Strong Leaders Serve with Teri Schmidt

174. Teams in Transition with Henrik Bresman

• Teri Schmidt

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Are you ready to discover the secrets behind successful team dynamics in a world where traditional structures are rapidly evolving? 

In this episode of Strong Leaders Serve, Teri Schmidt talks with INSEAD Professor Henrik Bresman to explore the concept of X Teams and how embracing external engagement is crucial for high-performing teams amidst these transitions. 

Professor Bresman highlights how leaders can create a balanced environment of internal cohesion and external exploration to adapt and thrive. 

Listen for insights that blend research, practicality, and innovative strategies to help you navigate the complexities of modern team dynamics and foster both well-being and performance.

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Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/teri-m-schmidt/

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Are you eager to discover the secrets behind successful team dynamics in a world where traditional structures evolving? In this episode of Strong Leaders Serve, I talked to INSEAD professor Henrik Bressmann to explore the concept of X Teams is crucial for high performing teams amidst these transitions. Hendrik highlights how leaders can create a balanced environment of internal cohesion and external exploration to adapt and thrive. In addition to being a professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD, Henrik is a recognized expert on on leadership, high performance teams, and organizational change. He regularly works with companies and public sector organizations embarking on large scale transformations. His research has appeared in leading academic and practice journals, such as the Academy of Management Journal, Harvard Business Review, and The Economist. He co authored the top selling book, X Teams, How to Build Teams that Lead, Innovate, and Succeed, professor Bressman received his Ph. D. from MIT. And before entering academia, he served in several roles as a manager, consultant and entrepreneur. So let's get into our conversation, which is full of insights that blend research, practicality and innovative strategies to help you navigate the complexity of modern team dynamics and foster both well being and performance. I'm Terri Schmidt, executive and leadership coach at Strong Leaders Serve. Where we support leaders in holding the tension of caring about the humans they work with while driving positive business results. And this is the Strong Leaders Serve podcast.

teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_181557:

Welcome to the Strong Leader Serve podcast, Henrik. It's so nice to have you here and I'm really looking forward to our conversation.

Henrik Bresman:

It is my pleasure.

teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_181557:

You know, I'd love to start off with what was the moment or experience that first inspired you to study how teens operate and operate successfully?

Henrik Bresman:

Well, I would say it's, it was actually a number of moments very early on. My first job after college was in a large multinational complex engineering company. And one reason Why I joined that company was because of a very charismatic CEO who inspired me and and I joined this company and, and pretty soon I recognized that even for that charismatic CEO, very little of the most important leadership was actually exercised. Through big speeches in front of thousands of people, but rather it was in those small moments in the team in the top team, but also in teams throughout the organization. And, and this. This, this insight that, that the team is really the fundamental unit of of leadership. That then was reinforced. When I then moved on. I, I realized that working in one of these huge organizations, what wasn't actually for me. So I moved on to the startup world. And, and then I saw the same thing there that I, I saw that whether startups succeeded or failed, most typically, it was not because their, their ideas weren't great ideas if they failed. In fact, most of the time, their ideas were absolutely fantastic ideas. It all failed because things fell through at the implementation stage, and that was all because of the team. And so I got really intrigued by this. And after a bruising experience in the startup world, I decided that having a real job was too dangerous. And I went back to grad school and became a professor. That was a notion that I came in with. And so from the get go, this intersection between leadership and teams was something that was very much on my mind.

teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_181557:

it's fascinating how that has changed. I'm sure through the time that you've been studying and researching and writing about teams, I'm curious, what are some of the biggest changes that you have seen in your time?

