FAQ » frequently asked questions

q. What's your workshop called?

a. Team Dynamics: how to build high-performing teams and great team players. Our workshop is based on 10 years of client work and research by David Marcum and Steven Smith. Their highly-acclaimed books, including their most recent Simon & Schuster book, egonomics, are published in over 25 languages and 50 countries.

q. What do you mean by "high-performing" teams?

a. Not all teams are created equal. Because they're not equal in talent or ambition, every team on the planet is capable of accomplishing differing levels of achievement. But every team does have a certain capacity. Hitting that high-performance capacity is what we help teams do, regardless of their "ceiling." With that said, there are three different pieces of the puzzle for teams to reach their capacity:

1. top talent, right fit: getting highly-talented people on the team, and having those people in the right roles.
2. drive: the boldness of the goals they set, and their desire and ambition to hit those goals.
3. team dynamics (people): the team culture and individual traits of people on that team.

q. What's the workshop like?

a. Very interactive; discussion, debate, activities, communication practices, planning, experiential learning, documentary videos, etc. The pace of the training moves pretty quickly.

q. How is your training delivered?

a. We deliver our workshops onsite, through client facilitator certification (train-the-trainer), and LiveWeb (live + online = LiveWeb) delivery of our one-day workshop taught exclusively by the authors.

q. Do you offer only the full, 2-day workshop?

a. No...our goal is business relevance. If you don't need everything we teach, then we make adjustments. To use iTunes as a metaphor, you don't need to buy the whole album to get the song you want. However, we will want to discuss with you how the content is connected, and what the tradeoffs are by eliminating certain pieces of content so you're crystal clear about what you will and won't get.

q. Who should attend?

a. Our Team Dynamics workshop is for anyone who works on a team or extensively with other people; executive teams, department teams, project teams, management teams and committees, etc. In-tact teams are preferable, but not required.

If you're teaching this content in an "open enrollment" situation, we don't recommend deciding attendance by "level" in the organization, but by the need a person has to work effectively with other people. If you want the most powerful organizational change though, start at the top.

q. What are the core objectives and benefits of the training?

a. We teach the communication and collaboration skills that separate great teams and team players from everyone else. At a high level, teams measurably raise their level of performance because they know exactly how to:

1. cut down on wasted meeting time and work together effectively because personal and territorial agendas are history.
2. reduce turnover because the team values and accesses diversity of thought during collaboration processes that keep people's talents engaged and daily innovation alive.
3. ask better business questions and rigorously test their assumptions, creating stronger ideas and fewer wasted projects.
4. get more strategic work done, spend less energy chasing pet projects, and accept less excuses about why things don't change.
5. break down barriers that block candor in meetings and one-on-one discussions and performance reviews.
6. uncover what they could do better, and are dedicated to constant improvement.
7. get people on the same page and operating from the same leadership philosophy.

Here are five learning objectives of the training to reach those goals:

1. increase the open, honest debate of ideas
2. maximize individual talent and diversity of thought on team
3. raise the level of candor and listening in one-on-one communication
4. build individual leadership capability
5. increase capacity to drive and embrace change

With that said, each team's specific objectives can vary based on their functional role in an organization, their industry, their highest-profile projects, etc. We work with each client to make sure that what we deliver matches what they need to accomplish most.

q. What are the core competencies of the training?

a. Go here to read the list of competencies in detail.

q. What training category does your workshop fall under?

a. Most clients put our training into the category of team communication and collaboration. Some use it for individual leadership development and one-on-one communication.

q. What's so different about what MarcumSmith does compared to everyone else?

a. The answer is partly in what we teach, and partly in how we do it.

Based on cross-disciplinary research, we provide insightful ideas and relevant, practical tools that people need to improve the way a team works together. One of the unique things about our work is that we talk about ego (yes, ego), and how it affects dynamics for good and bad. We don't talk about ego in the "Freudian," or deeply psychological sense, but in the practical way our individual confidence affects our talent and ability to contribute and perform. Our teaching of "egonomics" is central to what we teach.

We also teach business humility, and how humility separates great leaders and team players from everyone else. But based on our work and research, we have a very different definition and application of humility than most people. Additionally, we don't just teach people how to make communication "safe," but how to create intense, productive debate while keeping that debate objective and constructive. That alone helps tap into the diversity of team players rather than just claiming we have "difference." We believe there's a big difference between continuing a conversation, and advancing one.

