Chief Change Officer
#144 Tricia and Edward: Getting Teams to Work Together Without the Headaches – Part Two
Sun, 19 Jan 2025
Part Two. Social media has conditioned us to treat connections as fleeting, but real collaboration demands something deeper. How can we build strong teams and achieve lasting success without meaningful relationships? In the last episode, I sat down with Tricia Cerrone and Edward J. van Luinen, who had transformed their Disney work relationship into a 10-year friendship and a thriving partnership. They’re now co-authoring a book to help others unlock the power of sustainable collaboration. Today's episode is part two, where we’ll explore their unique framework: five key behaviors and a focus on “noble purpose” that redefines teamwork. Key Highlights of Our Interview: Why Telling People to ‘Collaborate’ Doesn’t Actually Work “Think you can just tell your team to collaborate and expect magic? Think again. Collaboration isn’t one action—it’s a mix of behaviors, and it starts with the individual, not fancy tools or technologies.” Why Collaboration Equals Innovation “Collaboration boosts innovation exponentially. It’s not about wasting time competing with colleagues; it’s about working together to solve problems and deliver innovative solutions that make your company stand out.” Noble Purpose: More Than Just Vision and Mission “Leaders need to remind their teams of the noble purpose behind their work. Whether it’s delivering diapers or developing apps, connecting individuals to the bigger impact they have on customers is key to motivation and collaboration.” The Hidden Barriers to Teamwork: Why Collaboration Fails “From egos to insecurities, collaboration struggles often stem from within. True teamwork begins by addressing these internal challenges, transforming both ourselves and our workplace relationships.” Why Gratitude and Generosity Aren’t Just Nice-to-Haves “Generosity creates safety, resourcefulness unlocks solutions, and gratitude gives teams the chance to rest and recover. Together, these behaviors make collaboration more than a buzzword—they make it work.” Connect with us: Host: Vince Chan | Guests: Tricia Cerrone and Edward J. Van Luinen ______________________ --Chief Change Officer-- Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself. Open a World of Deep Human Intelligence for Growth Progressives, Visionary Underdogs, Transformation Gurus & Bold Hearts. 6 Million+ All-Time Downloads. Reaching 80+ Countries Daily. Global Top 3% Podcast. Top 10 US Business. Top 1 US Careers. >>>100,000+ subscribers are outgrowing. Act Today.<<< --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.EdTech Leadership Awards 2025 Finalist.18 Million+ All-Time Downloads.80+ Countries Reached Daily.Global Top 1.5% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>170,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<
Chapter 1: What is collaboration and why is it important?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chan, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Don't burn bridges.
Keep up with business connections and personal relationships because you never know when that connection or person could become your collaborator, business partner, or referral to a great opportunity. That's how I landed five job offers within three months after leaving a role that led to mental depression years ago. Today, though, it's so easy to burn and build bridges.
You can add a friend in quotation in one second. and just as easily delete them. This user-friendly, in quotation, UI UX experience has seeped into our modern mindset, making it effortless to kick people out of our own circles or lives. But without sustainable connections, How can we collaborate, build stronger teams, and create outcomes that benefit everyone?
In today's episode, I sit down with two guests, Edward Vanduden and Tricia Strong, to talk about connection and collaboration. Yesterday, Edward and Tricia reflected on their own collaborative journey, which started 10 years ago at Disley. They turned a positive work relationship into a sustainable personal friendship that has now grown into a business partnership.
and a co-authoring collaboration on a book about collaboration. Today, part two will dive into the vision and framework for collaboration centered on a noble purpose and five key behaviors. What are these behaviors? How can we practice them? And why is collaboration so challenging today? I assure you, the method isn't just another software solution.
It's far more human-centered than what we're used to seeing. Let's start collaborating. Before we dive into the five principles in your book and the noble purpose behind it, I want to ask, why does this book matter? On the flip side, what is the problem you're trying to solve with the book? From what you've shared with me so far, you believe collaboration
is the solution to many of the biggest workplace challenges so if collaboration is the key that means there are a lot of issues in the workplace today what are those problems
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Chapter 2: What are the hidden barriers to teamwork?
as you see them. But we see collaboration as two or more people working toward a common goal where they are using all their knowledge, skills, resources, and potential to achieve it. And that's important because they have to feel like they're also uniquely contributing, like you were, Vince, in that job where you were so excited to get out of bed. So it's important that they feel that.
