In team building, L is for....?

Love!  Who'd have thought?  Yep, this is the theme we first discuss in this episode.  But in what sense?  Possibly not what you might expect...

This podcast series picks up on all the themes that have been fed back to us by our clients in their reviewing sessions, following their experience of team building with sheep.  And more topics of our own too.

Each episode of our A-Z series of team building lasts around 10 minutes - just right for a (sheep)dip into each of the topics.

Expect plenty of sheep/shepherd/dog references from Head Shepherd and Founder of Raising the Baa, Chris Farnsworth, in these short and lively conversations with Paul Warriner, our Lead Facilitator.

Enjoy - and thank ewe for listening :-)
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FREE resource:
Sheep, Shepherd or Dog - which one are ewe? Take our personality quiz and find out.

Connect with the Speakers via LinkedIn:
Paul Warriner - The Recognition Coach and Lead Facilitator, Raising the Baa
Chris Farnsworth - Head Shepherd and Co-Founder, Raising the Baa

What are your main team challenges and desires? Maybe we can help?
Book in a 15-minute Exploratory Call now and let's see.

Transcript

Chris (00:03):

Hello, and thank you for tuning in to Sheep Dip, the podcast from Raising the Baa. We're global leaders in team building with sheep. I'm Chris Farnsworth and I'm Head Shepherd and co-founder of this somewhat unusual business. In this season of Sheep Dip, we are discussing the complete a-z of team building, including my perspective from the world of shepherding. I'm here with Paul, Head Facilitator for Raising the Baa.

Chris (00:32):

Hi Paul, how are you doing?

Paul (00:33):

Very well, thank you Chris. And yourself.

Chris (00:36):

I'm always excited about the day. I love my job. It is so good.

Paul (00:41):

What a great start to a conversation. That's fantastic. How do you follow that?

Chris (00:44):

Hey, wait a minute. We're on L Love. There we go. We're straight in there.

Paul (00:50):

I just don't believe that. Another fantastic segue. How do you come up with them? So you love your job, tell me about what, what's your daily sort of routine then?

Chris (01:01):

Well, always the, the first thing in my mind is to look after the dog. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, make sure it's happy, well fed. And then we, we go out round the sheep and then there is no predictability after that. You know, there is like right what Pandora's box have we opened here today. I mean, there's often shearing or just general animal welfare, so, you know, make sure we've got water and food.

Paul (01:30):

Um, I mean, so no day's the same really. Is it really?

Chris (01:33):

Every day's a fun day. Every day's a challenge.

Paul (01:36):

Yeah. Well that's great. I think there are many people that in the, uh, work environment that would enjoy that spontaneity with the day, with the, the events of a day. All too many times people are just trudging through or can be trudging through what is a, a cycle of routine. I think the love of the moment, the love of the day, the love of the task is, uh, it's quite important of course. And team building's part and parcel of that. How do you engender that? How do you encourage that love for the thing that you're, you're doing and building a team, building a business, delivering on a project, whatever it is going to be that the team's goal is. How do you sort of get everybody to embrace that, to love that particular task? So L for love, I think that's,

Chris (02:24):

I could tell you a story that comes to me, is that we listen to the Archers and the theme tune comes on and the dog jumps up and is ready to go. It is now associating that tune with going to work. And that's the point, isn't it? They're so excited to go to work and so pleased that the leadership, I guess, of actually when you hear this music, we're gonna go out to the Land Rover, get in the Land Rover and go round the sheep. And they are so excited about that.

Paul (02:55):

Wonderful that they know that's the moment we're off. You know, it's that conditioning and that training. I wonder whether that's Pavlov's dog's scenario there, but I think it would be great if there was a, a trigger like that. You could just press a button, play a tune or something and everybody would respond instantly in the workplace. I mean that has scary thoughts that one doesn't it really in that context.

Chris (03:21):

But you know, the, the thing is that actually we all do have those triggers, isn't it? (Yeah). You know, we all go through that routine and it's how we approach it, how we, we listen. We then choose how we react.

Paul (03:37):

We do indeed. There's many things that trigger motivation and that's a, well, that's another letter. Let's come onto that one another time. But for now, in terms of what you know, you've just expressed there is the dog listening and I think listening is a, a good L thought in the alphabet, listening to one another, listening to each other in the way, what experience they have, listening to the experience that's around asking the right questions and taking the time to listen to the debrief, the reflection or the instructions. How many times have we seen that the instructions have been maybe half heard at best and people charge off and do something without properly listening? Listening is a very active activity. It's not passive, it needs to be involving, but people just seem to sort of hear and not necessary listen. And I think there's a difference. So listening is really important from a team building context because we need to listen. Um, not just with our ears but with our whole bodies to the, the experience or the results that we are getting from the activities that we're doing. And it takes time and I don't think we allow ourselves time to be able to listen properly. Tell me about sheep and listening.