Henrik Bresman:

So the biggest change by far is the importance for teams to be connected with the outside. So what has happened in the, in the, couple of decades since since I started, well, it's actually more than a couple of decades, but who's counting? Since I started to think about my PhD is that the external world has, has changed. The importance of the team hasn't changed, but the context in which in which teams operate has changed in a number of fundamental ways. Why? Well, because The world is changing faster and faster. I like to talk about the world being in exponential change. Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity diversity. And increasingly it's also a very asynchronous world and it's all changing at a furious rate. And, and this then has resulted in a number of specific changes for, for teams. Which is that the, the the knowledge structures in which teams operate have, have changed so that the knowledge that teams need is just constantly changing. And that has implications for how teams need to work with the outside world. Work structures have changed so that. The interdependencies in organizations and ecosystems are just far greater, and teams need to really understand and get feedback from and work with these these, these into dependencies. And then and then finally power structures have changed. The traditional hierarchies are not what they used to be. It used to be relatively easy to know where the power lies, where authority lies. And now it is often far more subtle. More work is done through informal authority rather than informal authority. So all these changes have had implications for how power works. Teams work, but before I launch into the the implications of the changes, I thought I should stop there.

teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_181557:

Yeah, no, it, I definitely see that. And I, and I know, you know, This is this updated edition of X teams that you recently put out in 2023. And I'm curious, there may be some people out there that haven't been exposed to the concept of X teams, even though the first edition was out a little while ago, I'm curious as you, as you, think about these changes and you think about the concept of X teams how can you explain that through, you A moment where you've seen the concept of X teams really working.

Henrik Bresman:

I think here I will piggyback on a study that was. led by my co author on the book, Deborah Ancona, who I know you will talk to later on in this series. She led this study in the telecommunications industry where she pursued this standard question, what explains team performance in this industry? And she looked specifically at sales teams in that industry. And she tested the, the, What I would like to call a traditional model, which is the model that focuses on on alignment of goals and roles and processes and interpersonal relationships, which are absolutely critical for high performance and team. So she looked at these variables and then she wanted to know what is most important and she found that these variables, they did predict a few things that predicted how they would go. Teams thought they performed, so subjective performance, and it predicted how satisfied teams were, at least in the short term, but it didn't predict objective performance At all, which in this case was inarguable. It was about sales attainment. And that was really a critical insight into start to look at, why is it that this traditional model doesn't explain performance and what does explain performance and what she found. And then I I've built on, on this work together with Deborah and also in my own work is that the reason why these teams. Performance wasn't explained by the internal activities was because that's just part of the story in a exponentially changing world. You also need to add the external part of the story. And that was a real, that was sort of the springboard to, to start to look at what is it that teams do externally to perform well in this fast changing environment.

teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_181557:

And that external performance that they need to do, I know is, as part of the principles that you put forth in the book. I wonder if you might just go through them briefly for those who aren't familiar.

Henrik Bresman:

Yeah, of course. So, so first part of the book is to explain why the traditional model doesn't, doesn't work, which is that they're too internally focused. Now the second part is exactly this. What is it then that high performing teams do when they engage with the external? We're connecting to these three structures that have changed. First, what they do is that they engage in sense making, constantly going out there to make, make sense of the world, draw and redraw their maps, figuring out what, what, what is the latest from the customers, what is the latest from the competitors, the latest technologies that we need to be, be aware of. So that's, that's, that's what we're doing. Number one. And really learning from what's going on out there. Number two is what we call ambassadorship. That is about connecting to the power structures, figuring out where is where are the resources? How can we represent the team? How can we get on the strategic frequency of the people, the powerful stakeholders we need to have on on board? So that's number two. And number three is what we call task coordination. That is connecting with the power structures. The the work structures, the in interdependencies. A lot of teams, they fail because they step on other teams' toes without knowing it because they're not aware of, of these interdependencies. So those are the three things that we found fundamentally. That teams engaged in. Now, importantly, we found across very different kinds of teams that this is what they did. Now, what it actually means will be very different. So, for example, if you ambassadorship means one thing when you are, say, a product development team, Microsoft, well, then it is about having the ear of Satya Nadella and his team. But if you are a startup team. What is it then? Well, it's making sure that you're in in step with with whoever is funding your company. So in one case, it's activity within the organization. In another case, it's activity across the company boundary, but it is still ambassadorship. And the truth seems true for the other activities too. So sometimes, sometimes, sometimes. I find it important to to emphasize this, that the implementation will be really different depending on where you are, but we did find this pattern of the importance of these three fundamental activities across teams. Product development we founded in government, in nonprofit organizations and startup organizations and consulting firms. So, so that, that is something that, that came out very strongly as the, the other side of the story. If the internal side of the story is one side, the external side is the other, and that is about sensemaking, ambassadorship and task coordination.

teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_181557:

love, I'm glad that you pointed that out that it does differ across, you know, depending on where you are seated, but it is about those external activities. 1 thing that I was thinking about, particularly as you were talking about how. It could change, but the principle is the same. I'm curious because I know you highlighted in the new edition that teams are facing shifts, both, you know, from being really having really clear boundaries, like this is your team, and this is going to be your team for a while to more fuzzy boundaries. And also the physical proximity we're looking at remote, we're looking at hybrid. I'm particularly interested a little bit in, in how those three. change as well with those changes. But also my interest is in how leaders can create a sense of connection. So maybe more internally focused. So on the internal side, and then I'm curious about the balance between internal, external connection and belonging. In the midst of all this change and how that relates.

Henrik Bresman:

Oh God, there's so much there that is so important questions. Let me, let me start to unpack it and, and then you'll, you'll tell me what, what I missed. Absolutely critical is to, to change what you do over time. And so that, I'm so glad you asked that question because when you go out, you also need to go in. And process what, so generally we are talking about three phases that teams go through. We start with exploration. That's when you go out there and really figuring out what the what the world looks like. We often talk about how it's important for teams to go out before they go in. They need to have a clear sense of the territory before they get started. Then they need to get to get to work and, and use that knowledge and, and come up with, with a plan forward. And this is the phase that we That we call execution and experimentation is more than execution because very often it means learning as you execute and you do that through experimenting with the knowledge that you, that you bring into the team. And then the final part is what we call exportation. You will notice there's a lot of X's here. We, we. Part of this alliteration. So here it's a exploration. Execution and experimentation and then exportation. That's when you go out there and really educate people and what you are doing and why they should care. Now, it is not a sequential as it sounds. You go in and out along along the way here and and and doing this and here now I'm getting into the belonging part and here I'll start out and then I'll let you ask a follow up question because it's actually quite complex. So that's. That's the theory. You need to engage in these external activities, and you need to do it over time. And it is the practice. A lot of teams are doing this. But then you ask themselves, the question that that prompts is, of course, well, why don't all teams do this? Because if you go to teams and say, hey, you need to Go out and do things outside. They, they might say, well, you know, we kind of do that. We, we go out and ask for help when we need it, or, or we go out and, and show our stuff when, when, when it's done. And, and so therefore, I wanna, wanna add a couple of things here. Which first is that if, if you go out or to ask for help when you need it, that is probably too late. The idea here is that you need to go out before you get started. So, you know, what's going on out there, but it is more complicated than that. We find that very often. The reason why teams don't do this, even though they might know that they need to they don't do it. And often for subconscious reasons, because it is disruptive to the internal cohesion, I mean, to go out there and ask a customer what they really, what they really think, I mean, the response can be kind of punishing. And you're a junior. It's so, so it's, it's, it's the, the. the challenge of interacting with the external party, but then it's also the fact that when you're out there, then you're not with the team. And then you might come back with information that is ambiguous. And it might contradict something that the, that the team leader has said, well, then you need to bring it into the conversation. And, and, and so very often teams, they close off. They don't do this because it does bring Preserve harmony in the short run. Remember what I said about the telecom study, this wonderful study that Deborah, it actually the traditional closed off model. It does. actually predict satisfaction and harmony in the short run. And, and that's why a lot of teams close off. And so I'll, I'll, I'll stop there, but it, there is, there is a contradiction. And that's sort of what I hear implied in your question, that going out there, it's not, It's easy to say, but difficult to do. And then, and then we can get to what, what can teams team leaders do to to try to preserve the inner harmony while being able to go outside. It's kind of paradoxical leadership.

teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_181557:

yeah, I, I appreciate in the book, I know you talk about pulsing, like going back and forth between internal and external. I think. What I'm coming from is, you know, personally, I've been a part of a team that was probably a little bit too internal focused and had a great sense of belonging, great sense of connection, knew we were a team, knew who was on the team. And then I've also been part of a team where we were on multiple different project teams, and it wasn't really clear who, who the team was, what the identity was. And my thinking is. If you don't have the internal identity, it almost makes it tough to go external and realize the benefits that you're talking about. So I'm curious if you've, particularly in these times where they are fuzzy boundaries and they are remote and hybrid, how you've seen leaders deal with that and still create that sense of connection. So it was strong enough to go external.

Henrik Bresman:

So a couple of things. One, perhaps paradoxically, leaders who do that well, in a way they, They become more heavy handed in the sense that they are exceedingly clear on the norms, on the goals, on the roles. It isn't paradoxical because to be able to confidently engage in this kind of boundary spanning, team members do need to know exactly what is expected and what they're authorized to do and what they're not authorized to do. That's, That's number one clarity. And this is why I really emphasize that when I talk about the importance of going out, it's not at the expense of of the internal dynamics. If anything, I mean, more important because it's becoming more challenging for the reasons that you that you mentioned. So that's number one. Number number two would be that it is important to emphasize the identity of of the team. There is a tension because if you, if you emphasize that too much, you can create in group, out group dynamic, which is not helpful when you go out. So the art is to emphasize and de emphasize. As you go along, as you pulse, as you pick up on on this language we used. So that, that's one, one thing. That's the second thing. The third thing that I, that I think is really important is, is the critical role of the team leader to create for everyone, actually. It's everyone's role to create. Psychological safety. The the, the, the felt permission among team members that it's okay to be candid about when you agree, when you disagree, when you don't know, when you have questions, when you messed up when you feel anxious about something and then process this. This is a team. So those are, those are three things that that comes to mind in response to that

teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_181557:

And I appreciate that you put that, you know, having the identity and the norms and the roles and the goals clearly defined even before psychological safety, because I, in my experience, It's really hard to create psychological safety if you don't have that sense of identity, that sense of belonging to start off with.

Henrik Bresman:

Yes. I've done some research with Mary Selmer Brun, who's a professor at in Minnesota suggesting that clarity around goals and roles and processes and all the clarity, clarity is around structure is really. critical for, for psychological safety. And then of course there's a dynamic, but that that's, it's very hard to even start to create psychological safety if people don't know the, the expectations that they, that they, and, and, and, you know, who's in which role and, and so on, which of course is another thing that is easy to say and difficult to do in this dynamic environment that, that you describe because roles might change over time. And then to be explicit about

teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_181557:

Yeah. But, but knowing that that being explicit is, is a prerequisite almost to effectively being able to have a psychologically safe team that can go externally effectively and get the results that you talk about. I think leaders having that in mind, at least is the first step.

Henrik Bresman:

Yes. And this gets to another thing that very much has come up as we've moved into this this more virtual world, a lot of leaders who are successfully leading virtual teams, they, they often start their, their meetings with just reiterating that here, this is what we're doing. This is our roles, something that might seem a bit odd if it's in a physical environment, but it's, it's important when people sit in different parts of the world, the different time zones working on different projects, as you said, to, to just bring people back in. So continuously emphasize and working, centering people around the goal and the purpose of the team. It's very

teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_181557:

Yeah, I love that. And I, I, when you first said leaders have to be kind of heavy handed at first, I wasn't sure where you were going to go there, but in my mind, what you're speaking to. having that sense of intention and you know, and a little sidebar. I think there are a lot of companies who are thinking now, well, we just need to bring everyone back together and that, you know, I think you talk about decontextualized socialization that we're, we're going through now and, and they're trying to, you know, bring people together. So we don't have that challenge anymore. But without that, in that same intention of getting people on the same page in terms of goals and roles, physical proximity in my mind is, is not going to have the impact that. It's purported to have.

