Teamcraft Andrew Maclaren & Mark Ridley

Communication is arguably the most important criteria for a team to exist. Without communication we can't share a goal, distribute tasks or celebrate a success. In this epidsode, Andrew introduces research which considers how teams are created through communication, and Mark reflects on the less obvious but powerful impact that cultural differences have on communication in teams.In this episode we talk about:Teams are constituted through communication - the way team members talk to each ...

In this episode of "Teamcraft," co-hosts Mark Ridley and Andrew Maclaren discuss the evolution of teamwork from its early origins in human and primate ancestors to modern practices in various industries. They explore how teamwork has been influenced by historical, societal, and technological changes, emphasising the adaptability and uniqueness of human collaboration.In this episode we talk about:The Evolution of Teamwork from our early human ancestors to modern times, highlighting key evoluti...

In 1965, psychologist Bruce Tuckman described how teams move through stages of team maturity, which he christened "forming, storming, norming, and performing".In this episode, Andrew and Mark delve into the intricacies of Bruce Tuckman's famous team development model. They discuss its origins, practical applications, limitations, and the impact on modern team dynamics. We explore Tuckman's background, the history of the model and the paper that introduced it, modern criticism of the mode...

“We need to put aside our selfish impulses and wants and subsume those for helping make our colleagues successful and ultimately the team successful.”Mark and Andrew are joined by Dave Winsborough, an organisational psychologist, entrepreneur and author. We explore the differences between teams and groups, the challenges of artificial team stimulation, the importance of psychological safety, the power of rituals in teams, and the role of personality in team dynamics. We also discuss the misus...

In this Teamcraft episode, Mark and Andrew talk about their fascination with the origins and evolution of the word "team", and how it came to indicate near-magical properties of cooperation when compared to other words like ‘group’, or perhaps, ‘committee’...The journey starts with the discovery that there are some misattributions of the word team gaining its special meaning, but that it may well have been emergent in groundbreaking research by the Tavistock Institute in the 1950s and 1960s.&...

Our guest today is Lt Colonel Matt Johns MBEAfter graduating from University, Matt started his career as an officer in the British Army in 2005, going through the Army’s world-renowned Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. This was an intense period for the UK armed forces with conflict going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Matt did multiple deployments as well as time in Kenya and Germany. He then went back to work in the delivery of the officer training programme at the Sandhurst Military ...