Thursday, Oct 20, 2022 • 20min
10. How to Build Teams That Actually Last, With Professor Massimo Magni
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Today we’re focusing on leadership by talking with an expert who studies the art of managing teams built to succeed even in our high intensity and complicated world. We are speaking to Massimo Magni, Professor of Leadership and of Managing People in Organizations at Bocconi University.
This is for any listener who wants to become a better leader, build stronger connections, and better understand the value of community.
Referenced links: Team Management by Leonardo Caporarello and Massimo Magni https://bookshop.org/books/team-management-creating-and-managing-flexible-and-resilient-teams/9788831322577 https://bookshop.org/books/team-management-creating-and-managing-flexible-and-resilient-teams/9788831322577
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Massimo Magni
Virginia Stagni
Frankie
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Transcript
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Massimo Magni
00:00
Conflict is fundamental for reaching innovative ideas and innovative solutions.
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Virginia Stagni
00:09
This is the talent show, a new podcast series from FT Talent, a hub of innovation from the
Financial Times
hosted by under-thirties for the under-thirties around the world. This first series is in partnership with Bocconi University
, a leading higher education institution of business and managerial advancements. I am Virginia Stagni, and this is the guide you need to drive innovation and change.Share
00:39
Today we're focusing on leadership, by talking with an expert who studies the art of managing teams built to succeed, even in our high-intensity and complicated world. This is for any listener who wants to become a better leader, build a stronger connections and better understand the value of community. Here is our conversation with Massimo Magni, professor of Leadership and of Managing People in Organizations at
Bocconi University
.Share
01:03
Ciao Massimo, how are you doing today?
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Massimo Magni
01:08
Ciao Virginia. Everything is fine here and thanks for inviting me over.
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Virginia Stagni
01:13
It's a pleasure and we cannot wait to hear all your insight and your expertise around team management, managing conflict, managing risks in a team environment. So we could impress you have published a book recently. You co-author it the name of the book is Team Management. I would love you to talk about the book in general, what topic has been interesting you and lead you, of course, to co-write this book?
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Massimo Magni
01:42
Thank you Virginia. So the idea of the book starts from the fact that I've always been fascinated by teams. Because teams are everywhere in our lives, and teams represent our D. N. A. and they are the essence of human beings. We are social creatures at the end.
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01:58
And we can find teams even where they're not supposed to be there. Think about for example solo sports or individual sports. We think that the individual achievement is the all the achievement. But behind the scene there is a team and it's a team achievement, even if we don't see the team.
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02:16
I think that teams is something that is related to discovery process or a shared discovery process, in which we can enjoy together and build something together.
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02:28
We have the team that is somehow the merge of our cognitive side and our emotional and motivational side. So this is something that fascinates myself in terms of team management.
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02:41
The book from this perspective wants to be a way through which we can help out our readers to reflect about their teams. There are not recipes but there are some suggestions, some insights, there are some interviews that we have done and we have conducted so we would like to provide the tools. So it's a kind of toolbox for our readers.
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Virginia Stagni
03:05
Teams can get complicated, right, because of the different backgrounds and different personalities that they inglobate. How can leaders manage when a crisis and conflict arises within the same team?
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Massimo Magni
03:17
That's a very nice question. Working with companies and working with managers, sometimes I hear this kind of sentence, like, "Oh Massimo, you know in my team everything is fine. We don't have any problems." Actually, as soon as I hear this voice, a red alarm immediately pops up in my mind.
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03:36
So, if there is no conflict, things are not going well. It signals that things are going very bad. Why this? Because conflict is fundamental for reaching innovative ideas and innovative solutions. So we should look for a conflict and we should be prepared to manage conflict, and managing the conflict in the right way.
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03:59
Sometimes people are afraid about conflict, are afraid for two many reasons.
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04:05
On one end because probably they could be afraid about the fact that they are not comfortable for sharing their own ideas, their own perspective.
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04:15
Or on the other side they consider and conceived conflict just as an interpersonal dynamic, and this is something we should avoid.
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Virginia Stagni
04:27
I'm trying to imagine, I'm a younger person and I'm trying to manage conflict even from a very early stage in my career, maybe for a few different standpoints with my manager, with my leadership team, and also within maybe my colleagues. What would you suggest to that early career professional?
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Massimo Magni
04:47
Sometimes or most of the time, we are not used to deal with conflict even if we are in conflict since kindergarten, when we play with other kids. But actually, the thing we can do is to maintain as much as we can the focus on the object. If we maintain the focus on the object, it means that we can have a fierce point of what we would like to sustain but at the same time we don't lose the respect for the other person.
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05:18
So it means that we are discussing about a certain service, product, choice, decision, but it's related to that field. So we have that specific rule that is particularly important: just focus on the object, do not focus on the person. So the person should be transparent here.
