Secrets to successful teamwork

Summary

TED Radio Hour: Secrets to Successful Teamwork Host: Manoush Zomorodi | Release Date: May 23, 2025

In this enlightening episode of the TED Radio Hour, hosted by Manoush Zomorodi from NPR, listeners are taken on a journey to explore the intricacies of successful teamwork. Through compelling interviews with thought leaders like Hajer Sharif, Amy Edmondson, and Pete Stavros, the episode delves into personal narratives, academic insights, and innovative business strategies that collectively unravel the secrets behind effective collaboration in various settings.

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1. Empowering Voices: Hajer Sharif’s Family Democracy Meetings

The episode opens with Hajer Sharif sharing her upbringing in Tripoli, Libya, where her father instituted Friday Democracy Meetings every Friday night. These gatherings were more than typical family meetings; they were structured sessions aimed at fostering open communication and collective decision-making within the family unit.

Hajer Sharif [02:15]: "There were no power dynamics of like parents and kids. And that really made us understand every problem also has a solution."

Through these meetings, even the youngest family members had a voice, challenging traditional gender roles prevalent in Libya during the 1990s. Hajer recounts a pivotal moment in her adolescence when she addressed the unequal distribution of household chores.

Hajer Sharif [05:21]: "I felt this was unjust, unfair and discriminatory."

Her initiative led to a family-wide system where every member was responsible for their own dishes, setting a precedent for equality and responsibility. This personal story underscores the importance of creating safe spaces where every voice is heard, laying the foundation for effective teamwork.

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2. Psychological Safety: Amy Edmondson’s Insights on Team Dynamics

Transitioning from personal to organizational settings, the episode features Amy Edmondson, a Harvard Business School professor renowned for her research on psychological safety within teams. Amy’s studies revealed that teams with high psychological safety are more open about admitting mistakes, leading to greater overall performance despite initially appearing to have higher error rates.

Amy Edmondson [19:04]: "The better teams, better coordination, better leadership would have ta da fewer error rates. But that is not what the data were saying."

This counterintuitive finding highlights that transparent communication and a culture of trust enable teams to identify and rectify errors more effectively, ultimately fostering innovation and resilience. Amy emphasizes that psychological safety isn't about being nice but about being kind—providing honest, constructive feedback that drives improvement.

Amy Edmondson [27:54]: "Leaders should be kind but not nice. If I cared enough about you and your future, I'd care enough to give you more honest and constructive feedback."

Key strategies to cultivate psychological safety include framing work as a learning opportunity, acknowledging one's own fallibility, and modeling curiosity through constant questioning. These practices encourage team members to speak up without fear, enhancing collaboration and problem-solving.

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3. Transformative Leadership: Pete Stavros on Employee Ownership

The conversation shifts to the business realm with Pete Stavros, co-head of Global Private Equity at KKR and founder of the nonprofit Ownership Works. Pete advocates for employee ownership as a transformative strategy to enhance workforce engagement and reduce wealth inequality. His approach involves granting employees stock ownership, aligning their interests with the company's success.

Pete Stavros [41:45]: "If you give someone stock, their expectations of you as a company just went up."

At CHI, a garage door manufacturer, Pete implemented this model, resulting in unprecedented financial success and employee satisfaction. Employees received significant financial bonuses, which led to life-changing improvements such as paying for college funds and upgrading homes.

Joe Ryan [43:15]: "We put money away for all four of our kids to go to college."

Pete’s philosophy extends beyond financial gains; it fosters a sense of ownership and responsibility among employees, driving them to contribute meaningfully to the company's objectives. By integrating employee ownership into private equity strategies, Pete envisions a form of inclusive capitalism that benefits both businesses and their workforce.

Pete Stavros [51:10]: "If you want inclusive capitalism, then people need to be included in ownership."

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4. Integrating Teamwork Strategies Across Contexts

The episode weaves together these diverse perspectives to present a holistic view of what makes teams work effectively. From family settings to high-stakes medical environments and large corporations, the common threads are open communication, trust, and shared responsibility.

Hajer Sharif emphasizes the importance of teaching children to participate in decision-making processes early on to prepare them for political and organizational engagement.

Hajer Sharif [11:56]: "If we include your kids in family conversations, they will grow up and know how to participate in political conversations."

Amy Edmondson reinforces this by outlining how psychological safety can be cultivated through deliberate leadership actions that encourage honesty and continuous learning.

Pete Stavros provides a practical application of these principles in the business world, demonstrating how employee ownership can lead to both economic success and enhanced worker satisfaction.

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5. Conclusion: The Future of Teamwork and Inclusive Practices

As the episode wraps up, it highlights the interconnectedness of these strategies in building strong, cohesive teams. Whether in family units, hospitals, or corporations, the essence of successful teamwork lies in creating environments where every member feels valued, heard, and motivated to contribute towards common goals.

Amy Edmondson [32:21]: "Articulate a compelling aspiration and invite everyone to co-create the journey ahead."

