit: https://www.nswppa.org.au/catalogue






Drew:

Welcome to Season 3 of Professional Learnings, the New South Wales PPA Educational Leadership Podcast. I'm Drew Janicki, back as your host for a brand new season. It's great for you to be with us as we continue this journey of learning, leading and drawing inspiration from the incredible insights of our amazing guests.

Drew:

Let's dive into our latest episode In this podcast with Rob Stones, we explored the Tao of Teams and uncovered how school leaders can significantly enhance collaboration and effectiveness within their schools. Delivered in partnership with the New South Wales Primary Principals Association, Rob Stone shares his valuable insights and practical strategies that highlight the dynamics of successful teamwork. Rob's approach helped us understand how to leverage the collective strengths of staff members effectively. Before we dive into the full conversations, here's a quick audio grab from Rob to set the stage.

Rob:

Yeah. So you have to actually do some things which seem in some senses a little bit of artificial because they don't actually address the team agenda, but they're activities which enable you to understand who is in the room and a bit about how they think, and you start to work on the process of trying to get some cohesion around ideas, exploring the edges of different people's opinions. So the one that's on the screen at the moment is a simple one. It's called quotes. You post the quotes. At the moment is a simple one. It's called quotes. You post the quotes around the room. You ask each person to choose one.

Rob:

As you can see, these are all quotes about teamwork. We can choose anything. You can choose things that the group may have to talk about, to explore the different people's opinions. So then people find out who agrees with them, who disagrees with them. They share their opinions, and when I do it, I often ask people to come to an agreed ranking of the quotes in order of importance, and that's quite a challenging activity, but at the end of it people understand where the other people in the room are coming from and and if in during the first you know, month or six weeks of the team's formation, they do three or four similar activities, many of them in the book. Um then, as they get stuck into the work they do together, they they understand a little more, a lot more, usually, of the perspectives of the other people in the room.

Drew:

All right, rob Stones, welcome to our podcast. It's great for you to be with us today as we discuss your work, the Tao of Teams, really looking forward to our conversation today.

Rob:

Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here and it's a pleasure to talk about team, because I'm a little bit obsessive about taking the trouble to form a proper team rather than just bundle a group of people into a room.

Drew:

Yeah, it's an interesting concept, the concept of team, and in our previous conversation you've said how it's so interesting of exploring why is that so. So I'm really looking forward to you sharing the thoughts of what a good team is.

Rob:

And I suppose the reason I'm a bit passionate about it is because I think that an awful lot of time is wasted in teams, because people put together groups of people because of their roles and they expect them to work as a team, but it doesn't happen. Because you have to invest the time first of all in creating a culture and a sort of cohesion and agreeing a shared purpose, and then, when you put all that together, it'll repay your efforts. But if you simply put together a group of people say they're the such and such team or my leadership team, they can easily consume each other's time sitting around the table without any sense of achieving very much the table without any sense of achieving very much so in terms of that process.

Drew:

how does that occur? Is this what the course is about?

Rob:

in terms of showing yes. So the course is about how they put together the team so they work so well together that they can achieve far more than just their individual efforts. So for grads in those schools, every team member will be working hard with their own year level or department or whatever it is, and that will achieve a certain amount. But putting together the harnessing of the individual differences to serve the whole school's purpose, that's called synergy. That's the effect you get. And if I can explain it quickly, there's something called the law of requisite variety, which which applies to humans working together to counter the complexity of situations. So a group of people inevitably has far more flexibility of, can create far more flexibility in behaviors than a single individual. So that when we've got really complex situations, as we have in our school, then making the team the controlling system means it has more variety than just the principal or senior executive team. And that's why a team approach is so valuable, because it gives the team the capacity to tackle the complexities of managing and leading a school.

Drew:

Yeah, interesting in terms of the synergy. Can you elaborate further on the TAO team?

