Dave Kesby: Herding Cats - Unconventional Team Leadership

OutsideVoices with Mark Bidwell

I sat down with Dave Kesby, organizational coach and author, to talk about his book, “Extra-Dependent Teams: Realising the Power of Similarity”, where he challenges the conventional wisdom of teams.

As he writes in his introduction, “through the lens of convention a lot of the features of Extra-Dependent Teams are misdiagnosed as faults: working apart is seen as working in silos, lack of interdependency is seen as uncollaborative, and working only towards their individual goal is seen as not being a team player.”

Dave served in The British Army for seven years before turning to a career in organizational and leadership development. He combines military, academic, corporate and volunteering experiences to provide a fresh and challenging perspective on what it means to lead, as well as be part of a team.

Read the full article: https://outsidelens.com/herding-cats-unconventional-team-leadership/

What was covered:

• The differences between Inter-Dependent versus Extra-Dependent teams
• What are communities of practice and how they contribute towards innovation, silo-busting and improving organizational agility
• Why “herding cats” is not necessarily a bad thing in an organizational context

Key Takeways and Learnings:

• Focusing on common practices instead of common goals enables shared learning and performance improvement
• Looking at the team for what it is instead of what it ought to be provides simpler solutions and decreases the need for control and competition

Links and Resources Mentioned In This Episode:

• Extra-Dependent Teams: Realising the Power of Similarity, a book by David Kesby
• Woodeson Kesby Organisational Coaching
• Get in touch with David via LinkedIn and email