Scaling Team Dynamics and Organizational Psychology

Rachel Cossar: Everyone, and welcome to another episode of Seasons 4 Conversations in the future of work. I’m your host, Rachel Cossar, and I’m really excited for today’s episode. We’re gonna get into the nitty gritty of organizational psychology and communications in particular scaling team dynamics and Organizational psychology. So without further ado, I would like to introduce our incredible guest, Bobby Wagner. Welcome. Thanks, Rachel. I’m really excited to be here.

Bobbi Wegner: That’s so great to have you.

Rachel Cossar: So if you wanna share with our audience, just, you know, briefly some of the main touch points of your of your, your background. Sure. So I’m really a psychologist turned entrepreneur.

Bobbi Wegner: So I, you know, have a doctor in clinical psychology. It was in my practice consultancy for about 13 years. I start teaching at Harvard first in the school of education and then now also in the extension school teaching organizational psychology. So if anyone’s seen 1,000,000,000 in Oz Windy Road, that’s really what I teach. We saw a huge market need, and we ended up building a company and a platform to really scale organizational psychology democratizing Wendy Rhodes, who’s, you know, a high caliber performance coach, really coming from the lens of psychology. And then using AI to provide ongoing insights. So I spend most of my time building and leading groups, that company, and then also teaching at Harvard still. Awesome. Yeah. I do love Wendy Rhodes. So democratizing Wendy Rhodes.

Rachel Cossar: That’s a really good way of putting it. If you know Wendy Rhodes, if you don’t, then I have to, like, give describe. Right.

Bobbi Wegner: Awesome. Well, let’s get into it. Great.

Rachel Cossar: So, you you you you’ve worked with companies in a variety of different ways and vantage points, right, over the over the past few years. So what are you seeing in terms of struggles that companies face when it comes to communication in general, but especially, like, internal team communication? Yeah.

Bobbi Wegner: My mind goes to a few different places, you know, when we think about this, One, just the landscape of work is different now that we’re in the virtual world, so therefore communication is different. And so we’ve really been stripped of those, like, human touch points in the virtual space that are really, really important as humans. We’re hardwired for connection. We’re social by nature. We need to feel like we we belong that we’re seeing that people understand us. And when we’re in real space together, physical space, we can get those needs met in different ways through casual ways. The virtual space basically strips us of that opportunity. So then you know, disconnection kind of comes up. People just feel like not understood or, you know, not as connected. And a big part of that is the communication that we we aren’t doing that just like chitchat. We don’t have that, you know, kind of water cooler type experience. So that’s that’s one thing is, like, companies really have to be better at creating time to deepen, you know, to focus on communication and deepen connection. The other piece of it is in general virtual or not, really people listen are are waiting to speak rather than truly listening. And listening is one of the biggest parts of communication or effective communication. And we, and it’s an art. It’s a skill. It’s something to be learned. It’s not something that we’re really taught. Some of us are better at it than others, but it’s really important to, to, like, listen and ask questions before you make any statements or give advice. So a very tactical, tangible way to think about this. And this is how we train psychologists. I used to, you know, I used to teach psychologists, but I used to be a clinical supervisor and training clinicians. Is ask 2 questions, open ended, what, how, sometimes why, why it can come off as a little judgy, so you have to be careful with that one before you make any statements, give any advice, or, you know, because that once you make a statement or give advice, it shuts down the the communication. It’s sort of like no longer up for discussion unless the person’s gonna counter. And so you wanna open up the conversation through question asking. Mhmm.

Rachel Cossar: So that that makes me think a lot of some of the more challenging conversations around, you know, giving feedback or checking in about, like, if an issue does does come up, do you find that that’s also a good structure to follow, like, if you were having just, like, a regular one on 1 or even, like, a group meeting, like, if you’re, like, trying to facilitate a conversation with a with with a group. Yeah. Absolutely.

Bobbi Wegner: So the kind of two things that come to mind for me with that one is that 1000%. So for me, when I’m in a situation where I’m noticing, like, there’s an area of conflict or I have to give feedback or something that isn’t as easy, I noticed the first step is, like, self awareness, noticing in yourself that something is getting activated. And then that cues me to be like, okay. There’s a thing here. What needs to happen? And instead of just jumping into kind of defensive mode or kind of cognitive mode where I’m then kind of arguing or debating, which when we do that, it puts the other person in a defensive stance. It’s called reactance and sort of psychobabble words, but it’s sort of, you know, it’s thought of as, like, if someone pushes you, you’re gonna push back and now you’re just talking around each other. Asking questions and queuing that you’re gonna listen allows a person to step back, settle into the conversation, and then actually move towards a collaborative solution. So it’s really helpful to notice that you’re feeling a bit of reaction step back, think about kind of two questions you can ask. And then really one great question is, like, what, what is our shared goal here? What does best look like? What are we even, like, talking about to make sure we’re operating off the same kind of goal. Yeah. So that that’s kind of what comes to mind initially. Yeah.

