How Builder Talent Diversity on Teams Enhances Business Outcomes

Gallup's Dr. Sangeeta Badal, Principal Scientist, Entrepreneurship, and Dr. Cheryl Fernandez, Selection Researcher, were our guests on a recent Called to Coach -- Builder Talent Tuesday edition. Sangeeta and Cheryl dove into Gallup's recent research on entrepreneurship through its BP10 assessment, and how diversity of builder talents on a team affects team performance. Their discussion included:

• The positive relationship between revenue growth and talent and role diversity
• The importance of managing these two carefully for maximum impact on team performance
• How knowing the gaps in your team's BP10 talent mix can help your team assign tasks and manage its "blind spots"

Below is a full transcript of the conversation, including time stamps. Full audio and video are posted above.

Talent diversity and role diversity needs to be managed very carefully to really get the maximum impact on team performance.

Dr. Sangeeta Badal, 11:38

As the similarity of the team members decreases, you will see more talent ... higher outcomes, more innovation, being able to get new things into the market, being able to serve customers better.

Dr. Sangeeta Badal, 19:12

A lot of teams are so busy taking care of the day-to-day running of the business ... that it's rare that they actually sit down and assess who amongst us actually has the ability to deliver on a specific goal or a task that has to be done.

Dr. Sangeeta Badal, 31:33

Jim Collison 0:00

I am Jim Collison, and live from our virtual studios around the world, this is Gallup's Called to Coach, recorded on June 23, 2020.

Jim Collison 0:23

Called to Coach is a resource for those want to help others discover and use their strengths -- and talents, in this case. We interview Gallup experts and independent strengths coaches that share tactics, insights and strategies to help coaches maximize the talent of individuals, teams and organizations around the world. If you're listening live, love to have you join us in our chat room. There's a link right above me in the video window there, take you to the live page. (It's above Todd too, but technically, Todd, it's above me.) You can sign into the YouTube chat room and join us there. We'd love to have you in there. If you have questions after the fact, you can always send us an email: coaching@gallup.com. Don't forget, if you're on YouTube, subscribe. Best way to kind of stay up to date with everything that's going on. You can click the Like button down there too. It's always nice to get that verification. And then if you want to listen to this as a podcast, you can find it -- maybe some of you stopped listening to it on the podcast channel because we let it go for a year or two without any new content -- resubscribe. Head out to any podcast player and just search "Builder Talent Tuesday." Subscribe to it there. For this Builder Talent Tuesday episode, Todd Johnson is our host. Todd's Gallup's Channel Leader for Entrepreneurship and Job Creation. Todd, it's always great to hang out with you on Tuesdays. Welcome back.

Todd Johnson 1:24

Yeah, I know, I'm excited about this one! I'm excited about all of them. They just keep getting better -- no pressure, Badal -- they just keep getting better and better as we go. And I've said this now since the guy ate the bat, but this science is so much more important now than ever. You know, rebuilding our teams, our companies, our economies. God, there's a lot of energy around this. And Jim, thanks for being such a steady cohost and host. It's great to get the BP10 nation together on this regular basis.

Todd Johnson 2:01

A couple quick updates and then we're going to go immediately to the good doctor. But exciting news, we are moving the BP10 course to a virtual platform. So as many of you know, you know, the CliftonStrengths and a number of the other, you know, boss to coach etc., went virtual fast and early. We are moving the BP10 virtual. The first offering will be in September. My goal would be that it's monthly and literally will remove the friction of travel, even though it's great and we'd love having folks on the Riverfront or in D.C. or wherever we are. But virtual BP10 is coming to a theater near us. I wanted to have the exact dates for this call, and they're still kind of juggling things, but it is in September, and we're super excited.

Todd Johnson 2:48

We're gonna also have a chance to refresh some of the materials and, and get that kicked off. Lot of coaches -- I'm not going to go in any detail here because I could probably take up all Sangeeta's time. But there are some really cool programs, initiatives, projects that are developing, quite honestly, in, in response to the economic challenges that we're facing. Every single state, you know, got billions if not multiple billions of dollars from the federal government in the United States. (I'm trying not to be ethnocentric.) But I know there's probably federal funding across the globe to help restart and rebuild companies. Entrepreneurship's a big piece of that. I've heard some really cool projects, where they're laying the BP10 across an ecosystem, in many cases across fragile communities. There's obviously a heavy focus, as there should be, on minority-owned businesses and entrepreneurship. And there's some really exciting coaches and projects developing underneath the umbrella of some federal funding.

Todd Johnson 3:55

So if anybody wants to go offline and talk about designs, I can't really help with proposals or PowerPoints or those things, But love strategizing around how we can utilize some of the federal funds to help restart and rebuild, you know, entrepreneurship in, in your communities. Upcoming next month, super excited about, on that topic really, Dell Gines -- great friend of mine, worked together for I don't know -- 10, 15 years. He's an absolute expert on entrepreneurship and fragile communities. He's our guest on the 28th. Margaret Ricci, who many know, Margaret is going to share some of her wisdom on August 25.

