IMPACTFUL Teamwork

Hosted by Julia Felton

Business Management Entrepreneurship EducationInterviews guests

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133

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Oct 2026

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About the show

This podcast is for you if you’re a business owner, business leader, entrepreneur or executive who knows they want to make a real impact in the world and knows they can’t do it alone. Your host is Julia Felton, a leadership and team engagement specialist provides unique insights into how to harness the energy of your people to create massive business momentum through unlocking the super-power of teamwork. Some of the questions we grapple with are: - You know you need a team to help you but how do you get your team on the same page? - How do you get them pulling in the same direction and not pulling apart? - How do you create a connected, collaborative, cohesive team? In this podcast I will be sharing with you strategies and tactics to help you become the best leader you can be so that you can inspire IMPACTFUL teamwork. Teams that make a real difference. Each podcast will be full of actionable steps you can take and implement immediately. We’ll also be interviewing guests to learn from them what has worked for them and importantly what hasn’t. Rest assured there will also be a good dose of wisdom from the natural world as I believe that nature contains a blueprint for how we can all work together to create engaged, enthusiastic, empowered teams.

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60 recent

October 19, 202628 min

Your Biggest Cyber-Security Risk Already Sits Around Your Board Table

Julia interviews Robbie Tyrie of Torridon Cyber about why cybersecurity is often undervalued by leaders of scaling businesses despite being critical to long-term success. Robbie recounts his career path into cyber from the Y2K era through roles across IT and security, including building cybersecurity functions at JP Morgan, Virgin Money, Aegon, and as global head of cyber at FNZ, and explains penetration testing and why he launched his own firm. He describes his fractional CISO service advising boards on risk, helping scale-ups that don’t need a full-time CISO. The discussion frames security as a trust-based business enabler, outlines basics like MFA, asset and risk registers, and staff awareness, recommends frequent training and phishing tests, and stresses top-down culture via security champions. They cover AI governance risks, the rise of scattergun AI-enabled attacks targeting smaller firms, the need for KPIs/scorecards and M&A due diligence, and a dentist business closing after ransomware, highlighting backups and cyber insurance. 00:00 Welcome and Why Cyber Matters 00:45 Robbie’s Cybersecurity Journey 02:58 From Corporate to Founding Torridon 04:05 What a Fractional CISO Does 04:53 Cybersecurity as a Trust Builder 07:44 Security Basics and Staff Risk 08:40 Training That Actually Sticks 10:35 AI Governance and New Threats 15:36 Building a Security Culture 20:13 Scaling Up and Due Diligence 24:25 Ransomware Reality Check 25:58 Final Takeaways and Where to Find Robbie You can connect with Robbie at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tyrie/ Connect with Julia: Website LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Take the IMPACTFUL Teamwork Quiz to assess your team's communication, creativity culture, goal clarity, and conflict resolution skills! Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

October 12, 202625 min

Values Conflict: Understanding the Root Causes

Julia explains why teamwork is a competitive advantage, then shares a personal story about being forced to move her horses from a 24/7 grazing field to a yard requiring nightly stabling, which triggered a values conflict she initially blamed on the horses but realised was her own. Using Rushworth Kidder’s distinction between right-vs-wrong temptations and right-vs-right dilemmas, she identifies her tension between valuing her horses’ space and her own freedom, and uses Shalom Schwartz’s values circle to show how self-direction can oppose security and conformity. She distinguishes values conflict from Andrew Jameton’s “moral distress,” when circumstances remove choice. She outlines signs of values conflicts in teams and offers four approaches: name the conflict and whose it is, separate values from strategies, manage tensions with warning signs and review dates, and seek a third option via integrative thinking, linking this to designing trust-based reliance on others. 00:50 Horse Move Story 03:50 Values Conflict Defined 06:38 Moral Distress vs Dilemma 08:42 When Conditions Change 12:23 Spotting Values Conflicts 15:50 Values vs Goals Clarity 17:42 Herd Lessons on Freedom 1 8:56 Four Ways to Resolve 22:26 Weekly Leadership Challenge 23:32 Wrap Up and Resources Connect with Julia: Website LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Take the IMPACTFUL Teamwork Quiz to assess your team's communication, creativity culture, goal clarity, and conflict resolution skills! Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