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Virginia Stagni
05:39
We talk about the servant leadership, the charismatic leadership, the CEO activist. Can you give us a bit of a mapping around the different types of leaderships and things that we can learn from, maybe some key takeaways for our listeners?
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Massimo Magni
05:54
Okay, you bring me outside my comfort zone, not because I don't know...
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Virginia Stagni
05:59
You know I love it. Ahaha.
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Massimo Magni
06:01
Speaking about comfort zones, I think that even in this case definitions can encapsulate too much our perspective of leadership, so and mostly for young people, if I think about, "Oh you should be a charismatic leadership", people start to force their behavior to be someone, they are not. Again it's important that you build credibility at the beginning of your career.
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06:28
Then your leadership style will grow with you and will be unique, it will be not charismatic, it will be not servant, it will be not empowering, it will be your leadership style, something that fits with you and fits with the context, since we were speaking about the context.
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06:48
So for example, if I am leading a team of senior people, it's very different in terms of behavior from leading a team of junior people. My behaviors are different, my approach is different, I'm more empowering in the first case, I less empowering in the second case.
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07:08
Maybe I have a problem of motivation? I should push for more charismatic and inspirational leadership. Or I'm in the middle of the crisis? Probably it's very difficult to use empowering leadership. So we have to first build credibility because credibility is something that show other people that you fulfill the promises.
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07:30
And the second thing is leadership is somehow to guide people, and if you want to guide people they should trust you and they should feel that you are a credible person. Then leadership style is something that will come, and it's something that will be unique for anybody of you.
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07:49
So my suggestion is not worry about the leadership style, worry about building trust and building enthusiasm in these people to follow you and to follow your ideas.
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Virginia Stagni
08:00
I think this is so important because what you touched upon here is about first of all, be incredible, being authentic.
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08:08
I think out of our very first part of the conversation, empathy is key, because what you are mentioning here, you need to be able to adapt to the circumstances. This is very easy to say very difficult to do, because adaptability is something that we all have - because of our way of being as human beings - but at the same time, sometimes it's I believe it's a bit difficult to program it, right?
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08:32
So are there any daily habits that you would recommend a younger talent and early career professional to try to exercise every day to become a better leader?
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Massimo Magni
08:45
Actually two things we have to take care of as leaders. In terms of habits, take care of your mind and your body.
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08:55
For your mind learn new things above and beyond your job. So you would like to play guitar? Play guitar. You would like to have a run? Have a run. Would you like to have a kitchen class? Do a kitchen class. It means that you have your mind that is focused on something that fulfills you, and it's something that brings you energies that the next day you can bring to work.
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09:22
The second is body. So take care of your body, take a break, rest, ensure that you have relaxing time in your agenda.
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09:32
Because if you have relaxing times, it means that you are recovering your energy, and so you are more sharp in decision-making, you are more sharp in taking an empathic perspective, you are more sharp in managing the relationships and managing conflict with people.
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09:50
So these are the two things I think are fundamental from a leadership perspective. So not the workaholic leader, but the leader who is able to take care of himself herself and as a consequence is able to take care about other people and the job he's appointed to do.
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Virginia Stagni
10:13
What would be your tip for people that are so workaholic and the soil over them passionate about their job and they start getting a bit frustrated, and then maybe something that we've seen right the turnover in big organizations like, "Okay something is not right? Next one, because I have a great CV." Do you have any tip around that?
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Massimo Magni
10:31
Yes, I usually start at the beginning of my master with an assignment for them, an assignment that is a simple assignment. And I ask them to define for them success above and beyond the academic performance. Another thing we can do, even if we are not students anymore, what is success for us above and beyond our job, and it's something that help us out to create a sense of awareness.
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11:01
The second part of the assignment is now everything is fine, so we are not in a tense situation, everything is going smoothly. But think now what are you gonna do - and you should be prepared for this - when things will not go as planned in your curriculum. So do not think about it when it happens, I think about it right now because you, your mind will be prepared to face this kind of pitfalls.
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11:31
As usually I mentioned them that when something goes wrong I close myself in the kitchen and I cook for 24 hours, for me, the family and friends, and it's something that I know that relaxes me and gives a new start for after 24 hours, it's something that helps me out.
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Virginia Stagni
11:51
Thank you very much Massimo. I have one last question for you in terms of the new rise of tech leaders. There has been a recent, not really recent, but you know, in the last decades for sure, after digitalization, but in business, the leaders are the founders of great tech companies, most of us, I'm amazing quarters, so they come from a technical side. I think from a bit of more traditional business and academia perspective, we have always seen a bit of like leadership skills separate by the scientific technical knowledge.
