Building Teams That Meet the Moment

Most team problems are not talent problems or strategy problems. They are problems with how the work moves between people.

In this episode of The Reflective Professional, Chris Cahill sits down with Karina Mangu-Ward, partner at August and author of Teams That Meet the Moment: 9 Practices for Unlocking Performance and Growth in Uncertain Times. Karina helps leaders and teams untangle the real work of collaboration when conditions are complex, uncertain, and moving fast.Together, Chris and Karina explore why teams get stuck—and why reorganizing, hiring different people, or simply working harder rarely fixes the underlying issue.

They break down a practical way to diagnose team performance across three areas: team design and organization, decision-making, and learning.For leaders in biotech, pharma, and other highly regulated environments, this conversation gets specific about the challenge of building high-performing cross-functional teams when compliance requirements, matrixed decision-making, and individual incentives can work against collaboration.Karina shares the nine practices from Teams That Meet the Moment, including team charters, purposeful meetings, team cadence, proposals, “Safe to Try” decisions, “Even Over” trade-offs, small bets, working in public, and regular retrospectives. The central message is simple but not easy: better teamwork is not built in an offsite. It is built through small, repeatable choices inside the work, every day.

Whether you lead a team, influence without formal authority, or work inside a system you cannot redesign, this episode offers practical ways to create more clarity, momentum, and learning—starting with the next meeting.

Connect with Karina Mangu-Ward

Website and book: Teams That Meet the Moment

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/karina-mangu-ward-276a558

Karina Mangu-Ward August: aug.co

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