Overall, this episode of the TED Radio Hour masterfully unpacks the multifaceted nature of teamwork, offering listeners actionable insights and inspiring stories that underscore the profound impact of collaborative, inclusive, and psychologically safe environments.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Hajer Sharif [02:15]: "There were no power dynamics of like parents and kids. And that really made us understand every problem also has a solution."
• Hajer Sharif [05:21]: "I felt this was unjust, unfair and discriminatory."
• Amy Edmondson [19:04]: "The better teams, better coordination, better leadership would have ta da fewer error rates. But that is not what the data were saying."
• Amy Edmondson [27:54]: "Leaders should be kind but not nice. If I cared enough about you and your future, I'd care enough to give you more honest and constructive feedback."
• Pete Stavros [41:45]: "If you give someone stock, their expectations of you as a company just went up."
• Joe Ryan [43:15]: "We put money away for all four of our kids to go to college."
• Pete Stavros [51:10]: "If you want inclusive capitalism, then people need to be included in ownership."
• Amy Edmondson [32:21]: "Articulate a compelling aspiration and invite everyone to co-create the journey ahead."

This comprehensive summary encapsulates the core discussions and insights from the episode, providing a valuable resource for anyone interested in understanding and implementing effective teamwork strategies.

Transcript

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[Manoush Zamorodi]

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[Hajer Sharif]

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[Hajer Sharif]

So I grew up in Tripoli, Libya.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

This is Hajer Sharif, and when she was a kid, her parents would gather her and her siblings together every Friday night. We've all heard of family meetings, but these were a little more intense.

[Hajer Sharif]

This was a very formal process. People think like, yeah, it's a family. You come together, like, sometimes, you know, And I'm like, no, you don't understand.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

They were called Friday democracy meetings at 7pm everyone would convene on the floor in the living room.

[Hajer Sharif]

So we would be sitting down on mattresses.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

There was a formal agenda. An appointed secretary.

[Hajer Sharif]

My mom would likely be the one taking notes.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

And of course, there were snacks.

[Hajer Sharif]

Like, we would always have, like, fruits and like, nuts. So, like, you know, the meeting would start. There was like a proper structure.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

The point was to bring all of the family's issues to the meeting and decide collectively how to proceed. Topics ran the gamut from negotiating bedtimes to what food to have in the house.

[Hajer Sharif]

Like, we need more Nutella at home.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

You know, navigating sibling disputes.

[Hajer Sharif]

Yeah. So this is about solving a disagreement before it escalates to a fight and.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

How each member of the family could pull their weight, including when her youngest.

[Hajer Sharif]

Brother was a toddler, that he should tidy his toys every time he plays, and if he forgets, we need to remind him.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

So these meetings were fair and collaborative, but outside it was Libya in the 1990s. The country was under the authoritarian rule of Muammar Gaddafi and gender roles were very traditional.

[Hajer Sharif]

The woman is still the one that has to like cook and clean the house, even if she works, you know, so there is like gender inequality to a very great extent. And we didn't have a democracy. So my dad wanted to have that for my family.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

So inside Hagier's home, things were different. Everyone had a voice.

[Hajer Sharif]

I still very clearly remember him saying, this is like a safe space for you. And if you say anything to us as a form of criticism, we're not gonna like hold this against you outside of this meeting.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

What happens at Friday democracy meetings stays at Friday democracy meetings. I love it.

[Hajer Sharif]

Yes, yes, yes. I mean, what we discussed in these meetings were family affairs. But this system really challenged the traditional family structure. There were no power dynamics of like parents and kids. And that really made us understand every problem also have a solution. If everyone comes together on equal basis and if it's a safe space where there is trust, then we can really solve these issues.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Even in a country whose citizens had no voice, those family Friday democracy meetings made Hagia feel like she had a say in her life. Which brings us to today's show. How teams work. Ideas about changing group dynamics and building trust in families between colleagues and even in entire institutions. When Jer became a teenager, she realized there was one topic that had never come up in those family meetings. The fact that every night as the only girl in the family, she had to do the family dishes.

[Hajer Sharif]

I was always the only one who was asked to wash the dishes, while my brothers didn't have to do anything about it.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Here's Hajair Sharif on the TED stage.

[Hajer Sharif]

I felt this was unjust, unfair and discriminatory. So I wanted to discuss it in the meeting. As you know, the idea that it's a woman or a girl's role to do household work is a rule that has been carried out by many societies for so long. So in order for a 13 years old me to challenge it, I needed a platform. In the meeting, my brothers argued that none of the other boys we know are washing the dishes. So why our family should be any different. But my parents agreed with me and decided that my brothers should assist me. However, they could not force them. So the problem continued. Seeing no solution to my problem, I decided to attend another meeting and propose a new system that would be fair to everyone. So I suggested instead of one person washing all the dishes used by all the family members, each family member should wash their own dishes. This way my brothers can no longer argue that it's not within their responsibility as boys or men to wash the dishes and clean after the family. Because the system I proposed was about every member of the family cleaning after themselves and taking care of themselves. Everyone agreed to my proposal. And for years that was our washing the dishes system.