Henrik Bresman:

it's a really important question. Here the jury is still out in terms of how to do this. I, it may be that you refer to a paper I wrote with Debra and another colleague of mine, Mark Mortensen, who is a professor at NCIAD, and he's doing some fascinating work here. Look, looking at why you would or would not want to have people physically in the office. And he points out, he's come up with something of a continuacy model where he looks at, well, it depends on what it is that you're trying to, to achieve. If it's all about just getting the task done, well, then it's simply, well, what, when do you need people to be together to be most, most effective? And when is it more effective that they are. At home, you know, they say time they can focus. They're not interrupted. And that's where most conversations tend to be. So I met a lot of, of thoughtful leaders who really hone, they hone it down to this, that, that they say, well, you know, the, the stuff you can do independently, you can do at home, but then the, this is the work that Transcribed You need to collaborate to get done, then you're at work. It's not that easy because it's also the cultural dimension, as Mark points out. And it does, whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not, whether you do it on purpose or not it will change the culture if people are at home more than at work. In in the office, they spend more time with their family and then that the context. I'm not saying, you know, I'm not valuing this. I'm just saying that that's what it is. And you need to be mindful of of that. It's it's a and here, as I said, research. It's a lot of exciting research done now. And there are really, I can't give you any answers of how exactly to balance this, partly because it's Research is ongoing. It's sort of new post pandemic. Partly because it depends so much on the context of your particular team.

teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_181557:

I'm curious. Cause I know you look at diversity too, you know, as teams become more diverse how in this model, how can they capitalize on that diversity?

Henrik Bresman:

yeah. So it is. Implied, of course, in this idea of X teams that you, you bring a lot of diverse information and diverse people into the team and and to be able to deal with that diversity, you need to have internal diversity that sort of matches the external. Diversity. And so how do you deal with that diversity? I'm now working quite a bit on this, but let me let me share one study I did. I wrote an article with. Amy Edmondson, who is the person I would say inarguably most associated with this idea of psychological safety. And what we found in that study intrigued us, which was that we looked at a number of teams. This was in the pharmaceutical industry. And we looked at diversity specifically. And, and we found that On average, diverse teams did a little bit worse than homogeneous teams. Now, this is a, is a surprise to many. When I go out, I do keynotes and I often, before I reveal this result, I say, well, what do you think? Diverse or homogeneous teams were on average, which one does better and between 80 and a hundred percent. Well, the diverse, of course, because that's what they've heard and maybe that's also their experience. And so when they, they see this result, they get very concerned. Am I saying that diversity is not good? No, that's not what I'm saying, saying at all. In fact, I, I, Always rush to say no. Wait. First, I need to say that. Don't now take this result and think to yourself. You're gonna go back and fire everyone on your team and hire a bunch of people are just like you because then I what I usually do when I talk about this, I show the detailed data and what you see is that every single one of the high performing teams are are diverse. So then the question becomes what is it that what is what is it that that is? These teams do these teams that are diverse and perform best. Rather. Well, so I should say, why is it that sometimes diversity can pull down the average performance? Well, it is because diversity comes with the challenges of communicating and coordinating. And translating it across cross differences. And therefore, there are some failures where teams are not able to walk across these these these fault lines. And so, so what do these teams do that that do best with diversity? Well, it goes back to psychological safety to create that. So if, if you look at teams that has an above average. Level of psychological safety. Well, then you do have that. You do have that positive relationship between diversity and performance of people who say, well, I think it's a diverse team. Their intuition is absolutely right. It's absolutely correct. What I'm saying is that it may not be true. It is actually necessary to have diversity for for breakthrough performance, but it may not be sufficient. You also need a psychological safety for people to actually share their diverse opinions, experiences and perspectives to get to that, to really capture the magic of diverse teams and get to that higher, higher performance. So let me summarize that. I feel that was a. I slipped into professor mode there and started to profess. That's why I want people to take away is It is necessary to have diversity to get to a high level of performance, but bringing a group of diverse people together is not enough. You also need psychological safety to, to realize the potential. One more thing because I know you're, you're, you're interested in issues of, of of, mental health and well being as well. Not only did these teams that have psychological safety at a higher level, not only did they perform better, they did better, they felt better too. So both instrumental outcomes and mental health outcomes were better for these teams that were diverse and had a certain level of psychological safety.

teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_181557:

no, that's great. It goes along with what I know you talk about, wealth and well being. Having those two pieces in place and it makes sense too. And, and I could see how if you do have a more diverse team, it, you have to be even more intentional about the actions you take around creating that psychological safety.

Henrik Bresman:

Yes. Yes. And, and and, and then, of course, the million dollar question is how do you build up psychological safety? I don't know if there's room for that in this, this episode. But since I asked the question, let me just give sort of a few tips. Maybe some of your listeners have not really wrestled with this. So a simple three steps. Process would be to start out by setting the stage and have a good conversation. What do you expect in terms of uncertainty? What do you know? What you don't know? And relatedly, you know, what, what do you expect in terms of failure rates? Because if, if some people in the team assume that no, we should know everything and we shouldn't fail, Then you can't even start to have psychological safety because no one will talk about their, their failures and their, the things that they're uncertain about. And then the second step is then to invite participation. This is really where inclusive leadership comes in. And as a leader, it is important to really invite people in and say, well, I need to hear from you, Terry, you're out there. You see things that I don't and, and Particularly in a virtual environment. This is really important. And when you do that, it does two things. It lowers the psychological cost of speaking up on it. Also, perhaps less obviously, it raises the psychological cost of being silent. Because if I look at you here on the screen and say, Terry, I need to hear from you, it would be odd if you sat there with the screen off and didn't say anything. You probably would feel that you did say something. That's that's number two. And then finally, you need to be You need to then respond productively to, to what then comes in response. Easy. If everything that people says is pure gold, but sometimes, you know, people say dumb stuff. And if you say, well, well, then you, of course you will kill psychological safety right there. So it's important then to, to be able to separate, you know, appreciation for the courage it takes to speak up and then a conversation about the value of the conversation. So set the stage, invite. Invite participation and then respond in a productive. way. That's a starting point. That's another. I'm in the business of easy to say and difficult to do. And that's that's easy to say and difficult to do,

teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_181557:

I think that's the whole world of people leadership. So I don't think you're alone there but thank you for sharing those because those, those are tips that I, I hadn't heard before about, you know, saying upfront what we expect the failure rate to be. That's, that's a new one that I could definitely see how that would.

Henrik Bresman:

You know, I need to get credit here. I, I work a lot with Amy and I think many of her thoughts I should credit her for. So just want to make sure.

teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_181557:

Yeah, definitely. Well, you know, As I mentioned, our listeners are really what I call compassionate driven leaders. Kind of goes along like we talked about before we started recording with your wealth and wellbeing. I'm curious if you had one piece of advice to give them to survive in this ever changing world and, and hopefully thrive what would it be?

Henrik Bresman:

Yes, one thing, one. thing. So it would be it would be this. Know your leadership signature. We actually write about this in in the book. What do we mean by that? The idea is that. Just as every one of us we have our hand signature that is unique. Every one of us have our unique way of leading and that is our leadership signature. And it's absolutely critical as a starting point to know who you are, who you are not. What are your strengths? What are, what are your limitations? Often there's a discrepancy between your intention and, and, and who you actually are and come across as a leader. It's absolutely critical to to know this, because if you know this, You, You, can come up with a plan for how to develop in a direction that, that you would like to develop also importantly. And here's the, where the compassion comes in with your team members, you can communicate this to others in your team. And that turns out to be absolutely critical in this fast moving environment. That is so that generates so much anxiety that the team members are. can be sure that they know that you know who you are and who you are not. So they have a stability in their relationship with you and that contains anxiety. And that's sort of the, the, the portal to, to all the other things that go into to compassion. Then you can, then you can be authentically compassionate. If you're on the same page as as your team about who you are. As a leader. Does that make

teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_181557:

makes a lot of sense and it aligns right with our leadership development model and strong leaders serve is ground grow, give and that ground phase is could be rephrased as knowing your leadership signature. And and the stability piece we've talked about that a lot how that helps. Team members to have trust, have to deal with changes when they're going around that they know that they can come back to that core and in the spirit of X teams too, as you're going out and going in and pulsing between the two, knowing that you have that stable core in your leader. That is going to be there and you know how they are going to act in different situations. I can see that being immensely powerful. Well,

Henrik Bresman:

Yes. Ability. Yeah, it's a really important word. Thank you for putting that in there. That's very, very

teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_181557:

yeah, well, thank you for that.

Henrik Bresman:

Well, it's a it's a challenge, but starting point of knowing who you are in this

teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_181557:

Right? Another easier said than done, but definitely worth doing.

Henrik Bresman:

Yes.

teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_181557:

Well, I know, speaking of your leadership, that's great. signature. I know you also have a simulation exercise and a feedback instrument that also go along with the book. So, and we didn't get to dig into hardly any of the book. So I definitely encourage everyone to get the book, check that out as well as check out the additional tools that you have available.

Henrik Bresman:

Yes. Let me put in a plug for that. We are actually quite proud of it. When it comes to leadership signature, we have developed a 360 instrument that can help you discover your leadership signature. With strong emphasis on this fast moving context and your ability to engage in sense making as an individual leader, but also as a team member and a team team leader. And then the the simulation called exchange where we. put teams in a very challenging environment to try to work as an X Team and then focusing on the learning then in a safe, psychologically safe environment rather than the performance. We love that simulation. We hope that that you do too, listener, if you, if you try it and the way you you You find resources for those instruments is that you go to xlead. co and then you find all the information about that.

teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_181557:

knowing what, what is in the book, I haven't had the chance to explore the other two, but knowing the checklist and the research, it's a really nice balance of you know, deep research and practicality and case studies. And so I can imagine how beneficial the other tools are. So we'll definitely make sure that gets linked in the show notes. If people are interested in learning more, even more about your work, where's the best place for them to go?

Henrik Bresman:

Well, given that the book is reasonably fresh, I'd say that. And then there are a couple of, um, the one that I mentioned with Amy in the Harvard Review which just Google on my name. I'm easy to find. And then there is a Sloan Management Review article where I and Debra expand on the X Teams concept. And then we also have a we have a newsletter called X News on LinkedIn. So if you if you send an invite. To to me and just mentioned that you've listened to this show. Then I will certainly I will accept your your invite and then you go get access to the

teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_181557:

Excellent. Well, those are, those are great resources and we'll make sure they get linked so they're easy to find for everyone, but thank you again for your time today and I know it's morning for you and evening for me, but it's, it's been just a very energizing conversation and thank you for the work that you do to make our workplaces more well and more wealthy as well.

Henrik Bresman:

Well, thank you. I cannot think of a better way to start today here. So thank you very much. It really is my pleasure.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone RX)-1:

Well, thank you again to Henrik for coming on the Strong Leaders Serve podcast, and we're excited that he is actually going to be back another conversation later this year. As you go forth from this conversation, I invite you to continue exploring your own leadership signature this week, especially as the changing nature of teams becomes more dynamic and interconnected. Reflect on who you are as a leader, your strengths and your areas of growth to navigate these complexities and foster a more effective and cohesive team. Thank you for joining us today, and I encourage you to embrace these insights as you lead with intention and compassion in the days ahead.