Todd Johnson 4:35

Have had a number of requests from coaches on being on the show. And unless your name is Dr. Sangeeta Badal, you have to kind of go through a process, which is, you know, share your impact, share the power of your, of your programming as, as kind of a precursor because we'd love to showcase you, but we want to, you know, focus it and make the best use of everybody's time. So with that, I get the privilege of introducing our special guest and her partner, her partner Cheryl Fernandez.

Todd Johnson 5:07

But Sangeeta is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author. She's got that -- a bumper sticker on her car. So if you, if you're ever driving around Omaha and you see "Wall Street Journal, you know, Bestseller," you'll know it's Sangeeta. Which I think is pretty cool. I don't know where she got that. But I've seen her go toe to toe with the best and most schooled researchers and economists and academics, and she always wins. Whether -- if, if they're wrong, and she's right, she wins. Sometimes there are some out there that are close to right. So it's been fun to watch. She's absolutely my best friend at work. Sangeeta, this is your show. And Jim and I are going to kind of fade off into the sunset. You and Cheryl get to take us through some very exciting research that we've talked about now with this group for a couple months. Here it is. We kept our promise. We're going to focus on Team Research today, I believe. Dr. Badal, you're up.

Sangeeta Badal 6:06

Thank you so much. I hope you can hear me well. It is always a pleasure coming to these events. And this is an amazing opportunity for me to interact with our practitioners, people who make use of what we cook up in the lab or are thinking about. This one specifically is really, really close to our hearts because you participated and made it happen. You went out to the businesses that you work with, you identified the teams that could be part of this research effort. And what we are going to share here today is the result of that effort by all of you who participated in this, which resulted in about 60 executive teams from the businesses that all of our coaches are working in.

Sangeeta Badal 7:02

Before -- as Jim is setting up our, our presentation, I just want to introduce you to Dr. Cheryl Fernandez. She is a colleague of mine. Our offices are literally two doors apart. We have worked together on multiple projects. Her Ph.D. focused on team dynamics and team functioning and the impact of that on company or team group outcomes. So you can see that for this particular research, I was reaching out to our best expert at Gallup, who has amazing amount of experience working with teams. And together, between my little understanding of entrepreneurship and her understanding of how teams function, we have put together what we are going to present today. So welcome Cheryl, and thank you for being my partner on this research. Let's begin.

Sangeeta Badal 8:01

First of all, of course, we are looking at team talent and performance, very specifically business performance, because that's the outcome we hold ourselves accountable to. Our main research question was does diversity of entrepreneurial talent on a team affect company performance? Now, there are lots of different types of diversities, and we are looking at all of them. So, of course, we all know of the more, most visible kind, which is the demographic diversity, whether it is based on gender or racial composition of a team.

Sangeeta Badal 8:35

Then there is the functional diversity of what are the roles that different individuals play on a team, what kind of functions do they perform on a team. Or it could also be what type of job that the individual is engaged in. So that would be the -- or even the experience that different team members bring to the to the team. This all would fall under functional diversity. Today, what we are focused on is what I would call "talent diversity," which is specifically looking at the personality aspect of different team members. What do they bring together and individually to the team, and how does that impact company performance?

Sangeeta Badal 9:16

So let's dive into it. This study, as I mentioned, right, in my opening remarks, is based on 60 small-business teams. We had the executive team members of each team complete the or take the BP10 assessment, as well as the team functioning assessment that we had put together. And I will talk about team functioning assessment, for those of you who may not be familiar with that, in a minute. The, the teams that we have are representing about 15 different industries. So it is a pretty widespread group of companies that we have here, representing manufacturing; information services; professional, scientific and technical services; finance; retail education; healthcare; and arts and recreation. These are the ones that I picked out because they had five or more individuals from a dataset of about 170 individual people who picked these as the industries that they work in.

Sangeeta Badal 10:22

Like I said before, we have a team functioning assessment that the team members completed, as well as we collected performance data, which is the % revenue growth, as well as the overall performance of teams. And the overall -- the revenue growth was where we asked them in the -- last 12 months, What has your revenue growth been? And the categories were less than 5% all the way to 15% or more. We have 4 different categories in that range. And for the team rating, we asked the team members, How would you rate the overall performance of your team on a 5-point scale, from below average all the way to exceptional. So, you will see some of the results.

Sangeeta Badal 11:04

We focused on revenue growth more. And here are the summary of the main findings. No. 1: Talent diversity is positively related to revenue growth. Role diversity -- which is whether you have Rainmakers, Conductors and Experts evenly distrib -- represented on your team, or at least have representation of the 3 roles -- is positively related to revenue growth. Team functioning has a slight positive relationship to revenue growth. And talent diversity and role diversity needs to be managed very carefully to really get the maximum impact on team performance. Let's look at each of the elements of these findings. OK, so before that, just for those who may not be that familiar or did not participate in the, in the research, I am going to talk about How did we operationalize the concepts that I just talked about?

