Articles

Building a Continual Learning & Improvement Mindset at Your Place

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 04:24:00 GMT

Imagine this – an organisation where every single team member BELIEVED that things can be better than they are, had the DESIRE to want to BE BETTER, and was WILLING to spend the effort necessary to get there. Imagine what that organisation could achieve. This is the mindset of Continual Learning and Improvement.

Want it at your place? Keep reading!

The concept of Continual Learning and Improvement has developed from two separate but connected ideologies – Continuous Improvement (CI) and the Learning Organisation.

Let’s start with CI.
Developed way back in WWII, CI is a commonly understood and utilized concept in all manner of industries and businesses around the world. It is often connected with various other business and manufacturing concepts such as Kanban, Lean, Agile, Six Sigma etc.

The benefits brought to business globally through the ideology and disciplined practices of CI cannot be denied. Like anything, we believe the key is to apply CI in an open-minded and flexible way, and dependent on the specific needs of the various parts of an organisation.

What I LOVE about CI, and what I believe every organisation can benefit from embracing, is the mindset created by the concept. The mindset is this – get amongst it! If you see something not working right, take the initiative to fix it. Yes you, the Payroll Officer or the Customer Representative or the Maintenance Crew or the GM of Sales. The mindset of continuous improvement is about EMPOWERMENT and it’s about being PROACTIVE. No matter who you are, your ideas matter and you have the power to make things happen.

What about the Learning Organisation?

Peter Senge first coined the term “Learning Organisation” in his book “The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization” (1990). Since then, the terms “Learning Organisation” and “Organisational Learning” have become common and popular concepts as businesses seek to become more nimble, agile and fast moving in a constantly changing and challenging international business environment.

Senge has been openly critical of organisations being too focused on rewarding successful outcomes, therefore hampering the ability of team members to take risks and sometimes fail, a critical ingredient for true organisational learning.

People new to the concept of organisational learning often confuse it with individual learning. While this is one component, organisational learning is about the ability of the whole organisation to learn as its own entity. Many organisations have for example, introduced programmes where leaders teach other leaders, where teams educate other teams about their area of specialty, where members of the organisation go out into the wider world, learn about other organisations (for example, study tours) and bring the learning back into their company, and importantly, disseminate that learning. At the highest level, some organisations are now engaging in inter-organisational learning, where a number of organisations come together regularly or even co-locate to enjoy learning and collaboration of ideas between them, hence lifting the knowledge-gain of all organisations involved. For example, we have seen this in post-earthquake Christchurch where precincts of like-minded businesses and professionals have been created in the central city, sparking collaboration and innovation.

Bringing the Two Together
The ideologies of CI and organisational learning both bring critical strengths to an organisation. The two are complementary and intertwined. To continually seek improvement, you must first believe you can learn to improve. Organisational learning at its heart, is all about improvement, whether that be by small steps or complete disruption at an organisational level.

However, these ideologies are only valuable when applied appropriately (too zealous an approach to either has shown itself to be unhelpful, and has brought both concepts under some fire in recent years) and as part of a wider, integrated approach to business success.

The mindset that sits behind both ideologies, we believe, is where the true gold lies.

The Mindset of Continual Learning and Improvement encompasses
belief, desire and willingness .

A belief that we can always be better than we are, a desire to be better,
and a willingness to spend discretionary effort to get there.

How does an Organisation develop a Continual Learning and Improvement Mindset?
Like any organisation-wide practice, action or change, there must be commitment from all leaders, from the beginning. Leaders must first understand the concepts, and importantly, the benefits such a mindset would have for their organisation and for themselves (the “what’s in it for me” aspect).

Nothing worth doing comes without sacrifice. To truly commit to continuous learning and improvement, there are certain things an organisation must be prepared to provide:

- The time and space necessary to allow for learning (at an individual, team and organisation level).

- The empowerment for team members at all levels to run with an idea and make change.

- Being OK with failure and mistakes, so long as they are owned and drive further learning.

- The commitment to champion learning and improvement initiatives, and not lose focus when times are tough.

- Allowing staff freedom to develop a better long-term solution, even when this may impact short term results.

- Clarity of strategy, vision and purpose, so that employees can focus their learning in a way that aligns with the goals of the organisation.

O nce the organisation has committed to the above, individual leaders must be prepared to back these commitments up on a daily basis – where it’s hardest, and counts the most.

A growth mindset
Another key aspect of learning and improvement is the ability to BELIEVE you can in fact learn and improve. Dr Carol Dweck pioneered the concepts of the Growth and Fixed mindsets through her work at Stanford University, to explain two disparate belief systems people hold about learning and ability. She argues that a growth mindset allows a person to live a less stressful and more successful life, through their belief in theior ability to learn and grow, and her theory is key to organisational learning and improvement.

To explore the concept further, I recommend spending eight minutes to watch this clip by Trevor Ragan at trainugly.com, who gives an excellent overview:

https://youtu.be/75GFzikmRY0

Planned Organisation-Wide Initiatives
OK, so the commitment’s there. Now the organisation must do something.

There are a myriad of initiatives an organisation can choose to consider, that will kick-start the learning curve, while signaling the organisation’s commitment to learning and improvement.

What’s critical here, is that an organisation only commits to what it can reasonably sustain over time. Too often initiatives are started but don’t last, sending the message to staff that the organisation was not really that committed in the first place. When you’re first beginning on this journey, less is more.

Some initiatives worth considering include freedom time to work on improvement projects (usually between 5-10% of their hours), knowledge cafes (facilitated events where team members come together to discuss concepts and ideas), Libraries, book clubs, “Ted” style talks by staff about improvement initiatives, appreciative enquiry, leadership clinics (leaders helping leaders with leadership issues), internal and external study tours etc.

Education for all staff
It’s important that when you first start growing a learning and improvement mindset across the organisation, that you start with the basics – teaching all staff what this learning and improvement stuff is all about, and what it can do for them (“what’s in it for me” remember!). Don’t rush this with a half hour presentation. Do it properly – we recommend having every team member attend a workshop where they can really explore, touch and feel the concepts.

Sustained execution, commitment and reinforcement
It’s relatively easy to put some cool initiatives in place. It’s much harder to maintain the energy, commitment and focus required to keep it happening in the long term. Because of this, many staff have become cynical to new ideas or concepts, and take the approach of “let’s wait and see if this is a flash in the pan, or if they actually mean it”.

SUSTAINED is the key word here. A learning and improvement mindset will not develop overnight, and neither will it yield results overnight. The payoff will be substantial, but it will take time.

Some things that help:

- Keep the conversation going. Continue to discuss what’s working and what’s not – both with leaders and with staff.

- Make sure all new staff receive the same intro to continuous learning and improvement that the rest of your staff did.

- Change things up. While it’s important that initiatives don’t fizzle and die in month two, it’s OK to change them over time to respond to what works and what doesn’t – i.e. take a continuous improvement approach!!

- Find ways to recognise and reward for the behaviours you’re trying to build. This will continually reinforce to staff what’s important.

If you’d like to explore further how you can grow a continuous learning and improvement mindset at your place, feel free to get in touch.

Marie Webber

Co founder and Director
Culture by Design

Low self-esteem – is it holding your business back?

Mon, 09 Oct 2023 03:46:00 GMT

I am proud to say that I am a survivor of low self-esteem. I am not “cured”. Certain situations still evoke that “what if they find out I’m a fraud” thinking. I expect this will probably always be the case. But these days I’m able to recognise those thoughts for what they are and have the tools to kick them to the curb – before they screw up my decision making or distort my thinking. In other words, low self-esteem no longer holds me back.

What changed for me? It sounds cliché but someone gave me a book. The book was Nathaniel Branden’s “The Six Pillars of Self Esteem”, and working through that book with said book-giver, a very talented coach (who now happens to be my business partner) changed my life.

Have you ever had that experience of buying a new car, and suddenly you’re seeing that same make and model everywhere? I have found that it’s the same with self-esteem. Since I have focussed on developing my own self-esteem, I have become shockingly aware of how many others out there are sufferers. Low self-esteem is simply everywhere, and don’t be fooled, highly successful people in high-level roles are definitely not immune. In fact, sometimes those feelings of having to continually work harder and be better in order to prove yourself is the very thing that drives these people into highly successful roles – only to continue experiencing those same old “I’m not good enough” mantras. a wee while ago I helped a CEO to work his way through “The Pillars”. He has spent his entire adult life suffering the belief that he is essentially unintelligent and lazy – despite compelling evidence to the contrary. Take it from me, for this CEO and so many others out there, the word “suffer” is accurate.

There’s no question that low self-esteem is a misery for those who experience it. But it is also a massive drain on our organisations. In the “Six Pillars”, Branden proposes that successful organisations of the future will be those geared to self-esteem. His argument is simple – the traits necessary in today’s world of work, and into the future (creativity, proactivity, entrepreneurial thinking, ability to embrace and drive change) are traits that demand a healthy level of self-esteem. My own personal experience is this – low self-esteem stops people being able to give their best, to fully contribute and to reach their own full potential. It can also lead to behaviours that can negatively affect others. In our current global economy where every organisation needs every advantage it can get, can we afford this?

So the question is – can an organisation influence the self-esteem of its people? Here’s the good news - the answer is a resounding YES. Through the creation of a culture that develops, protects and encourages healthy self-esteem, an organisation can ensure that its people are in an environment that allows their own self-esteem, and therefore their contribution to thrive. The existence of such a culture will be evident through its values and infrastructure – for example, its systems for reward and recognition, learning and development, initiatives around creativity and innovation etc.

So then, where to start? As is so often the case, the starting point is with our leaders. An organisation that develops and nourishes self-esteem (rather than damaging it) is one where people feel safe to put their ideas forward, where their contributions are recognised and where it’s safe to make mistakes in the process of learning and creativity. To achieve this, an organisation needs leaders with high levels of emotional intelligence, who are interested in solutions rather than blame, and who deeply believe in treating others with empathy and respect. They also need their own healthy level of self-esteem. Do we have enough support for leaders in our organisations who struggle with self-esteem to get help and develop their “esteem muscle”? I believe the answer is a resounding NO. It’s a scary thing for many leaders to even admit to esteem issues, let alone begin the journey required to develop their level of self-esteem.

We don’t talk often about self-esteem in business, and it’s a difficult and complex issue. But it’s also holding our organisations back, right now, today. Perhaps it’s a conversation we need to start having.

Marie Webber

Co-founder and Director,

Culture by Design

What are your views on self-esteem in business?

How to make diverse thinking work for your team.

Wed, 11 May 2022 08:42:24 GMT

In a recent post, I postured the view that working with people who think very differently than us can be difficult, but also hugely valuable. In fact, diverse thinking is what great, high-performing teams are made of. Sadly however, a team made up of diverse thinkers does not naturally lead to success. To the contrary, I’ve seen time and again where highly diverse teams have almost ripped each other apart. Difference, if not understood and appreciated, can lead to major relationship breakdowns because we all tend to make assumptions that others will act, behave and respond similarly to how we do. When that doesn’t happen, it can lead to confusion, frustration, and ultimately conflict and mistrust.

What to do?

We’ve found the most effective way to avoid all the angst and build successful relationships between diverse thinkers, is to challenge those assumptions and build understanding. If we can understand how others differ from ourselves, and importantly, the strengths that difference brings, then we can start to open a dialog about how to embrace that difference to leverage strengths across a team, while reducing frustration.

There are many tools out there to help us understand difference – MBTI, JTI, Hermann Brain, TMI and a host of other psychometrics and personality instruments. These are a great place for a team to start. However, deeply shared understanding was never reached in a single day, so whatever you use, ensure the learning continues well past any initial workshop.

The work is never done.

Like anything truly beneficial, you have to keep working at it. This is something my business partner and I have to remind ourselves of all the time, because 12 years in we can still drive each other to distraction. But our shared understanding of that difference plus all those years of benefiting from each other’s strengths has built tolerance and compassion for how the other operates and what the other needs.

For anyone putting together or growing a team, I’d definitely encourage you to find the “Yin” to your “Yang”. Actively build diversity of thinking into your team and you’ll be so much stronger for it. Just make sure you put in the work! The more you understand and respect your differences, the more you can leverage them and grow from the other’s perspective. Working with opposites takes more effort to be sure. But do it well, and you’ll never want to go back!

Marie Webber
Director, Workplace Culture Specialist

Culture by Design

Leadership Capability – taking the purpose of Leadership to a whole new level of excellence.

Thu, 29 Jul 2021 05:37:04 GMT

Are you achieving excellence in the world of individual leadership? Great! Now it is time to take your leadership approach to the next level by developing a Leadership Capability profile at the organisational level.

What is Leadership Capability & why is it important?

Many organisations out there have invested heavily in ensuring their people leaders receive individual leadership development, which supports leaders to feel confident and equipped in their role of leading a functional team. Great! What doesn’t happen often enough though, is where an organisation takes the time to examine and identify what kind of leadership is strategically required across all tier levels of leadership and then bring this leadership to life. In other words, what kind of leadership does the organisation itself need, to ensure a high probability of success in what the organisation is attempting to achieve at a strategic level. Leadership capability is all about ensuring that there is consistent leadership language, expectations, and behaviours all aligned to strategic objectives and across all tiers of leadership, which enables all employees to receive a predictable leadership approach. The power of aligning all tiers of people leadership (not just the senior Executive team) is simply formidable, creating organisational-wide clarity, direction and meaning, and yet for many organisations out there, they are sadly not realising this untapped potential.

Determining the bespoke purpose of Leadership Capability at your organisation

So where to start in examining and identifying your bespoke Leadership Capability requirements. It begins by exploring the organisation’s core anchors, that is, your company core purpose, what your organisation aspires to be and the resulting strategy for your business. When you understand these key anchors, you are in a good position to start analysing what kind of leadership would make sense for your organisation and it is through this analysis, you can create your own bespoke Leadership Capability profile.

Aligning Leadership Capability to core anchors enables a better leadership fit.

By aligning your organisation's Leadership Capability profile to your core anchors, it will enable you to think a lot more intelligently about the actual purpose of leadership at your business and which key leadership elements are required to create the ideal leadership culture and climate. Additionally, identifying the bespoke leadership culture and climate you want to create in your organisation will enable you to significantly increase your ability to recruit and develop people leaders that are a strong cultural fit for the business.

Ability to deploy & cascade clarity throughout the organisation

Once your organisation has developed its Leadership Capability profile and is clear on what the organisation requires in its leadership model to provide clarity and direction, existing and future leaders can be developed into the bespoke leadership model. When this happens, there is a much higher probability that all functional teams will receive a crystal-clear, cascaded understanding of an organisation's core purpose, and future direction by-way of all leaders communicating the same messaging and expectations. With this clarity and direction in place, people will have much more meaning in their jobs and role responsibility, and as a result tend to experience a lot more job satisfaction because they know that they are a part of the bigger plan and the individual / team part they play in this bigger plan.

Benefits of smarter, more focused Leadership Development initiatives

Having a clear view of the required bespoke Leadership Capability across all tiers of leadership enables the organisation to think more clearly about focussed investment in relation to intelligent leadership development initiatives. In addition, it stops the age-old problem of placing people in leadership roles without them firstly receiving the appropriate leadership development to ensure proper, fit for purpose leadership skillset, which is required to be successful in their leadership roles.

It is so important for any organisation to recognise that being a leader does not just mean daily management of operational tasks. Intelligent leadership also includes leading the clarity of the organisation's purpose, vision, and strategy, setting the standards and values for all team members, and providing an environment of personal development and ongoing coaching. In addition, having a leadership toolkit of skills, knowledge, and abilities (in line with your bespoke Leadership Capability profile) to develop each team member will enable each leader to delegate more to their functional team members. This in turn allows for leaders to step up, and for team members to stretch their current capabilities and excel beyond their present job description. Creating opportunities for your leaders and team members to step up will undoubtedly lead to a higher level of discretionary effort, enjoyment, with greater efficiency and strategic focussed productively in the workplace.

In a nutshell

Establishing a bespoke Leadership Capability profile will fundamentally support any organisation to lead successful strategy execution of core anchors. In addition, workplace culture starts and finishes with having fit for purpose leaders and investing in the design and development of a bespoke Leadership Capability profile, which helps to identify fitting leaders, takes your organisational leadership to a whole new level of excellence.

Once you are clear on your profile, it's all about bringing it to life through a bespoke leadership development programme. It’s important to note, that when developing your leaders according to your Leadership Capability profile, where possible, bringing your leaders together in person for this type of development has a huge impact on the success factors of the learning and development initiative.