Chris (04:58):

They have got incredible hearing. So obviously they use their hearing to stay connected with the flock and especially to mum. All of those things are really important and they reckon that they can hear over one and a half miles away and (oh wow.) How sensitive their hearing is. And you know, you try and creep up on a sheep, they can hear and sense you creeping up very easily. I mean where it sounds all, you know, a bleat and a bleat.

Paul (05:33):

Yeah, but

Chris (05:34):

Actually no, there's, when you really listen to 'em, they all say something different and there is a flock noise particular to each flock. I reckon, oh no, that's not my flock because it doesn't sound right. So if you put me in a field and I could listen to the sheep, I reckon I could tell which flock is mine by the noise.

Paul (06:00):

That's amazing. The fact that there is that sort of differential between a group and I think that's so close to teams and how teams develop the culture of a team, the noise, let's call that the collective noise of a team. However you represent that noise, whether it's output or results or it's just the way they hold themselves in a certain arena. If that differential, you could capture that and describe it, it would be fantastic to sort of try and emulate it. It's that sense of collective awareness around things. So once again, I hadn't appreciated that interpretation of the word, listening from a sheep perspective and how you can incorporate that into, you know, thinking about what noise are we making.

Chris (06:49):

But it's also the language we use. Let's just reflect for a minute, you know, the enthusiasm. But language goes up, the pitch goes up, the energy goes up, the language which is used is all empowering.

Paul (07:03):

Another L,

Chris (07:04):

The language used for the dog is interesting cos it doesn't actually understand what you're saying. It's all about the tonality and doesn't understand negativity and it doesn't respond to negativity. So it only responds to the positive language that you give it.

Paul (07:22):

Yeah. Another interpretation that you can adapt to team building. And that's, that's made me think, I think one of the biggest words beginning with L that we can possibly discuss in this whole arena of team building is an L. And that is leadership or leading maybe the same, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. I think they're very different. But leadership for example, is something that we witness in two ways. Witness when we see it and we witness it when it's absent. Both in a team working environment in the workplace, but also in the exercises that we do here. That raising the bar, you know, because I think it's an integral part to how a team develops. And it doesn't mean just having one person as a leader. In my mind, I think there are moments and elements of every exercise where leadership springs to the fore. You could be on your own and demonstrate leadership. You could be in a pair, you could be in a larger group and demonstrate leadership, or the team can develop leadership as a whole. Leadership is a really quite important part of the completion of that, our exercise, but also in team building. What does it mean and what does it look like? That discussion I think is invaluable. I don't think we've ever had that or heard that discussion within delegates that we work with in a pure sense. Do you agree?

Chris (08:53):

Well, yes and no. You see, it's interesting their observation of leadership. They make a huge assumption that the sheep follow each other and they will go, oh, that's the one which is leading them every time . Now, because all the sheep look relatively similar, I'm not sure they pick out the same sheep every time. And so therefore the first one must be the leader, which isn't necessarily the same in every case. And I think what you are saying, Paul, there is that you don't have to be in a large group or necessarily be classed as the leader to show leadership. Think the sheep are very good at that. They all look the same, but actually at a particular moment that one or two sheep will show leadership. And that's what makes them a tricky, leadership isn't if you do this, if you do that, if you do the other, you will be a leader. It's a mixture, it's such a complex subject where the sheep will just jump into that role and then disappear back into the flock.

Paul (10:00):

With regards to the sheep. Somebody at the fore leading the way doesn't necessarily mean to say that they're the leader. They just happen to be in the front of the queue. However, in a team scenario, if we don't have some form of leadership, we are a rudderless ship. This integrates with other words that we might be using. But if there is no plan, how do you execute it without leadership, for example, somebody has to take control or somebody, some entity has to take responsibility. So there are other words that we can draw in that, as you say, work very closely with leadership, but without it the task is almost impossible. And without the decision making, without the commitment to that, whatever that is, it's almost impossible. So somehow within the team building exercise, there has to emerge, in my view, clear and designated ways to express leadership. Not one individual necessarily, not the most senior person to shed some light on, share some experience, lead the way in whatever way that may be. And I think that's the same in the workplace. Without that form of leadership by whoever it is or how many ever it is, it's very difficult to get things done. Our particular exercise demonstrates that very clearly. I'm not so sure that it's that easy to spot in the workplace when there is confused messaging and what to do about it. That's a challenge.

Chris (11:38):

And it's a challenge to find which one is the true leadership in the sheep. But Paul, we're gonna have to wrap it up.

Paul (11:46):

On this particular one, I think it's really powerful, Leadership. Who knows where it could lead. We could spend hours.

Chris (11:51):

Good to speak to you Paul.

Chris (11:52):

(Take care.) Thank you so much for listening. If you found it insightful, we'd really appreciate it if you could give us a review on your favourite podcast platform. Have a baa-rilliant week. Bye for now.