Sangeeta Badal 12:07

So talent diversity, of course, is measured by BP10. Each individual takes the BP10, gets a reading on their talent across 10 different dimensions or demands or what we also call themes. So, how we measure talent diversity for this research is the number of high-talent themes that were present at a team level. So say the team has 5 members. How many -- together, taken as a team -- how many themes from BP10 were represented in the team at a high level? And the high talent is based on the theme score. So those of you who are familiar with CIR, that's where you get the theme score, and you can identify the themes that are high-talent. I would recommend you taking high talent, where we have a benchmark above the benchmark of the top-performing entrepreneurs. So anything above that is really high talent.

Sangeeta Badal 13:11

If you look at the number of themes that are represented at that high level in a team, that is what gives you the talent diversity. The score will range from 0 to 10. Zero is where the team does not have any themes at the high-talent level, and 10 where all 10 BP10 themes are represented at a high talent level for that particular team -- team. The Team Functioning Assessment is what Cheryl and I have put together. And it is measured by 10 elements. The 10 are listed here. It goes all the way from being self-aware around your own strengths; knowing the, the ability of your team to achieve certain goals; making sure you're aligned on the goals. How well the team works together is team effectiveness. Interpersonal is the relationships between the team members.

Sangeeta Badal 14:02

Innovation is how focused the team is on bringing new things to the market. Initiative is how quickly they react to the to the business situation. Psychological safety is about ability of members to take risks without having any kind of negative impact of that risk-taking within a team environment. Team structure is -- refers to the clarity of the roles, etc., on a team and then customer is customer-focused.

Sangeeta Badal 14:31

So these are the 10 elements we had identified through literature review and through the work that Cheryl has been doing on the themes for the last many years. We had an assessment that each team member took and then, the, the average scores -- the, the mean scores for each of these elements is what was used in the analysis. And then role diversity, as those of you who use BP10 pretty regularly know that we have three roles that we recommend for teams: Rainmaker (the more sales-focused role); the Conductor, which is more the management role or making sure that everything is running smoothly in the, in the business and, and you're delivering on your promises to customers; and the Expert, which is much more focused on the product or the service development.

Sangeeta Badal 15:19

Now we use Blau's Index, which is a way to put together the proportion of the 3 roles on a team. So whether you have one Rainmaker and no other roles, then that would mean that there is absolutely no diversity. Where you would have all 3 roles, that would be full diversity and there is -- the, the scale would be from 0 to 1, based on the proportion of the 3 roles that are represented on the, on the team. So those -- that's how we operationalize the concepts. Then looking at the results, we see that talent diversity leads to revenue growth. You can see the upward slope of this regression line. It explains about 3% to 4% of the, of the variance. And it is something that we always had conceptualized that this is what we would see, but here we actually see that % revenue growth increases, as you see on the x axis, the number of high-talent themes in a team increases.

Sangeeta Badal 16:21

So, you go all the way from 0 to 10 and you can see an upward slope of that. The next one shows you the role diversity, which is related to revenue growth. Again, positive relationship, a regression line that tells you about 4% of the variance is explained by the role, the diversity of role in a team. And it steadily increases as the Diversity Index, which is on the x axis, increases. So there is -- as the diversity of the roles increases on a team, you will see positive outcomes from, from that particular diversity. And the third one is the Team Functioning, which is those 10 elements we had measured. And it does, of course, provide positive benefit, but it is a modest effect.

Sangeeta Badal 17:15

So irrespective of whether Team Functioning scores slightly lower or slightly higher, you see a pretty flat line with a very, very slight, modest slope. And that tells us that you will get some benefit out of it, but not until and unless you've accounted for the talent piece. Explaining these a little bit more, moving on to the next one. Our findings, as I said before, are pretty consistent with what we had expected to see. That there is a relationship between talent and performance. As the number of high-talent themes in a team increase, we will see steady increase in revenue growth. However, one of the things that we did see in the data is that it needs to be managed really, really carefully.

Sangeeta Badal 18:09

So the talent diversity, when you bring on high talent on a team -- it makes conceptual sense, too -- you, you've really got to know how to manage that talent. Otherwise, it can lead to dissension in the team. You have high, strong opinions. You have extreme talent. Each one is affecting a specific area of the business or specific performance related to the business. And that can lead to issues in terms of role clarity, who should be listened to, who leads the team, etc.