Leadership can be a tough, dauting, lonely place and smart leadership development initiatives include, allowing safe space for leaders to learn from other leaders and this is difficult via an individual on-line learning platform. On-line learning platforms definitely have their place in the world of learning & development concepts, just not when it comes to leadership development. It is crucial that you can get your leaders in the same room so they can share their experiences, fears and leadership aspirations and together learn through skilled facilitation, on how to create an inspiring workplace environment, which includes aligned, bespoke leadership behaviours, language and expectations.

Mary Buckley

Managing Director - CbD

Corona-stress: Take the control back!

Wed, 01 Apr 2020 05:32:00 GMT

Feeling a little or a lot stressed over the Covid-19 situation? At least you know you’re in the majority right now. “But why is it so hard?” many are asking. “We’re only being asked to sit on the couch, aren’t we?”

Here’s why it’s hard:

The current situation has introduced a significant number of stress triggers into our world at the moment. To name a few:

-       Financial pressures we didn’t have before
-       Concern for our health and the health of loved ones
-       Fear of the unknown and lack of control (how long will the lockdown last? How bad will things get? What will happen to my job/business?)
-       Loss of routine as we struggle to find our “new normal”
-       Cabin fever!!

We’ll all react and respond to these and other stress triggers differently, depending on our personality types, our personal situations, what else is going on for us in our lives etc. The good news is, controlling our response and where we place our focus during this time is within our own control. That means we have the power to reduce our current level of stress , no matter how grim things may feel right now!

But how?

Throughout much of my adult life I have relied on a particular model to help me with my own stress and resilience during tough times, and I’ve taught it to, and witnessed it help many others. The great thing about this model is that it’s simple, practical, and steers us away from despair toward positive action.

The model:

Stephen Covey introduces the Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern during Habit 1 of his 1989 bestselling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Habit 1 is to be proactive, and Covey argues that proactive people apply their focus within the circle of influence, while those that are reactive, focus within their circle of concern. He also argues that those with a proactive focus enjoy higher levels of resilience and reduced stress across their lives.

Let me put this into my own words for you.

Here is the Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern.

As you can see, one is a subset of the other.

The circle of concern represents everything that concerns you – whatever is stressing you out, frustrating you, annoying you, waking you at 3am, etc.

The circle of influence contains those things within your circle of concern that you can ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING ABOUT. It represents the stuff you have some influence or control over.

Common sense would tell us that spending time worrying about things we can do nothing about is a waste of our resources and energy. In-fact, the more we are able to place our focus within the circle of influence, the bigger that circle grows, until almost all the things we are concerned with are within our influence or control in some way. Our circles start to look like this:

How is this possible? Well for two reasons – firstly, as we spend more time TAKING ACTION on the things we can change, we simply have less time to dedicate to worrying about the things we can’t. We start to LET THEM GO. Secondly, the more time we spend taking action on things we can influence, the better we get at influencing in general. Our confidence grows, and we realise we can have influence over more than we first thought. (I can’t control how long the lockdown lasts, but I can control my own budget.)

However, among the avalanche of issues and concerns in our current environment, it’s easy to begin feeling overwhelmed and/or powerless, particularly when the things we cannot control are having a significant impact on our lives (such as the national and global economy, the spread of the virus etc). Here’s what it looks like when our focus is primarily on those issues we have no real influence over:

This is a very stressful place to be. At its worst, the circle of influence can all but disappear, leaving the person to feel completely powerless to take control of their present or future.

If you find yourself in a situation to help a person in this state, start by finding one thing they can take action on (no matter how small), and get them to follow through. Then identify another, then another. Little by little, their circle of influence will start to grow.

A simple exercise

So how can you use this model to drive a more proactive approach, and hence reduce stress right now? Use it to take a snapshot of your current situation. I often recommend the following simple exercise:

1. Write yourself a list of all the things that are currently in your circle of concern – don’t hold back, no matter how silly or irrelevant it may seem, if it’s concerning you then get it down.

2. Go through the list and identify all the items you have some influence or control over.

3. Reflect on the balance – are most of your items in the circle of influence, or outside of it?

4. Prioritise those items you have some influence over and address the top five. Are you taking action on these things? If not, make a plan and start implementing it.

This is a very basic exercise that I have seen reduce a huge amount of stress from people, particularly those who are feeling overwhelmed. You can use it once, or repeat it at regular intervals to monitor your progress. Ideally over time you want to aim for less and less items popping up on the ‘can’t influence’ part of the list.

A challenge

I was taking a group through this model a few days ago, and someone commented they had nothing on their list that they could influence, so what should they do? On exploring her list of things she couldn’t control, she had listed concern over family members’ financial situations and was worried about her ability to help, as well as concern over family members that were vulnerable to Covid-19.

On the surface, these do seem like issues outside of her control. However, she can respond by preparing herself. What is her own financial situation and budget like? What can she help with and what can’t she? What non-financial support may she be able to offer struggling family members etc. How is she maintaining contact with those vulnerable family members? Can she help them to prepare and understand how to protect themselves?

We can’t control if we lose our job, but we can think actively about what we may do next if that happens - getting our CVs updated, thinking about which of our skills are transferrable to other industries etc.

We can’t control the economy, but we can plan contingencies for our business and think about what we can offer differently to our clients or customers that meet the current need.

Within your bubble

The above exercise is also great to do as a group within your isolation “bubble”. It helps everyone to open up about what’s going on for them, so that you can better support each other and get out any “elephants in the room”. You can them turn the discussion to finding solutions using the ideas of the full group – often we get so stuck on an issue and our emotional response to it, a solution seems lost to us but obvious to someone else.

The concepts of proactivity and where we chose to place our focus are universal, as are the issues of stress and anxiety, and right now they really are front and centre. I’ve found Covey’s model instrumental in my life around these issues, and I’ve seen its powerful impact on others. It’s not a magic bullet and it certainly won’t fix everything, but I hope you find it valuable in deciding where to place your focus amidst this topsy-turvy world!

Good luck, stay safe and look after each other New Zealand!

Marie Johnston
Director, Workplace Culture Specialist,
Culture by Design

COVID-19: Remote working from home?

Wed, 18 Mar 2020 08:00:00 GMT

4 Leadership tips to stay connected & productive.

In the rapidly changing world of Covid-19, more and more New Zealand organisations are being prudent and beginning to prepare for the possibility of remote working from home. As a result, there is increased focus on the mental health issues that are related to working from home and there is good reason for this. As humans we are hard-wired as a social species, to seek out opportunities to be part of a group or community. Most of us have a strong human desire to be socially accepted and as human beings we survive and thrive much better together, that is of course until we don’t, which is unfortunately the case with Covid-19. Self-isolated, remote working from home is clearly a state that is counterintuitive to our hard-wired need for group contact and social acceptance. Hence, the question becomes with the potential reality of working remotely from home for an undefined amount of time, how can we retain a sense of connectivity and community? In addition, how can we ensure there is an acceptable level of productivity where people are still motivated by what they view as meaningful work in a world where there is no longer certainty and stability?

So where to start in achieving success in remote working from home? Obviously, people tackle firstly what they know to be important, e.g. let’s make sure our laptops connect from home. Great, that’s a good start, so what’s next? A strong platform and very practical way to start thinking about and preparing for the world of remote working, relates to the model of ‘Virtual Management’, a working approach model that has arisen out of globalisation and technology advances. Wikipedia defines Virtual Management as the supervision, leadership, and maintenance of virtual teams - dispersed work groups that rarely, if ever, meet face to face. Virtual Management techniques have been used successfully for many years by leaders that face issues that other leaders don’t normally have to think about, e.g. minimal awareness of team dynamics, cross-cultural differences in establishing trust in working relationships, project meetings across different time zones, etc. In an article titled ‘Common challenges of a virtual team’ referenced from sitepoint.com, the author states the following issues as sometimes experienced by virtual team leaders and team members: misunderstanding from poor communication, incompatible communication preferences, differences in work ethic, lack of clarity and direction, frequent second-guessing, deficient sense of ownership and commitment, inability to ask the right questions and difficulty with delegation.

Clearly, in addition to the above virtual team issues, we also have mental health challenges from the Covid-19 crisis, which include increasing anxiety, confusion, uncertainty and instability on many levels for both leaders and team members. To follow are 4 tips to support leaders to successfully engage in virtual management and reduce the above identified risks of working remotely:

1. Communication, Communication, Communication
Leaders consistently communicating with their team members is everything during times of remote working. This includes the scheduling and setting up of conference call meetings, starting first thing on a Monday morning to establish priorities for the week, even if you think these priorities are clear – this will create a strong start & tone to the working week. If you are a leader, I want to be very clear on this point - your job is to never stop communicating clarity to your team members, even if this means you verbally communicate to your people on a daily basis. There are many benefits to significantly increasing levels of communication. These include providing daily clarity in a world of uncertainty, allowing your people to keep asking questions - any question, keeping your people up to date with what is happening across the organisation, and helping them to continually feel a sense of belonging and connectiveness. Importantly it will also significantly lower the risk of individuals filling their own void with negative, dysfunctional thoughts that are born out of isolation, confusion, stress and anxiety.

For those teams that have embraced the world of JTI, Myers Briggs, or other team profiles, it is time to pull out your profiles and reengage so that each team member has an understanding of how other team members like to be communicated with – this will go a long way communication wise, to avoiding misunderstanding and second guessing the tone of emails or conference calls where you can’t see the facial expression of the other person. By the way, while on the topic of emails, you might want to make a rule on their use during times of remote working. For example, if you are emailing back and forth on a particular issue and you have to respond more than twice or three times, it is time to stop emailing and connect via phone or even better, Skype, facetime, etc.

2. Setting clear work prioritisation targets & delegation of work
Again, the daily/weekly setting of work priorities will provide strong clarity, direction and work meaningfulness for team members while enabling individual ownership and commitment to the work priorities. It will be important though to proactively manage team members expectations that work priorities may rapidly change, depending on the circumstances of your external clients. You may also need to manage expectations for your A type personalities in that their productivity probably just won’t achieve the same level as in normality, given typical remote working issues such as IT problems. You may need to emphasise to these pace setters, that it is okay, these are exceptional times, which require patience and calm.

Where there is a drop off in external client work, you might want to consider whether there is opportunity to start remote working on some of the internal organisational improvement type projects (e.g. improved design of intranet) that are often delayed due to high levels of external client work and normal reactive busyness of the work day.

3. Tough conversations are okay & may be required
In the world of remote working, it is okay to have tough conversations where needed with your team members. Unfortunately, in times of uncertainty and instability there is often a number of, albeit very small, employees that will engage in stupid, unhelpful, misconduct or poor performance type behaviour. The fact that these employees are working remotely does not diminish your responsibility as a leader to have the tough conversation, and in some ways, it amplifies your responsibility, particularly if the behaviour directly impacts on others working remotely, e.g. sending an inappropriate, blame-game type email to another team or team member. If this behaviour is being demonstrated by a team member that normally acts in a professional manner, this clearly may mean this team member is not coping well and that they need extra emotional support, including maybe providing them with EAP type phone support. If the team member, however, has typically engaged in misconduct type behaviour in past, you may need to just have a very direct ‘cut it out’ type conversation to get this person back on track. Either way your role as a leader will be to investigate and resolve these issues in a way that supports both the individual to get back on track and behave appropriately and in turn, will minimise the possible derailment and negative distraction of other team cohorts.

4. Living consciously and managing leader & employee stress
How leaders communicate and lead in the world of remote working will ultimately dictate whether there is success and calm for many team members or whether they will live in a perpetual state of stress and anxiety. This includes an employee’s ability to live consciously (i.e. not letting negative, unhelpful emotions rule their reality) and not let the Covid-19 stress monster gobble them up in a fit of anxiety and despair. A simple, clever and practical model that leaders can teach their people to alleviate anxiety, fear and reduce the risk of the stress monster waking up individuals at 2am, is Stephen Covey’s Circle of Influence and Control. Get your team together now in a room (or virtually if already in the world of remote working) and have each team member individually write down their own list of everything that is currently concerning them. Once they have completed their individual list, get them to use a big red felt pen to put a thick line through anything they currently don’t have control over. With the items that are left on the list (i.e. the things they have control and influence over), ask them to prioritise the three items on this list having the greatest impact for them, and write an action plan to address each. As part of this session, I would also get the team as a whole, to brainstorm any concerns they have about working remotely. Make sure you write up on the whiteboard things like lack of connectivity, feeling alone, worried about the future of the organisation, etc, so that as the leader of this team you help them front foot and discuss their fears openly and come up with possible ideas and solutions. This includes ways to be virtually more connected as a team, and support team members that may have lower levels of resilience and may be prone to higher levels of stress and anxiety (e.g. a virtual buddy system where one team member checks in daily via phone on another team member).

To finish, during these uncertain times, please don’t forget, that as a human species, it is absolutely true what they say, we are tough, resilient and although we may be a bit battle scarred at the end of all this, we will find our way back to normality, even if it is a new normal. Remember to be kind, compassionate (particularly to those not coping as well as you), patient and live as consciously as you can. For you leaders out there, take extra special care of yourselves so that you in turn, can take extra special care of your team members, family and friends.

If you have any questions or want further clarity on the above content, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

If you would like to read more on the topic, here's a great and detailed resource on working from home called “ The Suddenly Remote Playbook ” from the world's largest fully remote company, Toptal. Enjoy!

Mary Buckley
Managing Director, Culture by Design

People Processes – Righting the Balance

Thu, 14 Jun 2018 01:27:00 GMT

Three questions to help you bring focus back to the power of the conversation

Over the last few years, it seems that every man, woman and their dog are talking about the pros and cons of quitting the annual performance review. In fact, it has somewhat become the latest trend for “cool and enlightened” employers around the globe. But what exactly are these employers trying to achieve? Or more pertinently, what should you be trying to achieve from any people-related process?

A few years ago, I asked myself this question when working for an international employer. After the usual and predictable gripes following our performance review about the hassle and time-wasting of “form-filling”, I completed a bit of a soul-searching deep dive of our process. What did we actually want and need to achieve from the process, and what was the actual result? The answers were unsettling. When stripped back, we ultimately wanted to facilitate a great conversation between employee and leader, where powerful feedback could be shared (both ways) in a manner that allowed insights and learning. However, the t-crossing, i-dotting and various deadlines were simply getting in the way. A small measure of comfort could be taken from the fact that we were not alone – people related processes everywhere have become too heavily weighted toward documentation and timeframes, at the expense of the very value these processes were originally designed to deliver.

So how can we achieve a better, more effective balance in our organisations, that brings the focus back to where the value lies – in a powerful, honest conversation? Here are three questions to consider:

How healthy is your process?

Process is not the enemy – bad process is! When deciding what an organisation’s people processes should look like, or whether current processes are hitting the mark, the first question should be - what exactly are we trying to achieve with this process? The likelihood is that an honest, great conversation sits at the heart of it, and to derive true value this conversation is probably going to happen more than once a year. The next question to ask is, how should our process be developed or re-designed to bring the focus to these conversations, not to the documentation? Don’t be afraid to move away from the status quo or “best practice”, whatever that is. After all, best practice is whatever works in the unique environment of your organisation.

How mature are your leaders?

Just to be clear, age is irrelevant in this equation, as are years of experience. What we’re asking here is, how strong is your organisation’s collective leadership capability? Have leaders been developed to a point where great, honest conversations are a natural part of their leadership practice? Where giving and receiving feedback is a natural part of a busy working week? If this is the case (consistently, across all leaders) then there is a definite argument for removing such processes as performance reviews and performance development rounds, because these conversations are continual and happen when and where needed – which, must be argued, is far more effective than a yearly or six-monthly sit down. However, in my experience leadership maturity in organisations is often not this strong – consistently across all leaders. The problem is, if you remove your processes completely and you have leaders that are not having regular conversations of their own volition, then you risk leaving your people in a feedback and development vacuum. Not good! So, if you genuinely cannot say that ALL your leaders are at this level of maturity yet, then work with them to get there, while re-modelling your people processes – but not removing them, at least not yet!

Do you develop for great conversations?

Process is only half the picture, but often gets a big dollop of the blame for a lack of great conversations during people processes. Just like anything, if we want great conversations to occur, we need to develop our leaders to be able to engage in these conversations. Ask yourself this question – does your training around people processes focus more heavily on training the process or developing the skills to have powerful honest discussions and to give and receive feedback? Time and time again I’ve seen great leaders engage in strong, effective, impactful conversations during people processes not because of the process, but despite it. Great leaders that understand the need to have powerful honest conversations, and have the skill to hold such conversations will find a way to make it happen. This understanding, knowledge and skill can absolutely be developed, but is too often overlooked.