I think also then the problem when people say collaborate, I'll back up. In 2014, there were a couple different studies that said collaboration was the cause for 86% of workplace failures, and that was Salesforce. And there was another study done that they were looking at Australia, and if they could just solve the problem of collaboration, they would make another 46 billion a year.
And Australia is a fairly small economy compared to some other countries, and that's a significant amount of money.
And as we look at these statistics of people measuring problems in the workplace of not being engaged and quiet quitting and having stress, like the youngest generation coming into the workforce, 91% of them experience at least one kind of stress, which is basically saying everyone is stressed.
We do think collaboration is the solution because the way we have designed it, you can design it into yourself and into your team and into your company. We're saying that you should design meaning and purpose, which is the noble purpose for the company and for the individuals. And we're saying you should always be leveling up yourself
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Chapter 3: How does noble purpose drive motivation?
in these behaviors of generosity and resourcefulness and co-creation and action and gratitude. Because all five of those, we pick them for certain reasons because they interact and support each other and build on each other.
And they actually impact our brain in different and similar ways that help us to think better, to be more resilient, to be more confident, to be happier and all these other things. But we also have seen that people say, oh, go collaborate, but they don't understand what that means.
What we have discovered in our work or what we believe from the work that we've done is that people just simply don't understand what collaboration is. And they're spending billions of dollars on a problem they don't understand. Two issues with that. People think that the core unit of collaboration is teams or tools or technologies.
But we're saying, no, the core unit of collaboration is the individual. And so we all have to work on our individual skills first or we won't be able to collaborate with anyone. There's this other piece of collaboration is not one action. It's a collection of actions or behaviors. So you need, that's why we said these five behaviors.
If you have these, you will be collaborative and your team will be collaborative. And so those misunderstandings, it's like... People say go collaborate when they say go ride a bike. You didn't learn how to ride a bike by doing one thing. You had to learn how to pedal the wheels and balance and use the handlebars and there's all these other things.
So it's actually a slightly more complex activity. But once you get it, we believe that you will become an incredibly high performer and develop a high performance team.
Absolutely. I couldn't agree more, Trish. I believe the problem that we solve with collaboration is radically increasing innovation. Every CEO, every C-suite leader, every middle manager is trying to increase innovation. That's the problem that collaboration solves is we deliver innovation.
not only in leadership and building teams but using the five behaviors as trisha says to be more efficient to drive career growth to drive better solutions because they're collaborative decisions and solutions in a virtual world where running a business has never been more difficult So the why is expanding innovation. And we reflect that in our book title, which is Collaborate to Compete.
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Chapter 4: What are the five key behaviors for effective collaboration?
Let's not compete with our colleagues. Wasted effort, waste of time. We collaborate so we as a company can innovate and compete better with others outside the company. So it's really the focus of what we want to do is collaborate. And the why, Vince, with your excellent question, is to increase innovation exponentially.
Chapter 5: How can gratitude and generosity improve teamwork?
So that's why the name of the book is Collaborate to Compete. Collaborate Internally. to compete successfully, eternally, right?
Yes. But don't become a competitor. Use the same to your excellent earlier question, Vin. And Trish, as we're all talking about, use the behaviors. Use the noble purpose outside as well. Don't turn into a different person once you're outside the company. You're a collaborative leader. You've built a collaborative team.
Chapter 6: Why does collaboration lead to innovation?
Extend those behaviors and noble purpose and process and roadmap that Trish was describing to your life. That's the true, we feel, innovation here.
So tell me more about this noble purpose. How do you define it?
Noble Purpose is really a combination of vision and mission. But it's more than that. So you have your company vision and mission, but then you might have a team who is doing a project within a company. And so you want to take that noble purpose for the company.
Let's say the noble purpose for the company is we make diapers and deliver them 24 hours a day to serve families at the messiest time in their life. And so that's an important thing. You're literally saving some mother's sanity and some little baby from diaper rash. That's the big emotional noble purpose of it.