Sangeeta Badal 18:45

And so, sometimes, and this we've noticed in other research, also across Gallup on other projects, that modest level of team-member similarity actually appears to be beneficial for the, for the company. However, the similarity takes care of all the interpersonal pieces, but it doesn't give you the same lift in terms of the outcome as the diversity of talent does. So, as the, the similarity of the team members decreases, you will see more talent, more -- higher outcomes, more innovation, being able to get new things into the market, being able to serve customers better. But you've got to be very careful about how that high talent is being managed on the team. And we will talk about that in a little bit.

Sangeeta Badal 19:42

Role diversity -- I'm moving on to the next one -- role diversity has a positive relationship to performance, as I shared before, but it is not significant. So what that tells us, and I think we know the reason for this: One of the things in this particular data set was where role diversity is measured through the BP10. So that's how we assess an individual's alignment with a role. However, that role is not the role that the individual is playing on the team currently, right? These are real teams. And someone who comes across as Rainmaker on the BP10 might actually be playing a role that is a Conductor or, or or an Expert, depending on the needs of the business, or depending on what he or she feels, This is what is my strength that I bring to the, to the team.

Sangeeta Badal 20:58

Moving on then to the team functioning, we see that elements of the team functioning that are most relevant to managing diversity are likely to be "psychological safety," where team members think that they can take risks with their opinions, with their actions without the consequences of -- without any negative consequences. So there is amazing amount of comfortableness within the team members and trust within the team members to be able to say and do things that they think are right for the, for the company team structure.

Sangeeta Badal 22:22

This is the one that we really want to explore more as we get role clarity in the data, which we don't have right now. But "team structure" refers to what are the roles and responsibilities of each team member? And are they very clearly defined? The more clearly defined the roles are, the better the team structure for that team is and the better the performance will be. Because then you have individuals who are not only playing to their strengths but then are totally focused on taking care of specific outcomes that are related to their talents. "Goal alignment" is about the team has to get together to really identify where the company's headed. So if you have one individual, one executive talking about one thing, or one goal, and the other is talking about the other goal, then that leads to -- especially you can have that with very high- talent individuals who are really, really strong in not only their talent but also their belief system. And that's where that goal alignment is becomes critically important.

Sangeeta Badal 23:22

"Team effectiveness" -- is the team able to deliver? So that is not only in terms of how well the team understands what has to be done, but also is aligned to that goal. So keeping the goal alignment in mind, how well are the tasks defined for the team so that the team can be fully effective in delivering on those -- specifically if you tie that to the strengths of the individual or the, or the talents of the individual. And then, of course, "interpersonal" is about relationships. So the cleaner that relationship factor is, the better it will be for the team members to be able to affect those outcomes that the team is looking for.

Sangeeta Badal 24:06

Moving on. So what do great teams have in common -- the ones that were most successful and had the highest revenue growth? These are the teams where the team members bring diversity of talents to the team. They also understand that each talent drives specific outcomes. So the more clear you as a coach can make that connection for the teams, the better it will be for the diversity to really start having that impact on the outcome, the business outcome. Team members have very well-defined and specific roles on the team. So this is one where if the data was clean on, Here is the role that the individual is playing and that aligns well with the role that has been identified by BP10 as their strong role -- that leads to better or, or higher performance for the team.

Sangeeta Badal 24:59

We don't have clean data on that. The sample size of where we could see that role fit was, was really low. So that's why you don't see that included in some of our analysis. But this is, this is where we are looking to grow this data set to make sure that we can prove this. But as we have seen so far, preliminary evidence shows that when the members have very well-defined roles, they do better in terms of the -- the team does better in terms of the outcome. Everyone on the team should understand and work towards a common goal. So that goes to that, not only the goal alignment, but also the team effectiveness, where team members need to understand what is the goal of the, the team and then what are the tasks that we have to do to achieve that goal? So that they can all work towards a common goal.

Sangeeta Badal 25:51

And the last one is that it is important as a coach for you to make sure that team members know each other's talents, and then they plan and strategize and analyze directed actions based on that knowledge of which one of us does what well? And how do we leverage that to drive the business outcomes that we are after? They should be able to see that clear connection between the talent and the outcome.

Sangeeta Badal 26:22

So, when it comes to managing and coaching diverse teams, of course, it goes without saying, you know, create your strategies based on what is on the ground, what is the culture like what are the needs, what are the current goals, what is the current state of the team, and then bring in these findings that we have about role definition, about having those representation of the top talents, about making sure that some aspects of that team functioning that are really highly relevant to the outcomes are incorporated into your strategies as you are working with these teams.

Sangeeta Badal 26:58

Ensure every team has all 10 talents represented. If they don't, figure out the strategies of filling those goal -- those gaps, whether it is outside members, whether it is advisers and mentors, whether it is someone in the community, in some in the network of these executives. Figure out what that strategy should be. But it is really important to have all 10 talents represented at a high level. Ensure that the members understand their own talents and talents of the other, so it's -- the self-awareness piece is important, but it is even more important to make sure they understand each other's talents, so that, that interpersonal piece can be ironed out.

