Teams That Swear

Adrian Baillargeon
  • 0.0 (0)
  • BUSINESS
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

Teams That Swear is a powerful podcast where leadership expert Adrian Baillargeon unpacks what makes exceptional teams thrive. With two decades of global experience, Adrian blends real-world insights, compelling stories, and a touch of humour to inspire leaders and teams to transform how they work together. Explore lessons in trust, collaboration, and purpose-driven leadership - all designed to help you and your team win the games that matter most.

  1. How to Build Cohesion Before You Blame Performance

    16H AGO

    How to Build Cohesion Before You Blame Performance

    What team analytics expert Ben Darwin teaches leaders about talent, growth and shared understanding. A Formula One engineer was poisoned by the wrong coffee machine, and the wrong tyres started going on the car. That story came from my latest conversation with Ben Darwin, team analytics expert and co-founder of Gain Line Analytics. It sounds ridiculous at first, but Ben’s point was sharp. Small gaps in shared understanding can create consequences much larger than leaders realise. In this episode, we unpack: Why performance problems are often team dynamic problems in disguiseWhy new talent needs context before judgementWhy growth is the enemy of understandingWhy cohesion is not chemistryHow leaders can build more deliberate shared understanding inside their teamsIf your team has grown, restructured, added new leaders or become harder to align than it should be, this conversation will give you a different way to look at what is really going on.

    1h 22m

  2. MAY 13

    Understand how your team works, not just your people

    Most senior leaders know their people pretty well. But knowing your people is not the same as knowing how your team actually works together. In this solo episode of the Teams That Swear™ podcast, I unpack the difference between individual insight and team-level insight, why personality tools only tell part of the story, and what can happen when a leadership team finally gets a clearer picture of the conversations, gaps and patterns sitting beneath the surface. If you lead a team and want to better understand how your team is really functioning, the AB Team Dynamics Assessment is designed to give you that starting point. It helps surface the patterns your team may sense, but struggle to talk about clearly. To learn more about the assessment or book an initial conversation click here

    14 min
  3. How to Prepare your Team before Pressure Hits

    APR 29

    How to Prepare your Team before Pressure Hits

    If you lead a team, you will recognise this moment when the result falls short and the energy in the room shifts. I recently sat down with Michael Crooks, who helped prepare TeamAustralia for the World Baseball Classic. They just missed the World Baseball Classic finals, yet the group grew closer. That outcome says a lot about the standards inside a team and the leadership behaviours that keep people aligned when things do not go to plan. In the episode, we unpack practical leadership behaviours, including: How to maintain standards without creating tension when performance dips.The questions to ask when expectations are not being met.Why giving people space after a setback often leads to better thinking.How preparation in the lead-up builds trust when results fall shortIf you are responsible for results and people, this conversation will feel relevant. Because leadership is not tested when things go well. It shows up when they do not.

    1h 24m

  4. APR 15

    Use Neuroscience to Help Manage the Craziness of Today's World

    I don't know about you, but to me, it feels like the world is going crazy.  Crazy wars. Crazy petrol prices. AI impacts and AI stories. Crazy increases in the cost of living. And craziness on ice. When has Canada ever lost gold medal games at the Olympics to the U.S. in the women's, men's, and Paralympic ice hockey teams? Never. Until now. This is not ideal. Whether we notice it or not, all this extra noise can affect us neurologically, emotionally, and mentally. When people are overloaded, decision-making slows, patience shortens, and focus drifts. Not because capability disappears, but because the brain is already working overtime to manage uncertainty. The thing is, most of the time we don't realise this consciously.  It shouldn't be a surprise that research from Gallup shows that only 23 per cent of employees globally are engaged at work, while stress levels remain near record highs. That is not a motivation problem. It is a cognitive load problem.   In this episode of Teams That Swear, I unpack how anxiety often shows up as over-analysis, hesitancy to make decisions, and four practical leadership moves to help you steady the team when everything outside feels unpredictable. Our brains love certainty, and the tips will help you and your crew create clarity.  It's important to realise that strong teams do not pretend pressure doesn't exist, or ignore it. The intent of the podcast is to help face the craziness together, speak honestly, and stay aligned on what matters most. That is how teams move from swearing about each other to swearing by each other.