Last but not least, we teach a concept called "water-cooler honesty." Unless people candidly and diplomatically share what's on their mind, then strategies are bound to mediocrity and vision is destined to veer off track. People shouldn't need to retreat to the water cooler to share what's really on their mind, especially when it's bad news or difficult to say.

In terms of how we teach, we are down-to-earth. At MarcumSmith, we are businesspeople who teach team dynamics and leadership, not instructional designers or motivational speakers who try and relate to business. We love research and evidence about what works, not just nice-sounding theory for theory's sake. Ironically, were not big fans of most training and so we work hard to make sure ours makes a difference in the real world, not just on a PowerPoint slide or in "Seminarland."

Relevance and performance is what counts, and our content is designed exclusively to that end. We also like to have fun...we believe the business world takes itself a little too seriously sometimes.

q. So it's a team-building workshop?

a. It depends on what you mean by "team-building." This isn't a "rah-rah" let's pull everyone together and have an experience that brings us closer "together" as a team. No rope climbing. No trust falls. No silly training stunts. We focus on what's really going on inside your team and work on the skills and strategies that will make working together more fluid and effective. There is unnecessary friction on almost every team. We reduce that friction and replace it with a better, more effective way to work. Doing great work together and succeeding is what really builds teams.

q. Tell me about your "Team Dynamics" survey.

a. Our survey is built on 10 years of work and research with teams. It assesses a team's tendencies and habits in the way they work as voted by the people who work on those teams. You can read more about the survey here and take the survey free once you visit our survey site.

q. Are you affiliated with Jim Collins and his work in Good to Great?

a. No. We have tremendous respect for Jims work. In fact, it was Good to Great that sparked our latest Simon & Schuster book, egonomics. Many people have told us that they see our work as the how-to for becoming a "Level 5" leader in Collins work.

Reaching "Level 5" then enables people to execute on Collins findings to develop a Hedgehog concept, get the right people on the bus, confront the brutal facts, etc. If you haven't read Good to Great, you need to. We highly recommend it. We encourage our clients to buy his book to accompany our book and training.

q. What will people think, especially executives, if I bring up that one of your books is titled egonomics?

a. That's mostly a self-inflicted concern; that people will automatically assume you're talking about them (and about their ego) when you bring anything that mentions the word "ego." That's simply not true—we know by experience. If you brought up "Good to Great," will someone be offended because you're saying they're not great already? If you bring up the "7 Habits of Highly Effective People," will someone be insulted because you're saying that they're not highly effective? The word ego creates unneeded apprehension. Don't let it stand in your way.

The title "egonomics" came from the question Jim Collins posed in his book, Good to Great. That is, how do you balance fierce personal resolve and ego drive with humility? It was the distinguishing characteristic between leaders in companies who turned their organizations from good to great, and those who couldn't.

q. How do I get people to buy into "soft skills" training? Some people believe it never works.

a. Count us in as part of those critics. Were skeptical too, and that's why we measure the progress of the teams and organizations we work with and focus so much on practical, real-world application. Additionally, soft skills aren't really "soft." Often the hardest side of business to manage is the human side. How much does it cost when people don't listen, move forward with functional agendas despite what's in the best interest of the business at large, get defensive, don't speak up about what's not working, or don't ask questions and simply "do their jobs?"

Secondly, nothing works if people don't practice, work at it, and hold each other (and themselves) accountable. We focus strongly on that.

q. Why don't we just do communication or team-building training?

a. You can go through all the techniques you want, and there are some effective techniques. But the reason people don't listen, speak up, or keep debates constructive isn't usually because they lack awareness of technique. Without open minds, curiosity and water-cooler honesty, technique falls flat.

Until people understand how team dynamics and egonomics work, technique doesn't matter nearly as much, and "good" performance is about as far as you can go.

q. What difference does this training really make?

a. Our clients credit us with a 48.9% improvement in their individual effectiveness. On average, teams move at least an entire, measured "grade" on their performance after working with us. Some describe our work with them as transformative. You can read case-studies here.

Our client list includes companies from the Fortune 500, America's Most Admired Companies, and the 100 Best Companies to Work For. They tell us that our training makes a bigger difference than anything else they do, and impacts everything they've been taught to do to be effective.