Strong, honest, great conversations sit at the heart of a healthy employment relationship and achieving the best by and for our people. Through better process and growing the maturity of our leaders through targeted development, we can re-create these often-painful traditions into modern, positive and effective activities that our people (employees and leaders alike) will actually value, rather can complain about.

If you’re doing something new and interesting in your organisation to right this balance, we’d love to hear about it!

Marie Johnston

Workplace Culture for Start-ups

Wed, 11 Apr 2018 21:01:00 GMT

It’s never too early!

When an organisation is in its early stages, there are a million and one things to focus on, and usually not enough people to do the focusing. Topics like workplace culture can surely wait until you’re all grown up – right? Well it really depends whether you’re aiming for long term success – because if so, then waiting is a risky prospect.

Let’s start with some basic facts about workplace culture:

1. It’s immensely powerful – the research is now extensive and clear, workplace culture is a critical element of success or failure in an organisation

2. Every organisation has one : If you work for, or own an organisation with 2 or more people in it… congratulations, you already have a culture!

And yet despite the above two facts, many organisations still leave their culture to chance, & only take a purposeful approach once it’s broken – we know because often that’s when people seek out our help.

Now consider this. The faster an organisation grows, changes and iterates, the more crucial workplace culture becomes to its ongoing survival and success. And who grows faster than the average start-up?

What’s the risk?

Let me demonstrate the risk of not focussing on culture early on, borrowing a model used by Simon Sinek in his 2011 TEDX talk, First Why, Then Trust.

When a company is founded, what they do and the reason they do it (often called the Why, or the Purpose) are inextricably linked. Typically, a group of people come together around a central idea with passion and excitement that carries the organisation forward in those early days. Here’s how it might look:

BUT – they don’t call it the “Tyranny of Success” for nothing.

As the organisation continues to grow, there comes a point where the founders can no longer do everything themselves. They need to bring new people into the business who will make decisions, and in turn, bring in more new people, and so on.

If the founders have not done a very thorough job of communicating the WHY or Purpose of the company and bringing this purpose to life as the organisation grows, then a split can occur between WHAT we do and WHY we do it. Essentially, the WHY gets lost. Here’s how it now looks:

We can keep doing what we’ve been doing, and continue for a while, to grow our success, but as that sense of “why” drops away, so too does the intrinsic motivation of being part of something bigger, that sense of purpose and being united to a common goal.

As this happens, certain symptoms are likely to occur in the business:

- Trust starts to disappear

- People who were there from the start say “It doesn’t feel the same anymore, we’ve lost that sense of who we were”

- People start coming to work for extrinsic rewards like pay and perks, rather than out of any intrinsic sense of purpose

Needless to say, this all adds up to big trouble for our organisation.

Here’s the good news!

When organisations get proactive about their workplace culture early on, they can avoid the split from ever happening. A really big part of culture development is about making sure your people understand your “why” – your purpose & your plan to get there – and that the purpose and plan are COMPELLING – that it’s something that your people actually care about.

Your workplace culture ultimately becomes the means by which you bring your purpose to life, and firmly connect it with WHAT it is that you do.

Here’s something to be aware of – the faster your business changes and grows, the more important it is to build your culture early. If an organisation is moving slowly, they have time to navigate these issues, to notice the first symptoms of a split, and to react before things get out of hand.

Many start-up businesses today simply don’t have that luxury. You can go from inception to split in a matter of a few months, and the split can get big, fast. That’s why it’s so imperative to build culture early.

More good news. Some of you reading this and thinking about your own companies may be thinking that you’ve already experienced the split. Whilst it’s FAR easier to develop the right culture pre-split, with a lot of hard work and determination, culture issues after this point can be turned around.

What to do?

Whether your business is currently before the split or after it, let’s have a look at where you can start to build that all-important healthy workplace culture.

There are a number of areas you can focus on across your business that will help you drive and develop your culture, but we’d encourage you to always start with what we call the 4 Heavy Hitters:

Your purpose and strategy: Ask yourself these questions – can you clearly articulate your reason for being – your purpose or WHY? Is it compelling, to you and to others? Do people understand your plan to get there, and the part they play? A wee tip here - a purpose and strategic plan that’s all about the dollars is unlikely to win the hearts and minds of anyone, other than perhaps, your investors.

Once you have a clear and compelling purpose and strategy, you’re halfway there. It’s now about a) communicating, communicating, communicating (this should be regular and constant - once definitely won’t cut it!) and b) ensuring your people each understand the important part they play in achieving your purpose.

Your Leadership: Ultimately culture growth must be owned and championed by the person or people at the top. If you’re a business owner, CEO, top dog, head bottle washer, that means you.

Leadership capability is all about ensuring that there is consistent leadership language, expectations and behaviours between the leaders, ensuring that all employees receive a predictable leadership approach. This is particularly important and challenging as new leaders come into the organisation. What’s your plan for ensuring all your leaders are aligned, and stay that way?

Your values: Values often get a bad rap when they become not much more than pretty words on a company website. But when treated with respect and due diligence, we’ve seen values & associated behaviours become extremely powerful tools in aligning behaviour across an organisation. When you bring to life the value behaviours through your company processes and systems such as leadership capability, recruitment, recognition, succession, reward and performance management, you have company-wide understanding of what is acceptable behaviour and what is not. This leads to an advanced self-managing, empowered workplace where adults are treated like adults and therefore act like adults, capable of complex problem solving and making sound, smart decisions.

Your secret sauce: This is how we’ve termed that specialness that makes you – well you. It’s how people feel when they engage with your business, that makes you feel different than the business down the road, it’s what your people love about this place.

Find out what your secret sauce is by asking the people who work in your business, and people that come into contact with it “what makes us special?”. Then use it. Talk about it, bring it into your values, your hiring decisions and your physical environment.

It’s the secret sauce that we find start-ups are most afraid of losing as they grow – so be really conscious about making it part of the fabric of your organisation so that it grows as you grow, rather than getting lost in that deep chasm known as ‘the split’.

Here’s what we’ve experienced – If you’ve undergone a split in your business, dedicated effort on the four Heavy Hitters above will definitely start to get you back in the game. However, make no mistake - repairing and growing a damaged workplace culture will take exceptional time, skill and discipline.

The alternative is this - get proactive and develop these areas before the split takes place, while current culture is healthy and happy. Do that, and you’re setting up the pillars of long-lasting success, whatever comes your way.

So, good luck start-ups! If you ever need some help, support or just want to chat about your workplace culture, feel free to get in touch.

Marie Johnston

Command & Control to People Centered Egalitarianism

Fri, 09 Mar 2018 03:55:00 GMT

3 tips to help with the change transformation

In today’s world, there is a significant amount of research knowledge available on the dysfunctional, negative impact that a ‘Command & Control’ leadership and culture philosophy can have on an organisation’s ability to create, innovate and respond well to customer and market needs. Hence, given the importance of having your customer insight and challenges at the heart of what you do, it would be reasonable to think that command and control philosophy would now be defunct in most workplace environments. Sadly, this is not the case and so the question becomes why do some many organisations still operate this way and what is stopping these organisations from moving to a more progressive egalitarian, people-centered approach?

Bnet.com defines command-and-control approach as:

…a style of leadership that uses standards, procedures, and output statistics to regulate the organization. A command and control approach to leadership is authoritative in nature and uses a top-down approach, which fits well in bureaucratic organizations in which privilege and power are vested in senior management. It is founded on, and emphasizes a distinction between, executives on the one hand and workers on the other.

Ken Blanchard states the following on egalitarian, people-centered approach:

People-centered leaders care about both people and results—they know the only way to get results is through their people. Great leaders realize that their number-one customer is their people. If they take care of their people, train them, and empower them, those people will become fully engaged and gung-ho about what they do. In turn, they will reach out and take care of their second most important customer—the people who buy their products or services— and turn them into raving fans.

When you compare the vast difference between the above, two philosophies, it would be fair to say that one of the key reasons that command and control type organisations remain command and control, is related to the significant level of change complexity. The amount of comprehensive, organisational activity which, is required to transform to an egalitarian, people-centered environment can be extremely complicated and simply too overwhelming for many organisations.

To follow are 3 tips to hopefully get you thinking about starter for ten, key aspects to consider and prioritise in your change transformation:

1) First & foremost: Board, CEO, people leader mindset, will & commitment

For any transformation attempt to stand a serious chance of success, it obviously starts with the Board and CEO or business owner having the clarity of need, will, mindset and commitment that an organisational-wide, people-centered approach has become fundamental to future business sustainability. From there, the priority needs to be all about working out an appropriate leadership strategy for the transformation which, includes identifying an ideal leadership capability profile. This profile needs to ascertain what future people-centered leadership language, expectations and behaviours will be required from all people leaders and then how to bring this profile approach to life. For example, this new profile might require leaders to hand over decision making to employees on how work processes and systems are developed, executed and improved. It might involve leaders engaging in collaborative conversations with their employees to better understand external customer insight and challenges, and then how to solve these challenges. Aligning all your people leaders in the new leadership approach profile will be your first, critical, tangible move in what will be a lengthy transformation process, particularly if there has been long tenure of the command and control approach. Through this key leadership alignment though, will come the ability to expediate certain ROI features of a people-centered work environment. For example, a command and control environment personifies a parent – child, directive type relationship between leader and employee in the workplace. Whereas, a people-centered environment can be characterised by mature, collaborative, adult to adult type relationships between leader and employee, whereby employees are much more capable of complex problem solving and making sound decisions. Hence, by firstly focusing on the transformation of your leadership approach at the organisation level, you expediate the employees’ trust and confidence that your leaders are open to collaborative, new ways of thinking and that leaders will empower and support employees to solve their own work problems and make their own work decisions. In addition, command and control leadership sometimes brings with it a high level of employee fear that they will blamed and reprimanded if mistakes are made and this is obviously a key blocker to employee creatively and innovation. Hence, by heavily investing upfront in transforming the leadership approach to people-centered, you can expediate building an employee culture of creativity and innovation which is aligned to your customer in-depth insights.

Something to note, most likely not all people leaders will make this transformation to a people-centered environment as moving from a command and control approach where there is an exceptionally high level of autocratic power for the leader, to then letting this power go can be very difficult for some leaders. There is nothing right or wrong about this, it is all about individual cultural fit in a workplace environment so just be aware that as part of making a transformation like this, there may need to be, ironically some tough conversations that need to happen with certain leaders.

2) Values & associated Behaviours

Once you have successfully executed on your leadership approach strategy, you have the right cultural fit leaders and your leadership capability at the organisational level is in a robust place, your next critical area of focus should be your employees, your people. The powerful psychology behind employee behaviour in a command and control environment (particularly one with long tenure) is a tricky beast to navigate when wanting to transform. To go from a ‘closed door’, ‘do as I say without question’, and having all aspects of the work process and activity intensely controlled by the leader to then expecting employees to think for themselves and make their own work decisions is gruelling and arduous at best. Hence, like your new leadership capability profile, you will need to create a new narrative of employee language, expectations and behaviours that supports your employees to think and behave in a fundamentally, different way.

One way to do this, is too rethink / redesign your organisation’s values. When treated with respect and due diligence, your values & associated behaviours are extremely powerful in aligning your employee behaviour, to bring to life a core working approach which, supports the execution of your strategy. When you bring to life the value behaviours through People & Capability processes and systems such as leadership capability, recruitment, recognition, succession, reward and performance management, you have organisational wide understanding of what is acceptable behaviour and what is not. Imbedded value behaviours plus leadership capability, leads to an advanced self-managing, empowered type workplace where adults are treated like adults and therefore act like mature, professional adults capable of complex problem solving and making sound, smart decisions.

Again, something to note, like the building of new leadership capability whereby there may be the loss of some leaders, potentially there may also be the loss of some employees that are simply not that comfortable in this new, empowering, people-centered world. However, in my experience (and the fact that it is not rocket science) there is far more risk of loss of leaders through taking away their autocratic power than risking loss of employees by giving empowerment and work decision-making ability.

3) Workplace Culture

Once there is a leadership capability mindset and an organisational employee mindset in place, which has embraced a people-centered approach (versus command and control) you have the key ingredients to begin building together a workplace culture that brings sustainability to this brave, new world. Your leaders and employees can start engaging in two-way conversations to work out collectively what new ways of working are required to support your future business strategy goals. For example, do you need better collaboration across the different departments of the organisation and if so, how can you achieve this? Do you need to instil an internal customer mindset across the organisation that allows for employees to better understand the critical part they play, who they benefit and to what end? Do you need to tie process management together with continuous improvement mindset to ensure fit for purpose, relevant processes that robustly recognise the external customer voice? Is your internal communication strategy hitting the mark in what people want to, and need to hear about, does it spark innovation discussions, does it celebrate wins and gain that elusive buy-in on the future direction of the organisation? These are all clever, value-adding, two-way conversations you can begin to have once you have transformed the command and control, autocratic approach into a far more sophisticated, people-centered, innovative workplace environment.

There is no denying that to successfully transform from a command and control led environment to a people-centered led organisation it will take time, massive skillset, detailed planning, significant dedication, resource and oodles of courage. I would strongly suggest that if you are considering this type of seismic change that you find other organisations that have been successful in their change endeavour and learn everything you can about their journey, both their success and their failures. I would also strongly recommend that you invest upfront in ensuring that you have either appropriate in-house resource or are externally partnering with the right kind of expertise and skillset that can support the varying, complex aspects of your transformation.

Shifting to a people-centered philosophy and work environment has so many benefits for both employees and employers. Whether it is better execution of your strategy, creating a robust platform for innovation, gaining a more in-depth understanding of customer insight or retention of your best and brightest through an inspiring, fun work environment, it just makes sense and is definitely worth the investment. For those of you out there that have the influence and decision-making ability to decide what kind of workplace philosophy your organisation embraces, I have this to say to you. It does not take hundreds of scholarly research articles to support the view that life for both employees and leaders is much more enjoyable, satisfying and productive in a people-centered workplace environment. It also does not take meta-analysis, big data and empirical research to understand and clarify that people are far more capable of being customer focussed, creative and innovative when they are treated as equals, mature adults and professional human beings. All it takes is for you to ask yourself this one question, what kind of work environment would enable your ability to achieve beyond the call and to be the very best kind of you?

Mary Buckley

The Road to a Better Culture Starts with your Leaders

Fri, 02 Feb 2018 00:17:00 GMT

So, you’ve decided that now is the time to get proactive about your workplace culture. Excellent call! The changes and resulting breaking of norms we have seen in our organisations due to Covid have ironically made a re-set of our new workplace cultures moving forward an easier prospect! However, there is a critical step you’ll need to take first, if you want all your good work to pay off.

Culture cannot be developed, grown or improved by leaders that are not ready for it or properly aligned. When we work with clients, we don’t even start talking culture until the leaders are in a fit state to step up to the plate. Why? Because ultimately, it’s your leaders that will lead the charge on bringing to life any culture initiative you come up with. It’s your leaders that will guide your people toward your goal of culture excellence. It’s your leaders that will stay the course, month after month, year after year. And it’s your leaders that will deal with any behaviours from your people that contradict the culture you’re attempting to build.

You can think of your leadership as the foundation upon which culture is built. A leaky, unstable foundation is like a sieve. All the good work you do above the sieve will flow straight through and leave you with roughly the same culture you started with. My own anecdotal evidence from years of working in, and with organisations around workplace culture indicates this is one of the key reasons so many struggle to make positive, long lasting changes to their culture.

How do you get your leadership in a fit state for culture development?

1. Include ALL leaders

Aligned leadership across your organisation calls for every single person that has responsibility for another, to be included in your efforts. Often organisations will focus leadership development on the top few tiers of leadership, but this misses the critical mass – that level of leadership that have the most direct influence over the people doing the work at the coal face of your organisation. For this reason, we are strong advocates of leadership capability development including all people leaders as a starting point. There also may be other individuals within your organisation worth including, such as senior team members who do not manage staff but still hold influential leadership roles, and those that hold informal roles of influence – i.e. those individuals others naturally respect and listen to, even though they may not hold a formal leadership role. Informal leaders are often some of the most powerful when it comes to bringing your people on board.