Rob:

Can you elaborate further on the TAO team? So the program, the workshop, will walk you through the four steps of team formation and share some of the activities that enhance team effectiveness. So the four steps to team formation is first of all, you have to actually put them together with some simple processes that mean they can trust each other. That's the team building. And then you have to explore how on earth are we going to speak frankly to each other so that we can share the different opinions, because you don't want a bunch of yes-men. That just reduces the capacity to tackle complexity. And then the group unites around a shared purpose and we use various team processes and practices to enable them to work effectively. So essentially, that's the structure of the course, and the supporting activities are chosen from some of the 160-odd activities in the book, which we'll use as a handbook in order to do all that.

Rob:

Yeah, it is interesting in terms of those, those concepts, those, those four activities you of and essentially bound by trust, as you said at the starting point so see, and the book um is really owes its origin to the art of leadership, because we have, as you know, a variety of team practices during the art of leadership. We actually do go through the process of forming the group as a team so that they'll work together in the art of leadership. But over time, people have said to me where do we find these activities? We want to use these for our team. Over time, people have said to me where do we find these activities? We want to use these for our team. And so, really, I put the Tower of Team in practice together as a book, as a resource book, so that principals who want to build their team have got enough activities to choose from to be able to run a five-year schedule of team-building activities without ever repeating. They're not doing the same thing over and over again and each activity lends a different dimension to its process in forming and sustaining the team. So the first step is what you mentioned just then is about trust, and trust is the first thing you have to do in team formation. Because Robert Lencioni, who wrote the Five Dysfunctions of the Team a really significant book for people who want to know about how teams work and don't work.

Rob:

I could put this, you know, if you look at the triangle, if the people don't trust each other, okay, then when they move on to the next step, when there's conflict, when people have different ideas because they don't trust each other, they fear the conflict and they don't like it, and so they don't conflict.

Rob:

People say things that they don't agree with and they mutter about it in the meeting, and they, you know it'd be under their breath. And when they get back to their staff room, they say how stupid it was, but a decision gets made anyway, and then nobody has commitment. They hadn't said what they disagreed about, but they don't really agree. And if you don't have agreement, you don't have commitment. So nobody feels accountable. That was their ideas, not mine, and the focus on delivering results disappears. And so Len Ciarri said the first step is to create vulnerability-based trust. That's the kind of trust which means that you disclose parts of yourselves not personal, but professional and opinions, and so on and so forth, so that people in the room where the team meets know who's in there. They know you more than your name and your role, but they actually know how this person thinks.

Drew:

They actually know how this person thinks. Yeah, so it's more than just a surface level, so to speak, and it's more than just having a nice meeting which actually doesn't lead to productivity as such. You need to have that rigor, but you also need to have trust, but you also need to have what I heard is vulnerability and rigour before going to the next step of that triangle.

Rob:

Yeah. So you have to actually do some things which seem in some senses a little bit artificial because they don't actually address the team agenda, but they're activities which enable you to understand who is in the room and a bit about how they think, and you start to work on the process of trying to get some cohesion around ideas, exploring the edges of different people's opinions. So the one that's on the screen at the moment is a simple one. It's called quotes. You post the quotes around the room. You ask each person to choose one. As you can see, these are the quotes around the room. You ask each person to choose one.

Rob:

As you can see, these are all quotes about teamwork, but you can choose anything. You can choose things that the group may have to talk about, to explore the different people's opinions. So then people find out who agrees with them, who disagrees with them. They share their opinions, and when I do it, I often ask people to come to an agreed ranking of the quotes in order of importance, and that's quite a challenging activity, but at the end of it, people understand where the other people in the room are coming from and if during the first month or six weeks of the team's formation they do three or four similar activities, plenty of them in the book. Then, as they get stuck into the work they do together, they understand a little more, a lot more, usually of the perspectives of the other people in the room.

Drew:

Yeah, makes a lot of sense in terms of having that perspective, but also having that rigour and understanding each person's perspective and why they have said that really adds to, which is also linked with the Art of Leadership program.

Rob:

Yeah, and it's not accidental. You know, obviously some group members will get to know each other really well and some will join the team already knowing each other well. But this makes sure that you're not relying on a trust level that hasn't been established, not relying on a trust level that hasn't been established and in terms of personality type there, rob, that is also shown through the Art of Leadership program, as you know, is that a contributing factor that you need to be aware of in these activities.