October 4, 202635 min

The Power of Masterminds: Building Psychological Safety, Connection, and Growth with Jay Fairbrother

Host Julia Felton welcomes Jay Fairbrother (“The Mastermind Guy”) to discuss masterminding as a leadership tool for building stronger teams and businesses. Jay clarifies that true masterminds, rooted in Napoleon Hill’s concept, are not networking groups or guru-led coaching but a facilitated process that draws collective wisdom from the room to create an “invisible, intangible” force. He shares how masterminds helped him scale his first company from $1M to $10M revenue and later provided crucial financial, emotional, and spiritual support after he lost everything following the 2008 financial crisis. They explore corporate applications such as peer-to-peer learning to increase authenticity, psychological safety, retention, and leadership identification, plus key success factors: the right members, a strong “container” (confidentiality, trust, respect), skilled facilitation, vetting, and an optimal size of 8–14. Jay also addresses “Superman Syndrome” (difficulty delegating) and offers a free “Mastermind Clarity and Readiness Advisor” and an October three-day virtual boot camp to build a mastermind. 00:45 Meet Jay Fairbrother 01:23 What Is a Mastermind 04:07 Jay’s 10X Story 08:09 Masterminds in Corporations 11:08 Connection in a Digital Age 13:08 Building the Right Container 16:37 Vetting and Group Fit 17:48 Types of Masterminds 20:46 Results and Ideal Size 25:19 In Person vs Virtual 27:51 Superman Syndrome 31:55 Resources and Wrap Up You can access Jay's webinar here - https://6figuremasterminds.com/mm-advisor Or sign up for his intensive bootcamp here - https://6figuremasterminds.com/built-pricing Connect with Julia: Website LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Take the IMPACTFUL Teamwork Quiz to assess your team's communication, creativity culture, goal clarity, and conflict resolution skills! Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

September 28, 202627 min

AI and Cultural Debt: The Hidden Trust Risks Shaping Your Organisation

This episode of the Impactful Teamwork podcast argues that AI is changing organisational culture whether leaders intend it or not, and that the biggest risk is cultural debt—unaddressed behaviours, tensions, and unwritten rules that compound over time. Drawing on Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends survey, it highlights that 42% of workers say their organisation rarely evaluates AI’s impact on people, and 80% of leaders worry colleagues use AI to appear more productive. The host outlines five trust risks: blurry ownership and accountability (including 41% using AI to automate work without employers knowing), “performance productivity” and work slop, fairness in evaluating output versus effort, reduced human connection as AI replaces interactions, and erosion of judgment (with 42% of executives concerned about over-dependence). Leaders are urged to surface new trust questions, clarify accountability, define fair-use principles, deliberately protect connection, and model transparent AI use. 00:46 AI Shaping Culture 02:20 Cultural Debt Explained 05:16 Unwritten Rules Shift 06:54 Trust Risk One Ownership 08:59 Trust Risk Two Work Slop 11:05 Trust Risk Three Fairness 13:07 Trust Risk Four Connection 15:35 Trust Risk Five Judgment 18:05 Design Human Machine Partnership 19:39 Five Leader Actions Connect with Julia: Website LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Take the IMPACTFUL Teamwork Quiz to assess your team's communication, creativity culture, goal clarity, and conflict resolution skills! Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

September 21, 202626 min

Are We Automating Away Our Humanity? The Leadership Question AI Cannot Answer

This episode of the Impactful Teamwork podcast explores whether organisations are “automating our way out of humanity” as AI accelerates. Julia highlights rare agreement among AI leaders—Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and Elon Musk—on the need to pace AI development, noting Amodei’s argument that governance and safeguards are lagging behind capability. The episode argues the biggest AI leadership challenge is human, not technological: efficiency can become a dangerous addiction, and outsourcing friction may also outsource connection, trust, empathy, and wisdom. Drawing on King Charles’ comments about “emotional excellence” and nature’s balance, plus lessons from horse herds, it proposes leaders anticipate what AI changes, intentionally design what AI handles vs. what remains human, and implement through experimentation while measuring impacts on connection and thinking. 00:55 AI Moving Too Fast 03:10 Wisdom Over Efficiency 06:42 Harmony And Humanity 09:35 Horses And Connection 12:13 The Great AI Paradox 15:07 Reinventing Leadership Teams 18:30 Implementing AI Wisely 21:09 Nature Seasons And Pause 21:59 Three Leadership Questions 23:20 Deliberately Human Future Connect with Julia: Website LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Take the IMPACTFUL Teamwork Quiz to assess your team's communication, creativity culture, goal clarity, and conflict resolution skills! Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

