More detail on each of the lessons

What drives top team performance?

This lesson explores and integrates a range of the latest research and pragmatic ideas for enhancing the flow and performance of a team. 

Drawing on the work of Daniel Pink, Malcolm Gladwell, Anders Ericsson and Margaret Heffernan (amongst others) it connects these leading researchers' ideas to the practical experimentation in companies like Google (the Aristotle project).

With helpful tips for leaders and facilitators - you will discover how to create a culture of high performance, which is also learningful and human.

Understand human needs to build trust

Trust appears either explicitly or implicitly in just about every organisational ‘value statement’ document.  We use the word as if it were something simple that could just be demanded at will – of ourselves or each other.  When we combine this with an overly mechanistic view of the human being at work (for example 20th Century ideas such as “leave you emotions at the door” etc), we have lost touch with the fact that TRUST is profoundly human, based on the degree to which we are able to be vulnerable to ourselves and each other, and feel confidence that our deepest needs will be met with integrity.

This lesson uses the latest neuroscience, psychology and sociology to explore our deep human needs.  Take this lesson slowly, think it through and ‘feel’ it through as you go, allowing it to touch you and tell you something about what is important to you.

It deepens our understanding of our personal ‘triggers’ – those stress moments or periods which catch us and plunge us into a non-resourceful state, potentially defensive and reliant on old fixed habits - blocking adaptation and change.  Making a link between these and our deepest human needs, gives us the capacity for self-compassion and a deeper understanding of others - from which we might go on to enhance our capacity to adapt, renew and learn.

Trust and trust-building

Here we return to the nature of trust itself, but this time concentrating at the social level of teams and groups, and how leaders can start to deploy a new set of behaviours to build a culture which supports high trust and learning.

Again, building on the latest scientific and social research, and over 20 years of our own practice, we offer you proven techniques and tips to enhance your team’s culture, recapture the excitement and spirit of collaborative mutuality, learning and experimentation.

The gift of skilful listening

We live in a constantly changing web of interactions and connections with others, and with both human and non-human factors and experiences that force us into adaptations, innovations and work-arounds.  Some of these are welcome and exciting, others challenging.

When troubled - especially when we feel highly anxious or "under attack" - the choice to "lean" TOWARDS the source of irritation is a tough one - and yet, at the heart of sustainable and safe leadership, is the skill of listening with deep attention to what IS, rather than what we would "like" it to be.

This comprehensive lesson takes you on a journey from the most taken-for-granted levels of listening, through to the sophisticated capacity to adapt based on our engagement with others and the wider world, and with the joys and stressors of our lives.  With exercises you can carry out yourself, or invite others to join you with, it will help you develop your craft of deep listening.

The art of the question

​This lesson explores the range and nature of great questions - which promote learning with accountability, and support productive team or individual adaptation.

It will help you understand the different types of questions, their purposes and impacts.

It offers you a compendium of useful coaching, leadership and facilitation questions to help you develop your "art".

Checking in and out to build trust

One of the simplest, yet most profound practices that enable good work while IN a team or group workshop, learning process or meeting, is to properly handle the entry and exit processes.  We don't normally realise how important the rituals and gestures are that secure a level of intimacy which can then enable more challenging work to be done - but they are essential.

This simple and pragmatic lesson offers some techniques which can enable the leader, coach or facilitator to properly open and close such meetings, giving a better chance of real vulnerability and learning capacity.

Be fully present at your best

​We cannot hope to lead anything or anyone, if we are not fully aware of what is going on.  Whether we are interested in developing ourselves, leading people through change, creating new strategic options, or working at distance with complex dynamics - we have to fully turn up, with all our senses alive to the moment, to find the opportunities to be helpful.

This lesson contains an introduction video, and later in the lesson there is a 'deep dive' longer video by Daniel Goleman (of Emotional Intelligence fame) which those of you with a deeper interest may want to watch.

There is a handout with some additional tips, pragmatic tools, and some spaces to make notes.  You might find it useful to print this before sitting down to watch the video - to capture your thoughts and questions as you go along.

Reflecting 'out loud'

You may find that some aspects of this work touches you in ways that you will find uncomfortable, perhaps even exposing 'edges' that you hoped that you were hiding really well.

You can be pretty sure that you are NOT masking them very well at all, despite your best 'stories of yourself' (even if some of your stories sound convincing, and you are able to tell them even to yourself).  Facing your vulnerabilities with integrity and humility will build-up your credibility in the eyes of those around you, whereas trying to present an inauthentic version of yourself merely exposes your insecurity to all.  Our defences often allow us to be 'expert' for many years, and as long as we stay in expert-style jobs, we can carry on this way.  But the minute we get into real, senior leadership, we are SEEN.  Choices have to be made, it is time to return to self-development rather than self-protection.

If access to this package is part of an ongoing consulting support project with Lacerta Consulting, then please use the 'assignment' process right at the end of the package, to capture your learning, explore the questions it asks and complete some writing.  The more you open up, the more your consultant will be able to help you.  This is, in itself, part of the process.

If your access here is NOT part of a supported programme, please feel free to complete the paper anyway – we are always willing to offer our thoughts and point you in the direction of new support or learning.  And of course we are always delighted to receive any feedback about how you have experienced our learning products.

Whatever you write, it is ONLY seen by the Lacerta Consultant assigned to your programme.  It will never be shared with anyone else, and gives us the opportunity to understand how this is impacting you, what help you might need individually, and offers ideas how we might support the whole team.