Rob:

Yes, and we don't expect everybody to rush out and have their whole team do an MBTI program, though of course you can, but there's some rudimentary MBTI activities in the book in the Tower of Teams, the resource book, which will enable people to find out a whole lot about their MBTI type.

Drew:

Yeah, mbti type is very interesting. Yeah, it's interesting. Can you tell us further about the different types of activities?

Rob:

So I mean if the team's going to be any good, they have to face up to the fact that, with different kinds of thinking, which are all essential for the team to work, they've got to be able to manage the different ways in which they disagree. You know people getting upset with each other and things like that. So, um, you've got to explore how to disagree and how to agree, encourage vigorous debate, but also really thoughtful listening so that people will learn from each other. So, you know, one of the activities that I like is the one on the next slide, which is, um, uh, people to to actually explore their conflicts preference. So, um, you, um you.

Rob:

You choose the north, south, east and west, or the center, and um standing around the room, okay, in the position. So north is confrontative, um, south is avoidance, passivity, um, compromise is meeting halfway and collaboration is finding win-win and accommodation. You yielding to the rest of the group to maintain harmony is the fourth option. So you choose your compass points. The people who stand at the compass points explain why that's their difference, and then you come to have a pretty deep discussion about when, given these conflicting styles, how do we resolve conflict in the team without um diluting the quality of the decision we're making?

Drew:

yeah, really interesting in terms of, and and what's the feedback from this activity been.

Rob:

Usually really really good. You know, when people know the whole group knows that the people who are standing at west are trying to find a win-win solution and the people standing at south have a tendency not to engage with the conflict, okay, they can coach each other. They've got to say, listen, we want to know your real opinion. And the competitive people? Okay, we have to in the team, because the team always coaches each other when it's working well.

Drew:

you have to say, yeah, okay, we know you've got a strong opinion about that, but listen to the other opinions it's, it's uh, it's interesting in terms of the topics of managing team, managing conflict, which is something that is not explicitly sort of taught in society. You're taught to get along, be nice, work through the problem, but it's.

Rob:

We don't want to be nice. Being nice solves the problem in the room, but doesn't address the problem that you're working on, which is something that's happening outside the room.

Drew:

And then? So then we move into decision-making.

Rob:

Decision-making and I really think it's important that decision-making is discussed early on because it's kind of easy. I've think it's important that decision-making is discussed early on because it's kind of easy I've done it myself right to have a lot of discussion and then the principal, or whoever is leading the team, shuffles up his papers and said, okay, well, you give me a lot to think about, okay, and I'll work out what to do. But that's not committing team members. If team members think that they're just a sounding board, they don't have a stake in the decision. And if you want them to quite passionately and can be committed and engaged to whatever decision we make, they've got to have a stake in the decision. They've got to know that they contribute to the decision. And then if we do that, if we have decisions where people leave the room going we have decided, then you get a huge amount of engagement from the team.

Drew:

Yeah, rather than the authoritarian figures saying leave that with me, I'll make the decision based on what you have given me. It completely changes the dynamic of the group.

Rob:

Yes, and a lot of people don't do it because they think it's really difficult to do that to get a group decision. But there's so many ways of doing it. When I started talking about consensus decision making instead of relying on voting, I mean you can vote if you like. But the problem with voting is if you've got 11 members in your team and six are in favour and five are strongly against, okay, you get a one-vote majority. People may say they'll commit to it, but if they've got really strong opinions, they find it really difficult. So the resource book will explore this whole business of consensus decision-making. Okay, because there are so many ways to do it. Okay. So, as a principle, one of the things that I would say is look, it sounds like we've got a tentative agreement that's the one over on the right-hand side, top but do we need to do anything to improve on it? We're not really all committed. What would improve that decision so that everybody thought it was good? There are all sorts of options. At one stage I didn't. I.

Rob:

In one of my schools, we habitually use five-finger voting, which is on the next slide, and it's kind of interesting to do so. If you try to get agreement, you test how much of an agreement there is. So we say, okay, well, we've got to a point where we should, you know, bring this to a head and decide what's best. So five fingers if you're 100% in favor, four fingers if you're in favor not quite 100%, but ready to commit, and so on and so forth. You know, it's that one finger. I don't like this, and if we're on the wrong track here, we should be thinking about something else, seeing as there's no agreement, and what you learn is that decisions that are supported by mainly two or three thinkers will not have enough champions to actually work in practice. You want to see if you can get everybody to at least threes and fours, and then you know that you've got people who are going okay, either I'm in favor or I'm trusting the group and will commit to the team's decision. It's really easy to do.