After my TED Talk. You can't believe the number of messages and emails I got from all around the world of women who said that story about the dishes. You have no idea how it resonated with us. And every time I talk about this story, I feel like one important thing to say is that, you know, this is not about who's washing the dishes. This is like an example of, like, how a structural issue would make someone not as equal to others. And like, I understood where they came from, my brothers, because it's true. Because like in Libya, like, it is the woman and the girls who does the dishes. Now, maybe things has changed a bit, but like 24 years ago, like, this was like a no brainer. Right? So why out of the thousands and thousands of young boys and the thousands and thousands of young girls who accept to do the dishes every day, why am I the only one who's challenging this? Right. So this is the structural issue I was talking about.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

What strikes me about that though is in some ways your parents were very clever in that they stopped you from being a rebellious teenager because you were given parameters. You were motivated to change the system from within because you had some power.

[Hajer Sharif]

Yeah, very true. And you know also about this, like, childhood experience, how it impacted me and my siblings growing up, you know, once we became also like young adults and wanted to expl. Experiment with life as well. Right. Like we had this trust relationship with our parents that we would literally tell them everything.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

So I want to understand the cultural difference right now because here in the United States, we talk a lot about how young people are more politically motivated than ever. You know, not all young people obviously, but there is a sense of wanting to have your voice heard. But we have to recognize that is not necessarily the case in many countries around the world. What is it that you feel a lot of young people need to hear in order to feel more motivated?

[Hajer Sharif]

Yeah, you know, I think regardless of where it is geographically around the world, I think the one thing that anyone who wants their voice to be heard should be willing to hear someone else voice as well. Especially when this other voice is not aligned with your political thinking and maybe even not aligned with one's values and principles. You know, it also means to have a system in place that would treat everyone's voices equally, at least in terms of like having an opportunity to be heard without being judged, but also having a safe space to be heard. And I think in our societies now, especially now with social media and everything, you know, it's becoming more and more difficult for people to hear each other.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

So if someone listening to this conversation, a parent is thinking, I want to do this, I'm going to, I want to have democracy meetings with my family. How should they go about doing it? How should they get started?

[Hajer Sharif]

I think a first thing is really to believe in it because it's a foundation that's gonna help the kids when they grow up, you know, so there is also an aspect of self development there. And I see this a lot in me and all my siblings where we're never afraid of confrontation. But it's also about how you ask questions. It's also about how you discuss things that bothers you or even point out to things that you disagree with in a way where you're not judging the other person or the other group, but you're really trying to understand. Right? And I think this is a skill that we need in life.

Every family is its own mini political system that is usually not democratic because parents make decisions that affect all members of the family while the kids have very little to say. Similarly, politicians make decisions that affect the whole nation while the people have very little to say in them. We need to change this. And in order to achieve this change systematically, we need to teach people that political, national and global affairs are as relevant to them as personal and family affairs. So if we want to achieve this, my proposal and advice is try out the family democracy meeting system because that will enable your kids to exercise their agency in decision making. From a very early age, politics is about having conversations, including difficult conversations that leads to decisions. And in order to have a conversation, you need to participate. If you include your kids and family conversations, they will grow up and know how to participate in political conversations. And most importantly, most importantly, they will help others engage. Thank you.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

That was Hajair Sharif. She's a human rights activist and the co founder of the Together We Build It Foundation. You can see her full [e-mail] on the show today. How teams work. I'm Anoush Zumarodi and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from npr. We'll be right back. Foreign.

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[Manoush Zamorodi]

It'S the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Manoush Zamorodi. On the show today, what makes teams work when the stakes are low or incredibly high?

[Julie Morath]

In a hospital setting, care is provided 247 and there are shifts of people coming and going, so communication is critical.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Julie Morath worked in hospitals for 40 years, first as a nurse and then as a hospital administrator.

[Julie Morath]

And different disciplines that are involved in the care of patients have different vocabularies. So it's learning to talk to one another. Physicians, nurses, pharmacists, there's surgeon and anesthesia. And so the ability to listen, respect, talk to one another and not around each other is absolutely critical.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

And while that kind of open back and forth between colleagues might sound obvious and very much expected now, Julie says when she got her first nursing job in the 70s, that kind of communication just didn't exist. She didn't even know it was possible and she found her job very isolating.

[Julie Morath]

Doctors talked to doctors, nurses to nurses, and people interacted around tasks but but not as a cohesive team.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

So asking questions, raising concerns, speaking up about mistakes, it didn't really happen. Each person was kind of on their own.

[Julie Morath]

It was lonely. You know, there's a lot of responsibility when you're caring for people and I think that was the predominant feeling that if A mistake was made. If an error occurred, people went underground. They didn't talk about it. They didn't learn from it, but rather saw errors and failure as an inevitable part of providing highly complex interdependent care.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

She soon learned that this culture could lead to catastrophic results and a warning. Here, Julie's story includes details that are upsetting.