Sangeeta Badal 27:39

Remember what I said: We are looking at the data and seeing that if high talent is not managed well, then it can lead to more dissension in the team. So the goal is that make sure that each person understands their talents and talents of the others. Use individual top talents to set meaningful goals and clarify expectations for the entire team. It is important to make that connection between the talents and the goals that have to be accomplished, and then break that down into tasks that each one has to do according to their talents so that they can then move towards, towards fulfilling that role, or, or that goal. Develop an understanding of how team members' talents connect to the roles they play. Intentionally structure activities to maximize each person's use of their top talents.

Sangeeta Badal 28:38

The high talents would be the first place where you should start, but if you are working with a team where the presence of high talents is, is less, go back to the Top 4 report, and pick any one of those Top 4 because that gives you the best ability to structure the team performance in a way that would drive those outcomes. So maximize each person's top talents. If it's at a high level, great. If it's not, you still use their Top, Top 4. Build support systems and appropriate workarounds for gaps in talent. If there is a team that only has 5 at a high level, make sure the other 5 are represented, because these are like tasks in the, in running that business that have to be done -- the demands of the role, as we used to call them long, long, long ago.

Sangeeta Badal 29:30

And, and finally, just some limitations and directions for future research. This of course, was our first analysis of team talent, entrepreneurial talent composition, based on 60 executive teams. I -- we do feel the sample is slightly limited. However, we have findings that are generalizable. As the diversity of talent increases, performance is better. There is moderate level of team functioning effect on the team, and it's beneficial. But this correlation isn't large, and -- it's positive but not large.

Sangeeta Badal 30:09

And as role diversity increases, performance is higher, but we still have to do a little bit more work to really understand that relationship. So we want to expand the number and types of organizations that we study. And we want to make sure that we incorporate other types of team diversity that I talked about right at the beginning, whether that is demographic diversity, whether that is a functional and cognitive diversity. So if what would happen if we would combine all these? And we are looking at all that right now and hopefully in the, in the near future, we can share more around that with you. But that's, that's all that I have to share at this point.

Todd Johnson 30:57

I wouldn't say, "That's all." I think that's a lot! It's -- do you think, Sangeeta, and I'm not sure if you can answer this based on your data or just based on your expertise (and Cheryl, this would go for you too, but) do teams have blind spots? Do they, do they understand their gaps? Maybe it's a rhetorical question, because I think the answer is probably "No," at least as a blind spot's defined by you can't see it. What -- talk to me a little bit about that.

Sangeeta Badal 31:28

I think blind spots, as you rightly said, are blind. A lot of teams are so busy taking care of the day-to-day running of the business and all the things that have to be done to do that, that it's, it's rare that they actually sit down and assess who amongst us actually has the ability to deliver on a specific goal or a task that has to be done. And so for them to sit down with a coach, for them to go through this exercise of identifying how many high talents we have on a team and where are those gaps? And then in our network, or in even in our immediate and extended network, where are those ties that we can leverage to really fulfill some of those gaps? I think that is how then you close that, that blind spot and make sure that, that you know what all needs to be handled and how -- what is the best way to do it? Instead of pushing people to do things that they either are not fit for or cannot deliver on.

Sangeeta Badal 32:33

You've got to understand how do you leverage the right people for the right thing. So that you're -- yeah.

Cheryl Fernandez 32:40

I think what, yeah, I think what Sangeeta's saying is to be more proactive than reactive. Teams don't know what they don't know. Right? And so when they, they're used to doing something or accomplishing their goals in a certain way, but when they come up against obstacles, that's when they realize, Oh, I need to work around and do this, but we don't typically do this. Turns out if they have done all the legwork, like you explained, Sangeeta, they would know, this person can handle this. So we don't have to stop doing what we normally do. Let this person handle it and we move on. So be more proactive than reactive when you encounter something and you need to figure it out.

Jim Collison 33:20

Sangeeta, when you were going through the growth model, Margaret asked, Are we able to combine these 3 elements together to get a composite regression?

Sangeeta Badal 33:28

Yes, and we are -- we've looked at that. The -- when we combine these, what you saw were the regression lines individually, but even if you combine them, there is a significant relationship between the talents and the performance, a significant relationship between the team functioning elements and performance. The, the interaction of both these in terms of how do they work together is that if you have high talent, you better know how to manage those well. Otherwise high talent with low team effectiveness can cause less impact on, on the performance. So the performance drops down if you have lots of high talent on team, more -- closer to like 7 or above on a team, but you don't have high team functioning pieces that can moderate the effect of talent on the outcomes.

Jim Collison 34:33

Jeff asks, After coaching these teams, was there measured improvements of each person's performance in their roles?

