Dr. Dave Cornelius: How Having Fun and Building Trust Makes Teams Resilient and Successful

Richard:

Hello, Dr. Dave. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Dr. Dave:

Richard, it’s so good to see you. Right? Actually see you.

Richard:

You too. Yeah. Yeah, and someday soon, we’re going to be close enough to hug. Yeah. I was going to say shake hands, but whenever we see each other, we hug.

Dr. Dave:

We always hug. Yeah.

Richard:

Is there anything else you want to add to that introduction?

Dr. Dave:

Yeah. Hey, just finish this book called, “Belonging and Healing”, creating awesomeness for yourself and others. So, it’s just been spawned by some work that I was doing during COVID with the Agile Alliance sharing Bite Box stories. So, it’s just really talking about creating space for everyone to belong and actually find healing while they’re in that process. So, just wrap that up and working on another book that I was supposed to have done in 2020, but COVID changed that. So, “Deliver Value”. So I should have that done by the end of the year. Am I a underachiever or what?

Richard:

So, the new one that you just finished, that’s your fourth book, is that right?

Dr. Dave:

Yeah. And then I have fifth one is going to come at the end of August, so will be done with two books, so.

Richard:

And what’s the subtitle of the newest one, again?

Dr. Dave:

“Creating Awesomeness for Yourself and Others”.

Richard:

That’s what I thought you said. I love that, creating awesomeness for yourself and others. And that’s part of how we became friends, I think. We were at a conference together. I think it was Agile Arizona quite a few years ago. And like with that cross paths in the hallway, you’re asking me like what I do. And I said something about awesomeness and you’re like, “Ah, we’re going to be friends.”

Dr. Dave:

Yeah. Yeah. You know, we actually met in San Diego, at Agile Open San Diego before-

Richard:

That one. Yeah.

Dr. Dave:

Yeah. When I still lived in Southern California. Yeah.

Richard:

Yeah. So it’s really funny. We both like to experience and promote awesomeness in the world around us and the people around us.

Dr. Dave:

Yes. For sure, without a doubt.

Richard:

Yeah. Okay. So, totally following up on that awesomeness, “Awesomeness in Ourselves and the People Around Us”, this podcast is about teams. And I ask every guest to share about the best team they’ve ever been a member of in their entire life. And there’s no restrictions on team, except it’s more than you. It’s a group of two or more people aligned with shared goals. Could be a work team, could be a non-work team. We were talking about music earlier. It could be any group of two or more people with shared goals. What’s the best team that you’ve ever been a member of in your life?

Dr. Dave:

So professionally it’s been a few years, but you know, I work with this group of people in the financial space and we’re doing this whole service oriented architecture kind of stuff. And building these really amazing systems. This is where I got some of my Agile chops built up and also working in advanced technology. But just that group of people that I work with, man, to this day, when we meet with each other virtually, we have like the most amazing laughter about things that we experienced back then. And to me that was the fun part about it because it was fun. It was hard work, but it was fun to be a part of that team. There’s another team or band that I played with and it was a Christian band. And so the type of music that we played, it was contemporary Christian music, but it was really advanced stuff, a lot of jazz, aspect to it, rock aspect to it. So, being a member of that group was also fun. We broke bread together. We spent time talking and then also I’ll tell you, the other team is my 5 Saturdays team. The stuff that we do with high school kids.

Richard:

Oh yeah. What’s 5 Saturdays again? Let’s make sure everybody knows.

Dr. Dave:

5 Saturdays is a Stem program where we teach kids programming, entrepreneurship, we teach ’em basic Agile practices. And we teach ’em about what we call, our career readiness. So we spent five Saturdays with these students, teaching them how to do these real life skills. So that group of people, we’re still all friends today. And it’s been nine years since I started that program. So that group of people that we spent lots of summers together working with high school kids in Southern California, Arizona. Kind of like doing workforce development, helping them to get, 21st, 22nd century skills that they need.

Richard:

Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right. I want to go deeper into at least one of these, which one should we go deeper into? We got three here. The work one, the music one and the 5 Saturdays one. Which one should we go deeper?

Dr. Dave:

Let’s do 5 Saturdays. I think that would be very appropriate because it’s something that connects you and I as well. Right? Some of the stuff that I was eyeballing you doing around. Hey, what are you doing over there in that space in terms of bringing learning, and understanding to kids, right.