[Julie Morath]

A really early experience that I had was a child going for an operation, and the child died, and the nurse caring for the child never came back to work.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Julie says that maybe there had been an accident, maybe an issue with anesthesia. There were rumors, but only rumors. No one knew for sure what happened.

[Julie Morath]

And no one ever communicated what happened to the child or to the nurse. It's haunting, even after all this time, that secrecy is so damaging.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

What Julie saw was actually indicative of what was going on in hospitals all over the country. Widespread medical errors. But it wasn't until the 90s that researchers began looking into why these mistakes were happening. One Harvard researcher in particular.

[Amy Edmondson]

I mean, if you really stop to think about it, we're dealing with very vulnerable people in very complex situations. So, of course things go wrong. You know, the only question is, do we catch and correct them quickly enough to save lives?

[Manoush Zamorodi]

This is Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson. Back when Amy was a graduate student in the 90s, she was studying organizational behavior, specifically teams and how they work. And her first project was to pinpoint why hospital errors happen, the kind of errors that Julie had seen.

[Amy Edmondson]

I was invited to go into a couple of our teaching hospitals here at Harvard to study, as part of a larger study of coordination breakdowns. And so I was, as a budding social psychologist, I was going in, observing patient care units, joining meetings where people were talking about how they work together, what worked, what didn't work, and. And all the rest.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

She wanted to understand why some teams seem to make more mistakes than others.

[Amy Edmondson]

And my hypothesis is. I think this is obvious. I meant it to be obvious, was that the better teams, better coordination, you know, better leadership would have ta da fewer error rates. But that is not what the data were saying. I had a reverse result. The data were saying that better teamwork was associated with higher error rates, not lower.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

That must have seemed really strange to you that the strongest, most motivated teams had the most errors.

[Amy Edmondson]

Oh, yes. And my thinking starts literally spiraling out to, what will my next career move be now that I'm gonna have to drop out of graduate school? So I calmed myself down, and I thought about what might explain this result. And of course, one possibility is that Good teamwork really is problematic, but I just couldn't get my head around that explanation. And the more I thought about it, I was suddenly struck by a possibility. And the possibility was maybe the better teams don't make more mistakes. Maybe they're more willing and able to report the mistakes that happen. You know, most of us don't like admitting mistakes, and I don't think they did either. But they were more committed to the idea that only by their willingness to admit mistakes could patients get the best possible care. Then later, I was able to show some evidence that this was likely the case. You know, that they were. They were more open, they were more honest, they were more sensitive to the nature of the work that they did.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Amy didn't end up failing graduate school. She actually went on to do decades of research and is now one of the world's foremost experts on teamwork. Her research is perhaps one of the main reasons why workplace culture has shifted its focus from individuals to teams. And decades after her first hospital study, Amy still says, go. Good teams talk openly about their mistakes, even if it goes against our natural instincts.

[Hajer Sharif]

It turns out that no one wakes up in the morning and jumps out of bed because they can't wait to get to work today to look ignorant, incompetent, intrusive, or negative.

[Amy Edmondson]

Right?

[Manoush Zamorodi]

No. Here's Amy Edmondson on the TED stage.

[Hajer Sharif]

No, on average, we'd prefer to look smart and helpful. And positive. And helpful. So. So the good news about all this is that it's very easy to manage, right? Don't want to look ignorant. Don't ask questions. Don't want to look incompetent. Don't admit weakness or mistake. Don't want to look intrusive. Don't offer ideas. And if you don't want to look negative, by all means don't criticize the status quo.

[Amy Edmondson]

Okay?

[Hajer Sharif]

Now this strategy. The good news about this very successful strategy is that it works for self protection. The psychologists call this impression management. And there's a great deal of evidence that we're quite good at it. We learn how to do this sometime in grade school. By the time we're working adults, it's all but second nature. Have you ever had a question and you look around and you don't ask it? No one else seems to be asking. Maybe you're supposed to know. You think, I'll figure it out later.

[Amy Edmondson]

Right.

[Hajer Sharif]

So why does this matter? It matters because every one of these moments, every time we withhold, we rob ourselves and our colleagues of small moments of learning. And we don't innovate. We don't come up with new ideas. We are so busy unconsciously, for the most part, managing impressions that we don't contribute to creating a better organization. Nurses don't call. The pilot doesn't speak up. The executive doesn't say anything. So the good news is that not every workplace is, in fact, this way. There are some workplaces where people absolutely wake up in the morning, if not eager, at least willing and ready to take the interpersonal risks of learning. I call these special workplaces, ones that have psychological safety. Now, I'll define psychological safety as a belief that it's absolutely okay. In fact, it's expected to speak up with concerns, with questions, with ideas, with mistakes.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

So can you tell me more about psychological safety? You know, radical candor was in vogue for a little while, where you say, whatever comes to mind, you put it out there. Yes, kind of, sort of.

[Amy Edmondson]

Yep.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

But are there some sort of real basics that you think are crucial to creating that psychological safety in a team?