Rachel Cossar: You know, the other thing that what you’re saying makes me wonder is, like, you’re talking about these foundational frameworks of communication and listening and and and opening up. And it strikes me that those can be used just as effectively over video as they can in person. Like, would you agree? Like, even more so. They’re needed even more so over video. Yeah. Because we don’t have the support of just the natural environment.

Bobbi Wegner: So now we’re looking in one dimension, really, you know, just like looking at a flat screen, we’re not seeing the whole body. There’s limited information. And so communication becomes that much more important. Yeah. Totally. Well, couldn’t agree more.

Rachel Cossar: Awesome. So, yeah, so virtual is challenging. Like, right? We all know that. But, like, what are some of the benefits that you see to virtual meetings from your perspective? Yeah. I mean, I think the way and we always talk about this.

Bobbi Wegner: So the classes I teach, it’s motivation, what drives human behavior, really in the workplace, groups and culture, really, like, how do you bring teams together to, you know, work well. And then applied coaching for non corporate, non clinicians, more corporate people. How do you take a coaching stance to be a good leader? And so one thing we always talk about in class and with our companies is that, like, pre COVID the way we were motivating people and meeting their needs was not has not been updated. Systems are very resistant to change, and the way we’re rewarding kind of good behavior in organizations was is was not, mapped against human psychology and needs. Right? We see something like good behavior. We give a reward. We give more money. We do the thing, but that’s not actually building intrinsic motivation. That’s very much a behavioral kind of intervention. That is limited in in scope, in, like, success. Yeah. So the thing with virtual is that you’re giving people, especially in terms of motivation. There’s a few things that go into driving intrinsic motivation. One is autonomy. Right? They have people have to feel like they have freedom over time, team task, different things that they choose. Virtual meetings provides a lot of flexibility. While also allowing people to come together and get the work done. And so it’s one way to really look at the unique needs of your team and your organization and think what how to best get these you know, business schools med. What combination between virtual, real life, you know, like, what what ratio really works best. Yeah. So it provides a lot more of a tailored experience Right. I think for teams that will help them meet their business outcomes in a more efficient way. Yeah. Right. No. I I I I love that.

Rachel Cossar: That’s interesting to tie it to some of those intrinsic motivators through autonomy. What is I cannot remember the name of the author right now, but Yeah. Oh, yeah. Daniel Pink. Yes. Daniel Pink.

Bobbi Wegner: So his theory and, you know, this is really what we teach in motivations, how to build autonomy, mastery, and purpose. So looking at those 3 var variables. Yeah. Really, autonomy is super important. Virtual spaces allow us to, you know, provide that as leaders. Right. Yeah. Awesome. I hope many organizational leaders will listen to this right now because it’s so helpful as a reminder.

Rachel Cossar: So as a it’s interesting. Right? You’ve made this compelling leap or or evolution away from this clinical work into entrepreneurial work. So what’s, I mean, what are some of the challenges that you’ve been facing as a founder in space. Yeah.

Bobbi Wegner: You know, it’s been really fun. You know, it’s a wild ride to go from, you know, I moved from a clinical space to academia to here, and it’s just a totally different landscape that I love. And I’ll I would never pretty much go back. Like, it’s just been so fun. But some of the challenges is the helping people understand. Everyone thinks they know kind of what psychology is, but they, you know, I think helping educate people about the importance, how to use it, how it’s tied to business outcomes. Most people will say, okay, I know I get it, of course, communication is important, or, of course, team connections important, but how is it tied to ROI? How is it tied? Why should I spend my money here versus somewhere else? And so the education piece for me is, is just a big part of my job. And the work we do requires, you know, pretty high level of trust. People are effectively letting psychologists, people with masters and doctors into their, their teams. And so people have to know exactly what we’re doing. There has to be a level of trust, and there has to be really strong relationship. So that’s okay. We it’s just part of the work. So I don’t know if it’s a challenge or just something that I’ve learned over time that, like, the relationship, even on the kind of sales partner side, is incredibly important even though we’re really built to scale and sort of be more off the shelf. Right.

Rachel Cossar: Do you find that, like, some of these more, like, pop psychology, whether it’s, like, TED Talks or personalities or whatever. Do you find that that’s, like, in aggregate, helpful, or that it kind of masks some of maybe the true nature of Yeah. I think it’s a double edge sword.