2. Think alignment, not individual development

Achieving the right foundation of leadership capability for workplace culture growth is not about assessing and developing individual leaders. While obviously important, that’s a whole different exercise. This work is about creating shared language and leadership approach ACROSS your organisation. Look to create or bring in a programme that ensures every leader has the same experience and covers the same material. It’s also imperative that leaders walk away from this programme with a clear understanding of the critical role they play in development of workplace culture, and the motivation and drive to take it seriously.

3. Get the order right

Always start this work at the top. While every leader holds a level of responsibility for workplace culture, the buck stops with your CEO and top team. This team, more than any other, must be in a ready state for the culture work to come. Because of this, we’ll often complete more extensive work here before rolling leadership capability development into lower levels of leadership. Your top team must be the owners of culture development, and this means they must become the ultimate role models of the culture you hope to create. “One rule for us and one rule for them” will not cut it in the development of any healthy culture. It’s important that all your other leaders see the top team attending the same programme of learning as they do. It also means that the individuals in this team can become advocates for the programme and support their leader direct reports to get the most from the programme as it rolls down.

At lower levels of leadership, look for opportunities to bring leaders together from disparate parts of the organisation into the same programme. It’s amazing how effectively this can start to break down silos, when leaders gain a new understanding of the challenges other leaders face and how similar those challenges often are. Encouraging these ‘leader cohorts’ to form their own support networks for helping each other through their various leadership challenges can be very beneficial on a number of levels, especially as you prepare to embark on a programme of workplace culture development which will throw up all sorts of interesting issues and challenges for your leaders to navigate.

Once you have developed a strong foundation of aligned leadership capability across your organisation, you can genuinely be confident in your ability to influence and build a healthier culture, safe in the knowledge that the work you put in will be carried forward and brought home by your uber-capable and ready leaders.

If you’d like to have a chat about leadership capability development at your place, give us a call. It’s one of our favourite subjects!

Marie Johnston

The Joyful Rewards of Study Tours - 3 Reasons to Indulge

Tue, 28 Nov 2017 03:44:00 GMT

One of the most joyful and rewarding of all workplace experiences to undertake, in my opinion, is the humble study tour. I’ve been lucky enough in my career to visit, both here in New Zealand and overseas, many organisations which, are renowned for certain workplace practices and philosophies such as, customer focus, innovation processes, leadership capability and workplace culture excellence. The opportunity to visit, study and learn from these organisations has enabled me to both think differently about crucial work philosophies such as strategy execution approach and to challenge whether certain work practices actually add any value at all to an organisation, e.g., performance reviews. Some study tours have introduced me to completely new ways of thinking and working, e.g., Agile methodology which, in turn allowed for adaption to new ways of operating in some of my future teams. For example, my now business partner is an accredited Agile Scrum Master and prior to us going into business, she introduced and implemented the concept and working approach of scrum teams to a HR department that I was leading at the time. The scrum team method was a completely new approach for most of the HR team members and yielded some fairly significant project wins in a much shorter duration of time than if a traditional HR approach had been used.

There are so many glorious reasons to undertake study tours from an individual perspective, to a team perspective to an organisation perspective. To follow are 3 reasons that will certainly add value at an individual level, a team level and an organisational level:

PARADIGM BUSTING & NEW LEARNINGS EXPLORATION

1) In my experience, when you partake in a study tour the leaders and employees of the organisation that you are visiting are so unbelievably generous in passing on invaluable knowledge about their organisation’s work processes and practices. These leaders and employees are proud of all they have achieved and are only too happy to pass on stories of both their successes and just as importantly their failures, and the learnings from these failures. If you are curious and open and prepared with questions to ask and treads to pull, the information you can glean can be truly capable of breaking some formidable paradigms that exist within your own organisation. I think of one particular study tour which I participated in, where our entire Executive team visit several organisations in the USA. This outcome of this comprehensive study tour resulted in us changing our organisational approach on many fronts. This included our approach to strategy execution, marketing and customer insight, innovation processes, engineering and manufacturing processes, leadership capability with all concepts underpinned by business and workplace culture excellence. Now, clearly not all Executive teams or business owners can afford to jump on a flight and head off overseas to experience study tours so here is the really good news, there are so many amazing things happening right here in New Zealand, on your local door step. If there are particular workplace practices and philosophies that you are interested in, e.g. introducing continuous improvement to your organisation, have a chat with your local Employer Chamber of Commerce branch, your local economic development agency or maybe MBIE. These organisations should be fairly insightful as to what businesses or organisations are out there that are strong in the area that you are interested in learning about. Recruitment consultants are another really good source of knowledge as to what is happening in local companies and organisations.

VALIDATION OF CURRENT WORKPLACE PRACTICES

2) As well as supporting your ability to think differently, study tours can also be extremely valuable in helping to validate areas where your organisation is already doing well. There will undoubtedly be an area where you are strong from a workplace practice and philosophy perspective and you will intuitionally feel this. However, having conversations with senior leaders and employees from other renowned organisations that share the same beliefs, have similar processes and competence in this area will add an important level of reassurance and confidence. It can also have the added benefit, when you receive this type of validation, of giving clear direction and focus to building further strength in an area that may potentially become a differentiating, competitive competency for your organisation, e.g. innovation processes. Validation from study tours on your current workplace practices can also be extremely important from a change management perspective when it comes to existing employee mindset. What I mean by this is just because you or your senior team have participated in a study tour which, has inspired, reenergised and given new, clear focus and direction, not everyone at your organisation will feel that same motivation to change. Before attempting any change, you will need to prepare your employees and their mindset to be open to thinking differently and therefore, willing to change current practices. Hence, if you are planning some fairly meaty changes as a result of your study tour learnings, part of the change management narrative, should encompass dialogue on what the organisation is currently doing well. This will help to celebrate the past efforts of employees and give important recognition to existing work practices that are fit for purpose before you enter what can be a tricky, controversial narrative about the competitive need to shake things up. That is, to change or reinvent other workplace practice areas that may not be fit for purpose or relevant to market and external customer needs and expectations. From an employee perspective, genuine acknowledgement and recognition for what is working well is key to employee engagement and willingness to think and act differently in areas that may not be working well. Without this recognition, there can be a powerful, bloody-mindedness that can significantly hinder change management efforts at an organisational level.

IT’S FUN & A TEAM BONDING EXPERIENCE

3) Probably not as an important point as the two points above (although some may argue otherwise, which I’m all good with) is that study tours can be a really enlightening and fun, team bonding experience. An experience that can shed invaluable insight and in-depth understanding on individual thought patterns, beliefs and knowledge base related to the different workplace practices and philosophes that are being studied. This is information that you wouldn’t normally get to understand or discuss in the daily, operational life of the workplace environment. I can think of a past study tour example where it suddenly occurred to me that two of our senior, executive leaders that had previously appeared chalk and cheese, actually had a great deal in common regarding their thoughts and beliefs on certain workplace philosophies. It was just that when they were briefly discussing the same workplace practices or philosophies in the overwhelmingly busy, operational, daily environment, their very different personality preferences were getting in the way of them having a decent, healthy conversation. The very experience itself of this particular study tour aligned these two senior executives that were both respectively accountable for the two biggest areas of the organisation, in a way that I don’t believe they could have been aligned without this study tour experience.

In addition, as the subtitle of this section suggests there are aspects to study tours that are just fun and help to bond a team, particularly if the study tour is of a duration that lasts more than one day and there is travel involved. The time spent together as a team during the down time of a study tour allows the team to co-exist and have some fun in a way that would be impossible during normal office hours. There are many (many) stories from the Executive team USA study tour that I mentioned earlier to demonstrate this ‘fun & bonding’ point however, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. The point here is that the entertaining, good-natured stories that arise out of study tours are the shared stories that help bond a team and bring a level of strength and camaraderie to a team that is hard to replicate in other ways.

In closing, study tours have so many benefits on so many different levels that if you are able to influence your organisation’s view on this type of learning it is definitely worthwhile doing so. For example, in a previous life where I was in the role of GM of Human Resources, some of my HR team needed to travel to place like the USA, China and the UK to facilitate different HR and OD workshops. As the leader, I was able to instil the philosophy that if possible, my team members were to tag on an extra day and complete study tours at local organisations that were renowned for certain workplace practices. This is such a win-win situation for both team members and the organisation from a learning and employee engagement perspective. The overall payoff from investment in study tours can be compelling as when translated from learnings into actual practical outcomes, an organisation can fundamentally reinvent itself on many fronts. The result of which, can mean that an organisation is far more fit for purpose and relevant to both its external customers’ needs and expectations, and the market place. And of course, the cherry on the top, is that the experience of study tours can have tremendous ROI for the culture and performance of a team and build a bond that is hard to reproduce in any other way. So, if you are thinking of indulging and exploring a new way of learning via study tours I hope these few words have helped to validate your thinking. That in future, you also get to experience the above similar joys associated with study tours including an amazing exploration of new ways of thinking about and approaching both work practices and philosophies in your organisation.

Mary Buckley

Where Do You Choose To Focus?

Thu, 02 Nov 2017 01:20:00 GMT

A simple but powerful model for reducing stress and building resilience.

It was early in my career that a very wise person introduced me to Stephen Covey’s Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern (Thank you Vicki McLachlan!). This simple model has helped me immensely at various times throughout my life, and I’ve been privileged to be able to use it to help others, particularly those in leadership roles.

But first, the model.
Stephen Covey introduces the Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern during Habit 1 of his 1989 bestselling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Habit 1 is to be proactive, and Covey argues that proactive people apply their focus within the circle of influence, while those that are reactive, focus within their circle of concern. He also argues that those with a proactive focus enjoy higher levels of resilience and reduced stress across their lives.

Let me put this into my own words.
Here is the Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern. As you can see, one is a subset of the other.

The circle of concern represents everything that concerns you – whatever is stressing you out, frustrating you, annoying you, waking you at 3am, etc.

The circle of influence contains those things within your circle of concern that you can ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING ABOUT. It represents the stuff you have some influence or control over.

How is this possible? Well for two reasons – firstly, as we spend more time TAKING ACTION on the things we can change, we simply have less time to dedicate to worrying about the things we can’t. We start to LET THEM GO. Secondly, the more time we spend taking action on things we can influence, the better we get at influencing in general. Our confidence grows, and we realise we can have influence over more than we first thought. People who can achieve this outcome really are taking control of their own destiny and enjoying a lot less stress as a consequence.

However, among the avalanche of issues and concerns that tend to come our way on a regular basis, it’s easy to begin feeling overwhelmed and/or powerless, particularly when the things we cannot control are having a significant impact on our lives. Here’s what it looks like when our focus is primarily on those issues we have no influence over:

This is a very stressful place to be. At its worst, the circle of influence can all but disappear, leaving the person to feel completely powerless to take control of their present or future.

If you find yourself in a situation to help a person in this state, start by finding one thing they can take action on, and get them to follow through. Then identify another, then another. Little by little, their circle of influence will start to grow.

A simple exercise

So how can you use this model to drive a more proactive approach, and hence reduce stress in your life? Use it to take a snapshot of your current situation. I often recommend the following simple exercise:

1. Write yourself a list of all the things that are currently in your circle of concern – don’t hold
back, no matter how silly or irrelevant it may seem, if it’s concerning you then get it down.

2. Go through the list and identify all the items you have some influence or control over.

3. Reflect on the balance – are most of your items in the circle of influence, or outside of it?

4. Prioritise those items you have some influence over and address the top five. Are you taking
action on these things? If not, make a plan and start implementing it.

Leaders

I believe this model is particularly relevant and useful for those in leadership positions, especially those with direct reports. Today’s leaders are coming under more pressure and demands than ever before. Their ability to discriminate between where to place their focus is critical to their success. Further to this, people look to their leaders, particularly in times of volatility or change, to provide the steady hand and appear to be calmly in control. Therefore, resilience for a leader is a crucial characteristic to allow them to effectively lead.

Some other examples

A few years back I found myself in the unenviable position of being part of a process to close down a manufacturing operation and hence make a number of great people redundant. This is a classic situation where people feel a lack of control over the decisions that are being made that will directly affect their livelihood and future. And fair enough! However, what people can influence is how ready they are to take that next step. This is why we put significant time and effort into running CV and Interviewing Skills workshops, and providing financial advice through our EAP provider, so that these people had something tangible and useful to place focus on during a very turbulent time. These are little things, yes, but little things can create a start for people to feel less helpless.

We saw similar issues play out during the Canterbury earthquakes. Many people became terrified of the “next earthquake”, something they of course had absolutely no control over. Someone very close to me was one of those suffering from this anxiety. By helping her to focus on the things she could take action on (creating an “earthquake preparedness kit”, securing her pictures, furniture and nic-nacs around the home and having a plan to meet up with others should another earthquake hit), helped her to focus her attention and reduce some of that anxiety.

The concepts of proactivity and where we chose to place our focus are universal, as are the issues of stress, anxiety and lack of resilience. I’ve found Covey’s model instrumental in my life around these issues, and I’ve seen its powerful impact on others. I hope you find it valuable too, in deciding where to place your focus.

Marie Johnston

A plea to all HQs out there

Wed, 18 Oct 2017 02:02:00 GMT

It’s one of the most frustrating, disheartening and outright maddening conversations to have with a company leader. The discussion where the leader alludes to the fact that he or she is thinking about or has made the decision to leave their respective organisation. What’s the reason for potentially leaving the organisation? Well, despite the executive leader’s numerous, tenacious efforts over a lengthy period, they just can’t get regional management to understand why financial investment in leadership capability and workplace culture is so critical to future organisational success. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence that the organisation is suffering from leadership and culture issues, regional management still won’t budge when presented with solid business cases for leadership and workplace culture investment by the company leader.

Here’s a story…

I recently had one of those maddening conversations with a client that sits in the top leadership position for a business that is part of a group of companies owned by an organisation headquartered in Europe. This client (let’s call him JT) has been with the global organisation for about three years now in the role of General Manager. When he started with the company, JT inherited a broken, dysfunctional, business-wide, state of affairs. This organisational-wide situation included a lack of clear strategy, old product lines with outdated technology that were no longer meeting market expectations, a disengaged and demotivated work force and a confused, siloed leadership team. To date, JT is doing everything right to turn the ship around. He has redesigned his leadership team to bring in professional marketing to gain a better understanding of market and customer insight and challenges and in addition, he has added a stronger level of financial acumen. He has invested significant time and effort to culturally develop his senior team to where they need to be to design a future strategy, as well as develop sound business plans to lead and successfully execute on the strategy. He is partnering with external organisations to support business needs related to building a strong platform of leadership capability and workplace culture excellence from which, the company can launch new initiatives that are in line with the new marketing strategy. Leadership capability, in-depth customer insight, cross functional collaboration, continuous improvement, robust process management and manufacturing excellence are all becoming part of the new DNA language, toolkit and competence for this company and this is all due to the leadership of JT and his new exec team.

JT has previously worked with a global organisation that has a remarkable and enviable reputation for clever innovation, which is the result of significant investment by the global HQ in both leadership capability and workplace excellence. This organisation has renown, fit for purpose regional management and leadership, and operates with a business excellence framework in place. Hence, JT understands at a comprehensive level, the ROI for investment in leadership and excellence type initiatives. His past working experience has fundamentally supported JT’s skillset and understanding of what needs to happen to reinvent and change the direction of a broken, dysfunctional company. In addition, when first meeting with JT, it quickly becomes apparent that he is smart with a very high level of abstract reasoning I suspect, he is business savvy, clearly understands people and their personality preferences in the workplace, he is both achievement driven and a pace setter. What is also obvious, is that JT has a naturally high level of self-esteem and above average emotional intelligence. He has strong values, acts with integrity and has overwhelming potential to become a stunning, future CEO that would add greatly to our NZ business world and economy.

As I mentioned before, to date JT is doing everything right to ensure the journey of reinvention and getting his new company back on the map. But - and it is a biblical but, at every step of the way he has had to fight, argue and attempt to educate almost to an outlandish level, his Regional Manager on why he needs to invest in leadership capability and workplace excellence initiatives. He has had to fight for sign-off to address and develop the competence of his leadership team. He has had to fight to deal with and potentially remove hostage taking personalities that have long tenure and therefore, familiar relationships with regional management. Hostage takers that are continually creating dysfunctional havoc in the workplace through their inability to cope with the required change from new strategy. JT has had to fight for investment budget into culture excellence initiatives such as, leadership capability workshops, continuous improvement programmes, team communication and problem-solving development and strategy execution sessions. Just to be clear on this point, it’s not because there isn’t available budget for this type of development activity, it’s because there is little or no belief by regional management in this type of investment.