[Amy Edmondson]

Yes. And. And in defense of radical candor, okay, I think. I think Kim Scott is. Is very clear that she's not talking about brutal candor. Like what. What makes it radical is how unusual it is, but it matters to the quality of our interactions and ultimately the quality of our work. Now, part of the way you build it is you call attention to attributes of the work that require us to be this way. Like, if you're in. In a healthcare context, you say, you know, the complex, interdependent nature of the work we do means that we are vulnerable. You know, breakdowns will happen. If you're a team leader, medical director in a setting like that, you are frequently making reference to the vulnerability of our processes to break down, not because we're not any good, but because it's literally the nature of the work we do. You know, if you're an innovator in a tech company, you're saying, you know what? No one has ever done anything like this before. So we're trying something new here. All ideas welcome, and all critiques and concerns are doubly welcome.

[Hajer Sharif]

Let me just suggest three simple things you can do so that that nurse does make the call. The pilot does speak up. The executive even reveals his concern about the takeover. First, frame the work as a learning problem, not an execution problem. Recognize, make explicit that there is enormous uncertainty ahead and enormous interdependence. We can't know what will happen. We've got to have everybody's brains and voices in the game that creates the rationale for speaking up. Second, acknowledge your own fallibility, right? You know, you're fallible. Say simple things like, I may miss something, I need to hear from you. This goes, by the way, for subordinates and colleagues, peers alike, that creates more safety for speaking up. And third, model curiosity. Ask a lot of questions. That actually creates a necessity for voice. And so these three simple things can go a long way toward creating the kind of workplace where we can avoid the catastrophes you saw coming.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

So that is how to approach a high stakes project. But what about when things go wrong? What is the best way to give feedback to maintain that psychological safety? You write in your latest book that leaders should be kind but not nice. Please explain, what is the difference there, right?

[Amy Edmondson]

You know, when we say we're being nice, I'm not gonna criticize you because it wouldn't be nice. I'm going to say, oh, that's, you know, really very good work, when I actually don't think so. And the point I'm trying to make is that's not necessarily kind, or at least it's certainly not caring. Because if I cared enough about you and your future, I'd care enough to give you more honest and constructive feedback. And nice is the easy way out. And nice takes care of me, makes me comfortable in the moment.

[Advertiser 2]

But.

[Amy Edmondson]

But it doesn't take care of you and it doesn't take care of the future.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

I mean, that kind of stunned me a little bit. In your new book, you talk about one way of diagnosing a healthy failure culture. You say, how much of this do you usually hear? And the list is, do you usually hear good news? Do you usually hear progress? Do you usually hear agreement? Do you usually hear all's well? And then you say, if you do, that's terrible. Yeah, yeah.

[Amy Edmondson]

And again, context matters, right? Because if you're on the Toyota production line, that's probably okay, right? Because 99.9% of the time it is all going according to plan. But if you're in a scientific laboratory and you're hearing, yeah, every single experiment is working just great, and I agree with you, boss, on every idea you had. You should be disappointed at that because that's not what a good lab looks like. Now, most of us are neither on the assembly line nor in the scientific laboratory. We're somewhere in between. And yet even in the middle, I would argue that if you're only hearing the green and no red, it's probably suboptimal. It's probably a sign that people don't feel comfortable Enough to say what's really going on.

[Hajer Sharif]

Now, at this point in describing and teaching about these things, most managers I talk to start to get a little nervous. They say, I get it. I understand how this could really help people learn. I understand, and I want to hear about errors. But are you saying I have to dial back a little on excellence? Is it no longer possible to hold people accountable for great results, to hold their feet close to the fire? And I say no. In fact, when I'm talking about psychological safety, I'm essentially talking about letting up on the brakes.

[Amy Edmondson]

Right.

[Hajer Sharif]

I'm not talking about the gas. I'm not talking about motivation. There's a lot out there on motivation, and it's really important, and it's important to understand it, but it's equally important to free people up, to really engage and not be afraid of each other. If you're only talking about people's accountability for excellence and not making sure that they're not afraid to talk to each other, then they're in the anxiety zone. And that's a very dangerous place to be.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Yeah. And some people might say, well, you know, I've got college tuitions to pay. I just want a job. I don't really care about the end product. I'm fine with this. I'm fine with phoning it in. It's fine.

[Amy Edmondson]

Yes. And I think that's a shame for two reasons. If I'm a customer, I'm thinking, eh, this product's fine, but maybe it could have been even better. And organizationally, it's a real shame, because what that points to is a. Is a leadership and management deficit where the organization's leaders or managers have failed to inspire you enough for you to want to give it your all. And they have failed to clarify that that's what good looks like. Right. That there is almost no such thing as just play it safe around here. We're more disappointed in you if you're someone who never has a failure than if you're someone who has intelligent failures and learns from them and helps other people learn from them also. Right. So it's, you know, I think it's kind of a profound thing that is often not communicated.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

I want to make sure I ask you, you know, somebody listening is thinking, am I doing this right? Am I running my family, my work team, my pickup softball team? Well, what are some questions they should ask themselves when it comes to taking the team forward for the win, you know, for the joyful win?

