In this episode of Grey, we are joined by Dominic Baker, CEO of Cricket Tasmania. Dom is a proud Tasmanian and accomplished leader with over 25 years across iconic organisations like Cascade Brewery and the Federal Group.From the changeroom to the boardroom, Dom shares how to build a high-performance culture that connects community, sport, and business - on and off the field. This is a masterclass in leadership and having the courage to take risks! Chapters:0:00 - 6:34 Winning, the Arrival Fallacy, and Motivation6:35 - 10:59 Meet Dominic Baker11:00 - 16:39 Finding Your Authenticity as a Leader16:40 - 18:59 Cricket Tasmania’s Journey to Build “One Team”19:00 - 29:38 Realising the Business Value of Psychological Investment29:39 - 38:55 Betting on Your People and Organisational Structure38:56 - 42:55 Do High-Performance Systems Translate Well Across Teams?42:56 - end Creating Clarity and What’s NextTake a seat and dive in with us!

In this episode of Grey, your hosts Dr Mel Irons and Rajan Kumar dive deep into four of the most influential high-performing team frameworks. They unpack the psychology, science, and structure behind successful collaboration — and more importantly, how to bring these models to life inside organisations.

Frameworks discussed:

1. Amy Edmondson’s Psychological Safety — the foundation of trust and openness in teams.

2. Google’s Project Aristotle — what the tech giant learned about what actually drives team effectiveness.

3. Tuckman’s Model — the classic “forming, storming, norming, performing” stages of team development.

4. Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team — a practical lens for diagnosing and fixing team challenges.

Mel and Rajan go beyond the whiteboard to discuss:

✅ How to operationalise these models

✅ The tools and tactics that help embed them into culture

✅ Where teams often get stuck — and how to keep momentum

Tune in, take notes, and transform how your team works.

In this episode we're joined by Simon Hakim, Co-Founder of the award-winning brand agency Hunter, to explore the grey space between brand, purpose, and culture. If you’ve ever wondered whether your brand could do more than just sell — if it could inspire, align, and anchor your team’s identity — this episode is for you.

What we cover;

- Why brand isn't just external — it's a cultural tool

- How purpose-led branding can reshape how teams see their work

- Bringing this to life with real world examples-

Who drives cultural change — leadership, creatives, or both?

Why this matters:

We’re in an era where purpose on the wall isn't enough. Employees and customers alike are asking harder questions. And branding — when done right — isn't just about positioning. It's about pointing north. It's about anchoring a culture in something real, lived, and resonant.

About our guest:

Simon Hakim is the co-founder and CEO of Hunter, a brand transformation company working across Australia and New Zealand. For over a decade, he’s helped ambitious businesses use brand as a lever for growth, reinvention, and cultural change — not just a marketing tool.

Subscribe and follow for more:

Like and subscribe to see when we drop our episodes. If you’re leading teams or shaping workplaces, these are the stories and insights for you. Have a question or want to join an episode? Drop us a message!

In this episode of Grey the podcast, your hosts Dr. Mel Irons and Rajan Kumar explore the often-overlooked difference between capability and competency, and why having a shared language around these concepts is critical for modern organisations.From building effective capability frameworks to understanding the growing value of creativity and soft skills, this episode unpacks what it means to future-proof your workforce in an evolving corporate landscape.Chapters:0:00 - 8:00 - Why does it matter to have a language around competency and capability?8:00 - 16:16 - Building a Capability Framework16:07 - 21:12 - The challenges21:13 - 22:05 - Having your people as your differentiator22:06 - 25:59 - The growing importance of creativity and soft skills26:00 -31:09 - The evolving definition of success and value in the workplace👉 Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and follow Grey for more conversations that go beyond black-and-white thinking.Got a curly high performing teams or culture question you'd love us to tackle? Or think you’d make a great guest on Grey the Podcast? We’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us via [email protected].

Welcome to the very first episode of Grey the Podcast — where we leave the glossy playbooks behind and get real about what it takes to build high-performance cultures in corporate Australia.

In this launch episode, hosts Dr. Mel Irons and Raj Kumar introduce themselves and share the backstory of how this podcast — and their unique partnership — came to be. From COVID-era culture shifts to executive conversations behind closed doors, they pull back the curtain on why this work matters now more than ever.

Together, they dive headfirst into the big question: What even IS high performing teams?

Is it something you can measure? Is it the same in business as it is in sport? Does it actually move the bottom line — or is it just more corporate fluff? Mel brings the science, Raj brings the business lens, and both bring years of lived experience navigating the grey zones between culture, leadership, and impact.

They also explore two of the biggest tugs of war facing leaders today: Science and theory vs. the reality of corporate life

You’ll hear:

• How senior leaders really think about performance and culture

• The tension between theory and practice — and how to bridge it

• The big ‘grey areas’ no one’s talking about (but should be)

• How to make the intangible tangible — and prove the value of the so-called “fluffy stuff”

If you’ve ever wrestled with how to measure culture, convince execs this stuff matters, or lead in the grey — this episode is where it begins.

Got a curly high performing teams or culture question you'd love us to tackle? Or think you’d make a great guest on Grey the Podcast? We’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us via [email protected].