Richard:

Yeah. All right. All right. So, as you reflect on the 5 Saturdays team, and when we’re saying the 5 Saturdays team, we’re talking about the organizers, the teachers, the volunteers, who is this group of people?

Dr. Dave:

And so what I’m talking about the team is we call ’em learning facilitators. So, you know John Jorkinson, right?

Richard:

Oh yeah.

Dr. Dave:

So, John was part of that team. So, and we’re great friends today. And so I’m reflecting on those group of people that we came together and the fact that we were able to collaborate and bring this program that I envisioned in my head that I ran a little experiment by myself with a group of people in Los Angeles and brought it together with this group that we were able to successfully deliver, teach high school kids how to do Agile, teach high school kids how to write programs, how to build, become entrepreneurs. So to me that experience working with John and others was just so much fun, you know?

Richard:

All right. And as you’re reflecting on it right now, as you’re reflecting on it, I don’t know if you’re feeling any sensation within yourself about it, but when you look back, or when you look forward, this work continues, if you could summarize what it feels like to work together with that team in one word? What one word would you use to describe that team or the way it feels within you as you work together?

Dr. Dave:

Fun.

Richard:

Yeah.

Dr. Dave:

And it’s one of the things that I add, I talk about high performing teams as well, but you know, one of the attributes that I add to high performing team is fun. We laugh together, we share life stories together, we share pains, challenges, things that’s happening in our families and children so to me that is fun and the fun plus trust. How’s that? I just made one word, fun plus trust.

Richard:

All right. Fun plus trust. So say more about fun plus trust.

Dr. Dave:

So, in order for someone to want to tell you, and for me to want to share something personal about my family remember there has to be some level of trust that I have with you. And so to me, that’s important, right. As we were spending all of this time trying to bring about change for an underserved group of people, because that’s where we serve, you know, underestimated people and communities that don’t have money and their families aren’t exposed to software development. First families aren’t exposed to Agile practices and some of these other things that if you have money, your kids could be, so to me being able to live in that space with those individuals and bring other people in, yeah man, it takes a lot of trust for someone to look at me and go like, “Are you a teacher?” No, I’m not a certified teacher. No, no, no. You know, I’m an educator, but I’m not a teacher in the sense that you think. “Okay, well, I’ll entrust my kids to you.” So even just that building that level of trust within the community itself is really important. And then the fun is to listen to all the laughter and the jokes that we have and things that we laugh at. You know, I can’t believe I just did that. I can’t believe I just said that. That’s what I’m talking about. You know what I mean? It’s really good stuff.

Richard:

And I can picture it, ’cause I know John really well, John Jorkinson, I know John Jorkinson really well. We’re good friends as well. Like I want to reconnect with him. It’s been a while. So, this team that runs 5 Saturdays, subjectively, qualitatively, subjectively, how do you know it’s a great team?

Dr. Dave:

You know, subjectively is, I could depend on those individuals. I know that we have, and even if we call it 5 Saturdays, the truth of the matter is really seven Saturdays. They give me a hard time about that all the time, you know. “Dave, I thought this was five Saturdays?” “No, it’s seven.” We have an intro, an award, you know, the brackets. So the fact that they would sign up and show up for this on a regular basis, I’m like, “Oh man, that’s really cool.” The fact that sometimes they take risks and try things that sometimes we fail at. That’s cool too. And then we retrospect about that. We go at the end, we talk about it. And then we laugh about it. To me, subjectively, that talks about what is a good team because we’re talking about us having a growth mindset, right. Being able to learn as we go through, just developing a story, a team story, right. And also the fact that we have this equity attitude. And to me that is a formidable thing for us to be able to allow different people to come and participate. People who have never done some of the stuff that we have, that we opened the door to that, and we have different genders and to me it is just like an amazing thing to be a part of that. I just get a lot of great joy, just even speaking about it, you know, I’m excited.

Richard:

Definitely, definitely. I can feel it. I bet everybody who’s listening and watching right now can feel it. What about objectively? How do you know it’s a great team? Is there something that somebody outside the group would be able to see or sense in some way?