Sangeeta Badal 34:39

So that's what we look to you towards as we continue to collect data. I would strongly encourage you to continue -- those of you who gave us these 60 teams -- to continue to be a partner in this research. Because as we shared those reports back with you, we want to know what you did with those reports. We want to know, How did the coaching go? And then in the, when we measure 6 months later, so we've done now, one, the second measurement recently, when, and the reports went out, I think in May. When we have the next one in October, that's how we measure change over time. So Jeff, we would love to continue to look at the data and report out at the end of 2 years -- or even after a few waves, because we are measuring every 6 months -- of what that change looks like. But we need to hear that from you, if, if the change has been made based on your coaching.

Jim Collison 35:38

Eric asks, Team of 3, overall 73, 78, 58 -- would this be an initial area of concern with a partnership difference in overall talent score?

Sangeeta Badal 35:50

Well, I'm assuming these are overall BP10 talent scores, so you definitely have two super-talented team members and one that is slightly on the lesser side. I think what you need to focus on instead of the overall score is the scores of each of the 10 themes and how many of the 10 themes are represented in the team. So look at -- the 58 person could also have a few themes that are at a high level. So if you put that together in a chart, that tells you the diversity of talent. I hope that helps, or ask me another one.

Jim Collison 36:31

Maybe a, maybe a follow-up question there as well.

Sangeeta Badal 36:33

Yeah, ask me a follow-up if that's not clear.

Jim Collison 36:35

Aseem asks, How does a talent mix impact on interpersonal relationships in a team structure? Is there any indication in the data?

Sangeeta Badal 36:42

So the talent mix, as I had said before, if the, if you have high-talented team, which means that you have larger number of teams that are at a high talent level, and if you do not manage the interpersonal well -- so if your scores on the interpersonal are low on, on the team side -- then it impacts the performance of the team. You've got to under -- you, the team has to manage that high talent in a way that is fully functional for them. Otherwise it can start to look dysfunctional if that is not managed. Right. And I think that's where the role of the coach is really important.

Jim Collison 37:26

I think Jeff says that pretty well. He says, You need a good team coach (CEO/manager) that can get the team to work best for performance team chemistry. Great team talent with poor team work doesn't always win, even in business. Would you add it -- would either of you add anything to that?

Sangeeta Badal 37:42

I agree with that. Cheryl?

Cheryl Fernandez 37:44

Oh, totally. It has to be a good blend of both. For sure.

Jim Collison 37:49

Andrea asks, Does the research look at the experience level of the orgs/teams? Is there a difference between startup organizations versus those with prior experience building a business?

Sangeeta Badal 37:59

So, really good question. We did have an indicator of how many team members had built 2 or more teams. So we used that as an indicator of experience. And when you do have more experienced members on the team, the, the performance is slightly better, but not more than what you would get if you had high talent also with the experience on the team. So you, you cannot just say that, If I have team members who have 2 or more -- who have started businesses before, that is all I need to, to drive performance. That will help a lot, because, of course, they have that experience. But you still need high talent plus experience and then you would get better. We didn't have enough startups in the sample. A majority of the businesses were older businesses, and so it would be wonderful to study some of those and see if there is a difference in terms of how talent plays out in startup teams versus in more mature teams.

Jim Collison 39:10

Cheryl, would you add anything to that?

Cheryl Fernandez 39:12

No, I think, I think she covered it.

Jim Collison 39:13

OK. And then Carol asks, Was there any size requirement for the organizations studied?

Sangeeta Badal 39:19

The only size requirement was that they had to have employees. Because we were looking at employer businesses and all, sorry, also employees, but executive team members. They -- it can't be a solopreneur who's running the business; you had to have team members, at least 2 or more, that were part of the executive team.

Jim Collison 39:42

Let's see. Hold on, wrong one. Margaret asks, Is it possible to share one of the team element reports for one of the teams? I have one that was, that is redacted. I don't know that people understand what they look like, or what this looks like.

Sangeeta Badal 39:55

Oh, yeah, we do have the Team Functioning Report. And, Jim, if I send it to you, would that -- ?

Jim Collison 40:08

Probably better if -- to get it through Todd. And he can, if, if you guys are going to share that out via the community, probably better through Todd.

Sangeeta Badal 40:15

OK, so let's do that then. We can share a template of what the Team Functioning Report looks like. It has those 10 elements. Now in our revision, because when we looked at this data, we have reduced the elements to 9. So we got rid of the self-awareness; it wasn't really showing that linkage to outcomes that we were looking for. And so there are 9 elements in the new team, but also there is tracking in the new team. So because we did the second wave of the team functioning, so we can see the change in those scores now. And that's why I would request our coaches to please continue to participate in this research. Because if you don't give us the data -- if we don't get that -- then there isn't research that's happening.

Todd Johnson 40:59

So if anybody wants that, like we've done in previous calls, send me an email. You don't have to write a long note. But Todd_Johnson@gallup.com [now use coaching@gallup.com], and say in the title line "Team Functioning Report" and "Have a nice day!" And that's all you have to do. And within the next 24 hours, Sangeeta, you'll give it to me. I'll put it up. OK.

