Positive Tension Make High Performing Teams Stronger
Sally speaks with Kate Manton of Baobab Works about her unconventional career path, from studying international business with Japanese to teaching in Japan and then spending more than two decades in market research and operations. The conversation centres on what makes teams work, why many teams quietly underperform, and how leaders can turn difference into a genuine advantage. Kate shares practical ways to spot team misalignment, use a structured team audit, and create the kind of psychological safety that allows healthy challenge and better results.
Key topics
- In this episode, Kate Manton explains how a chance decision at university led her into Japanese language study, three and a half years teaching in Japan, and a long career in market research and operations.
- She shares how a long-held desire to do aid work in Africa helped shape her thinking about purpose, even though her career took a different route for many years.
- Kate describes the moment three years ago when changing values, a workplace restructure, and the loss of her dad forced her to pause and reassess what she wanted to do next.
- She introduces Baobab Works and explains how she now works with teams and leaders to help them think, work, and perform better, with an emphasis on impact for the business, the team, and the individual.
- Kate outlines the warning signs of a struggling team: poor communication, missed opportunities, disengagement, lack of connection, missed goals, wasted time and energy, and talented people starting to look elsewhere.
- She explains why leaders should regularly audit team health, especially after restructures, mergers, acquisitions, or when a new team has formed.
- Kate shares her “vibe audit” approach, which looks at how people voice ideas, speak up, interact, believe in each other, execute, and evolve.
- She discusses Insights Discovery and how understanding communication styles and preferences can quickly shift how people interpret and work with each other.
- Kate and Sally explore the idea of Ubuntu, meaning “I am because we are,” and how community, interdependence, and shared success strengthen teams.
- They discuss “positive tension” as a healthier alternative to forced harmony, where people challenge each other constructively while staying anchored in the same goal.
- Kate points out that teams are not just people employed by the same company – solopreneurs and founders also build teams around them through suppliers, collaborators, and advisors.
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