Dr. Dave:

Oh yeah. So the good thing is we create specific artifacts, it’s like open space, right? We have things that we come from as conveners will have, you know, leave behind artifacts that we produce. So, one aspect is that they always create a presentation, what they learn, how it has impacted them. So it’s looking at those elements and bringing their family in. This is another cool thing. We bringing the family in to observe their students at the very end. And they could see the huge difference in their child that came to us six weeks prior and now in seven week, they’re communicating better. They have more confidence. They have a story to tell, right. And so those are the things that we know as a measurable outcome, what that looks like. And because it’s like, “Hey, look, this person created this great presentation.” And not only that, this person is like this group of people, because they’re working small teams to build things, right. So they’re like in triads or more, but that’s all we know that things are working and you see year over year, we have a historical context of how well teams have done, from the time they start to, they get to the very end of the program. But to me even more important than that is the return factor that we may get a person in the space at 13 years old. And then I may see ’em there for three years, and then all of a sudden they’re bringing their cousins and bringing their siblings, and to me that is a measure of success. And the fact that the learning facilitators, they come year after year, so it’s not a great turnover that takes place. And we have stories that we could share over time. So to me these are the measurable outcomes that we could point to when we’ve documented them and do a lot of film about it and things like that, so.

Richard:

Cool. All right. What are some of the actual concrete behaviors that you engage in together as a team to make all this happen?

Dr. Dave:

So it’s, we oftentimes one of the selling points to many people, all right, is that, “Look, we’re going to teach you Scrum. We’re going to teach you Agile Practices.” We’re going to be Scrum- And so some of the actual tangible patterns that we go through is that we’re going to have, we’re going to be very transparent and have stand ups, right. Or we’re going to plan what we’re going to teach each week and who is going to be part of that teaching team for that week, so we know who’s part of the team for each week. We have retrospectives. So, those are habits that we are built in that people learn how to plan, how to retrospect and look back and see how we’re getting be better at things. So, and one thing is that we try to instill psychological safety as an important aspect of how we interact with each other. And if that isn’t working, we just bring it up, right. And let’s talk about this, let’s see how we could work through this, because the key thing is that we have to trust each other because we have a group of people who do not know us 13 to 19 year olds, and their families and educators who are running that school to trust us with those lives, right. And those minds and hearts. So we have to be mindful of that. And we have to show up in such a way that we’re respectful to them in terms of having empathy as well. So, it’s a really big thing, taking on the responsibility of someone else’s child for four hours on a Saturday for seven Saturdays, 28 hours. That’s a huge responsibility. If you’re a parent, on your 28 hours, for your own kids, a huge responsibility, much less, 15 to 20 of someone else’s child that you have to be accountable. So as a unit, as a team, we have to work cohesively, you know? Yeah.

Richard:

How many people are on the team and how many people are there on any given Saturday? I mean, how many team members on any given Saturday?

Dr. Dave:

So the team members themselves, we try to have, the smallest that we want is about five people. And so we try to tap out at about 10. Sometimes we may end up with 10 people there, but we’re going to like, “Hey, can we stop at seven?”, seven is enough to deal with 15 to 20 kids. Right. And then also to give everyone an opportunity to work on their presentation skills, their facilitation skills, ’cause we’re actually presenting a topic and facilitating different activities, right. And so let’s say we’re doing the marshmallow challenge. Well, someone needs to explain that and then demonstrate what that looks like and have fun watching their marshmallows and spaghetti fall over the table. Right. I mean, someone needs to do that. So, that’s kind of like the size of the team, we’re modeling Agile practices. So we want to like kind of a scrum team-ish kind of thing, you know, one pizza.

Richard:

So that sounds like there there’s a lot of good advice for listeners in there. What other advice do you have for listeners and viewers? How could they reproduce some of this team’s success?

Dr. Dave:

Well, you could go to our website, called 5, the number, 5saturdays.org. So, 5saturdays.org, and what we’ve done is over time, I invested a time and energy into digitizing our courses. So, there’s a learning management system. So, if you ever wanted to create your own pod or what we call ’em, let’s say if someone wanted to come in your neighborhood and spin up a 5 Saturdays pod, they could go on our website and learn how to do that. And they’ll walk ’em through from the mindset that’s needed, to the type of materials, to the funding, to how do you start one? How do you run it each day? So it has all of that, plus it has the curriculum that’s associated with each course. So, you know, that’s one way to do it. And if people just want to do it on their own.

Richard:

All right. You’re inspiring me to do this in here where I live in Boston.

Dr. Dave:

Well, yeah. Bring a 5 Saturdays pod down to Boston.