September 14, 202628 min

The Environment You Create Impacts The Candour In Your Business

Host Julia Felton argues that silence on leadership teams is often a rational response to the environment leaders create, not a lack of courage, and that psychological safety is built continuously through everyday interactions. Citing Kurt Lewin’s idea that behaviour is a function of the person and their environment, she describes Amy Edmondson’s hospital findings that better teams report more errors because admitting mistakes is survivable, warning that “clean” error logs may signal suppression. Using horse-based examples and Nokia’s 2005–2010 smartphone decline research, she shows how fear and misaligned pressure distort information flow and decision-making. Julia highlights four environmental design factors: leaders’ first three-second reaction to bad news, what happens to information after it’s raised, reward structures that discourage experimentation, and what happened to the last truth-teller. She closes with a “Cafe moment” story illustrating how shared frameworks change conditions and enable feedback. 00:46 Why Leaders Miss Bad News 02:03 Rethinking Psychological Safety 03:05 Leadership Quote And Environment 05:38 How Reactions Shape Silence 07:34 Behavior And Environment Research 08:47 Amy Edmondson Error Reporting 11:26 Horses Tell The Truth 12:53 Horse Lessons For Teams 15:46 Nokia Fear And Failure 18:51 Four Environment Components 22:14 Cultural Zones And Modes 23:41 Steve Cafe Moment Story 25:16 Weekly Challenge Reflection 26:17 Wrap Up And Next Steps Connect with Julia: Website LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Take the IMPACTFUL Teamwork Quiz to assess your team's communication, creativity culture, goal clarity, and conflict resolution skills! Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

September 7, 202634 min

Learning From Failure: How Psychological Safety Helps us Build Innovative Teams

On the Impactful Teamwork podcast, host Julia Felton interviews Rachel Franco, founder of Fail Smarter, about why teamwork and learning from failure are competitive advantages. Franco shares how her Fortune 500 innovation enablement work and a Northwestern capstone on barriers to learning from failure led her to focus on helping leaders and teams overcome fear of failure so they can innovate. The conversation emphasises psychological safety—making it safe to speak up with ideas, concerns, and mistakes—through leader role-modelling, thoughtful responses, and measurement using Amy Edmondson’s Fearless Organization Scan. Franco cites data linking high psychological safety to lower turnover and higher engagement, productivity, learning agility, and skill application, and notes Google’s Project Aristotle finding it is the top factor in team effectiveness. They discuss practical blockers like lack of time, incentives, cross-team communication, weak user-centered thinking, rushed postmortems, and poor follow-through on ideas, plus experiential learning via the “failure toy” workshop and Fail Smarter’s quiz. 00:45 Meet Rachel Franco 01:27 Why Fail Smarter 04:59 Fear of Failure Culture 06:43 Psychological Safety Basics 09:00 Measuring Safety and Incentives 12:31 Stats That Prove It 17:06 AI Era Needs Experimentation 18:58 Why Projects Fail 21:05 Everyone Can Innovate 23:39 Ideas Need Follow Through 26:20 Failure Toy Workshop 29:34 Accountability and Smart Risk 31:03 Where to Find Rachel You can connect with Rachel at https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelfranco/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelfranco/ Connect with Julia: Website LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Take the IMPACTFUL Teamwork Quiz to assess your team's communication, creativity culture, goal clarity, and conflict resolution skills! Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

August 31, 202620 min

Your Leadership Team Is Not Under-Led. It Is Over-Ranked.