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12:25
Have you seen like the two kind of signs of state and church worlds coming together? In other way business leaders are acting, or would you keep them as two separate streams?
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Massimo Magni
12:40
I think that they could merge somehow or they can converge. Having a technical background could be very important, and having a technical background helps a lot, because it helps to understand actually what's happening around you more quickly. But this is a double-edged sword, because on the other side you can have the temptation to focus on your comfort zone.
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13:08
So what happens is that for example if you are a developer, your risk is that you like so much the developer perspective that even if you take a leadership position, you continue to micro-manage the technical side and you forget about something that is outside your comfort zones: customers, stakeholders, relationship, marketing. So you can have the best product ever, but nobody knows about this product you are developing.
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Virginia Stagni
13:40
Thank you very much Massimo. And now is our question time. As you know, part of the challenge show, we have challengers and early career professionals from all over the world coming over the show and asking directly to our experts key questions. So today we have Frankie and Alexander for you, Massimo. So over to you Frankie with your question.
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Frankie
14:03
Hello, my name is Frankie and I was a participant of the FT Talent Challenge in 2022. I'm from
China
and the United States
, but I'm currently living in Paris
. I'm currently doing my Master degree in Fashion Management. My question to Professor Massimo Magni, is:Share
14:23
It sometimes believed that people pleasers are not necessarily the best leaders since they compromise the economic outcome in order to adapt to the feelings of the others. As a business leader, what is the best way to manage the conflict of interest between employees and the organization? Thank you and looking forward to hearing from you.
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Massimo Magni
14:47
Thank you Frankie. Grazie for your question. Pleasing is a very difficult word, because if we say "pleasing others", it means that pleasing leaders are those who are, let's say "go in the directions of the others", but at the expenses of the overall goal. Pleasing others, it means that we forget about the overall goal. We have to somehow listen others, and maybe accommodate others, but in the framework of what is the organizational goal and the team goal.
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15:18
The good leader is a person who is able to understand this, understand what are the needs of the others and try to frame them in the goal of the organization. If he is doing or if he or she is able to do that, he or she is able to find a win-win situation when apparently there is conflict, so... and this is amazing if you can think about this: it's the ability to transform a potential conflict into something that pleases both organization and the individual as well.
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15:54
Okay, think about what's happening right now in the hybrid way of working, in which we have to maintain the focus on the organizational goals, but at the same time some needs of people changed a lot. So the ability to blend them together, it's fundamental and leaders were successful right now, are those who are able to listen and put this into practice.
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Virginia Stagni
16:21
Thank you very much Massimo and the next question is by Alexander. So over to you Alex.
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Alexander
16:29
Hello, my name is Alexander Burger, I was a participant of the FT Italian Challenge in 2021, I'm originally from
Greece
and Austria,
raised in Belgium
and currently living in Luxembourg,
where I'm working at KPMG
. My question to Professor Massimo Magni is the following:Share
16:44
As someone who has recently joined the workforce, I'm curious about the rising trend of remote and hybrid workplaces, how will leadership and management methods evolve to reflect the new professional environment? Thank you for sharing your expertise and knowledge on this domain and I look very much forward to hearing from you.
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Massimo Magni
16:60
Thank you very much Alex, that's a very hot and up to date question. Actually, most of the time we think that managing a hybrid team is the same of managing a team that is on site, but actually it's different, and those who try to use the same leverages most of the time fail.
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17:23
What I'm suggesting here is to focus more on the purpose of each person within the team. Why the purpose? Because when we are working in a hybrid setting, we have two hats, two different souls. The personal soul - when we are working from home for example - while having also the work soul or the work hat, in which we are at home but we are working.
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17:50
So we have this conflicting perspective between our two identities. So having or giving from a leadership perspective a sense of purpose of how this person can help the overall goal of the company or the over goal of the team, it's something that help to manage in a proper way, this conflicting situation.
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18:13
So I would work more on the soft side, rather than on the hard side, because the hard side is not really something we can control when we are in a hybrid form. What we can work is to motivate people and engage people toward the goal we would like to reach together.
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Virginia Stagni
18:33
Thank you very much Massimo thanks to our challengers for the question. This has been very inspiring, very useful and I think we have so much to take away even from a very pragmatic and day-to-day activities and habits, but we can build for ourselves as employees, as leaders of course as humans. I really hope you enjoyed our chat today. I certainly did.
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Massimo Magni
18:55
Thank you very much Virginia. I enjoyed a lot and thanks for for inviting me and I learned a lot as well.
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Virginia Stagni
19:03
If you have any feedback around these conversations, you can reach out to us via social media at @ft_talent. You can drop us an email at fttalent @ft.com. And thanks again to you professor Magni for being with us.
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Massimo Magni
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