Sangeeta Badal 41:22

Yes.

Jim Collison 41:23

Jeff asks a great question --

Todd Johnson 41:24

It lit up -- there's like 300 emails just came across!

Jim Collison 41:27

Oh, look at that. It'll be 500 here in a minute. Jeff asks a great question: With the CIR showing role mix, have people been encouraged to change roles yet? I think that's interesting.

Sangeeta Badal 41:39

Great question! So the answer of that has to, has to come from you. We can measure that in the survey. I would strongly encourage all of you to have your teams participate in this research. And we want to know what changes you are bringing as a result of your coaching to that team. Are members shifting roles? If they are shifting roles, what are the new roles that they've taken? We, of course, will have data from the older survey to say what was their original role? What was the role that BP10 identified for them? And then looking at the differences between the assigned role versus the actual role versus the role after the coaching, that's how we will be able to pass out these questions.

Jim Collison 42:27

Aseem asks another question. He says, While coaching leaders and teams on BP10 assessment, are there, are these different reports -- will they be a part of a standard deck, or do we have to ask for them specifically through email?

Sangeeta Badal 42:41

Coaching leaders and teams and BP10, are these different reports? Yes, so the team's report and BP10 are different reports; two completely different assessments. And we had shared the link of the Team Functioning Survey with the coaches that participated in our research. Those of you who are interested to join that research cohort, we can forward you that. It is not open right now; the team functioning piece is not open right now. But we would encourage you to have your teams take the BP10, of course, and then continue to at least conceptually work on the issues that we are talking about.

Sangeeta Badal 43:20

So when Todd shares the report with you, there is a definition of what those elements of team functioning are that drive outcomes. And so use those in your coaching. Have them take the BP10, and then when the next round comes around, and we send out this big blast of the research project, now is on, and team functioning survey is live, that's when you can have your teams take the team survey. Hope that helps.

Jim Collison 43:46

I think so. Let's see if there's any other com -- some really great questions. Todd, anything else?

Todd Johnson 43:52

I'm amazed at how, how -- what would be the word? -- I've received no less than 30 emails, and all but one said, "Have a nice day!" And I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna pull out that person, but wow, does this group -- BP10 Nation follows instructions beautifully!

Jim Collison 44:11

And they are asking some great questions. I mean, I'm really impressed with the quality of the questions that's coming from this group today.

Todd Johnson 44:17

The team piece is so critical. I, I don't do the coaching to the depth of certainly our practitioners on the call in Cheryl and Sangeeta, but I've found over the many years, the, the (and maybe this is what you call psychological safety, but) you can alleviate conflict. You can -- by, by celebrating and accepting that people are coming with a different filter and a different talent set to a given issue, you know, you've all heard me tell the Hudl story, but, you know, Hudl was in our very first entrepreneurial EAS system in Nebraska 10 years ago. And David Graf, their founder -- and Sangeeta, you and I have done a video saying, "When we learned about our strengths, we quit fighting as much." And it sounds so sophomore, but they went on and built a couple hundred-million-dollar business and they're still growing. And everybody claims a little piece of Hudl, at least around Nebraska.

Todd Johnson 45:11

But the power of recognizing that people are going to come at issues and problems and opportunities with a different vantage point, you know, and giving the safety of acceptance and objectivity that BP10 brings, God, that's really important. You know, I do some of this in the prison work, and their teams -- and sometimes I put them on teams because they're sellies. They're, they don't want to be on that team. But they've got to get through an issue. It's, you know, they are teams in a sense, they've got to get through their time. And, God, the conflict just goes down when they can recognize that they're coming at life differently, through a different filter, and they're not doing it just to to make me, make you mad. You know what I mean?

Todd Johnson 46:03

So I don't know if that conflict dilution occurs under -- if that's what you call "psychological safety," but it's really important. If teams could quit fighting as much and focus more on their customers, they might grow a little more. That's my hypothesis and ... the research to prove that.

Sangeeta Badal 46:21

The lower talent, if you have lower talent, I think having that similarity and, and avoiding that conflict is easier. But as the talent level increases in the team, that absolutely becomes critical to manage it. You can't have high-talented people in a team and not be aware of each other's point of view, as Todd was talking about, because that would definitely lead to conflict in the team. So that's where the coach and the mentor role is critically important when you have teams with high talent.

Todd Johnson 47:00

I need to shout out to Marabec, he -- it's 2:00 in the morning in the Philippines, and he's on this call. So anybody who's over here in the Central Time Zone that couldn't get on the call, shame on them, because that's dedication. Get some sleep, Marabec! It's, it's late, or early.