Richard:

Why not? That would be really cool.

Dr. Dave:

Yeah. I think so.

Richard:

It would totally align with other stuff we’ve done here. Like the coding Dojo that we’ve run.

Dr. Dave:

Yes. Yes. That’s one of the connections that you and I have talking about coding dojo in the past.

Richard:

Yeah. All right, let’s see. Any other advice for how to reproduce this team’s awesomeness?

Dr. Dave:

Well, the other thing is, is that you could reach out to me at drdave@5saturdays.org, 5saturdays.org, Dr. David, and I’ll be happy to answer questions, coach people through the process. We’ve done that before, and so I’m open to invest in the time to help stand some of these pods up with other individuals. And so there’s tons of videos of examples and things that are on the website. So at least you could see what it looks like, not only read, you could watch the videos, the events, the reactions, the testimonies, that’s out there, so.

Richard:

All right. The email is, it’s Dr Dave or it’s Dr dot Dave, at five Saturdays?

Dr. Dave:

No. Dr Dave.

Richard:

Okay. Dr Dave, no punctuation.

Dr. Dave:

Dr Dave.

Richard:

Drdave@5saturdays.com, number five, word saturdays.com

Dr. Dave:

Dot org, yeah.

Richard:

Dot org, okay. Drdave@5saturdays.org, and the website 5saturdays.org. for all the helpful curriculum and hints and archives of past pods. Let’s see. Oh, so we got your contact info. Is there anything else you want to add? You got that book you just finished, you got the new book that you’re deep into right now. What else do you want to add?

Dr. Dave:

Yep. Yeah. So one thing that I am like super, super proud of, is that I received a letter from Barack Obama, back in 2015, for the work that I was doing in Stem. And so I reached out to him and told him, “Hey, here’s this program that we’re doing for underestimated people in our community. And I would just love your support.” And he sent me back a letter and you know what was really cool. I was at a client and then the mailman came running up to the house. So excited. “You got a letter from the White House!” My wife is go, “What?” He goes, “Yeah.” My wife is like, “Got a letter from the White House, for my husband?” And then she called me, “You have a letter from the White House.” Why would I have a letter from the White House? I’m trying like, that to me was just like, wow, it was random to me in a sense, ’cause I never got a letter from the White House. And the fact that I got a letter from the white house. Yeah. I’m going like, “This is cool!”

Richard:

I used to live in a white house, but I’ve never gotten a letter from the White House.

Dr. Dave:

Same here, but I used to live in a white house, but now I got a letter from the White House. So, to me that was just super exciting for me. And it helped to validate the work that I was doing.

Richard:

Yeah.

Dr. Dave:

And also put that wind in your sail.

Richard:

Yeah.

Dr. Dave:

You know, keep you moving. Yeah. So that was kind of cool.

Richard:

Oh, that is super cool. All right.

Dr. Dave:

Yeah.

Richard:

And again, so email drdave@5saturdays.org, visit the website. What about your other work? What’s the website for your other one?

Dr. Dave:

You mean those stuff that pays the bills. That thing?

Richard:

It helps fund 5 Saturdays. That money has to come from somewhere.

Dr. Dave:

Yeah. If I could just do 5 Saturdays every day for the rest of my life, it would make me super happy, but nobody pays the bills. So, I have a coaching and training organization called, KnolShare. And that’s knolshare.org. And so we do training for fortune 5500, 100 type companies, even startups, teaching ’em basic things, Scrum, Kanban, and also just doing professional coaching, one-on-one, team level coaching, system level coaching, just helping individuals too. Which is my mantra, helping individuals to find their level of awesomeness. That’s the mantra of KnolShare, right? Helping people find their level of awesomeness. And so that’s the work that I do to pay the bills. So I’m wearing a shirt called GM financial today. I dunno why I’m wearing a shirt. ‘Cause they’re currently one of my clients. So I’m wearing one of their shirt. They gave me a shirt. So they’re just doing work with organizations like that, where, you know, they’re large, they have lots of stuff going on and I am grateful to be able to provide value to them.

Richard:

Yeah.

Dr. Dave:

You know, so-

Richard:

And they support your work and they support 5 Saturdays by supporting your work.

Dr. Dave:

Yeah. Yeah. By paying me money, I could then pay 5 Saturdays to continue to exist.

Richard:

And they keep you clothed, oh so fashionably well.