Reality Check…

And so, here we are today. This clever, inspiring, engaging and commercially astute leader, who is more than capable of turning the organisational ship away from the titanic sized iceberg and towards a far brighter future, is finally calling it quits. I want to be clear here, this has not been an easy decision for this particular leader, as he is truly optimistic by nature with an extremely high level of resilience and tenacity. However, JT has reached a point of no return in that he has had enough of the incredulous conversations that he has on a regular basis with his Regional Manager. He’s had enough of the fighting diatribe attempts to get his manager to understand why investment in new marketing strategy is important for the future of this company. He’s had enough of the persistent ‘no’ answers to his requests for budget sign-off for leadership and culture development. He’s had enough of the stress it creates on the home front through his understandable inability to let go of the overwhelming frustrations caused by the archaic thinking of his manager in a world that demands innovation and new ways of thinking if an organisation is to survive and thrive. He has had enough of the accumulating, detrimental impact that his Regional Manager is having on his own confidence and level of self-esteem. JT has simply had enough and so he will go. Now in many ways, clearly this is a good thing as if JT stays with this organisation, the impact on his level of trust and confidence in his own ability will only worsen and he intuitionally knows this. In addition, JT will now have the opportunity to find an organisation that is much more suited to his level of skill, knowledge, experience and potential and more crucially, his beliefs around the importance of leadership capability and workplace culture excellence. I would suggest he will employ significant due diligence when it comes to sussing out his next new manager and what beliefs this person holds when it comes to the key factors that support organisational success.

What is surely sad and tragic about this, is the impact JT’s leaving will have on remaining leaders and employees that were finally starting to see the forest for the trees and becoming clear and hence, excited and inspired by the future that JT was starting to paint and bring to reality. What is even more sad and tragic though and finally brings me to the main point of this blog is that the European Group company that owns the business JT works for has a newly defined core purpose and strategic direction. A purpose and clear direction that JT fundamentally buys into as does the rest of his exec team. In fact, JT and his team was so very particular to ensure that all of the team’s strategy work was specifically aligned to European Group HQ’s strategy. Not because JT’s regional manager insisted on this, but rather the team via JT’s leadership and guidance understood the massive power of this strategic alignment with HQ. In addition, in the last couple of years, the European Group HQ has commenced on a globe-wide, internal communication project relating to their beliefs on workplace culture excellence and the importance of skilled leadership. What HQ are communicating on strategic leadership, and workplace culture including values, is absolutely in line with JT’s belief system. It is also clearly in line what he has been attempting to achieve on this front since starting with the company. Crazy stuff – so how does this happen, that JT has all the goods that the European Group HQ would love, he clearly believes what they believe and is desperate to bring to life core purpose and strategy that would support HQ’s endeavours and yet here he is, about to leave their global organisation.

Plea to HQ…

So here is my impassioned plea to all HQs – explore ways to get better, faster, at your having your HQ finger on the pulse of regional leadership. Invest higher levels of activity in understanding what is happening out there on the regional leadership front and is it in line with what you are attempting to achieve from a global HQ strategy, leadership and culture perspective. I know this is much more easily said than achieved, but unfortunately the situation with JT is all too familiar and by the time a global HQ realises this, the significant damage is already done and dusted. I know this through my own experience as a global Human Resources Director with my role also sitting as part of a team of global HR Directors, reporting cross functionally into the Group HQ company. At one time or another, many of us, including myself, in our roles as HR Directors needed to have a tough conversation with HQ regarding the inadequate performance of a global leader that HQ had recruited. It’s a hell of a thing, particularly when you are relatively new to the company, picking up the phone speaking to the global VP of HR, and then finding yourself face to face with the President of the Group company when he arrives in your country to work out what is going on. You have to muster all of your courage and words to convince the Group President that in this specific situation he got it seriously wrong, that his Regional Manager recruitment choice is in fact a true Machiavellian monster. That the Group President’s recruitment choice is a systematic and clever workplace bully, that he knows how to charismatically influence and manipulate HQ relationships, that if he steps foot on some of our local customer sites again, these customers are taking their business elsewhere because they are sick and tired of his narcistic nonsense. Yip, it’s a hell of a thing. Now, fortunately in this situation, the Group President listened and while it took some time, an inordinate amount of pain and definite collateral damage, what came of out it was a new leadership personality that fundamentally changed the course of the organisation for the better. However, this was a situation, that even though it was well understood at the regional and local level, had gone on way too long and many good people, both leaders and employees had already left the organisation by the time an exit was orchestrated. Had HQ invested more focus on the quality and impact of regional leadership, this is potentially a situation that could have been dealt with much earlier and had far less of a detrimental impact on the region.

With regards to the JT situation, what is truly interesting to note is that many of his cohorts in other GM roles have already left for greener pastures, primarily because of the incompetence of regional management and the cohorts’ resulting frustration and inability to affect change. There are often clear signs that things are not going well at a regional level, HQ just needs to have an open, listening mindset and skill itself to know what to look for – point in case, clearly a bunch of local GMs suddenly leaving for greener pastures is a red flag.

To be fair, it is obviously difficult for any HQ to tread that fine line of interference with regional management, a line which, in some ways is akin to the line between governance and management where blurred lines can be extremely disempowering to management. There are also obviously situations where HQ has crossed the line and severely hindered regional leadership and management and hence, had the opposite effect causing resignations of great leaders at this level. The point being made here though, is the impact of an actual leadership approach by a regional manager will always outweigh and either support or destroy the strategic and cultural aspirations of HQ. Therefore, it is crucial that HQ find different ways to truly understand what is happening out in the global regions on the strategic leadership and cultural front. It is also clearly important that HQ employ significant rigour in the recruitment process of regional management positions and that part of their rigour is assessing the leadership and culture beliefs and values of the regional candidates to ensure they are in line with HQ aspirations. It is not good enough to just ask what previous business successes are under the regional candidate’s belt, there is a definite need to explore the way these business successes were achieved by the candidate. What is also necessary, is regular, robust measurement of regional leadership and management performance other than just financial, BUR, type measurement. It’s just not rocket science, the higher the position of the leader in the organisation, the more impact he or she is going to have on organisational performance and at the regional level, if this impact is dysfunctional, it’s deafening.

So, in closing, while I am a little sad and certainly deflated that this inspiring, very cool business leader is leaving his current organisation, as we have truly enjoyed working with JT and his team, I am also excited to see where he ends up. I am looking forward to seeing the true potential that JT can conceivably release in his new organisation. An organisation that will hopefully be a much better cultural fit for him and also an organisation that employs a smarter, more relevant leadership approach at the regional level and hence, able to better support JT and his future, new cohorts.

I sincerely wish you the best of luck JT!

Mary Buckley

The Leadership Capability Equation

Tue, 29 Aug 2017 05:22:00 GMT

The core purpose of our business ‘Culture by Design’ is to partner with organisations in building cultural excellence that supports execution of key strategic goals for any organisation. The ‘why’ behind this is to ensure business success by way of increased market share, higher margins, lower cost base, increased profitability and protection against downtrend. As an initial step in partnering with any organisation, we spend dedicated time and energy to work out bespoke priority actions required to start building cultural excellence. However, even with this intense assessment effort, in more cases than not, our starting point is always about creating focus on the need to develop leadership capability within the organisation. What I mean by the term ‘leadership capability’ is not so much the individual skillset of a leader, but rather leadership capability that is imbedded across the business. It is organisation-wide capability that is entrenched through united leadership language, expectations, and behaviours which, are aligned to core purpose and strategy objectives. We start here because we understand and often see the devastating impact that lack of leadership capability is having on the likelihood that an organisation will successfully achieve execution of their strategy in full. Many of the organisations we partner with have definitely made previously attempts at developing their leaders so with this in mind, an important question is why do some many leadership development endeavours fail? It appears that even with decades of robust leadership development research and billions of dollars spent worldwide on leadership interventions, organisations are still struggling to secure ROI through an imbedded sense of strong leadership capability.

A recent McKinsey Quarterly article titled ‘What’s missing in Leadership Development’ greatly resonated with me as it touches on many aspects related to building Leadership Capability that we often advocate to organisations. This article delivers crucial research insight into four key principles that underlie successful effort for imbedding leadership capability at an organisational level. To follow are a few vital takeaways from these four principles:

1) It’s important to develop leadership capability with language, behaviours and expectations that are bespoke to your purpose and strategy. There is infinite leadership content that you could focus on which, would potentially add little or no value to the organisation. Hence, it’s important to drill down on specific strategic goals and objectives to identify appropriately aligned leadership behaviours and expectations. This will allow your leaders to more effectively manage the required, sometimes turbulent, organisational change in meeting strategic needs. For example, if developing continuous improvement and innovation capability is important to your envisioned future, then leaders will need to demonstrate behaviours that role model curiousity and an open mindset. They will need to actively encourage employees to think differently and challenge the status quo.

2) The development of consistent leadership capability should be aimed at all organisational levels, for example, from say Production team leaders to senior executives. This allows for the leadership language, behaviours and expectations to start truly becoming entrenched into the DNA of any organisation. There are so many benefits to this approach, none more important than the ability to execute strategy goals at all levels of the organisation. A large amount of global research indicates that the majority of organisations that design a business strategy fail to execute on strategy goals in full. One of the main reasons for this is lack of strategy clarity and messaging from all people leaders at all levels across the business. Hence, when you develop leadership capability at all levels of the organisation you have a powerful conduit in your leaders for educating all employees about strategy. Another key benefit in developing leadership capability at an organisational level relates to the reduction of silo mentality between teams and departments, allowing for better cross-functional collaboration. Again, in managing and leading the change required to meet strategic goals and objectives, organisational wide collaboration is obviously critical.

3) When you develop leadership capability in line with purpose and strategy it opens up fantastic opportunities to ensure the third principle that the McKinsey Quarterly article highlights: transfer of learning. Leadership programs that encourage or require attendees to immediately use their newly learned leadership behaviours to deal with real work problems have a higher rate of sustained learning transfer into the work environment. In addition, programs that encourage participants to develop further their existing leadership strengths versus potential areas of weakness have better transfer. On-going coaching for leaders will also ensure transfer as it supports growing awareness and personal insight for leaders into whether their behaviours are aligned to the bespoke, organisational leadership capability.

4) The organisation’s infrastructure is also vital to learning transfer. If the business requires new leadership behaviours to support strategy execution but does not have appropriate processes and systems to support these behaviours, then clearly there is less prospect that these behaviours will imbed. For example, People and Capability processes such as recruitment, induction, reward and recognition, and performance management are all fundamental in identifying and educating on acceptable behaviours for an organisation. So, it’s important that these processes are fit for purpose. Evolving technology in HR systems can play an essential part in ensuring up to date, relevant, accessible processes are in play.

The McKinsey article makes a final, very important point relating to the need for CEOs and those responsible for designing leadership development interventions to work closely together. This is to ensure that there is strong validity in the interventions. That the leadership interventions are aligned to purpose and strategy, that they are practical and straight forward to implement and have full support and backing from the top table. In closing, while the McKinsey article does not necessarily provide any revolutionary, breakthrough thinking in leadership development, what it does do is succinctly highlight the key concepts that collectively are vital in bringing to life robust leadership capability.

Mary Buckley

Employer Branding - Search for the Holy Grail

Tue, 18 Jul 2017 07:02:00 GMT

Tips on how to identify an employer brand that is authentic to your organisation.

During almost the entirety of my many years tenure in the Human Resources profession, I was consumed with unrelenting curiosity on the concept of Employer Branding. In past years, this fascination has led me to have countless conversations with other HR professionals, business owners, CEOs, Organisational Psychologists, business consultants and people in the academic HR management and commerce world. Most of these discussions while varied and certainly interesting, served only to leave me with more questions and unresolved confusion as to what Employer Branding actually looked like in the applied sense. In some cases, these people tied the concept of ‘Great Place to Work’ philosophy to the notion of Employer Branding. Now, while it is obviously true that this philosophy is important to the success of organisations, I could never really consolidate how Employer Branding related to the concept of ‘Great Place to Work’. If branding is all about understanding the equity or unique differences of a product or service and how to leverage this equity to provide competitive advantage in the market place, how does this possibly relate to the idea of ‘Great Place to Work’? I mean, what kind of organisation strives to be a crappy place to work? Most organisations wanting to retain key talent to be successful will be striving to achieve the concept of a ‘Great Place to Work’, so clearly no real distinctive equity or rocket science in that little gem. Hence, the search for the Employer Branding holy grail continues…

Until, one fine Tuesday afternoon (actually it might have been a Wednesday), I attended a seminar as part of the 2012 Horizon conference being held in Melbourne, Australia. The seminar I attended was on the topic of Employer Branding and was being presented by Mark Ritson, a Professor of Marketing at the Melbourne Business School and seasoned marketing professional in the world of international luxury brands. This seminar was to be a paradigm changing experience and delivered some crucial insight that resulted in a roadmap to the world of applied Employer Branding – happy days!!

According to Professor Ritson, a clever and practical way in which to start building your employer brand is to engage in the same process used by professional Marketing departments to build product / services brands. Hence, the starting point in building any employer brand is to firstly understand the associated brand equity of your organisation. In other words, what does your organisation stand for that is different from all other organisations out there and would be of interest and value to your target employee audience. Understanding your equity and then developing your brand around this equity allows you to build an employer brand that is both authentic and sustainable. So, where to start in developing your employer brand? To follow are some roadmap takeaways from the seminar presented by Professor Ritson, combined with my own experience in supporting an organisation through an Employer Branding process:

1) To understand the brand equity of your organisation, you firstly need to understand what your employees think about your organisation when all the generic thoughts are removed, i.e., employee generic thoughts about the industry they work in, or their specific role or their salary. Whatever is left over is the beginning point from which you can then build your employer brand concepts, concepts that allow you to differentiate yourselves from other organisations. By the way, a very important point made by Professor Ritson which, I completely agree with, around understanding your employee thoughts is that whatever your CEO, or your HR Director, or the Executive team thinks, is quite frankly irrelevant when it comes to the concept of employer brand. In this context, ‘employees’ refers to front of house, front-line employees, e.g. engineers, hospitality & tourism staff, nurses, doctors, production workers, teachers, graphic designers, accountants, live mechanics, etc.

2) A simple, yet effective way to start understanding your employer brand equity is through qualitative research where you go out to your loyal and most talented employees to find out what they value so much about the organisation. Replace generic staff surveys with actually sitting down face to face with your best loyalists (the employees you want to clone) and ask the following types of questions: ‘What do you love about us? ‘What don’t you love about us?’ ‘If you didn’t work here, where would you work?’ These types of questions will give you important insight into what brand concepts are critical to the retention to your most talented employees. In addition, this information achieves a fundamental output of truly understanding your employer brand, the ability to specifically position yourself to target who you want (as opposed to who you don’t want) to join your organisation. When you clearly understand what your best and brightest value and what they don’t value then you are in a robust position to both clearly communicate these brand concepts to the rest of the world while continuing to invest and build strength into these concepts.

3) From an ROI perspective, one of the high-impact outcomes of understanding your brand equity is the ability to develop a strong, aligned, competitive EVP (employee value proposition). An EVP put simply is what benefits an employee will receive in return for using their skills, knowledge and abilities to add value to the organisation. Your EVP, when developed in line with your in-depth understanding of your employer brand equity allows you to explicitly position yourselves to the type of candidate that fits your employer brand. From a competitive standpoint, one of the reasons you ask who your employees would want to work for if they didn’t work for you if so that you can understand who your competitors are from an employee retention perspective and explore what kind of EVPs these competitors are offering to their employees. Again, this helps to build brand concepts insight that can be extremely valuable when building your own EVP and developing your ideal employer brand. From here it is all about offering and continually improving an EVP that is consistently better than competitor organisations so that you can both retain your talent and truly build employee competitive advantage into your organisation.

