Episode 71: Crafting Adaptable and Empowered Teams with RallyBright CEO John Estafanous

Guest Bio

I help team leaders and coaches build better teams by improving their resilience and culture.

Everyone knows the stronger teams are, the more a business thrives. It often feels like there are constantly new ways to gauge and improve happiness, and however it’s phrased, it all comes down to building: connection, attitude, direction, adaptability, and performance.

By looking at the team as a whole, we’re able to diagnose and remedy issues holding the employees back from reaching their full impact.

I’m passionate about helping leaders improve company culture by creating workplaces that encourage open dialogues, constructive feedback, empathetic listening, and honesty.

RallyBright is a SaaS performance management platform that integrates behavioral science and data, supplemented with professional development tools, specific to your needs, to build better teams.

We’ve based the system on working with hundreds of teams and thousands of professionals and build unique actionable plans to improve based on what we learn from your team.

Previously, I worked in agencies and my own start up as a digital transformation & marketing executive advising blue-chip clients at the C-suite level on digital-first product, marketing and organizational transformations.

I have successfully developed, led and managed global leadership teams, launched intra/entrepreneurial initiatives, partnerships and change management initiatives, as well as digital and social marketing strategies and campaigns for leading global brands.

I love advising startups and am always available to talk about culture, poker bad beats, BBQ rubs, or to meet up in the DC area for a beer.

Recap & Takeaways

Key Takeaways

• • [01:30 – 06:16] Introducing John Estafanous, CEO of RallyBright, a team intelligence and performance platform
  • [02:36 – 06:16] A team intelligence and performance platform that helps measure, diagnose, and improve team performance and dynamics to create high performing teams. John’s path from law school, becoming a CTO of a company with a 37% attrition rate and needing to fix it
  • [06:18 – 08:08] How to leaders really build teams and people to do bigger and better things, achieving a common business purpose together. When managers become leaders, they build better teams.
  • [08:09 – 08:46] Better with computers than with lawyers, being a literature major in undergrad
  • [08:47 – 10:30] Going from 100 to 400 people in a global organization, drinking from a fire hose, starting with the right foundational elements to get people aligned
  • [10:30 – 11:39] Where and at what stage did John position purpose in the technology function of building teams
  • [11:43 – 14:20] How do we support individuals in their goals so teams can drive company goals
  • [13:03 – 14:20] Empowering teams to act as business owners, growing agency and accountability with clear OKRs and objectives
  • [14:21 – 16:13] What we do is a team sport whether we like it or not, any business function is a team sport
  • [16:13 – 18:38] Having Microsoft as a customer, understanding core business drivers and frameworks to enable them
  • [18:38 – 21:10] Creating adaptable teams that understand their customers. Two drivers: COVID and the rate of disruption
  • [21:10 – 23:59] When change is happening, most disruption comes across to the customer, focusing on wellbeing and preventing burnout. Building connections in a hybrid and remote world.
  • [24:00 – 27:11] Three types of conflict: relationship, process, task. Creating psychological safety and doing more with less while under the gun of economic and geopolitical pressures
  • [25:19 – 27:11] All about conflict, it can be a driver of innovation, creativity, and problem solving if handled well
  • [27:15 – 28:32] Sometimes it’s better to make the wrong decision than a slow decision, on overanalyzing and vulnerability[]
  • [28:31 – 29:46] Teams don’t understand how other teams are executing on their agendas, how does purpose ladder into other teams in the organization
  • [29:47 – 32:57] Adaptability and balance, teams that don’t experiment enough to make resilient teams, engaging with diversity
  • [31:59 – 32:42] Our product is called resilient teams, engaging with adversity, rebounding from setbacks, performance through disruption
  • [33:00 – 35:06] Measuring what matters with the right foundation, do you want to be graphite, or do you want your team to be a diamond
  • [35:07 – 36:04] Crispy and resilience, what characteristics of elasticity and how wide or narrow is our rubber band
  • [36:06 – 39:42] Building a tool that is helpful and important to someone’s day job and growing to be a better team, behavioral components.
  • [39:42 – 43:50] Leading indicators of success and partnering with HR, mapping teams
  • [41:53 – 43:50] Data without judgement is one thing that can be a trap for most executives.
  • [43:53 – 45:57] Dane recaps conversation highlights: defining middle purpose, driving adaptability, leading indicators and having the right data