Drew:

And that feedback loop that you get from that protocol is just there straight in front of you to see. So, in terms of the next, what's the next process, Rob?

Rob:

Well, the team has to learn then to really work together.

Rob:

Okay, so we work out meeting procedures, ways to keep on sharing and deepening trust, ways to learn together, deciding what the team needs to learn in order to make good decisions, so that, in the end, the team needs to learn in order to make good decisions, so that in the end, the team has a shared knowledge, some common skills and expresses that willingness to be more effective together, so that as the team works through the year, they gain tools that make them more effective.

Rob:

And again, you know, learning means that sometimes the team has to put aside its immediate agenda, right, all the urgencies that can drive them and go hang on, let's just spend this meeting working out how we work more effectively as a team. And again, the book is full of ideas for how you can do that and those in the workshop. We're not obviously going to do 160 activities in the workshop, but we will try and, quite swiftly and with a lot of discussion, go through some really key ones to expose people to how effective they are. And so at the end of the team workshop even though today I think people will see, will learn about the new skills and knowledge and so on, and they will also get that feeling that good teams get, that they know these people and they trust them and they enjoy working with them. And so that will. Because we can achieve that in the workshop, people will, I hope, walk away from the workshops thinking I can do this with my team at school the confidence to be able to do that.

Drew:

Is there any point where you've can teams, just teams are just as you said at the start of such a webs and flow? Is there any any time when principal can say, yep, we're nailing this, we've got, our team is humming. Or from the flip side, rob, I've tried all of these activities. Some have worked really well. I still don't feel like my team is together. What's your advice to those two different perspectives?

Rob:

Mostly people who commit to building team find that the experience does build a sense of connection and a sense of cooperative synergy as they go.

Rob:

Few people who truly are trying to achieve a sense of togetherness in the room really fail at it. I've met people who said, oh, we'll try a couple of those activities and then work. But they don't work in isolation. They work with the sense that we're really open about. We're trying to build a team here and part of that will be there's lots of activities where the team can give each other feedback. So if the team leader is being a bit overbearing, then everybody can find a way to gently tell them and we can adjust the way in which the team works. Really, the people who mainly who have said to me that it doesn't work and don't want it to work. They want to be the autocratic leader of the group and they want to make all the decisions and that's a decision any leader can make. But knowing that they won't, they won't be able to assemble the degree of flexibility as a, as a group, that will work out in the best interest of the school.

Drew:

And absolutely, and then taking on that feedback to be able to do that, such as a 360 evaluation, if leaders are vulnerable enough to do that.

Rob:

Yeah, I don't like 360s. I think that in a professional and supportive setting, which is what we're trying to achieve, then people will be able to tell each other the truth about their behavior. Okay, 360s are a way of sniping from behind the cover of anonymity and, to my personal experience, I like I'm qualified to do the whole range of 360 activities, but I don't use them anymore Because I don't like the the people that participants become when they think they've got unbridled ability to share negative things with other people without disclosing themselves. That's by its essence. That's not the best way to do things. The best way to do things is to set up processes where people talk to each other enough and frankly enough, and build enough trust so that anybody can say anything to anybody.

Drew:

Yeah, that's good in terms of that thinking around that and I love that straightforward. What you said is not a fan of them and you explain why because it's that anonymous piece to it which is the opposite of that foundation opposite of trust.

Rob:

At the start of building a team, I shared an interesting experience.

Rob:

I went to the USA to train in the most reliable 360 and we all had to do a 360 before we went and take it and talk about it. And I shared mine and you know like I thought that the opinions expressed in it because I'm at the same time on the side teaching people to say what they think to me, so it wasn't universal acclaim and it wasn't everybody thinks Rob, this Rob's a great guy, but all of the other people in the room had these 360s which indicated that they pretty much walked on water. I was thinking so, you know, over a drink. Afterwards I was talking to some of the others and they said, oh no, people in my team wouldn't dare to say anything different because I'd track them down and figure out who'd done it. And I'm thinking well, there we are. You know you can get the result you want from a 360 if you're prepared to do that sort of thing but they would be absolutely valueless in terms of actual feedback for the team leader.