The episode argues that teamwork is a key competitive advantage and that many organisational problems—failed change initiatives, low engagement, and poor collaboration—reflect outdated leadership models. Drawing from June Gunter’s book "Chaos to Clarity" and the host’s training with horses, it introduces the diamond model of shared leadership based on herd dynamics: the lead mare provides direction from the front, the lead stallion protects and unifies from behind, and sentinels lead from the middle with awareness, advocacy, and integration of newcomers. The host recounts executives observing wild horses at Return to Freedom and seeing the diamond formation in action during uncertainty. The episode emphasises roles over ranks, the capabilities of attention, direction, energy, and congruence, and invites listeners to assign diamond roles to tackle a current team challenge. 00:00 126 - Chaos to Clarity 00:33 The Diamond Model 01:02 Shared Leadership 02:54 Three Positions of Leadership 04:20 The Lead Mare 05:08 The Lead Stallion 06:27 The Sentinels 07:56 Return to Freedom 11:05 Followship 13:43 The Business Case 14:35 This Week's Challenge 15:20 Closing Reflections Connect with Julia: Website LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Take the IMPACTFUL Teamwork Quiz to assess your team's communication, creativity culture, goal clarity, and conflict resolution skills! Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

August 24, 202641 min

Your Best Engineer Is Not Your Next Leader with Craig Bromage

Host Julia Felton welcomes Craig Bromage, Head of Infrastructure and Platforms at National Highways and creator of The Everyday Leader, to discuss teamwork and leadership. Craig reflects on nine years in the RAF, noting promotions often tied to courses, time served, and poor management with little HR correction, and contrasts this with civilian leadership development. They explore how technical experts are frequently promoted into management without the right skills, creating bottlenecks and divided focus, and argue for rewarding technical excellence without forcing people leadership. Craig’s leadership philosophy centres on “everyday” leadership, psychological safety, honest feedback, and being paid for outcomes not outputs, including the value of reflection and time away for clarity. They discuss AI adoption pitfalls such as sloppy, unchecked outputs, the need for human sanity checks and guardrails, and how AI may reshape jobs. The episode closes on authenticity, vulnerability, and congruence as trust builders, with insights from Julia’s horse-based leadership work. 01:26 RAF Leadership Lessons 04:19 Promotion Pitfalls 09:43 Everyday Leader Mindset 13:43 SMART Clarity Story 16:44 Outcomes Reflection 18:25 AI Adoption Risks 30:50 Remote Work Relationships 34:47 Horses Authentic Leadership 39:14 Closing Takeaways You can connect with Craig and read more about The Everyday Leader at https://www.linkedin.com/in/craig-bromage-0721192/ Connect with Julia: Website LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Take the IMPACTFUL Teamwork Quiz to assess your team's communication, creativity culture, goal clarity, and conflict resolution skills! Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

August 17, 202629 min

Your Leadership Team Is Not Misaligned. It Is Far Too Agreeable

This episode argues leadership teams are often not misaligned but overly “agreeing,” confusing verbal consent with true alignment, which is behavioural, accountable, and must hold under pressure. It explains how meetings can produce nodding and positivity yet no change in the following weeks, because silence is treated as consent, seniority distorts discussion, offsite decisions don’t survive real-world conditions, and agreement avoids hard trade-offs. Citing Gallup mid-2026 data (49% know what’s expected; 31% US engagement; 20% global engagement in 2025) and ILM research attributing 86% of business failure to silos and poor collaboration, it links clarity and alignment to engagement and cross-functional unity. It connects AI adoption to leadership clarity (KPMG: 7% measurable AI ROI) and uses horse-herd alignment and a “Cafe moment” case to illustrate shared language and feedback. It closes with three tests: independent priorities list, fortnight calendar change, and a dissent audit. 00:49 Agreement Isn’t Alignment 01:14 Why Nothing Changes After Meetings 02:33 Defining Alignment Under Pressure 05:26 The Data Behind Misalignment 09:10 Four Signs You’re Only Agreeing 13:35 Tolerable Culture Warning 14:46 AI Rollouts Expose Alignment Gaps 18:21 Horse Herds and True Alignment 20:33 Energy Beats Words in Leadership 22:50 Cafe Moment Shared Language 24:56 Three Tests to Build Alignment 27:29 Wrap Up and Call to Action Connect with Julia: Website LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Take the IMPACTFUL Teamwork Quiz to assess your team's communication, creativity culture, goal clarity, and conflict resolution skills! Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify