Teamistry
33 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 1 year ago -How do we meet the challenges we face as organizations, countries, or even as a species? Whether we’re locked in fierce corporate competition or struggling with matters of life and death, one constant stands out: teams working together. And when teams, and teams of teams, focus on combining their unique abilities, expertise, and experience to embrace uncertainty, innovate, and tackle massive challenges? No problem is unsolvable. Teamistry is all about the chemistry that exists between groups of people who team up to achieve more than they ever thought possible. Join host Nastaran Tavakoli-Far as she delves into stories of teams working together to change their fate and even the course of history.
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Episodes
Work Check presents: Should you turn your camera on in video calls?
March 21, 2023 04:00 - 27 minutes - 25.9 MBDoes turning your camera on during Zoom meetings fill you with dread? Or do you look forward to seeing your colleagues' faces on calls? Today, we’re sharing an episode of Work Check, another podcast from Atlassian that debates issues you might be facing with your remote team. This debate – Should you keep your camera on in Zoom calls? – is the first episode of Work Check’s third season. Check out Work Check at https://link.chtbl.com/workcheck?sid=podcast.teamistry or wherever you get podca...
Part 6: Will Sonic Booms Return to our Skies?
February 06, 2023 05:00 - 33 minutes - 30.9 MBWhy did Concorde disappear from our skies? In the final episode, we pose this question to the people closest to the Concorde project, from the teams who engineered its first flight to those who picked up the debris after the fatal Air France crash. We also discuss Concorde's legacy, and its impact on the aviation sector, on travel itself, and on the personal and professional lives of those who built the plane. And before they turn off their mics for the season, host Nastaran Tavakoli-Far and...
Part 5: Rising from the Ashes
January 23, 2023 05:00 - 37 minutes - 34.5 MBIn the late afternoon of July 25th, 2000, a Concorde crashed into a hotel near Charles de Gaulle airport. Air France flight 4590 was carrying 100 passengers, most of them tourists from Germany, along with a crew of nine. All perished, including four people on the ground. The incident shocked the globe, and halted Air France Concorde operations indefinitely. On this episode of Teamistry, host Nastaran Tavakoli-Far and lead producer Pedro Mendes sit down with the team of engineers who played a...
Part 4: Becoming the Sexiest Flight on Earth
January 09, 2023 05:05 - 31 minutes - 28.7 MBAs teams of engineers work around the clock to keep the supersonic airplane safe and in the air, to the outside world Concorde has become a pop cultural icon. Princess Diana, Mick Jagger, Phil Collins, Joan Collins, Sting – these celebrities form an A-list of frequent flyers. The in-flight menu includes haute cuisine and expensive champaign; air travel aboard Concorde is a high-class, celebratory experience. To join this jet set in the air becomes anyone's most romantic travel dream, and tak...
Part 3: "The Big Bird Flies!"
December 19, 2022 05:05 - 33 minutes - 31.9 MBYears of hard work, innovation, and unprecedented collaboration between teams in the U.K. and France make the impossible, possible: the first French Concorde prototype takes flight, and a new page in aviation history is written. But the supersonic airplane isn’t ready to ferry passengers just yet. As you’ll hear in episode 3, Concorde’s journey from prototype to commercial air travel is beset by unforeseen challenges throughout the 1970s. The Oil Crisis makes the gas-guzzling plane commercia...
Part 2: Building the Fastest Passenger Jet Ever
December 05, 2022 05:05 - 45 minutes - 41.7 MBIn this episode, host Nastaran Tavakoli-Far and Lead Producer Pedro Mendes travel to the Musée Aeroscopia in Toulouse, France, where they stand spellbound marveling at a giant, glistening Air France Concorde. And they meet with nonagenarian Dudley Collard, a member of Concorde’s Aerodynamics Design team. When the recording crew mention the beauty of Concorde, engineer Collard quips that all he can see are the flaws. Indeed, the story of Concorde includes a seemingly never-ending set of probl...
Part 1: The Dream of Supersonic Flight
November 21, 2022 05:10 - 41 minutes - 37.7 MBIn the opening episode, host Nastaran Tavakoli-Far and producer Pedro Mendes set the stage for what’s going to be a supersonic journey documented in six parts—and also reflect on their personal connections to Concorde. You’ll hear about the monumental 1956 meeting of the Supersonic Transport Aircraft Committee (STAC) that set in motion a complex network of teams from the U.K. and France to realize this ambitious project. Also in this episode — the team travels to the Brooklands Museum in the...
Season 4: The Untold Story of Concorde
November 07, 2022 05:00 - 3 minutes - 3.57 MBPicture this: A flight from New York to London where your co-passengers are Princess Diana, Mick Jagger, and Sting. On the menu: caviar canapés, lobster, and champagne. Your journey takes a little over three hours – half of the time it takes today. And that one flight puts you in the history books, because you just flew faster than the speed of sound. Welcome aboard for the new season of Teamistry, a podcast from Atlassian. This show is all about teamwork, and the incredible things teams ca...
Where There's a Will (Smith), There's a Way
August 16, 2021 04:05 - 34 minutes - 32 MBIn March of 2020, as Will Smith is filming the biopic "King Richard," the emergence of COVID-19 abruptly shuts down all production. With unusual downtime and an urge to uplift his audience amid looming uncertainty, the actor meets with his production team at Westbrook Media to find a creative solution. What if they created a variety show with Will as the host – from his house? Smith had never hosted a variety show, and Westbrook Media had never done anything like it – not to mention during a...
Campbell’s Finds the Soup for their Soul
August 02, 2021 04:05 - 28 minutes - 26.8 MBThe can is Americana itself; the product indistinguishable from the ordinary contents. It's part of a quintessential American meal, soothing the hunger and warming the souls of families for more than a hundred years. But in 2001, a toxic atmosphere hung over the workers at The Campbell Soup Company. Its headquarters stood isolated behind barbed fences in the run-down city of Camden, New Jersey. Inside, a culture of anxiety and distrust prevailed. Employees, uneasy about going outside the gat...
On a Mission for Equitable Internet in Detroit
July 19, 2021 04:05 - 29 minutes - 27.6 MBWhen the pandemic struck, many pivoted their lives online – to connect with family, to work, to attend school. But many others, living in cutoff communities, like several neighborhoods in the city of Detroit, Michigan, where generations of systemic racism and poor infrastructure has left them largely isolated, this wasn't an option. Up to 40% of residents in these underserved areas have no internet at all, keeping them from the online world where everything had moved. But an enterprising tea...
Reinventing Hot Wheels
July 05, 2021 04:05 - 25 minutes - 24.1 MBIn 2016, a research video played in a conference room of Mattel Inc. caused deep concern. It showed an eight-year-old playing with iconic Hot Wheels™ toy cars. "Imagine doing this for an hour," the boy said, as if it was torture. The moment confirmed what many Mattel employees already knew: kids were shifting from physical toys to digital games at increasingly younger ages. And it meant that Hot Wheels, the best-selling toy on the planet, was losing its primary audience to digital gadgets an...
Saving an Indian Cricket League from Itself
June 21, 2021 04:00 - 35 minutes - 33.3 MBA cricket match played on April 18th 2008 between two city-based teams in India marks a historic moment in sports. It was the beginning of the Indian Premier League (IPL), a radically new tournament within the shortest format of cricket. Spearheaded by a flamboyant businessman, the IPL was to become for cricket what the National Football League (NFL) is to American football: an exciting prime-time entertainment for a new, global fanbase. And that worked – at first. Then the IPL's founder is ...
When IBM Nearly Missed the Internet
June 07, 2021 04:05 - 29 minutes - 27.6 MBIn 1994, IBM sponsored the Winter Olympics and held exclusive rights to telecast the games. But Dave Grossman – an engineer at IBM – discovered Sun Microsystems had stolen the live feed and was posting the results on its website. This sparked the creation of a team of innovators that not only convinced IBM's top brass to pay attention to the Internet but influenced a seismic change in everything about IBM as an organization. In the first episode of season 3, host Gabriela Cowperthwaite tak...
Season 3: Time for Change
May 24, 2021 04:05 - 2 minutes - 2.55 MBIn Season 3 of Teamistry, filmmaker and host Gabriela Cowperthwaite returns to spotlight teams that not only achieve the impossible, but also inspire change. These stories of leadership and courage mark a turning point in how organizations—and even whole industries—are transformed for the better. Follow along as a team of trailblazers brings IBM on to the web; a group of innovators at Mattel fuses the world's No.1 selling toy Hot Wheels with a virtual platform; a community of digital stewar...
Free Socks and Hats for You
December 11, 2020 18:28 - 1 minute - 1.08 MBWe’ve built a quick survey about Teamistry we’d love for you to fill out. We want to know what ideas and lessons really stood out to you — and reward you with free swag, including some really cool hats and funky socks. To take the survey, just go to http://teamistrypodcast.com.
Patagonia’s Demand for Ethical Supply
November 30, 2020 05:05 - 28 minutes - 26.1 MBBefore corporate social responsibility was a popular concept, Patagonia declared its commitment to better outcomes for their workers, and the planet. They soon discovered that commitment would include major pitfalls, but it seems the more Patagonia doubles down on its values, the better it performs. In this episode, we hear from Craig Wilson, former lead strategist for consumer marketing at Patagonia; Bethany Patten, Senior Associate Director for MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative, and Maya...
A Shot at Change: The Making of a Vaccine
November 16, 2020 05:05 - 27 minutes - 25.3 MBIn the West African country of Burkina Faso in the 1980s, an 18-year-old boy is killed in the road. Why? A case of meningitis. The meningitis epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa spurred a global race to find a vaccine, led by the founding of the Meningitis Vaccine Project (MVP). This network of doctors, vaccine developers, public health officials, and UN workers converged to develop an inexpensive vaccine – without Big Pharma. Instead, they built teams as an ecosystem of thriving partnerships. In...
When a picture is worth a thousand animals
November 02, 2020 05:05 - 30 minutes - 28.3 MBIn the desert plains of Northern Kenya, hundreds of people from around the world and different walks of life have gathered. The photographs they take with their GPS-enabled cameras might be humanity's best shot at saving an entire species. This is the story of Wildbook, an artificial intelligence (AI) software program that creates a live database to track animal populations. In this episode of Teamistry, host Gabriela Cowperthwaite discovers how a shared mission, and a shared technology plat...
When a Picture is Worth a Thousand Animals
November 02, 2020 05:05 - 30 minutes - 28.3 MBIn the desert plains of Northern Kenya, hundreds of people from around the world and different walks of life have gathered. The photographs they take with their GPS-enabled cameras might be humanity's best shot at saving an entire species. This is the story of Wildbook, an artificial intelligence (AI) software program that creates a live database to track animal populations. In this episode of Teamistry, host Gabriela Cowperthwaite discovers how a shared mission, and a shared technology plat...
Mission Impossible: The Thai Cave Rescue
October 19, 2020 04:05 - 35 minutes - 32.9 MBIn the summer of 2018, 12 Thai teenagers and their 25-year-old soccer coach got stuck deep inside the labyrinthine – and flooding – Tham Luang caves of Thailand’s Chiang Rai province. In this episode of Teamistry, host Gabriela Cowperthwaite takes us inside the caves and alongside the people assembled from across Thailand and the world to work together on a dire rescue mission. Hour after hour, as the caves continued to flood and oxygen tanks ran low, we learn about the leadership and teamwo...
Iceland vs. COVID: Containing a Pandemic
October 05, 2020 04:05 - 29 minutes - 26.8 MBEarly in the COVID-19 pandemic, Iceland had become the worst-hit country in Scandinavia. But it reversed its fate, without a full lockdown. And to date, Iceland has seen very few deaths. How? Largely because of the harmonious collaboration of "The Trinity" – Iceland’s chief epidemiologist, Director of Health, and superintendent of police – who implemented the "pandemic plan" – a framework for working together, and saving lives. In episode two of Teamistry's second season, host Gabriela Cowpe...
Seiko's Duelling Factories
September 21, 2020 04:05 - 32 minutes - 29.6 MBIn the aftermath of World War II, Japan must rebuild its economy. Certain products become vital exports in the revitalization effort, including the wristwatch. Seiko leaps to the forefront of the recovery, but there's a problem: their watches aren't good. The company decides to bring R&D in-house to take advantage of constructive competition between its factories, and winds up going from industry failure to time-honored player on the world stage. In episode one of Teamistry's second season,...
Teamistry Season 2: The Team of Teams
September 07, 2020 04:05 - 2 minutes - 2.46 MBIn season one of Teamistry, we put the spotlight on teams behind the scenes, the people responsible for some of the greatest achievements of our times. Like the team of astronomers who gave us the first-ever photograph of a black hole, and the team that averted a nuclear meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. In season two, host Gabriela Cowperthwaite takes us beyond the heroics of a single team and expands the focus to the power of multiple teams working together. How groups of ...
The Team that Fashioned Apollo 11
June 22, 2020 04:05 - 30 minutes - 27.8 MBWhen Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon for the first time, we don't actually see his face. We see his moonsuit. That moonsuit — in effect — is Neil Armstrong; an inseparable part of this historic moment. While the spacesuit kept him alive to tell that story in his own words, what went unnoticed is the extraordinary team that stitched it together. In the final episode of Season 1 of Teamistry, host Gabriela Cowperthwaite shines a light on the team of seamstresses and engineers whose meticulo...
The United States of Compromise
June 08, 2020 04:05 - 26 minutes - 24.7 MBThe great American experiment was about to fail. On the eve of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 – where the U.S. Constitution began – the French minister to America wrote home to his superiors in Paris, "What part of the United States would you like to take when it falls apart?" Disunity between states, a faltering economy, active rebellions, the threat of European interference – all were contributing factors. The Articles of Confederation — the original post-independence document – wer...
Finding the Way to Google Maps
May 25, 2020 04:05 - 25 minutes - 23.2 MBIt's hard to remember what it took to get around before the invention of Google Maps. But the technology has changed everything from daily routes to road trips to navigating unknown territory. Because of Google Maps, the entire globe seems reachable. But the road to inventing Google Maps? That's another story. In this episode of Teamistry, host Gabriela Cowperthwaite uncovers the tale of this indispensable technology and the team that built it. In 2001, Lars Rasmussen, Jens Rasmussen, Noel G...
The Brilliant Success of Shackleton’s Failure
May 11, 2020 04:05 - 31 minutes - 28.9 MBSir Ernest Shackleton wanted to be the first man to walk across the Antarctic continent. In 1914, with a crew of 28 men, he set sail on the Endurance to complete the first “Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition." But harsh winds and frigid temperatures threatened the voyage from the start, and in short order the ship was marooned thousands of miles away from civilization. Shackleton suddenly realized a different task was at hand – keeping his crew alive. A team of restless seamen who quickly r...
Saving Fukushima
April 27, 2020 04:05 - 26 minutes - 24.1 MBOn March 11, 2011 Japan was struck by a 9.1-magnitude earthquake, the most powerful in the country's recorded history. But the real horror had only just begun. A 14-meter-high tsunami created by the seismic event followed, sending giant waves of seawater crashing into the the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, triggering a nuclear disaster. While the world watched in horror, the responsibility of containing the disaster fell on workers who had to risk their lives to salvage the plant -- ...
The Car that Saved Ford
April 13, 2020 04:05 - 26 minutes - 24.5 MBIn 1985, the automobile giant Ford was teetering on the edge of financial collapse. Faced with internal chaos, an uninspiring product line, and fierce competition from Japanese cars – they needed a sensation. Enter: The Ford Taurus. This breakthrough model didn't just rescue the company, it sparked new life in an industry that represented 3% of the United State's GDP. But how Ford did it is even more surprising. For the first time ever, the venerable carmaker changed how it made cars. It int...
Photographing a Black Hole
March 30, 2020 04:05 - 26 minutes - 24.6 MBOn April 10, 2019, the world saw what many thought was unseeable. An international group of astronomers and scientists — called The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration — photographed a Black Hole. But while this first-ever image of a glowing orange ring was splashed across the front pages, buried in the back was the amazing story of how the team actually did it. A story of the herculean scientific work and dicey political maneuvering required from the researchers and scientists that spanne...
The Wizards of Menlo Park
March 16, 2020 04:05 - 22 minutes - 20.8 MBIt's time to set the record straight: Thomas Edison's greatest achievement was not the lightbulb. In fact, he wasn't even the first to invent it. The unrecognized master stroke of Edison was he brought together some of the brightest minds to collaborate, exchange ideas, and work in creative ways to change the world as we knew it. In the first episode of Teamistry, host Gabriela Cowperthwaite journeys to late-19th century Menlo Park, where a team of unsung heroes is hard at work setting up an...
This is Teamistry
March 02, 2020 08:05 - 1 minute - 1.6 MBThink about the stories that captivate you. Survival in the harshest places on earth. Courage in the face of death. Invention that changed the world. What do these stories have in common? The work of teams. Teamistry is a podcast that examines the chemistry that exists between people who team up to pull off what no one could ever do alone. It launches March 16.