Dr. Dave:

Yeah. I’m like, God, this is a nice shirt.

Richard:

They pay you in clothing. That is it. Do they pay you in dollars or just clothes?

Dr. Dave:

It depends.

Richard:

Little bit in dollars-

Dr. Dave:

Dollars and clothes.

Both:

A little bit of both.

Dr. Dave:

Yeah.

Richard:

They’re like, “Hey Dr. Dave, here’s a shirt.” It’s all rolled up. They’re like, “Yeah. When you get back to your car, open up the shirt, then there’s a big wad of cash inside.

Dr. Dave:

Yeah. But a good thing is, is that I’ve been there now for almost a year and a half.

Richard:

Yeah.

Dr. Dave:

I’ve only been to their facility once. ‘Cause the way everything revolving now.

Richard:

Oh. ‘Cause we’re in COVID times and it’s all-

Dr. Dave:

You’re in COVID time. And so I went out and we’re doing a session in training from the back of the room. So that’s how I got the shirt.

Richard:

All right.

Dr. Dave:

Yeah. So.

Richard:

Cool.

Dr. Dave:

Yeah.

Richard:

All right, man.

Dr. Dave:

But you know, one thing I wanted to- Go ahead.

Richard:

Oh you.

Dr. Dave:

One thing…Me, okay, me. One thing I wanted to add is like, you are doing a lot of cool stuff with school startups and I’ve been doing a lot of work in that space as well in terms of just here, where I live in Tucson, Arizona right now, is just being involved with the startup space here and helping with coaching and things like that. So, I’m working a little startup company called, Immersion and so it’s kind of like, how do I visualize learning with kind of like using some of the principles of the metaverse of VR, XR and some AI components to that. So, right now that’s one of the things that I’m working on as my side job on late nights and weekends, you know how we do it, right? We have all these things that we work on. So this is one of the things that I’m working on, trying to get that built.

Richard:

All right.

Dr. Dave:

Doing some coding.

Richard:

Wow.

Dr. Dave:

I haven’t coded in a while. I’m like, okay, I’m coding again. Yeah. Python. Yes.

Richard:

It’s so cool. Yeah, me too. I’ve been… It’s so great when you’re someone who has a lot of creative energy. So, you just have to keep going, right.

Dr. Dave:

Hey yeah. I’m excited to have energy. I was like, well, you know what the opposite is, right? Energy to do creative stuff, so. Yeah.

Richard:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. This is part of why I appreciate you, all that creative energy.

Dr. Dave:

Yeah. Likewise.

Richard:

That’s awesome. Well, Dr. Dave, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today. This has been super fun. I really appreciate it.

Dr. Dave:

Yeah. Likewise. Look forward to connecting with your… the next time I’m back up that way. I know the last time I was there several years ago, we were supposed to connect. And that was the year that actually Boston won the World Series.

Richard:

Ooh.

Dr. Dave:

Yeah. Was it 2019, 2018?

Richard:

I don’t remember the numbers.

Dr. Dave:

One of those years.

Richard:

The professional sports teams have been very good for the last couple of decades. The kids, they don’t know what it’s like to have a pro sports team that doesn’t win. ‘Cause every year, every couple years, one of the teams wins. The kids are like, “When’s the next championship parade?” “Is it this weekend?”

Dr. Dave:

Oh my God. I just tell you this. I was there while the series was going on. And then I was there when they had the championship parade. It was ridiculous trying to find a hotel.

Richard:

Oh, I can imagine. Yeah.

Dr. Dave:

Yeah, yeah. I was staying somewhere hour and a half, two hours away from the city and I was paying almost $400 a night. Yeah, I was crazy. Yeah. You can imagine the Uber bill, right? Each way.

Richard:

Oh. I, no, I can’t imagine it.

Dr. Dave:

Yeah. It was huge each day, but I’m glad the client was paying for it. So, you know, that’s the way it goes.

Richard:

Okay. Plus, plus your clients give you shirts. So, it’s all worth it.

Dr. Dave:

You can give me shirts. Yeah. All about the clothing, baby.

Richard:

All right, Dave. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you again. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Dr. Dave:

Yes. Likewise.

Richard:

And dear listeners and viewers, don’t forget to support this podcast to visit my website and on the website you’ll find a free psychological safety assessment. Just visit kasperowski.com/diagnostic.