Reintroducing Siamo: Humans, Teams, And Real Change

“Cristina Amigoni: We can deny it. We can kick and scream and say, we can't handle that. You're going to have to, at some point, figure that out.”

[EPISODE]

Alex Cullimore: Welcome back to this episode of Uncover the Human. We're going to do something we haven't actually really done. We always refer to our company, Siamo, but it's taken all kinds of new shapes and we've done many things over the last few years. So, we thought we might take a little time just to reintroduce Siamo and talk about what it is, what we do and how we do it.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, exactly. Let's start from the name. Let's start from the basics.

Alex Cullimore: Ground up.

Cristina Amigoni: Then move from there, because we were actually guests on a podcast recently. It never even occurred to me that our URL and our social media accounts are a little misleading on what our actual company name is. Our company name is Siamo and it is pronounced Siamo with the sea, like the big, blue sea, and amo, A-M-O, or whatever ways phonetically you want to remember that. It is not Siamo. I've heard that and I'm like, nope. It's a sea, like Spanish and Italian, yes, or the big, blue sea, whichever helps.

Alex Cullimore: And spelled that way. It's spelled with an S.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. It is spelled with an S. Also, that is our full name. Our full name is not We are Siamo. We do have that as our website URL, because, well, siamo.com was not available. Therefore, also, the other social media platforms and the other places because, again, just the name was short enough and I guess used enough already that it did not exist. The other piece that we have mentioned in when we're guests of podcasts is that Siamo is we are for Italian. In theory, it is we are we are, when you look at our social media or our website URL.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. We started that. Why did we call it that?

Cristina Amigoni: We call it that, because we ripped through a few very, very long and boring names. I think the optimum talent.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. Coming at.

Cristina Amigoni: Then there's something else people related. We called it that, because we were looking for something short and easy to remember, but also that embodied what we care about, which is the humans. What it means, we are, it really, it does two things. It focuses on the we part, on the collective, and it focuses on the existence. A lot of what we had experienced was we've got resources and numbers and assets and whatever you want to call the humans in a company. We're like, but they're humans. They're actually existing soul-filled, emotional humans. In our name, we wanted to focus on that. Can we focus on the human as an existing being?

Alex Cullimore: Mm-hmm. We wanted to also highlight the plurality of that, that we are – it is about the connections and the collective. The idea that there is more power in a group of people than there are in the individuals, and that it's not just about a group of talented individuals. It's about what they can do and achieve together. We focused a lot of our work on how we help people work together well. That sometimes means working with individuals and sometimes it means working with whole groups, and sometimes it means working with whole organizations. It's all about how do we help people understand their own place and understand where they can go, where they can connect with individual other people, where they can connect with groups and how they can work as an entire organization, which actually is why we structured our book that way.

We wrote a book last year called The Authenticity Upgrade, and that started from the individual into the team, into the organization, talking about how can you access your own authenticity. How do you bring that to other people? What is the benefit of doing that? Because there are huge benefits of that just at a human level, but also at an organizational level. When you can watch people actually click into the things that they are good at and do well together. These connections are what make us powerful, capable. If you've listened to our last podcast on accountability, you know that we are a little bit into the idea of like, you're going to have to come together a little bit to do this and it's not going to be about the individual.

This is something we've seen in teams over and over again. You can have people who are incredibly talented, but until they actually lean on each other, until they understand each other, it's hard to get them to really access their full potential. When they do, it's really exciting to watch what is possible. Suddenly, things that seem immovable moves. Things that were impossible to climb, you're on top of. It’s wild.

Cristina Amigoni: It is wild. Yeah, it definitely is. You mentioned the book. The other thing that we wanted to talk about is all the list of things that we do and what we provide and how we help. We help in different ways. The book is one of them, The Authenticity Upgrade, which does go through that journey from I need to understand what my own existence means to me and how can I show up in fully authentic existence to then apply it to relating to others, bringing groups together, providing even the capability for organizations to really operate in that authentic, full human way, and also, with AI. We do have a chapter on AI. The book is one of them. Well, you're listening to the podcast, so clearly, we have a podcast.

Alex Cullimore: We also have that. You've already found that.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Which again, it goes back to the human part. You also know the name, because you found it and you're listening, but the name is Uncover the Human. The podcast might need a little nice introduction than everything else.

Alex Cullimore: That talks about what we do within companies, which we do some individual coaching. We do team coaching. That happens a lot just in a lot of our projects, because it's a lot about how teams come together. What we've also distilled is a full leadership development program, which has many different aspects to it that we've broken out into different accelerators. There are things that we work teams through, so that they can have an experience doing things like learning to be coaching leaders. They can learn how to change management the human way, so change agility, figuring out how you can actually change with people and help reduce resistance.

Then there's the – we have accelerators in listening better in team cohesion, using things like The Working Genius and how do you work for flow and satisfaction. These are the places that we have worked with before. This is what our entire leadership development course comes to, but it's also split into pieces that are a lot more digestible for one team at a time.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, indeed. We also do provide strategic consulting on the human side of things. Cultural transformations consulting, strategic consulting, especially for organizations that are going through a change of any kind, but especially like an organizational change, some sort of change. We were actually just talking to one of our clients, and with all the technology in AI revolutions that's happening now, there is that piece, which is very important, or figuring out like, how do you bring a technology into a company? How do you integrate it? What does that mean? There is that human component of that. It's understanding, like, how do we bring the people along into something like that, as well as a new structure, a new process, a new something.

I was talking yesterday with somebody, an MBA student who was about to graduate, and how if we look at change as in it’s constant, yes, change is constant. It's all around us. It's not just big change projects. There's change everywhere, which is why we talk about change agility. One of the things that we do from a consulting point of view, and by bringing in the various tools of various places when needed is that how do we create change agility, so that it doesn't have to be this big, heavy, dreaded disruptive event every single time? Having the catalyst for that helps to then start creating those muscles. That's another offer that we provide.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah, that's one big one. Traditionally, a lot of people would call that – it would have been called change management. It's what people help with that. That has become more of a taboo word, because people have had our time with it, mostly because it's approached the non-human way. It's approached through, “Ah, we'll just have a very set plan. We'll go through these exact five phases and it will be linear and clean, and that's what will help us get through this.” It's very alluring. We've all had so many experiences in that where like, this doesn't work. That's why we call it change agility and why we work with change in the human level, because that's where it needs to happen. Helping people really understand what's in it for them, get the buy-in, move past the fears, and get to the changes that need to happen and feel okay with making transformation a more constant event, rather than, “Oh, God. It's happening again. Duck and cover.”

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, exactly. Duck and cover. Yeah. That is very much what we see happening, when there isn't that muscle built, when there isn't that human focus. Beyond the people focus of the traditional ways of like, “Oh, we've got a communication plan and a training plan and an adoption plan and whatever, stakeholder analysis.” Okay. Yes, you're looking at the people component of the project, but the human part of that is what are the people going to go through? Can we help them in their journey? What are their journeys? Yes, there's going to be a thousand different journeys and we can deny it. We can kick and scream and say, we can't handle that. You're going to have to, at some point, figure that out. You don't have a choice if you actually want to get to the other side of that future state. We do a lot of that. We build trust, so that then we can help people go through whatever journey is happening around them and in their jobs. Whether it's AI, whether it's in a new team, whether I'm a new leader, whatever that is.

One of the things that we are now offering that's new this year that we started, we've had one of them. We've had one last month, then we're going to do a couple more every couple of weeks is webinars that are publicly available, so that it's not just, “Hey, unless your company hires us, you don't get to work with us, or get value, or benefit from some of these things.” Some humanity, like we are offering webinars. We're offering some free ones. We're going to offer some paid workshops that get loaded deeper. But those are the ways of like, “Hey, I'm an individual and I want to learn this.”

Alex Cullimore: Mm-hmm. Yeah. We're all humans, but we're not given a manual. And so, we have spent time compiling everything that we've learned in our experience and everything that we have been taught and certified in. We're pulling these into things that help people just live a more human life, particularly in the workplace since we spend so much time there. But just living a more human life. We all have more capacity than we believe we do sometimes. It's helpful to be able to access that, and we enjoy sharing this work, so now we have that and we have a few different, just free giveaways just to get yourself started on things and ways to discuss the book, ways to approach change, ways to think about burnouts. These are the ways to just not let inhumanity take over.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, yes, exactly. We also have assessments. Very quick, fast assessments that are on our website. Wearesiamo.com, as we discussed at the beginning, where you can either evaluate like, hey what are my values? What's stopping me from showing up authentically? What's draining my energy? Or from a team perspective like, hey, this team, they're great people, but they're not quite gelling. I'm seeing some gaps. The assessment can be the first way to start looking at some of the things. They're free. And from the organizational point of view. Like, I want the organization to move this way. What are we missing here from a change perspective, from a restructuring, from transformation, from an adoption perspective, and a change agility perspective? All of these are out there. The more we build, the more we're going to put out there. Definitely keep track of all our giveaways and resources.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. You can come join us for a –

Cristina Amigoni: Which are not people. They're actual documents, and –

Alex Cullimore: Actual documents.

Cristina Amigoni: - and tools.

Alex Cullimore: Just digital resources.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes.

Alex Cullimore: Including recorded webinars. Feel free. If you can't join us live, you can take some of those, too. We hope to see you on a live webinar, or some way to meet you soon, or maybe become a guest. Be on the podcast. We'd love to talk.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yeah. We're always looking for guests and we're always looking for podcasts that will have us as guests. We actually love being guests. If you have a podcast and you're looking for guests, we are available. Just let us know.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. We have a few of those coming out. We'll be promoting in the next month.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Indeed. Thank you.

Alex Cullimore: Thanks so much. Hope to see you soon.

[END OF EPISODE]

Alex Cullimore: Thanks so much for listening to Uncover the Human. We Are Siamo, that is the company that sponsors and created this podcast. If you’d like to reach out to us further, reach out with any questions, or to be on the podcast, please reach out to podcast@wearesiamo.com. Or you can find us on Instagram. Our handle is @wearesiamo, S-I-A-M-O. Or you can go to wearesiamo.com and check us out there. I suppose, Cristina, you and I have LinkedIn as well. People could find us anywhere else.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, we do have LinkedIn. Yes. Yeah. We’d like to thank Abbay Robinson for producing our podcast and making sure that they actually reach all of you. And Rachel Sherwood for the wonderful score.

Alex Cullimore: Thank you guys so much for listening. Tune in next time.

Cristina Amigoni: Thank you. 

[END]