[Amy Edmondson]

Yeah, I think the way you do that in your team or in your family is you articulate as best you can a sort of compelling aspiration for us as a family, as a team. And then you sort of raise with a curious mindset the questions of like, what will it take for us to do this? Well, you make it a team problem solving opportunity. You invite everyone in to be thinking about and co creating the journey that lies ahead.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

That's Amy Edmondson. She's a professor at Harvard Business School. Her most recent book is called the Right Kind of Wrong. You can watch her [e-mail] in a minute. More about what motivates employees and brings together teams from the perspective of an investor who wants to to change how companies incentivize their workforce.

[Advertiser 2]

When it works. This is the most amazing thing that can happen inside of a business, not only for the business, but for the people, for the community. We talk so much about inclusive capitalism it drives me crazy. And this is it. Like you want inclusive capitalism? Well, then people need to be included in ownership.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

That's it on the show today. What makes teams work? I'm Manoushe Zummer Brody, and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from npr. Stick with us. This message comes from Strawberry Me. Strawberry Me Career coaching provides a professional partner who's focused on your success. It's not just advice. It's like therapy for your career. Your your coach will work to help you uncover hidden strengths, break through obstacles and move forward with confidence. Whether you're aiming for your dream job, a career change, or that next big step, career coaching can make all the difference. Take the first step today at Strawberry Me Ted to claim your $50 credit.

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[Manoush Zamorodi]

This message comes from NPR sponsor Viking committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on an elegant Viking longship with thoughtful service, destination focused dining and cultural enrichment on board and onshore. And every Viking voyage is all inclusive with no children and no casinos. Discover [e-mail] it's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Minouche Zumarodi. On the show today, what makes teams work and how worker satisfaction can be crucial to a company's bottom line?

[Hajer Sharif]

Can I just talk about how much.

[Amy Edmondson]

I hate my frickin job?

[Manoush Zamorodi]

There has been some disheartening news about how employees are feeling these days. Take the TikTok genre of people complaining about their job.

[Advertiser 2]

I hate working. I hate it. I hate it.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Hating on work isn't new, but it has become more acute. A recent Gallup poll found that 70% of American workers don't like their jobs and between 15 to 20% are actively disengaged, meaning they're phoning it in or even planning to leave. Today is my last day. I would have quit my job so bad. Like, but why? Amazing effort. Great effort. Okay effort. Piss poor effort. I'm getting paid the same. Well, it's often because workers feel like the boss doesn't even notice whether they're working hard or hardly working.

[Josh Ryan]

If you just feel like a number somewhere, you're probably just going to go punch a clock and get their numbers and move out. And I'll be honest with you, I've worked for some pretty big companies before where I'd been there a year, two, three, and never even met the CEO.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

That last voice was Josh Ryan. Josh works at a company in Arthur, Illinois, called Chi, where people used to feel like the C suite didn't care. Back in 2015, the garage door factory had a serious morale problem.

[Josh Ryan]

Working in a factory is sometimes a. A miserable experience, right? Like, most people come here and they have to do the same thing over and over and over again.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

This wasn't helped when the company was bought by a private equity firm.

[Josh Ryan]

They'd gone from, you know, a guy who started in the backyard of someone's house here in Arthur to a group of owners from New York. Like, people were a little skeptical. And that's one of the major reasons why.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

If you're not familiar with how private equity works, investors buy a company that's not living up to its potential. And within a certain number of years, they try to turn the company around with the goal of either selling it or taking the company public. It's a high risk, high reward strategy. If it works, the company survives. People may keep their jobs and the investors make a lot of money if it doesn't. Sometimes investors decide to cut costs, cut jobs and shut down parts of the company so the rest can be sold off at a profit. Or they go through all of that to eventually file for bankruptcy. So being bought by private equity can be very stressful for employees and make bad workforce morale even worse. But that's not what happened at Chi.

[Advertiser 2]

Instead, business basically tripled. Our investors made 10 times their investment. So it was the best investment we had made since the 1980s in a company that makes garage doors.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

This is Pete Stavros.

[Advertiser 2]

I co head global private equity for a firm called kkr.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Pete has told the story of how he turned CHI around. A lot of he saw what the problem was right away. Unhappy employees were dragging down the company.

[Advertiser 2]

So imagine you're working in the factory. Your daily work you really have no control over. You know, it's just that old line manufacturing mindset of kind of do what you're told, keep your mouth shut, do your part and go home. Safety in the plant was a disaster. So you know, if we just ran out our, hey, if we're going to own the business for five, six, seven, eight years, the data would have said pretty much everyone in the plant at some point is going to get hurt. It was that bad.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

But you saw something in it. What?

[Advertiser 2]

So the manufacturing model was like kind of brilliant. You looked inside and wow, this company could take even more. Market share, could grow even faster. But we've got to get the workforce engaged if we're going to improve quality, improvements, lead times, further customer satisfaction, reduce waste, reduce inventory. That's going to only happen with the entirety of the workforce in the company. It's not going to come from a dictate from the office of the CEO.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

So to get those workers engaged in their jobs, Pete used a tactic that's considered very unusual and by some even antithetical to private equity. Employee ownership. Meaning each employee is given a stake in the company, which turns into a cash bonus if things go well.