4) Another key point argued by Professor Ritson is that, when it comes to positioning statements or concepts the tighter the better, he advocates no more than four simple words or concepts. While working for a technology company as GM of HR, my HR team and team members from the Marketing department formed a project team and followed a similar process as outlined above to identify our employer brand. In looking at the common theme answers from our best and brightest, and following the advice of Professor Ritson in developing tight brand concepts, this company established the following concepts: Freedom Matters, Drive Matters, Growth Matters and Diversity Matters. To follow is the link to the company careers page that explores these brand concepts in more detail: dynamiccontrols.com/en/careers . While these brand concepts were important in forming the basis of the positioning and targeting EVP for this company, what was also important is how the company aligned their employer branding to external branding and what matters to their external customers. Dynamic Controls has a core purpose of delivering technical and innovative solutions to enhance the life of people with disabilities, particularly people with mobility disabilities. Freedom to live a better life, achieve successful outcomes through drive and growth and engage in diverse opportunities are all important aspects to the end users of Dynamic Controls products and services. It is with the in-depth understanding of their external customer needs and wants that this company makes business decisions on R & D investment and builds out their product and services solutions portfolio. This in turn, significantly helps build a stronger, more competitive, commercial brand for the company. The unique combination of the four brand concepts of Freedom, Drive, Growth and Diversity is what serves as a powerful, strategic advantage for this company that is hard to replicate by competitor organisations.

In summary, by following a fit for purpose, professional branding process that allows you to identify your own unique brand equity it stops the inevitable outcome of sounding like every other organisation out there. The one thing that employer branding should not achieve. In addition to developing an EVP that is aligned to your brand equity, your brand concepts also allow you to create improved practices in the important areas of People, Capability and Culture. Practices that include establishing recognition criteria that helps recognise people that exemplify your brand concepts, developing sound selection processes such as fit for purpose recruitment testing and questionnaires to recruit targeted employees and creating leadership language, expectations and behaviours that supports the leveraging of your unique employer brand. With my search for the Employer Brand holy grail complete, I can now happily give my full attention to season 7 of Games of Thrones, go Daenerys!

Mary Buckley

Three Reasons to Resurrect the Internal Customer

Tue, 13 Jun 2017 03:24:00 GMT

Is the internal customer concept dead? This is a question I have found myself pondering lately, having been constantly surprised how few of the organisations we work with are aware of the term. For the sake of our organisations, their customers and the people who inhabit them, I sincerely hope not.

So, what is an internal customer? Simply put, it’s anyone within an organisation who is dependent on anyone else within the organisation. The root of internal service lies in the understanding that everybody supports everybody else in order to achieve the best outcomes possible.

Thinking about the places we work in terms of our internal customers challenges us to look beyond our own to-do lists and start asking “what’s on yours, and how can I help?” It’s about understanding the larger role we play, not for ourselves but for others. And it’s about taking all the great disciplines we have honed over the years about customer service, and applying them to the way we treat each other, every day. Because if the guy across the floor from you is waiting for your input, then he’s your customer. And if you give him your very best, he can give his customer the very best, and so on.

I know what you’re thinking – this just sounds like great teamwork right? Well I half agree with that because that will certainly be an outcome. But the term itself is important because it forces us to think of the colleagues and departments we work with every day through a different lens – that of the customer. Such a paradigm shift challenges us to start asking “would I treat an external customer like this?” and “if I were a customer, would I be happy with this?”

Here’s why you should care about this topic:

1. Because you care about your culture
Time and time again, we hear frustrated Managers and CEOs saying “I need this person or this team to stop thinking about themselves and start helping others” (or words to that effect). If you’re looking to build a culture where people proactively go out of their way to assist others because “that’s just how we roll around here”, then an internal customer focus can play a big part of getting you there.

2. Because you care about results
Whatever it is you do, for whomever you do it, internal customer focus will help you do it better. If you want faster delivery, you need every person in your organisation that inputs into delivery focussed on doing the best possible for the next person in that chain. The same can be said for quality, innovation, and of course customer service. What happens internally will absolutely reflect outwardly. When internal customer service is strong, anyone that comes into contact with that organisation will have an improved experience.

We sometimes hear people say “this doesn’t apply to my organisation because we don’t have customers (think education, health, local and central government, emergency services etc.). Here’s the thing, all organisations create outputs they and others care about. They wouldn’t exist otherwise. So regardless of the terminology of that end-user, every organisation can benefit from the concept of the internal customer. Think about a teacher teaching your children. Don’t you think that teacher will do a better job for your kids if everyone else that supplies that teacher with what they need, gives him or her their very best?

3. Because you care about your people
In recent years, the self-help industry has taken somewhat of a battering. The recent focus on “finding your bliss”, positive psychology and a variety of other terms focussed on how to be happy has come under some criticism due to the increasingly popular view that the true path to fulfilment and happiness is to stop thinking inwardly and start looking outwardly. There is a large and growing body of research around the positive psychological effects of helping others. Simon Sinek, author of Start with Why and Leaders Eat Last even suggests we should rename the “self-help” section of the bookstore “helping others”. For a light read, see Huffington Post’s 2016 article titled “10 Facts that Prove Helping Others is a Key to Achieving Happiness” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2016/12/12/international-day-of-happiness-helping-_n_6905446.html

Creating an environment where people are focussed on helping those around them creates a far more fulfilling and satisfying place to be. And remember, it goes both ways. Not only are your people helping others, but they’re also the “customer” of someone else, and therefore benefiting from other’s efforts. Suddenly barriers are removed, frustrations are minimised and it’s a better place to be.

Here’s where I think the internal customer concept has gone wrong for some organisations, and therefore fallen out of favour. When creating awareness and buy-in for the concept, one of the first steps is to identify who your internal customers and suppliers are, often achieved through a process of customer/supplier mapping. The next step is often for each department to sit with each of their internal customers and create what can be very structured and detailed customer/supplier agreements, each with a set of customer goals which will be measured and reviewed over time. Now if you imagine that each department may have between five and ten key internal customers, it doesn’t take long to see how this system can get unwieldy and out of hand.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The key to any of these concepts is to take small steps and KEEP IT SIMPLE! Start with one team. Get them to identify their internal customers and encourage them to start having conversations with them. Ask them to challenge their own assumptions about what these people need and why. Get them to set up a simple mechanism for receiving feedback from their customers, and encourage them to make changes to their practices and systems as a result. Move on to the next team. Once people start getting a taste of this new outward-looking approach, the buzz will start to spread.

The Internal Customer may have been replaced by newer and funkier concepts in recent years, but this is one that deserves a dusting off because I believe it still has the power to do remarkable things in our organisations – in fact in our current world of me-me-me, perhaps it’s just the tonic we need.

Marie Johnston

The Customer Experience Revolution

Tue, 23 May 2017 03:45:00 GMT

In today’s world of unrelenting market competition more and more organisations are putting the external ‘customer experience’ at the heart of their business strategy. We know that thirty years ago if a person had a bad customer experience that person would potentially tell twenty people. With the current social media digital platforms available that same person can obviously now tell twenty thousand people with the click of a button. No longer can organisations ignore the will and want of their customers and dictate what they think should be the customer experience, and if these organisations do this, it is certainly at their own peril. The smarter organisations understand the fundamental need to seek superior, in-depth customer insight, design ‘customer experience’ solutions that answer this insight and then regularly listen to customer feedback to improve the customer experience. These same enlightened organisations also know that their purpose and aligned strategy should always provide the narrative for their leadership capability, organisational design and structure, management of their processes and systems with a workplace culture that supports all of the above. So with this in mind, how does an organisation begin the transformation that is needed to ensure that they have the capability to firstly understand the preferred customer experience and then respond better and faster than their market competitors to the desired customer experience?

In the article The CEO guide to Customer Experience McKinsey & Company give some valuable insight and vision into what it takes for an organisation to redesign itself to start thinking from the ‘outside in’ and transforming the customer experience. This article refers to the need for organisations to stop thinking in terms of customer touchpoints and start thinking in terms of customer journeys. For example, if staying at a hotel for the weekend, it is not about the check-in touchpoint, or booking dinner at the hotel restaurant touchpoint, or requesting additional towels from laundry touchpoint. It’s about the entire customer journey from the minute you walk through the hotel lobby door on a Friday afternoon to the minute you leave through the lobby door on the Monday morning. McKinsey & Company makes the point that once organisations have obtained in-depth customer insight and understand what the preferred customer experience should look and feel like, the organisation then needs to redesign and manage processes and systems that fit with this customer insight and psychology. From governance and leadership, to organisational design, to empowered employees that know and do the right thing, McKinsey & Company advocate that the ‘customer experience’ should always be the narrative for how a company designs and structures itself and then behaves.

This type of holistic ‘customer experience’ transformation will undoubtedly require a high level of Human Resources, Culture and Organisational Development skill and knowledge with significant voice and support at the Executive table. To go from single touchpoints to complete customer journeys will demand an organisational culture that supports skilled, knowledgeable team members, cross functional collaboration across the business, robust internal customer capability, continuous learning and improvement mindset, and employee and team KPIs that are connected to the ‘customer experience’ strategy objectives. At the end of the day, a ‘customer experience’ strategy is worth nothing if it is not understood and embraced by all employees and supported by the organisational pillars that are necessary to successfully execute on strategy. With fierce market competition in many industries, the stakes are high and for businesses that do not have the will or capability to listen to and /or respond to customer expectations, there can be devastating effects on both brand and reputation that can put the very existence of the business at risk. Alternatively, for the organisations that clearly value customer insight into the preferred customer experience and then transform to deliver on that desired experience, these organisations will realise very tangible and important benefits such as higher levels of customer loyalty, increased market share and greater profitability.

Mary Buckley

Surviving (& Thriving) in Your First Year of Business - 5 lessons from the school of hard knocks

Tue, 02 May 2017 03:37:00 GMT

The below lessons are not the result of quantitative analysis of 1200 small businesses across five continents (although those articles do exist and we encourage you to read them). This is our story – backed up by no more than our own scrapes, bruises and high-fives, having just survived our first year in business. Whoop whoop!

My business partner and I had about forty years between us (yes that does make us feel old) in the business of organisational culture, before we took the step of becoming business owners ourselves in this field. But even though we had plenty of expertise in our chosen field, business ownership in itself is a whole other exciting, scary thing.

We did a heap of stuff right, we absolutely got stuff wrong, and the journey was about as massive a learning curve as we’ve ever encountered. But boy, what a ride!! So if you’re thinking of giving up that regular salary and taking the plunge into business ownership, good luck my friend. I hope our experiences can be of some value to you.

First up, realism.
Unless you are one of a very rare and exotic breed, you won’t make your first million in your first year. Probably not your second either. Chances are, when you give up that good salary you’re on, you may take a drop for a while – maybe even quite a while. Expect it and plan for it, because it’s normal. The trick here is to keep your eye on the end game and make sure you’re trending in the right direction. Don’t beat yourself up/panic/freak out if it doesn’t happen straight away. OK, I know this is easy to say and hard to do – because I’ve been there and indulged in all three. So perhaps this is better advice – when you start beating yourself up/panicking/freaking out, take a deep breath and remind yourself of the end game. Yes you have a ways to go, but I bet you’re a damn sight closer now than you were just a few months ago!

Plan, plan and then plan some more.
OK, this is an area I’m happy to say we got right, and it paid dividends. When you first start out in business, never is there a better time to get crystal clear about what it is you want from this business, and how you plan to get there. I’m not talking short or even medium term here. I’m talking the big questions – what is the end game? Why go into business at all? What do you want this business to achieve for the world and for you in 5, 10, 20 years’ time? Do you have an exit strategy? Once you’ve worked your way through the big stuff, bring it back to an annual plan that will ensure you get where you are ultimately planning to go. Combine that with a financial budget, and you’ll be streets ahead of most start-ups.

We found our future planning impacted heavily on our decision making about almost everything else. In the first year you’ll be setting up a lot of infrastructure for your business moving forward. If you can do this with a view to your future needs, you’ll make better decisions in the short term. At least that was certainly our experience.

Surround yourself with good people.
One of the most confronting things we found about owning our own business, is that there’s no IT team to call on when your laptop packs a sad. There’s no finance team to help you with your money stuff, there’s no marketing guru at the end of the phone. Suddenly you have to build a reasonable understanding of well – everything. This is fascinating and daunting all at the same time. Our advice – find a good IT guy (or gal), get yourself an accountant who gets your business and can grow with you, same with a lawyer. Approach people you know who may be willing to offer some gratis help or advice. Get a mentor, particularly one who can mentor you in areas where you’re not strong. We linked into Business Mentors New Zealand http://www.businessmentors.org.nz/ which are a not-for-profit who match mentors with businesses. The mentor we’re now paired with has already added value to our business through his sage advice and insightful questioning.

Spend wisely.
OK, it sounds pretty obvious right? And it is, but it was a biggie for us so I’m including it anyway. In your first year of business you may not have much coming in, but everyone seems to have their hand out. There are a million places you could or should spend money. Our advice would be, think really carefully about what will take your business forward. For example, we were lucky to set ourselves up in a wee office attached to a warehouse that we get to have for free in exchange for some of our services. It’s not flash, we can’t display our branding outside and it’s not in the ‘premium business area’. However, in our line of work, clients don’t come to the office, we go to them. Therefore, committing to a regular rent check when we didn’t have to just didn’t make good business sense. Instead, we spent a big chunk of money on branding and marketing – so we do put a professional image forward to the market.

Also, find out what you can get for free because you may be surprised. For example, we use Hubspot as our CRM to manage all our client data. Their free version is perfect for us, and as we grow we may upgrade to a paid version, when we need it. There’s also a variety of free advisory services available for small businesses – take the time to explore your free options. Every saved cent helps!

Anxiety is OK.
I was at a conference a few years back, and an entrepreneur made the point that many people don’t take the plunge into business ownership because they perceive that owning your own business is riskier than having a regular job. She then made the very pertinent point that when you work for someone else, they have all the control about the future of that business, and hence your job security. When you’re the boss, you hold that control and you make those decisions for yourself. So which is truly riskier?

I have had a regular paycheck from the moment I left University in my early 20’s. Walking away from that was freeing and exhilarating and liberating. But despite my agreement with the entrepreneur, it was still damned scary. My business partner has a naturally crazy-high level of optimism and future focus, so did not seem bothered by the same anxieties I was experiencing. What I found incredibly comforting was talking to others who had been where I was and could relay their own experiences of anxieties in the early days. What I learned was, it’s very normal. Understanding this helped me to accept that anxiety was a part of the journey, and that helped me keep it in check and focus on the positives. Because it IS freeing, and it IS exhilarating and it IS liberating! You only get your first year in business once, so soak up every little bit of it, even the scary stuff.

Ultimately only you will know if business ownership is right for you, and maybe you’ll only really know by giving it a try. So where did I arrive at after my first year? I get to do what I love almost all of the time, the variety is unreal, I’ve learnt more in the past year than in the preceding ten years, and sometimes I get to walk my dog in the middle of the work day. It’s still a bit scary, money’s still a bit tight but both are tracking in the right direction. Final synopsis: Life is good!!

If and when you take the leap, I wish you all the best of luck and that you come to the same conclusion after your first twelve months as I did.

Marie Johnston

4 Truths & 1 Myth for Leaders dealing with workplace 'Hostage Takers'

Tue, 11 Apr 2017 05:17:00 GMT

It goes without saying that when an organisation wants to fundamentally change elements of workplace culture (e.g. robust process management, in-depth customer focus, collaboration across the organisation, introduce continuous improvement, etc.) to support strategy execution, there are many things to consider. Complete clarity and awareness of the new (or existing) strategic direction, creating desire and WIFM to change, providing the resources and skillset plus allocated time is all necessary effort to be successful in aligned culture change initiatives.

In my experience though, one of the biggest impediments for any organisation attempting significant cultural change is not dealing with the ‘hostage takers’. Whether the culture starting point is to go from dysfunctional to average, or from average to good, or from good to great, the degree is almost irrelevant. Significant change will be all the more difficult while the ‘hostage taker’ sacred cow or the ‘just too hard to deal with’ employees are left unchecked – it is the first place we must start and most of us intuitively know this.

The question becomes then why do so many leaders hold onto the eternal, misguided belief that with clarity of direction, resources, etc., that the ‘hostage takers’ will simply jump on the bus? That overnight, these employees (some of which are actually in leadership positions) will simply change their toxic, negative, self-indulgent, passive-aggressive behaviour. The kind of behaviour that sucks the energy and joy out of any work environment and makes us want to rock in the corner. Why do leaders believe this? Because it’s easier to think that with clarity of direction and effort at an organisational level that the once ‘hostage taker’ will simply jump on the bus to a new, brighter future. It’s easier to think and hope for this than the alternate, more probable reality that, actually they won’t jump on the bus. That in fact, what they will probably do is let the tires down, break the side mirrors and siphon the diesel, leaving the bus on the side of the highway waiting for AA to turn up.