    13 min
  5. How to Avoid a Negative Reaction You'll Regret

    APR 1

    How to Avoid a Negative Reaction You'll Regret

    Pressure doesn’t usually create bad leadership. It simply exposes habits we haven’t refined yet. That was one of the biggest takeaways from my conversation with Glenn Flood on the Teams That Swear podcast. Glenn spent more than thirty years working in high performance kitchens across Australia, Canada and the UK. Hetrained in Michelin-star environments, worked with Jamie Oliver and Tobie Puttock at Fifteen Melbourne, contributed to the early seasons of MasterChef Australia, and is now the author of Secret Sauce. In this episode we talk about what leadership actually looks like in environments where feedback is immediate, standards are visible and pressure never really disappears. We cover: how leaders translate pressure instead of transferring itwhy real-time feedback matters more than annual reviewshow friction improves decisions when it’s handled welland the moment Glenn realised his own reaction was the real leadership lessonIf you lead a team, there’s a lot in this conversation that will feel familiar.

    1h 16m

  6. MAR 18

    How to Balance Collaboration With Decisiveness

    If you’re a senior leader stuck in the tug of war between “include everyone” and “just make the call”, this Teams That Swear episode is for you. Because here’s what I’m seeing alot of: pressure from above to move faster, pressure from below to involve more people, and you’re trying to keep the work moving without leaving people feeling blindsided. In this episode you get insight into breaking down the difference most teams never name: people often want a voice, not a vote. When you confuse consultation with collaboration, and consensus with alignment, everything slows down and decisions start happening at the pace of the slowest voice in the room. You’ll also hear a real-life example, a clean way to draw the decision line, and four practical moves that stop meetings turning into long, messy debates and get execution moving again.If you’re tired of feeling like you cannot win either way, give it a listen.

    10 min
  7. What a police sniper knows about your leadership team

    MAR 4

    What a police sniper knows about your leadership team

    Ex-sniper Brett Pennell on training, expectations, and the moments teams remember. In the latest Teams That Swear episode, I sat down with Brett Pennell, former NSW Police Tactical Operations sniper, to talk about what pressure does to people and teams. Brett has spent more than 20 years in policing, including specialist roles where information is incomplete, time compresses, and decisions cannot be passed up the chain or softened by committee. If you lead people, you have seen this play out. Something goes wrong, the room tightens, and someone says, “We just need people to step up.” Brett’s experience pushes leaders toward a different question: what have we actually built here, and what will we become when pressure arrives? In the episode, we unpack four lessons leaders can use immediately: Pressure is never an individual experience, even when one person makes the call.When it matters most, people default to training and habit, not intention.The real cost of pressure often shows up after the event, especially when people carry it in silence.Pressure accelerates trust in teams that depend on each other, while corporate teams have to design trust deliberately.This is the kind of thinking that helps teams swear by each other, not about each other, because it shifts the focus from blaming individuals to strengthening how the team functions when it counts.Trigger warning: the episode references the Bondi tragedy and includes discussion of police response, firearms, and loss of life. If that feels heavy or activating right now, you may want to pause and return to it later.

    1h 15m

  8. FEB 18

    How to Run a Senior Leadership Team Reset That Actually Works

    If you lead a senior team, you’ll know this moment. You come back into the year or hit a pressure point mid-stream, and something feels off. People are busy but not connected. Priorities feel fuzzy. Conversations take more effort than theyshould. And everyone quietly hopes things will magically settle. They won’t. Senior teams don’t reset by accident. They reset by design. In this episode I break down: Why most kickoff and strategy days feel good but change almost nothingThe four moves that shift a senior team from misaligned to connectedHow to reset relationships before you reset prioritiesThe simple way to make hidden work visible so people stop stepping on each otherThe conversation almost every senior team avoids and why it shapes everythingWhy rhythm beats inspiration, and how great teams keep clarity aliveThe difference between a “meeting cycle” and a real leadership rhythmThe baseball version of senior leadership that always gets a laugh, but also lands the pointIf you want your team to swear by each other, not about each other, this one matters.

    9 min
See All (30)

About

Teams That Swear is a powerful podcast where leadership expert Adrian Baillargeon unpacks what makes exceptional teams thrive. With two decades of global experience, Adrian blends real-world insights, compelling stories, and a touch of humour to inspire leaders and teams to transform how they work together. Explore lessons in trust, collaboration, and purpose-driven leadership - all designed to help you and your team win the games that matter most.

Information

  • Creator
    Adrian Baillargeon
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    30
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Adrian Baillargeon
  • Show Website
    Teams That Swear