[Advertiser 2]

It's a free incremental benefit meant to be retentive and motivational, just like for a CEO. Now, if you give someone stock, their expectations of you as a company just went up. Because if I'm an owner, I want to know what's going on. I'd like to my suggestions heard and I'd like information on how I'm doing. How does what I'm doing every day tie into the big picture? Where are we headed as a business. How can I help? What are the big things that the leadership team's looking at? I'd like to look at that stuff. So that's what the model is. It's an ethos.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

And what's the promise then at the end? Or is there an exit plan? Because that's usually the deal, right, with private equity.

[Advertiser 2]

So up front, what we communicate is very conservative. This is equity. You're not paying for it, but there's no guaranteed payoff. But what we communicate, we say if we hit our plan, and that means we all need to perform and do our jobs, but if we do, you know, you'll earn around a year's worth of your income. So if you make $75,000, if we do our job, you'll get another 75,000 when we sell the company or take it public.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

So what ended up happening with chi?

[Advertiser 2]

So it took eight years, but everything went way beyond our expectations. And that spans from how employees felt. What happened to engagement scores and quit rates and worker safety. And what they yielded financially was way beyond our expectations and their expectations. So, you know, we had on average frontline employees make about $175,000. But many of those, you know, were not the long tenured folks. So the folks who had really been there earned six and a half times their annual income. So we had factory floor workers make half a million dollars, truck drivers make $800,000. Life changing money, life impacting amounts of money. And so many stories of people getting out of debt and really turning their.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Lives around financially, like Josh Ryan, whom we heard from earlier.

[Josh Ryan]

So we got enough money that I put money away for all four of our kids to go to college.

[Amy Edmondson]

Right?

[Josh Ryan]

I started a college fund for all of them that has a decent amount of money in it. We upgraded our house, we put a large chunk of money down on our house. So people around here still talk about it like it's the greatest day in their life, because it might have been the greatest day in their life.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Here's Pete stavros on the Ted stage in 2024.

[Advertiser 2]

Today I'm going to try to convince you that broadening employee stock ownership is the single most important thing that we can do to lift up workers and to make companies stronger, too. Only a tiny percentage of workers are granted stock ownership in their companies, and most workers have no wealth. And it is in fact stock ownership, or the lack of it that is by a mile, the biggest driver of wealth inequality. It could give us a form of capitalism that is actually inclusive and I believe it could literally change the economy. I've been pursuing this idea most of my adult life. 25 years ago, as a graduate school student, I dove into the history of employee ownership and I published a paper on the topic in 2002. Then a handful of years later, I got my first real leadership position at the company. I still work for kkr and I was put in charge of investing in and improving industrial companies, mostly manufacturing businesses. And that was a great opportunity to start experimenting with different ways of sharing stock ownership with all employees. In our early efforts, the most important thing we got right was making sure that stock ownership was free and incremental for workers, not a trade for wages or other benefits. But we got plenty of things wrong. We didn't communicate well. So if I said something like we'd hope to sell a business in five years, that often led to employees literally counting the days or growing suspicious if things took longer. We didn't share our financial information, so people didn't know how the business was doing. You see, ownership is about a lot more than just giving out stock. It's about trying to create a whole different type of culture, an ownership culture.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

I mean, we talked about chi, but do you have the data to know whether there will be many more CHIs that that company wasn't just a one off?

[Advertiser 2]

So we've done this 50 times over 15 years. And we've done this in the United States, Western Europe, Vietnam, Japan. We've done this all over the world. Of the 50, we've exited something around 15. And they're among the best deals we've done. And we've had third parties look at the performance and have said these are outliers to the positive. Like this is from a financial perspective working. And then the impact on the workers is indisputable.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

I mean, I'm trying to put myself in the headspace of someone who works for a company that you've bought. And let's say I've been there a long time and I like the changes you're making. And then, you know, it turns out, okay, KKR is ready to sell and I get a big check. And that's great, but then I'd be terrified. I'd be like, what happens now? This was a fun experiment, but I guess what responsibility do you feel to the long term, well, being of the people whose lives you've improved in the short term?

[Advertiser 2]

There's a bunch of components to that. So one is a responsibility to make sure people are prepared for a financial return like that. And we Take a lot of care to offer financial coaching both along the way and then at the end and then in terms of the company that may be coming in to acquire it, in our experience, it is attracting a different type of buyer. And even if it's a similar buyer we would have had 10 years ago, they're thinking differently. Like, oh my goodness, look at this culture that's been created. How do we retain it, how do we replicate it? Because it's hard to take away. So once we get this into these companies, my hope is this becomes a self perpetuating system and it just grows exponentially over time.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

What if a company had offered to buy it that didn't provide employee financial support and sharing and profits and those sorts of things, would you have sold the company? Anyway?

