Where do you go to half a fast-tracked career and make some quick cash? For Stephen Hunt, the answer turned out to be Internet advertising. But it was only ever a limited-time plan to create enough space for him to explore his real passion: music.

Steve is the co-founder and COO of Music Health, a company improving mental health through music. Inspired by a 2014 film about music’s impact on people with dementia, Steve and his business partner Nick began work on an app that would do for dementia what Headspace and Calm have done for meditation.

Takeaways from Pia and Dan

• Rather than list a set of values on the wall, what are the practices that will lead to behaviours?
• When trying to work against the failure statistics of startups, it makes sense to prioritise mental and physical health.
• Those short-term health choices can lead to longer-term positive consequences.

Links

• Alive Inside (2014)
• AIM iHub – Australia’s first music incubator
• Vera – the music companion for people living with dementia
• Radical Candor, by Kim Scott
• Leave us a voice note

We all carry our psychological histories on our backs, and the weight of those feelings can affect how we work within a team. We Not Me producer Mark Steadman began to understand this as he learned more about how his neurodivergence contributed to team dynamics.

Mark is a podcast producer, consultant, and coach. He works with individuals and small teams to help them access their potential to create impact, using their voice. He started his own community for changemakers and thought-leaders last year, fuelled by his love of connecting with other humans.

Takeaways from Pia and Dan

• We can examine our origin stories to understand how they inform our present.
• We can try to see ourselves as evolving, rather than set in place.
• Rather than wait for the messy parts of life to be over, be can be compassionate towards ourselves and be OK in notbeing OK right now.

Links

• Connect with Mark on LinkedIn
• Origin, Mark’s consultancy
• Podcode, Mark’s podcasting blog and community
• Leave us a voice note

There is a void of leadership following the pandemic, and everything feels uncertain. That uncertainty – precarity – is an area of study for generative leadership specialist Kathleen Curran.

Kathleen defines herself as an “explorer with purpose”, and helps people not only bring their whole self to work, but fully inhabit it. She is a co-author on a book about precarity, with her contribution focusing on the word of certainty and normalcy that opened in the wake of the global pandemic.

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

• The void in leadership opened by the pandemic is still in place today.
• It’s sometimes necessary for those without traditional leadership positions to step up, to do the work that needs to be done.
• There is a disconnect in the communication of our need for connection, between anecdotal conversations and data collected on teams.

Links

• Precarity
• Find Kathleen on LinkedIn
• Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative
• Disasterology: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis, by Samantha Montano
• VUCA: Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity
• Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen, by Rita McGrath
• Enough Leadership. Time for Communityship, a blog post by Henry Mintzberg
• Leave us a voice message

If you look after your employees, your customers will be happier, and you’ll make more money. That’s the hypothesis Matt Phelan took, inspired by Richard Branson. But with that hypothesis in place, where’s the data to back it up?

Before founding the Happiness Index, Matt began working with animals, then studied marketing, starting his own digital marketing agency just before the 2008 financial crash. As someone used to tracking the efficacy of digital campaigns, he began to explore how the assumption that happier employees meant more money could be proven.

Takeaways from Pia and Dan

• Relationships are the primary driver of happiness.
• Humans have set points – almost predetermined levels of happiness we return to, after a peak or a trough.
• Bring a happy person into an unhappy team, and that person’s happiness will dip.
• To build better relationships, we need to express our emotions.

Links

• The Happiness Index
• How William Kahn revolutionized employee engagement at work
• Freedom to be Happy: The Business Case for Happiness – Matt’s book
• Leave us a voice message

Husband-and-wife team Kristy and James Thomas have both suffered profound and untimely loss in their lives. But from that grief, they have been able to create a charity that impacts the lives of children all around Australia who are dealing with grief.

The Thomas’ charity Feel the Magic brings children to Disneyland and puts on regular Camp Magic events, providing much-needed respite from and support throughout the grieving process. Their camps focus on four core values of empathy, empowerment, growth, and connection – this last value being something they discovered as they witnessed how mentors not only changed kids’ lives, but vice versa.

Takeaways from Pia and Dan

• “Giving” means more than giving money. It may mean giving a piece of yourself, your time, and your energy.
• The grieving experience is unique, making individual support all the more important.
• Grief is not a team sport.

Links

• Feel the Magic
• Leave us a voice note

Jackie Weaver became an Internet sensation in February 2022, when her handling of a parish council meeting – and the councillors’ reaction to it – went viral. But Jackie has decades of experience coaching teams of all sizes, which she shares with Dan and Pia.

Takeaways

• It’s easy to overlook the amount of ground we share, when in disagreement.
• Sometimes it takes a third party to help us see the common ground.
• Experience can bring with it a degree of calmness when approaching difficult situations.
• Jackie used her Internet fame as a platform to raise awareness of the work she and people like her do, across the country.

Links

• The infamous Handforth Parish Council meeting
• You Do Have the Authority Here! – Jackie’s book
• Leave us a voice message

Expertise can allow us to flourish in our comfort zones, but when thrust into a new environment, we have to rely on others. For Janet and Reid Boswell, what started as a parish-wide mission to bring aid to post-earthquake Haiti ended up as a mini industry, delivering medicine and dental care to the people of Haiti.

Takeaways from Pia and Dan

• The collaborative mindset was transferred from Haiti back home.
• Reid had to let go of his need to control, in order to work within a team.
• We need to journey outside of our comfort zones to discover what’s possible.

Links

• Leave us a voice message

Dan and Pia kick off season three with a look back at the previous season, with help from special guest Lucy Hovanec. The team discuss

• Episode 22 – Data from the heart, with Simon Shephard
• Episode 21 – Individual identity in teams, with James Prior
• Episode 24 – The Great Retention, with Suni Lobo
• Episode 18 – Building the right team culture, with Kevin Brownsey
• Episode 14 – The jazz ensemble, with Craig Scott
• Episode 20 – Critical teams, with Martin Bromely
• Episode 23 – Community teams, with David Burns
• Episode 16 – Teams in the Metaverse, with Ian Smith
• Episode 17 – Teams in adversity, with Jim Molan
• Episode 19 – From the frontline of firefighting, with Sandy Quirinale
• Episode 15 – Mental health in teams, with Chuck Anderson

For Chief HR Officer Suni Lobo, psychological safety is key to teams feeling like they belong. It was put to the test during the pandemic, but her company’s ability to create a space where people felt able to do their best work, produced incredible results.

In her conversation with Dan and Pia, Suni discusses employee compensation and the minimal role it plays in job satisfaction when offset against a sense of belonging. Using concrete examples from Silicon Valley, Suni shares how organisations can build trust within teams, and underscores the importance of teammates having each-others’ backs.

Links

• Leave us a voice message

If one member of a team isn’t working towards the common goal, they won’t succeed. Social entrepreneur David Burns sees that in the work he does to help strengthen teams, viewed through the prism of sport.

In his conversation with Pia and Dan, David highlights the importance of respecting and honouring people’s cultural values within teams, even at the risk of his work being misinterpreted r met with resistance.

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

• A challenge can be flipped from something you have to do, to something you get to do.
• Seek first to understand.

Links

• Collective Leisure
• David’s appearance on Australia’s *Current Affair*
• SBS News’ coverage of David’s initiative to train and employ refugees as swimming teachers