Individual behaviour is a powerful force and organisational systems alone are clearly not enough to influence behaviour. Hence, ‘hostage takers’ and all the associated, dysfunctional behaviour that goes along with that infamous title definitely need targeted, tough, duty of care focus from leaders if there is any hope of aligning their behaviour with the rest of the organisation during times of change.

To follow are 4 Truths and 1 Myth relating to ‘Hostage Takers’ in the workplace:

1) Hostage Takers are far & few between (Truth)

When an organisation starts on a journey of change, at first there will always be a period of hesitation, confusion, fear and uncertainty. However, as long as the organisation does a decent job in communicating future direction at all levels, discussing the critical reasons for change, providing resources and time, and developing any necessary new skillsets, in time most employees will happily jump on the bus (some personalities such as, the ‘evaluator critics’, may need more detail but with more clarity and knowledge they will eventually get there). The ‘hostage takers’ are different though. These are the employees that were in fact ‘hostage takers’ before the change, they will be ‘hostage takers’ during the change, slowing it down, and if not appropriately managed will continue to be ‘hostage takers’ long after everyone else is aligned with the new direction. The psychological anxiety and stress associated with organisational change will merely give the ‘hostage taker’ more ability and a bigger platform to negatively influence people’s view of change. It enables the ‘hostage takers’ to sing loudly and proudly the ‘them & us, management does not know what it’s doing’ tune to a much larger audience. An audience that potentially would not have listened to the ‘them & us’ diatribe if the organisation was in a more stable condition, rather than a state of uncertain flux.

Here’s the thing though, ‘hostage takers’ really do represent a very small percentage of the population. It’s just unfortunately they generally know how to play to people’s fear of change and can be very successful in polarising employees into the ‘them & us’ mentality and this is what makes the ‘hostage taker’ so dangerous during times of change.

2) It’s okay to push the reset button (Truth)

As a leader, you can use organisational change efforts as an opportunity to push the reset button for your team. Take some time to think through what your leader expectations are of your team members (e.g. be on time, be curious, constructively challenge the status quo, take risks and learn from mistakes, manage up, show courage, be a team player, collaborate with other teams, no passive-aggressive nonsense, leave your tiaras at home, etc.). Then bring your team together to discuss your expectations and brainstorm what their expectations are of you and each other and ways to embed and bring these expectations to life (e.g. team charter on office wall). While this exercise will not necessarily change a hostage taker’s entrenched, toxic behaviour, it is an important exercise to establish line in the sand understanding on what behaviour is acceptable and what behaviour is not acceptable in the work environment going forward. This is a critical starting point, particularly where toxic behaviour has been the norm for some time and where less experienced leaders feel completely overwhelmed in knowing where to start in turning things around.

3) The world will not end if you tackle the ‘hostage taker’ (Truth)

It’s not fun, of course it’s not, dealing with the ‘hostage taker’, it’s tough, exhausting and at times soul destroying. Some ‘hostage takers’ are remarkably skilled at stepping up to or even over the line and when you attempt as a leader to hold them to account, their brilliance in redirecting and making the fault lie with you as the leader is nothing short of spectacular. It can be a very lonely place as a leader holding the line but I promise you, the world will not end if you take on the ‘hostage taker’, and in fact it will get a whole lot better if you push through the pain. I get to say this without any hesitation after many years of fiercely supporting leaders to successfully target their ‘hostage takers’. To then watch these same leaders not only regain their confidence and self-esteem but also go onto unleash potential for their team making it a way cooler workplace.

If your business does not have in-house HR capability to support you as a leader, there are other (some free) external types of support which can skill you up on the required employment processes to deal with workplace ‘hostage takers’ starting with how to have a tough, duty of care conversation. For example, see the NZ Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment website for advice or talk with your local Employers Chamber of Commerce office to see what type of employment relation workshops are available. Ideally though, if budget allows, partner with a reputable Employment Specialist to help mitigate risk. The Employment Specialist can help you to structure a tough conversation that highlights both the ‘hostage taker’ behaviour issues and what your behaviour expectations are going forward, e.g. ‘instead of constantly complaining about work process problems you are to actively support your team members to find solutions that improve the processes’.

4) Experience is everything! (Truth)

While relevant blogs, employment seminars and workshops are a good starting point in supporting you to deal with your ‘hostage takers’ these learning events represent about 5-10 % of what you will need to feel confident and be successful. What is much more essential is actual experience, there is no way around this unfortunately – here’s the good news though. As you significantly grow in your experience, your threshold for negative, dysfunctional behaviour significantly reduces to the point that you will hopefully never again have sleepless nights by being at the mercy of a ‘hostage taker’. Your vast experience will enable you to nip this type of toxic, destructive behaviour in the bud from the very outset, not allowing it to go on unchecked (yah for you!).

So, once you have completed your robust research into how to start the employment process of dealing with your ‘hostage taker’, you have clarified what the main behaviour issues are and what your expectations are, you need to pick a date and just dive in! To help kick start you, to follow are some basic do’s and don’ts when holding your first tough conversation with a ‘hostage taker’:

DOs: choose the right place & time, remain objective, be mindful of your own mindset & biases, be comfortable with silence & take your time, actively listen with an open mind, stay calm & close early if needed.

DON’Ts: don’t lose your cool, don’t get sucked into emotion, don’t be judgemental, don’t make it personal, don’t take it personally, don’t become unprofessional (even when provoked) & close early if needed.

5) They will hate you. (Myth)

If you deal with the ‘hostage taker’, everyone else in the team will hate you because the ‘hostage taker’ is popular, technically knowledgeable and well respected. Actually, no, this is myth. In my experience, the ‘hostage taker’ is not popular (although many think they are, generally all part of their overall lack of personal insight), they may be knowledgeable (in fact many probably are), but they are certainly not well respected by their peers. In fact, most peers are probably pissed off, perplexed and in more serious situations, considering leaving the organisation because the leader has apparently done nothing to deal with the ‘hostage taker’. When you don’t deal with the ‘hostage taker’, it is not just your confidence and self-esteem that takes a massive hit, it is also your credibility as a leader and that is not a great place for any leader to be. It can also severely damage your career development opportunities as your leadership personal brand in dealing with tough situations is adversely affected, hence there is clearly a lot at stake for leaders. When you have a reputation for not being afraid to deal with the ‘hostage taker’, your ability and capacity to lead your team through times of significant change is much greater and in addition, this reputation gets quickly noted by more senior management.

Dealing with the ‘hostage taker’ has its risks, of course it does. For example, if a ‘hostage taker’ in a technology company decides that they are not particularly interested in playing nicely with others, when challenged over this they may choose to leave the organisation taking their IP knowledge with them. However, here’s the crucial thing to think about - how much more organisational IP knowledge through innovation can be created without all the noise and distraction of the ‘hostage taker’. For all the glitz and glam of Google including the amazing employee benefits, don’t think for one second that Google tolerates ‘hostage takers’. They don’t and the reason Google doesn’t is they fundamentally understand the barrier to future innovation that ‘hostage takers’ can create. While you may lose valuable IP today if a ‘hostage taker’ walks, it cannot begin to equate to the value that situation creates by unleashing a more positive, collaborative team environment where people can much more easily innovate and execute on core business purpose.

So, in closing, the financial and reputational costs to the organisation in tolerating ‘hostage takers’ in terms of employee morale and time spent are both considerable and well understood. The personal costs to the individual leader though are interminable and in some cases unrecoverable. Whether its complete loss of confidence, self-esteem or / and credibility as a leader, allowing a ‘hostage taker’ under your watch to go unchecked is both tragic and unnecessary. Again, I know its tough (that’s why they call it a ‘tough’ conversation) but again, I promise you, when you successfully liberate your team, your organisation and yourself from ‘hostage taker’ behaviour, it will all be worth it.

Mary Buckley

Free food can't buy a great culture!! (Part Two)

Mon, 20 Mar 2017 02:11:00 GMT

Just as money can’t buy you love, it can’t buy a great culture either. In fact, as we discussed in our first blog in this series, throwing generous perks and benefits at your staff can do more harm than good when you don’t have the pillars of a strong culture in place to begin with. So how do you do that?

Well the good news is, there are some basics of great culture that your organisation can focus on, right now. We’ve identified thirteen elements an organisation can control, that are front and centre to building (and maintaining) great culture. Of those thirteen there are four “heavy-hitters” which we believe should always be the starting point for any culture effort. They are:

1. Consistently great leadership
2. A clear purpose and strategy that inspires
3. Clear, consistent values and expectations about behaviour that are acted on
4. A work environment that reflects the uniqueness of who you are – what we term your “secret sauce”

Let’s have a look at each:

Consistently great leadership
Whenever an organisation asks us for our help with culture, here’s where we start. Any effort you put into culture is only as good as the leaders who bring it to life across the organisation. Consistency is the key word here – having a few great leaders is not going to be enough. You need to know that every leader is 100% behind any culture change effort, that they are gaining commitment and building excitement in their teams toward the new culture, as well as role-modelling the behaviours you are seeking to develop across the organisation. A shared language and understanding is critical here, so bringing your leaders together regularly to develop this and build leadership capability at every level will be imperative.

You also need to know that your leaders are holding their people to account and having those critical conversations should anyone be stepping out of line or undermining the new culture effort. One “bad egg” can do a massive amount of damage to a culture. And that means holding your leaders to account too!

By the way, when I say “leader”, I mean anyone in your organisation that has responsibility for direct reports – even if it’s only one. You may also choose to include leaders without direct reports and informal influencers in this group, as these people typically hold significant power in your organisation and therefore getting them on-board early will be critical to the culture change effort.

A clear purpose and strategy that inspires
Have you heard the story of the man cleaning the toilets at NASA back in the 60’s? He was asked if he understood what the purpose of his job was. He answered that he was helping to put a man on the moon.

There’s your yardstick. Not only did this gentleman understand the purpose of the organisation he worked for, he also understood that he, the cleaner guy, contributed to that purpose. Gold star for NASA!

If you asked each employee in your organisation the same question, what response would you get? Would they understand your purpose and how they contribute? Would they care?

If you want a strong culture, give your people a reason to come to work each day – above and beyond collecting a paycheck. Make sure your purpose statement is written in a way that makes sense to, and inspires each and every one of your people. If you need help in this area and you haven’t yet heard Simon Sinek’s Ted Talk on “ Start with Why ”, it’s a fabulous place to begin.

The same is true for your strategy. It won’t deploy itself – you need everyone in your organisation aligned to your strategy to get it done. That means everyone needs to a) understand it, b) care about it, and c) know how they contribute to it. If your strategy goals are largely financial in nature, ask yourself this – why would your people care about putting more money in other people’s pockets? Short of the paycheck, what’s in it for them? Reach beyond the financials to goals that matter for all. For example, what are your goals around your customers and markets, future innovation, your people and culture, etc. Now don’t get me wrong, financials are important. Just don’t make them everything.

Clear, consistent values and expectations about behaviour that are acted on

Having a strong set of values in place is about creating a compass for your decision making, and creating clarity for all about what is acceptable and what isn’t. Unfortunately, in many organisations they have become a poster on a wall and little else – and they’ll do very little for your culture from that dusty position.

For values to be effective, they need to be broken down into specific behaviours. This takes a high-level concept and makes it tangible and applied – honesty is great but what does it actually mean? Your associated behaviours will define this. It’s also a great exercise to get all your staff involved in – get them to tell you what they think each value should mean, in terms of the behaviours. Bam, now you have engagement and buy-in! Next you have to do two things: 1) Embed the values into the heart and soul of your organisation in every way possible – use them in recruitment, reward based on them, performance manage based on them, use them in induction and leadership development, brand them up and make cool visuals from them, use them in your everyday decision making, and 2) Walk the talk – that means YOU dude! And all your leaders. Discuss how your leadership team can best role model to the organisation that you’re personally committed to these values and behaviours – because that’s powerful.

A work environment that reflects the uniqueness of who you are – what we term your “secret sauce”

One of the most interesting things we learned about when we visited Google’s main campus a few years back, was a concept call “Googliness”. Yes, it’s a real thing! They can’t specifically describe it, but they do recruit for it. It’s a combination of drive, passion, creativity and curiosity. There’s other stuff in there too, but there’s no document that will define it exactly. When you wonder around their campus though, you can sure sense it, and there are physical signs of it everywhere - from the large dinosaur in the garden (often covered in pink flamingos), to the tent some team erected in their workspace to work inside, to the café in the main reception area dedicated to the dogs of Google. Creativity? Tick. Passion? Tick, Curiosity? Tick.

We believe every organisation is capable of having its own version of Googliness –that thing that makes you unique and special and different from the rest. It’s that feeling you get when you walk through the doors every morning that makes you pleased you did. First, find out what that is for your organisation. Ask your staff. Run focus groups. Discuss it in the staffroom at lunchtime. Once you start to understand what defines you as special, find ways to reinforce this within the environment. This is not stuff that has to cost much money - and it’s a great way to get staff involved in brainstorming ideas for bringing your ‘secret sauce’ to life. You could even set up a team of keen individuals and let them to go for it.

You don’t need money to create a great culture. You need commitment for the long-haul (culture change doesn’t happen overnight), dedication from your leaders, and an unwavering belief that the journey is worth it. Which it totally is btw.

Need help or inspiration? Find organisations around you that have great cultures and go visit them (be careful though – a funky physical environment doesn’t necessarily equal a great culture). And of course you can give us a call, we love talking culture!

Free food can’t buy a great culture!! (Part One)

Tue, 07 Mar 2017 04:26:00 GMT

And neither can a beach volleyball court, beer garden or wave pool for that matter…

Are you ready to scream next time you hear of an organisation showering their employees with ridiculously cool stuff and extravagant benefits? There are certainly no lack of examples, from Afar Media’s policy of paying for their employees’ holiday expenses, Yahoo, who bring in Hollywood royalty for speaking slots and live concerts (think Tom Cruise and Taylor Swift), and of course the most famous of them all – Google, who at their Mountain View campus in California ensures employees are never more than 200 feet from free food – breakfast, lunch, dinner, and all those snacks and smoothies in between!

For the rest of us mere mortals with organisations that don’t make multiple billions of dollars a year (or even multiple millions), it can feel overwhelming – how can you ever compete with that?

The great news is you don’t have to – because you cannot buy a great culture.

Google is a fascinating case in point. Regularly topping lists of Great Places to Work, many organisations have tried to emulate their success, often with disappointing results. Here’s where people get confused – Google doesn’t have a great culture because of all those fabulous perks. Google has a great culture because they have kick-ass leadership and they empower their people to innovate, experiment and have fun, all within a very high-performance environment. As for all the perks? They exist for a very specific reason – strip away the little frustrations of life (like what you’re going to have for dinner, what your dog will get up to when you’re at work, or making time to get your car serviced) and you allow people to spend that un-encumbered time being the best they can be – for Google. But alone, they don’t create the culture of Google – they just create a cool place to hang out.

When employers attempt to throw money or perks at their employees without having the basics of great culture in place first, often what results is the condition of “entitle-itis” that encumbers many a workplace. Come on, you know what I’m talking about. It’s that insidious situation that occurs over time, when benefits have long been embedded in the expectations of employees’ minds and instead of being viewed as attractive perks, they are now viewed as entitlements. The organisation no longer receives any benefit in terms of staff motivation or goodwill by supplying these perks, but if they try to remove them – well, watch the drama fly. I once witnessed an almost-strike at a student campus because the lunch food being sold in the staff cafeteria was removed, forcing employees to walk a further 20 metres and line up with – oh god – students!! Que outrage.

Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with initiatives designed to make employees feel appreciated, create opportunities for socialising together and improving their working day. Built on a strong foundation of great culture, these things can offer big benefits. However, they should always be considered as the icing on top of the cake. Fancy perks will not help you if your cake’s stale and mouldy!

So if money and perks are not the answer (that’s good news for most of us) what can you do to build the basics of great culture? We have identified thirteen elements an organisation can control, that are front and centre to building (and maintaining) great culture. Of those thirteen there are four “heavy-hitters” which we believe should always be the starting point for any culture effort. They are:

In our next blog, we’ll outline each of these four culture “heavy-hitters” and explain how you can address them in your organisation – without blowing your budget in the process!

Six Truths About Leadership That Every New Leader Should Know

Mon, 13 Feb 2017 22:33:00 GMT

Are we doing enough to set up our newest leaders for success? Sadly, in my experience across a broad range of organisations, industries and countries, the answer is no.

Time and again, I find myself in front of leaders who have had little or no development, support or coaching in what it means to be a leader, or how to approach this critical role. The result is often confusion, frustration, anxiety, and sometimes even fear.