Drew:

Yeah, it gives a really and thank you for sharing that insight into your experience which, from what I've heard, is showing it necessarily can be skewed, the results can be skewed from the leader, so to speak.

Rob:

And the other thing is that the result you know if somebody says to you, drew, there's a problem with the way you communicate with people and I'm only going to score you a three out of five, whatever it is on that. So you want to know, so what is it about my communication with other people? That's that has you saying that. But you can't ask that question because you you just have to try and interpret it for yourself and because you get an average in the scores as well as the range, you're never really quite sure. Is you know. So what are these people thinking? Some of them are thinking this and some of them are thinking that. How seriously do I take that? Is it based on something I did this morning or last week, or is it based on my overall performance? There are so many questions that are left hanging by 360s.

Drew:

Anyway, there is no 360 in the tower team no, and it was interesting in terms of I know we digress, but it was interesting if we say that is a tool that a lot of leaders, rob, do refer to and is used as a universal tool to say oh well, how are you as a leader? I utilize a 360. But in terms of your challenging that notion for those people listening, thinking about challenging that notion and also thinking about how do you bring your team together and, through this course, the tower team, tell us further about the, the course and what, what other experiences that participants will have so so it's experiential.

Rob:

So there's not just presentation but there's minimal presentation, because that gets in the way of the most important thing, which is people doing what's important in a team. We're sharing their experience, experimenting, trying to try some different ways of working with a team, working with the whole thing of having a small group of people and being absolutely frank with them and learning to trust each other so that in the course you get to experience the power of the team building for yourself and so, in terms of the tower of teams terms of tower of teams for people listening and curious how the question in the back of your mind is how are your teams currently at the moment?

Drew:

and in terms of the courses, as you've heard, you've heard from rob discussing the tower of teams and also the different activities you also have you'll be able to get access to the books and the links, and links and references will be in our show notes for those people interested in further understanding of the tower teams. Rob's, is there any final words of advice or pitch that you'd like to share for our audience listening in?

Rob:

as I started out by saying how passionate I was about team, and I think that everybody who attends the workshop will walk away with new insights, new capabilities and capacities. Not only did I have my own team leading experience in the years as a school principal, in the years as a school principal, but over the past 15 years I've coached and supported lots and lots so many, I can't hardly count it school teams, and we have been, with the ascent of the principal, privileged to work with these teams and to use these processes, and I've never walked away without being told that it has made a huge difference to how the team works together.

Drew:

It's come out of the Art of Leadership program. A lot of Rob's work has come out as a master class facilitator, as well as also the co-designer of the Art of Leadership program. With over 35 years of experience, including 22 years as a school principal, it's always a pleasure to talk with you, rob, and for those listening, the link will be for the tower of teams on our website in this year. Thank you again, rob Stones thank you.

Rob:

As a principal, I spent a lot of time trying to get the very best out of the team of people around me. It's an ongoing issue with schools that with the changing personnel, often it's a challenge to form and sustain a highly performing team of people who can work together in order to get the best possible results from the school. So in the 30 or so years that I've been experimenting with team activities, I've managed to put together 160 activities that will help you to form a team. Okay, help the team learn how to work together and then work successfully as a team. If you do that, you'll really understand the benefits, because a cohesive team with a shared purpose and add immeasurably to the kind of decision making and collaborative work that the school does and lead to better outcomes in every area in which you're working.

Rob:

The alternative is just to work with a group of people and not bother too much about forming them as a team, and that's really not a good alternative because you'll spend a lot of time looking at each other across the table, but not necessarily time doing productive work. In the program the Tower of Team, you'll get a copy of my book and you'll get the experience of working with a team because in the program we'll actually build the team culture and the team environment through the activities and the cultural changes that are necessary to put a team together. So I hope that you'll join me to work through a really busy day of learning how to form a team.

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