Bobbi Wegner: So, like, how we started off this conversation, those of those people who know Wendy Rhodes very quickly prides a cognitive schema. Okay. I I get what you’re doing a little bit. We’re not exactly Wendy Rhodes. We’re really, you know, most of our people have doctors or clinicians that are, you know, kind of coming from a different space. Yeah. And we’re really focused on teams on one on 1, but it, it quickly accelerates the conversation. So that’s incredibly useful. Right. The thing is, yeah, there’s a lot of people. So this is an opportunity, I think, for for us, that coaching’s an unregulated field, but therefore, quality control is sort of all over the map. And there’s some amazing people doing really important work in the space, coaches, who are public figures, doing great things. And there are also some people who are, who, like, are like, I don’t know what to do. I’m gonna become a coach, right? And then that kinda can dilute, how people think about what coaching is. And so the way we’ve gone around it is really just hiring people with masters and doctors. And then really focused on, like, psychology based coaching, which is a little bit different. Yeah. Wow. That’s so interesting.

Rachel Cossar: So, in the episode before this, I had Neil Sunberg on who used to be, the director of the coaching, services at Headspace. No. No. What? So they focus on, health and wellness coaching specifically as they have a whole training institutes, and everything. And it was interesting because I asked him about, you know, like, the the difference between, like, where some of this health and wellness coaching ends and, like, therapy begins. You know? And it’s, like, you have to have such a high level of awareness as a coach to know where that line is. And then when you maybe need to refer to another kind of skill set or discipline or, focus. Right? And, it’s true. It’s like some sometimes that doesn’t happen. Oh, yeah.

Bobbi Wegner: It’s there’s a very fine line, And this isn’t even there’s a there’s a fine line, and they’re and even if you’re not gonna do therapy, you have to know when you’re getting into the their the, like, approaching that line. To serve the client, right, because they need help in a different way. And, and that and, like, so you need to have to know how to refer out and help them get there, which is hard because getting, you know, you know, getting a therapist is hard. We we, although we’re working with therapists in in groups, coaching and consulting and organizational psychology is thought of as consulting. So we’re not found by state licensure lines, so we can bring high quality people and people over the the globe. But once they’re gonna be doing therapy, you have to see someone within your state who’s licensed within your state. So it really looks cool. So you just have to have a network of people and and be able to refer out. The other piece of this, even if you don’t do therapy, and we’ve worked we’ve worked with a military organization around this, who’s very, like, awesome group coaching programs super fantastic. But what they were struggling with was even though they knew they weren’t gonna do therapy, because they’re working with a population who has a high level of trauma, trauma would come up. And then people would know how to exactly respond in a way that was really, like, sort of safe and effective. So we did a lot of coaching with them, kind of a train, the trainer model. Like, what do you do when this comes up? How do you respond? What do you say? What does follow-up look like? Right. How do you not shut down the conversation, but move towards it, but put boundaries on it? Yep. It’s just a different skill set that, you know, clinicians are just trained in in a different way. Yeah. No. For sure.

Rachel Cossar: I remember, I have done a lot of somatic. Oh, yeah. Like body awareness work and stuff. But I don’t do, like, somatic trauma. Oh, yeah. Right? And it was I remember at one point, like, being in this situation and realizing, like, oh, there’s some, like, pretty deeply rooted trauma that’s, like, coming out right now, and I was just completely not equipped to deal with it. And, you know, you get into a situation like that, and you’re just like, wow. Okay. I’m gonna we’re gonna just, you know, have to, like, pause and, like, gets you to a place where you feel a little more stable. And, you know, you might have to go see someone else about this because, yeah, I was like, oh, because, you know, the body in particular just, like, keeps Oh, yeah. So much. The body keeps Right? Yeah.

Bobbi Wegner: So, I remember having that experience and being like Yeah. You you I I had a similar experience when I was starting out in private practice, like, in a I felt like I was doing this really great work with this woman and she was opening up and Yeah. A lot of stuff was coming up. And, you know, I was really I was just new to the space, really the trauma world at this point. And, and You know, I I sort of was was really empathic in trying to meet her needs, and then she sort of started calling after hours. I was trying to like Yeah. You know, but it’s just I was going too too fast. Right. And it was actually unraveling her, which was a hard lesson learned. There was a lot of work that had to get it done and put boundaries and and close it down in a different way and go slower. But something that can be seen is, like, feels therapeutic in the moment can actually be really unraveling to a person unless Right. You kind of understand the landscape of trauma. Yeah. Totally. Wow. Fascinating.

Rachel Cossar: We can do a whole other. And trauma in the workplace.