Jim Collison 47:16

Nothing like a little public shaming to get people to come out in the, in the right time zone. One more question from Aseem, Are we planning to make any BP10 reports more detailed in the future, maybe incorporating some additional insights? Anyone? Anyone?

Sangeeta Badal 47:31

Yes. I mean, we, we would love to. OK, Todd, go for it.

Todd Johnson 47:37

There are, there are, if you want deeper -- and Aseem, I think, knows this. But there are much more detailed descriptions of the talents within the self-schema report, the self- schema activity on the website. And, you know, all the different activities on the Born to Build website, but we purposefully wanted the report to be streamlined. There are videos in support on the YouTube channels. There's obviously the CIR world, which is, you know, a heavily detailed intensity report. But in terms of changing the actual BP10 report, there are no plans for that. There are additional resources out there.

Sangeeta Badal 48:19

There's the book also that has a -- at the back of it -- longer descriptions of each talent.

Todd Johnson 48:26

Right. You have the bestselling book?

Sangeeta Badal 48:29

The Born to Build book?

Jim Collison 48:30

Yeah, that's not self-serving at all! But the -- No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding! If you head out to gallup.com/builder as well, we, that's -- some folks have not come back since we migrated the site onto gallup.com. So that may be one to check out. We've put a bunch of resources out there, including some awesome videos (that's not self-serving at all, because I made those) and we like make those available for you at gallup.com/builder. Cheryl, you get to critique Todd and Sangeeta, how did we do? How did we do today?

Cheryl Fernandez 48:59

I, I think you guys did great! I -- this is I think my second time on one of these calls, and I always learn more. Like Sangeeta mentioned, I know the team side, but I learn so much about different kinds of teams when I get on these calls. So thank you for that.

Jim Collison 49:15

Yeah, anything, Cheryl, anything we missed or anything you want to add before we kind of close it up?

Cheryl Fernandez 49:19

Nope. I think we're good.

Jim Collison 49:21

Great. Sangeeta, any final thoughts as we, as we kind of wrap it?

Sangeeta Badal 49:24

I would just pitch for our ongoing research. As I said, right in the beginning, 60 teams wouldn't have been possible without your help. And please, please, please continue to participate. I know how busy everybody's life is. And I know how difficult it becomes to keep track of all these asks, but when we send out an email with the information on the team survey, please do fill that up. Make your teams do that. Because the data that we provide back to you could really be helpful in your consulting, and then we want to learn from it. We want you to give us back that information so that we can come back again and talk about those, the tracking the changes, and what happened when the role changed, and what happens when there's different kinds of diversity, etc. All those questions for future research wouldn't be possible without your help.

Jim Collison 50:13

Todd? Any thoughts?

Todd Johnson 50:14

Great job, Sangeeta, Cheryl! Obviously, as I think -- I hope I always start and end each call with thanking the, the coaches. We exist because of you and for you. You're the practitioners of the science that Sangeeta and her team and Cheryl spend -- I think you called it a laboratory earlier. We'd love to be able to say "Yes," to every request we get, and some on the call know what I'm talking about, but we can't. And -- but it doesn't mean we won't stop trying. We'll never stop trying. It's an absolute journey. And, again, I, I wouldn't wish this pandemic on anybody ever, but I do think it presents an opportunity for everyone on this call to lean in hard on, on talent. You know, we, we've got research that shows when you get your talent gathered up, your engagement and resiliency goes up. And God, that's pretty important when your economy is in shambles.

Todd Johnson 51:14

So, you know, this is -- I'm gonna sound terrible by saying that it's now, it's more important than ever to, to bring this builder science to our, our companies, our teams, our communities, our countries. And Jim, thanks for convening us on such a regular basis. You're a real pro. I know you were nervous before today's call, and you did great. No reason to be nervous.

Jim Collison 51:38

Thank you!

Todd Johnson 51:39

And look forward to seeing everybody next month. And I've got a bunch of Zoomy calls with a lot of you coming up this week and next week. So we'll Zoomy with you then. And I'm out.

Jim Collison 51:50

OK, a couple reminders before you go: gallup.com/builder for all the resources that are available. If you have any questions, you can always email us: coaching@gallup.com. If you want to follow these live -- Todd's talking about the next Builder Talent Tuesday that's coming up -- if you want to know when it is, register for it so you get the email reminders, all that good stuff, head out to gallup.eventbrite.com. And a great way to actually see all the programs that we have going on as well. If you want to jump in the Facebook group, there is a Facebook group with this, if you go to [facebook.com/groups/gallupbp10], I think is the name of that. I need to look that up and put it in the notes. But we are available in Facebook, and we'd love to have you jump in that group as well. Want to thank you for joining us today. We will not do a postshow. But we thank you for coming out. We'll see you guys either next month or on Friday, as we have Southwest Airlines on, to talk a little bit about what they're doing in their community. So going from entrepreneurs to big organizations. We'll see you guys on Friday. Take care.