So there's like what you are physically doing and the customer, the value and the change and the impact that you're having on their lives. Now that can get lost when you're just a little person on a team, maybe developing a new app for the company. You're the person programming and you can lose sight of the noble purpose for the company.
And so we always ask the leaders that you have to take that noble purpose and explain it to your team, the importance of this app for them. your end customer right not just for the company roi this app is going to now be accessible to the mother or father for them to access and order diapers to be delivered within eight hours then with that like programmer you also wanted let them know look
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Chapter 7: How do personal relationships impact professional collaboration?
This app wouldn't happen without your unique skills and our team wouldn't even function that if you didn't have that sense of levity in your work and the outgoing curiosity that you have.
So a leader wants to bring that noble purpose to the individual in a very specific and unique way so that person feels seen and valued for everything that they're bringing to the job and to the company and to the people they are serving in the bigger world.
We don't spend enough time First of all, articulating what the noble purpose is and the why. So link that Vince to your earlier question about you being motivated to want to go to work at one of your past workplaces. What happens? We are in back-to-back meetings for 10 hours a day.
We're just trying to get tasks done, but we need to spend time, as Trish says, sharing what is the noble purpose with the team and with each individual to ensure they understand the why and tie it back to, Vince, what you said, so that I do feel like I want to get my head off the pillow and go to work, which I did at Disney. because the noble purpose is incredibly motivating at Disney.
to create things every day. So tie the noble purpose, explaining the why, making sure it resonates and is real for the team member so that they want to get their head off the pillow and want to go to work. And also at the end of the day, have a dinner conversation that's exciting. Oh, this happened at work today. Oh, this team member did this. Our leader shared this information with me.
Those are the deeply human metrics that drive collaboration. And I think we were able to do that.
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Chapter 8: What is the significance of storytelling in teamwork?
Edward and I were both at Walt Disney Imagineering. So we were working to design the theme parks and experiences around the world. And one of my very first attractions that I did was in Epcot. And it was a small little attraction where you design a robot and then you race on a dance pan. You have these different winners. Opening week, there was this family that came in to play.
It was a father and mother, a very annoyed, cynical-looking teenage boy and a little girl. They start playing the game. They're looking, and then they start getting a little competitive with each other. Then they race. And when they left the attraction, they were literally walking off the dance pads, and the son and the father high-fived each other.
And the son's face was so transformed, like he had had fun and laughter. And their engagement while they were playing, it created a different space for them to engage. How they looked at each other was different. and how they experienced each other was different. The dad put his arm around his son as they were walking out. And I literally almost started crying.
I might've been crying because that's the noble purpose for Imagineers. Yes, we're building these beautiful spaces and these rides that are fun, But what continues to drive you when you're working 24-7 trying to install an attraction or something is the memory of, I'm doing this for that family that has no other place where they can connect and see each other in the most important way.
The feeling, that desire that a parent has to connect with their kid and have a memory. express love in a way they can't express it. That's what noble purpose, when you can explain it to your team members, it's powerful and it gives us all kind of meaning in our lives.
As I'm listening to you, I'm visualizing this noble purpose as being at the top. And then these five principles you mentioned serve as the pillars supporting and driving that purpose. If I'm understanding correctly, these principles are the foundation for everything. I'd love to learn more about each of these fundamental behaviors. Could you walk me through them?
I would offer that the five behaviors of generosity, co-creation, action, resourcefulness, and gratitude are first in Collaborate to Compete. Why are they first? Because the root about how we work is much more important than what we're doing. You need the what.
But in most performance management systems that we've all been in, we've created, we've designed, we've led, and we've had to communicate to our team members, put what first? What are your goals? Oh, okay, you did your goals wonderfully. Okay, you were a nice person at the same time, but oh, sometimes you weren't a nice person, but that's okay because you accomplished your goals.
In a way, the five behaviors are radically human, and they have to be put in the first position because the how you work is based on it being more important than what you're doing. Now, the noble purpose, as we've just been talking about, is vital and has to happen as well, but it happens next. That makes sure that we're all aligned.
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