Bobbi Wegner: You know, it’s not like we’ve marked trauma at the door. And I think in education system, we’ve done a better job of doing, like, kind of trauma informed schools and having educators learn more about this. Well, we haven’t thought about that in terms of, like, leaders really yet, you know, is really like everyone who’s sitting in your room and on your team has some level of trauma, big t, little t, big trauma, little trauma. Yeah. And it’s the leader’s responsibility to sort of understand who’s on their team and how Right. To work with everyone. Yeah. Oh, man. Amazing.

Rachel Cossar: Fascinating stuff. So zooming out a little bit. If you if you could have or see anything anything you want to happen, like, what is one change you would bring that you think would impact most positively, organizations today. Yeah.

Bobbi Wegner: I mean, this is literally what what we’re building and what we, you know, what we we we’ve felt like you’re tossing me, about a sort of You know, talk about groups, but it is really truly why I’ve given up my my practice and it doesn’t make sense from a logical perspective to deep dive in, you know, founder world when I’m, you know, like, forty six year old woman and had a great career and all the things, but I just see a big need that is unmet in the space. And as, you know, I recently read the book, Pattern Breakers by Mike Maple who’s, like a VC in Silicon Valley. And he really talks about, time traveling to the future and seeing what that looks like to build for today. And that really when I look through that lens, it’s like, disconnection in the workplace is only gonna get worse, not only because we’re not going back to the office in the same way. Just the it’s like that’s not happening on a widespread. Like, some companies will go back.

Rachel Cossar: Teams will go back based on the needs of the of the of the organization, but it’s all of us aren’t gonna be getting in our cars at 9 AM in in community office. Yeah.

Bobbi Wegner: So disconnection is just gonna be part of what organizations need to address. But aside from that, the younger generations have a different relationship to showing up in the office. They don’t wanna be in the office full time. Yeah. I think it’s, like, 80% of them said they would leave a job.

Rachel Cossar: So, you know, Gen Z’s would leave a job if they had to work full time, some in in the, you know, That’s really interesting because I feel like it’s that population group that’s often, like, mentioned as, like, they would benefit the most from being in person because they’re so new to the workforce. Like, Not that I support that, but that’s what Yeah. An argument, or is it like to flip it a little bit? It’s like, okay.

Bobbi Wegner: Well, how does the workforce then meet the needs of the new generation? Yeah.

Rachel Cossar: You know, maybe they’re not benefiting because the current structure isn’t set up to actually teach them in in a way.

Bobbi Wegner: So you know, aside from focusing on connection, there’s a whole, you know, there’s a lot of opportunity for training, just like a deeper need. And I know just, you know, looking at our own, sort of space, like workforce tech is only growing. There’s a higher need, you know, thinking about things like communication, thinking about things like connection, thinking about leadership training in virtual spaces. I think there’s a real opportunity too for like peer to peer training. Yeah. You much more kind of peer to peer training within organizations with senior leaders and junior people. But companies have to be thoughtful and stop playing by the script that they’ve historically been playing by and step back and look at their business goals. And then really think about what is the landscape that best helps us meet those between, you know, real, you know, in real life and virtual. And then within the virtual space, what do I have on my fingertips to focus on things like connection, communication, genuine relationships, leadership training, mentoring. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. I mean, every, like, the organization is a live organism.

Rachel Cossar: You know, everyone within it has a very active part to play, and, there’s just so much more we could probably get, right? Correct. And, like, think of how cool that is.

Bobbi Wegner: Just, like, I just see it as such an opportunity. Like Yeah. Not where COVID was really hard, but it reset the, it just reset the, like, everything in terms of work. So now we’re actually looking at what best looks like versus just following the path of least resistance because that’s what we do as humans. And that’s what we do in systems. I was like, okay. Well, how do we actually optimize our workforce in a truly genuine way that is matched against the psychology of both individuals and teams and groups of people. Yeah. Totally. Absolutely.

Rachel Cossar: Well, Bobby, thank you so much for joining us today. How can people get in touch with you? How can they learn more groups, follow your work. Great. Yeah. Thanks for asking.

Bobbi Wegner: So, our website is join groups.com with 2 o’s. So j0ingr0ops. I’m very accessible on LinkedIn too. I always love connecting with people. It’s a big part of what brings me joy and part of my job too. So Bobby, b o b b I, and then Wagner with an e w e g n e r. And happy to connect. And thanks for having me, Rachel, and you’re, you’re doing amazing work in the similar space, and I just appreciate you inviting me on. Well, thank you. Awesome.

Rachel Cossar: And as always, thanks to our audience for tuning in. We’ll see you next time.