[Advertiser 2]

We are fiduciaries and most of our money is where it comes from is people's retirement funds. So we manage a lot of like teacher pension money for example, and our obligation to them is to maximize their returns. So yes, that is what we have to do. Now having said that, the types of buyers who are attracted to a business like this, they tend to be very values aligned. So I think that this is, this is not a silver bullet. It's not like if we could just do this, the economy is going to be okay and the social contract which is so broken with frontline workers is all going to be fine. But we got to start somewhere. And this is certainly in my mind an unequivocally positive step.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Pete, this has been such an interesting interview because you've gotten a lot of press over the last year and frankly, the only good things people have to say about private equity these days are often related to you and this idea of bringing employee ownership into companies. And I guess I'm wondering why you decided to do this strategy through private equity. Why not use another means? Because there are other ways. There are cooperatives, there are paying people higher wages, so many other ways to make sure people feel valued at work.

[Advertiser 2]

Well, this is the tool that I have access to. And yeah, there's lots of different ideas out there, you know, with respect to cooperatives. And I don't mean this in any kind of a derogatory sense whatsoever. I think anything that gives workers a stake is amazing. Cooperatives have not scaled is just the fact the aggregate revenue of all the cooperatives, you know, adds up in total, adds up to, you know, one decently sized public company, one. So the opportunity with private equity is scale. Kkr. If you add up the employee base for all of Our companies, we employ like 800,000 people. So, you know, one public company that I worked with, not related to my KKR duties, but Harley Davidson. I spent time with the CEO, thinking through how we could implement broad based employee ownership with their union. We ended up doing it. It took a while and it impacted again, not minimizing it, but impacted Maybe, I think 4,000 workers, which is great. But if we could get one additional major private equity firm to say, you know what, we're going to do this everywhere, that could be a million people.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

I want to just use the last few minutes that we have together to talk about a moment on stage. I just kept looking around at all.

[Amy Edmondson]

The people around me thinking about.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

You played a video, it was a PR video about some of the employees who've received cash payouts.

[Advertiser 2]

This is what we did.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Every cent that we get back, we earn. You know, employee ownership models that you've brought to them, they deserve to be.

[Advertiser 2]

Applauded because they earned it.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

And you got pretty emotional up there, Pete. You teared up.

[Advertiser 2]

All right, try and explain that again.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

And, you know, we've just talked about strategies and capitalism and turnaround ways of getting companies off the ground, blah, blah, blah. But what you're getting out of this, other than financial gain, it feels like it. It's really close to your heart.

[Amy Edmondson]

Yeah.

[Advertiser 2]

Part of the emotion for me is my dad. You know, my dad was a frontline worker, felt very mistreated. His union was. Was constantly fighting with the company. He operated a road grader for 40 plus years in, in suburban Chicago and never felt listened to, never felt respected, never felt like he had any stake in the outcome. He used to talk all the time about how as an hourly employee, you have these really weird incentives where you don't want to work too hard or be too productive because your hours go down and your paycheck follows. And so my dad always dreamt of giving him and his colleagues a chance to build wealth. So, you know, part of the emotional impact for me is thinking about my dad. And, you know, a lot of times frontline workers at companies, they have never been recognized ever in their career, like, ever. Forget about getting asked for suggestions, they've never been recognized. And so they become an owner in the business and they're moved to tears just upon the grant of the stock when it works. This is like, this is the most amazing thing that can happen inside of a business, not only for the business, but for the people, for the community. We talk so much about inclusive capitalism. It drives me crazy. And this Is it like you want inclusive capitalism? Well then people need to be included in ownership. That's it.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

That was Pete Stavros. He's the co head of Global Private Equity at kkr. He's also the founder and chairman of the nonprofit Ownership Works. You can see his full [e-mail] thank you so much for listening to our show about how teams work. This episode was produced by Katie Monteleone, Matthew Cloutier, Chloe Weiner and James Delahousy. This episode was edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour, Rachel Faulkner White and me. Our production staff at NPR also includes Fiona Giran and Harsha Nahada. Irene Noguchi is our executive producer. Our audio engineers were Robert Rodriguez and Gilly Moon. Our theme music was written by Ramtin Arablouei. Our partners at TED are Chris Anderson, Roxanne Hylash, Alejandra Salazar, and Daniela Ballarezzo. I'm Manoush Zamorodi and you've been listening to the TED Radio Hour from npr. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Raymond James a firm where financial advisors help you plan for every part of your no two lives are alike. That's why everyone deserves a financial plan as unique as they are. Backed by sophisticated resources and teams of specialists, a Raymond James Financial advisor gets to know you, your passions and everything that makes your life uniquely complex. Because what inspires your goals matters, whether that's charitable endeavors, mapping out the future of a business, or building a legacy for your family. Raymond James Advisors use thoughtful planning and powerful tools to help people they serve embrace life and live it well. To learn more or connect with an advisor Today, go to raymondjames.com Raymond James and Associates, Inc. Member New York Stock Exchange Sit back.

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