Interestingly, we wouldn’t appoint an Engineer, with no prior engineering experience, and ask them to get stuck in. Yet we commonly seem to take this approach with first time leaders.

New leaders need support, guidance and development right from the first day in the new job (or preferably even earlier) if we want to stop our emerging leaders burning out, leaving leadership altogether, or just plain turning into poor leaders.

As a starting point, here are six basic leadership truths we see tripping inexperienced leaders up every day. Wouldn’t it have been great if someone had told us this stuff on day one?

1. The “Leadership” aspect of my role is different to, and every bit as important, as the “Management” aspect of my role

“Management” and “Leadership” are often confusing terms for emerging leaders, who get busy with the tasks of organising and instructing daily activities, but never recognise the need to take a step back and think holistically about their teams – Are people inspired and engaged? Do they understand the purpose of the organisation and the part they play within the wider strategy? Are they being developed? Etc.

Great leaders understand that time needs to be prioritised and protected to allow them the headspace to work ON the business, not just IN it. Organisations can help by making this a clear expectation for all of their leaders, (as a minimum that’s anyone with direct reports folks) hence giving permission to new leaders who are unsure about the ‘legitimacy’ of spending time in this way.

2. Every Interaction Counts

We’ve all had times as team members, where we look back at our behaviour and think “NOT my proudest moment!” What great leaders understand is that when a person becomes a leader, these situations suddenly have far wider-ranging consequences, from damaging trust and credibility to harming relationships and in some cases, people. As a leader, every single interaction we have counts. Luckily, what great leaders also understand is that nobody gets it right 100% of the time – it’s what you do in that other small percentage of “not cool” moments that counts. So what do great leaders do? As soon as they realise their mistake, they own it, take responsibility, offer a genuine apology where it’s appropriate and put it right. The trust that is built from a leader saying “I’m sorry, I got it wrong” is significant and long-lasting.

3. My team cannot read my mind

All leaders have certain expectations of their team members. It might be to “be curious” or to “own mistakes” or to simply turn up on time. Now here’s a question for every leader out there – how do your people know, specifically, what your expectations are? Around 95% of leaders we pose this question to realise that they do nothing to clearly communicate their expectations to their teams. So then the next question becomes – if your people don’t know, specifically, what your expectations are, is it fair to expect them to be followed?

Great leaders make their expectations extremely clear – regularly. There are many ways leaders can do this. As a starting point, running a session where the whole team develops a set of expectations or “ground rules” for the team is a powerful way of getting everyone on board, and therefore everyone buying in. It’s a simple session that may take you an hour, but has massive payback. Not only is everyone clear on expected and acceptable behaviours, but team members will often pull each other up once all have agreed. No more mind reading required!

4. I will not grow to love tough conversations

Addressing poor behaviour through timely, honest conversations with team members is for most, one of the worst aspects of being a leader. There are many reasons for this, ranging from fear of conflict, wanting to be “the good guy’, to being worried about making things worse or having the person quit.

Here’s the truth of the matter – virtually nobody likes having these conversations. That’s right, not even the best leaders out there. You will not grow to love tough conversations. You will however, learn to get more comfortable with them as your experience and skills grow.

Where we see many leaders go wrong, is that they allow poor behaviour to go unchecked for too long. This can have disastrous effects on the team, productivity and the leader themselves, eroding credibility and confidence. As much as you can think of a million other things you’d rather do today, nipping that behavioural issue in the bud with a clear and honest discussion as early as possible will save a much larger headache down the track.

5. I cannot do it alone

One of the most beneficial aspects of a healthy leadership culture, is where leaders support, coach and help other leaders. If there are other leaders in your organisation, there is no reason to ‘go it alone’. Whatever leadership issue, challenge or nightmare you might be facing, you can just about bet that someone else has been there. Ask around, find that person and get their help. Tough conversations is a great example of where this is useful. If you’re nervous about having a particular conversation, find another leader you can trust and talk it through. Even try a dummy-run.

Leadership is tough, it’s draining, it’s demanding and sometimes it’s really stressful. Finding other leaders around you that can offer support, and who in turn you can offer support to, can make an incredible difference. They say that leadership is lonely, but it does not have to be!

6. My own oxygen mask goes on first

Leaders carry a heavy burden of responsibility for the wellbeing of their people. What they often fail to recognise, is that if they’re not in the best state they can be in, they do a disservice to their teams. A team looks to its leader to give them strength and confidence in the future, especially when times are tough or uncertain. If a leader is struggling themselves, this can quickly erode confidence across the team, both in the future and in the leader. In worst cases, roles become reversed and team members feel they need to take care of the leader.

Therefore, a key attribute of any great leader, is that they understand how to look after themselves, and they take the time to do it. What works will differ for every leader. For some it’s making quality time for family and/or an exercise regime, making sure to eat healthily, take regular breaks and holidays, work on their resilience or mindfulness through meditation etc. Find what works for you and build it into your everyday routine. Then have the discipline to stick to it, because when you don’t have time for it is when you’ll need it the most!

None of this is rocket science. Yet these are the areas we see falling over or creating pain for leaders all the time. Give your new leaders the best start possible by instilling these leadership truths along with a healthy dose of ongoing development, support and coaching. The investment of your time will be paid off ten-fold by your fabulous new leaders.

If you need help with your organisation’s leadership capability, feel free to get in touch.

Marie Johnston

5 hot tips for Boards when recruiting & managing their CEOs

Tue, 31 Jan 2017 02:39:00 GMT

There are some stunning CEOs out there that are beloved by their employees, highly respected by their Boards and are truly inspiring leaders to the community at large. Regrettably though, there are also some CEOs out there that significantly let the side down. It is well understood by many senior executives and employees the impact that a poor CEO can have on workplace culture and the impact that the resulting culture can have on retention of the best and brightest, overall productivity and core purpose innovation.

With the unfortunate examples of bad CEOs out there, the front of mind question becomes: How can governing Boards ensure that they are doing enough to safeguard rigorous due diligence in a key accountability that Boards hold – the recruitment and management of the CEO position?

Here are 5 hot tips for governing Board members to consider when it comes to the recruitment and performance of your CEO:

1) Here is your non-negotiable baseline - an exceptional level of Emotional Intelligence

It goes without saying that your CEO needs a high level of abstract reasoning - the ability to connect the dots quickly. However, to be really successful in leading across all organisational fronts and aspects your CEO also needs an above average level of emotional intelligence that will allow for sound leadership capability, problem solving and decision making. If your Board does not understand well enough the concept of Emotional Intelligence and the significant benefits of putting weight on it in the CEO recruitment process, then make it a priority to find out more.

2) Ensure your CEO or CEO candidates have a proven track record of not only designing business strategy but also taking accountability for strategy execution in a disciplined and focussed manner

Many CEOs have a strong aptitude for strategic thought processes which serves them well when brainstorming and designing core ideology and strategy for an organisation. Unfortunately, when it then comes to deploying the strategy there are some personalities out there that are more interested in continuing to strategize on an on-going basis rather than focus on the daily reality of strategy execution. This can cause massive confusion, frustration and obviously lack of direction across the organisation, wreaking havoc particularly at the senior executive level where significant attempts are being made to provide clear direction on a day-to-day basis to functional areas. As a Board, be thorough in your background check on the reputation the CEO candidate has not just for strategy design but also for successful strategy execution.

3) Ensure your CEO candidate knows how to put a senior team together with both the technical skill set and leadership personas that will take the whole organisation on the voyage ahead

Your CEO will only be as successful as the senior leadership team surrounding and supporting them so a significant success factor to any CEO is their ability to surround themselves with a team that are capable leaders and technically competent. Sometimes, this unfortunately means that after a period of duty of care, difficult decisions will need to be made. You need to make sure that your successful CEO candidate has the courage, skillset and experience to make and implement the tough calls.

4) Become exceptionally well versed in your understanding of the ‘Dark Triad’ personalities that unfortunately do sometimes make it to the top – know how to spot them, avoid them and if it’s too late, how to exit them

At the CEO level, the ‘Dark Triad’ personalities i.e. the extreme Narcissist, the Machiavellian, and the workplace Psychopath all tend to have one thing in common, they are exceptionally skilled manipulators (many with a high level of charisma) who know their way around an interview process. Make sure you have someone as part of your interview panel that knows how to dig deep and see what’s going on personality wise. Again, as a Board be thorough in your CEO candidate background and reputation check - it is not just about the number of apparent business successes they claim in the interview, it is about how the apparent successes were achieved.

If however, one of these three personalities make it through the interview process and you start to see, hear and feel the damage, you need to act quickly as these personalities can leave behind them significant destruction that is widespread and takes an inordinate amount of skill and time to fix.

5) When a Board first recruits a CEO, the monitoring of the new CEO’s leadership performance in the first year of tenure is critical - I cannot reiterate this enough

For those of us in the business of culture development, organisation development, etc., we know and can cite many (too many!) examples of businesses where a new CEO has completely decimated a strong culture within months of starting with the organisation. Yes, it is sometimes important that a new CEO needs to ‘stop the bleeding’ so to speak, particularly if the organisation is in major financial strife. But there are smart ways to do this that will not result in a mass exodus of the very talent that might need to play a significant part in the refocus and change that can be required to turn the ship. If your CEO candidate appears to be a change agent, make sure you understand that they are an experienced, emotionally intelligent change agent that knows how to stop the bleeding without ripping the business apart, resulting in a situation that can then take sometimes years to heal.

In summary, it is clear that for any Board a crucial governance accountability is the recruitment and management of the CEO position. Hopefully, these five tips will help you as a Board to achieve your governance role in recruiting and managing a great CEO. A CEO that inspires, motivates and unleashes full potential for your organisation as opposed to an alternate reality where you could end up with costly incompetence in the top position. An alternate reality that maybe includes inadvertently letting loose on unsuspecting employees, a recidivist bully or unchecked political monster that might just systematically and remorselessly destroy your organisation.

Mary Buckley

What a Day at the Office! Our Journey into Horse Facilitated Coaching

Thu, 15 Dec 2016 02:00:00 GMT

On the 14 ^th of December, Mary and I were fortunate enough to travel to Loburn (North Canterbury) and spend the afternoon in Ingrid Gunby’s “office” - thick green carpet, 360 degree uninterrupted views, great ‘air conditioning’ and a very open-plan feel.

One of the great benefits Mary and I have experienced since we’ve been “calling our own shots” is the ability to meet some fascinating people and get to know some amazing and inspiring businesses. Ingrid’s business, Potent, qualifies as perhaps the most unique and intriguing thus far.

In the course of 2016 a few trusted colleagues and contacts had mentioned Ingrid’s name to us, and that she works with horses to coach and facilitate great outcomes for individuals and groups. We were understandably curious, so when the opportunity presented we were both keen to find out how this whole thing worked.

What we discovered was a very passionate, down-to-earth, warm and knowledgeable practitioner with some very amazing business partners – that’s right, the horse is a partner in this work, not a tool to be used.

Ingrid explained how she and the horse or horses work with the individual or group toward a variety of outcomes, from various forms of therapy at one end of the scale, right through to team and leadership development at the other. The horse serves as a partner who is completely non-judgmental (how many of us humans can say that), and can give immediate feedback in a safe and constructive environment. The concept, while taking a while to wrap your head around, is compelling.

We will be exploring Potent’s offerings more in the New Year, and are excited by the possibilities for collaboration. Do check out the website at www.potent.co.nz . Go on, you know you’re curious!

Time to get more agile?

Mon, 21 Nov 2016 22:41:00 GMT

Agile Scrum - Let it work for you - yes you!

Agile - it seems to be the new business buzzword. Everyone wants their business to be “agile” but what does that mean in reality? And what about this concept of “Agile Scrum”? Is it a genius new business concept, a methodology best left to the engineers, or something to do with the All Blacks?

Let’s cut to the chase - the only valuable question here is, can Agile Scrum help your business?? Well that depends. Do you want your project teams to be highly engaged and effective, turning out better work in less time? Do you want them to be able to “roll with the punches” as requirements change, while maintaining amazing visibility and productivity? Yes? Then read on...

The “agile manifesto” was created in 2001 as a way of improving the ability of Software Engineers to deliver to the market by radically changing the way they approach work. Scrum is one of a number of methodologies that allows Agile to be applied - it also happens to be the most popular. Agile Scrum has become arguably the most common approach for software teams internationally because of the huge benefits it provides.

So here’s what’s happening now. The rest of us have been sitting back, watching these Agile Scrum software teams and getting more and more jealous - because Agile Scrum is a seriously cool way to work. So not surprisingly, other business functions are starting to get in on the act, with some very exciting results.

What does it mean to adopt Agile Scrum? First off, it means empowered, cross functional teams with no hierarchy (that’s right, no boss!) working on projects by breaking them down into little bite-sized pieces (called a sprint). Projects no longer have a full plan created on the first day - because in the real world, stuff changes. The customer becomes integrated into the project at every stage, so they always know exactly where things are at and can alter their requirements as the project progresses. It’s customer engagement on speed!

Agile Scrum is traditionally applied to full-time development teams, but can be just as successfully applied to project teams. My own experience outside engineering includes part time project scrum teams from HR, marketing and even top executives. The benefits they've experienced include increased engagement, empowerment and confidence of team members, greater focus due to the removal of “noise” that often distracts teams, a huge increase in the visibility of projects and bottom line - projects progressing faster and delivering better results. Downsides? It takes a little bit for teams to get used to a new way of working, it takes management to be on board, and it takes discipline. Serious discipline. But you know what they say, nothing worth doing is easy.

I know what you’re thinking - how do I find out more? A google search of Agile Scrum will turn up a huge amount of great readings, free tutorials and resources. Hunt down an organisation in your area using scrum and go for a visit. Or of course you can always get in touch with me, I’d love to chat.

Marie Johnston, Professional Scrum Master

Chalk and Cheese in the Office - should you go there?

Mon, 19 Sep 2016 03:40:00 GMT

Hi there, I’m an ISFJ. My business partner is an ENTP. Sound like gobbly goop? It’s the Myers Briggs way of saying we are both very, very different from each other. We think completely differently, we have completely different preferences, we make decisions, solve problems and deal with stress very differently and how we handle conflict – well don’t even get me started. Sound like fun? It is, most of the time…

It’s now a pretty accepted view in business that diversity is good for us. It pushes us outside our comfort zones, encourages us to see the world differently and to question paradigms. Ultimately it leads to better thinking and better outcomes. But what about when the person you work most closely with, the person you went into business with and spend most days breathing the same air as, is your complete opposite? Well then it gets interesting.

Many people on first meeting the two of us are struck by the similarities – after all we do have similar first names, we both have long blonde hair, the same skin colour, love dogs and don’t have kids. Those similarities don’t really make a difference to the way we conduct business though. The way we think on the other hand, definitely does! Luckily, because of our particular backgrounds (we’ve both been working with teams for years, helping them embrace just these sorts of differences) some of that wore off. We understand and deeply value the strengths that the other brings – where I’m not so great, she rocks, and where she’s less able, I’m pretty strong. So we complement each other really well, and we help each other see things in different ways. Ultimately each of us is far better because of the other.

OK, so that sounds like it’s all happy days and plain sailing right? Trust me, it’s not always! Sometimes we simply frustrate the hell out of each other. And when that happens, unless we catch ourselves post haste we go down the rabbit hole pretty fast. Take an example a few weeks ago, where I was talking through something pretty detailed. Suddenly my business partner goes all big-picture on me and I’m like “what just happened?”. I don’t know where she’s coming from so I get more detailed. She reacts by going bigger-picture. And so it begins. Luckily about 10 minutes in we called time and worked out what was actually going on – happily before either of us screamed. So yeah, that was not fun. But you know what? Compared to the alternative of being in business with someone who thinks like me, has the same skill set as me, doesn’t challenge me or my perceptions, I definitely know what I’d rather have, and at the extreme risk of being really corny, that makes us a better business.

For anyone thinking about going into business or putting together a team, I’d definitely encourage you to find the “Yin” to your “Yang”. Actively build diversity of thinking into your team and you’ll be so much stronger for it. However, make sure you’re aligned on the big stuff – your belief in the business, where it’s going and your core values. When it gets tough (because from time to time it will), this stuff keeps you aligned and will pull you through. The more you understand and respect your differences, the more you can leverage them and grow from the other’s perspective. Working with your opposite takes more effort to be sure. But just like anything worthwhile, the work is totally worth it!

Even our dogs are chalk and cheese…

Marie Johnston