@HR | Workforce – BIZCATALYST 360°

View Details

In today’s complex business world, change is hard. Companies venturing through major culture shifts, mergers, or other forms of change often struggle to make it to the end. The idea that people hate change is a phenomenon that is taught, coached, and wrestled with in many ways, shapes, and forms. Regardless of your mindset about CHANGE, there is one vital aspect you should explore.

PROGRESS is what you should be focused on. Change for the sake of change is meaningless. However, progress toward a new goal or achievement is more vital and more valuable to your organization.

Dean Lindsay, America’s premier authority on Progress, writes:

All progress is change, but not all change is progress.

Lindsay uses an illustration. If you wake up in the morning with a stomach ache, you want to change. You want it to go away.

If you tell a friend and they punch you in the nose, you got a change. But it wasn’t progress toward curing your stomach ache.

The RhetoricThere are voices in the media demanding change. The word has been worn out. Again, change for the sake of change is not progress.

When you sense the need for change or you design an intentional change in the way your business operates, be sure you are designing progress toward a new goal.

I know companies who have launched major change initiatives (they call it that) with the intent to become more profitable, increase margin, find efficiencies, or become more competitive.

Those are great objectives.

Yet what they are really saying is we need progress forward to be better situated for growth and survival in our industry.

Too often the well-intended change that is initiated gets bogged down in all the adoption and adaptation process. As soon as the change feels hard and resistance begins to mount, plans are adjusted.

Many times the shift is pulled back or canceled in the face of resistance.

Living Through the CurveRoxanne Chugg writes: “The fact is that most change initiatives are done “to” employees, not implemented “with” them or “by” them. Although leaders are pushing behavior change from the top and expecting it to cascade through the formal structure, an informal culture left to instinct and chance will likely dig in its heels and resist or even hijack the change.”

There is a popular model that describes the change cycle. Dr. Virginia Satir first introduced this model when explaining emotional life-changing events in family therapy. However, it has been widely adopted in change management circles to help businesses plan for and implement change.

The “S” shape of this curve helps us see the complexity of making a change. When applied to a work team, each member of the team will experience their own progression through the curve, each moving at their own pace.

The key matter here is that everyone in the organization faces their own emotional curve when forced into change. Acceptance or adoption of the change is dependent upon the progress one can make moving through the curve.

If plotted together on a single graph you could see the lag points where the manager/leader may be further along the curve than his people. If the leader is not sensitive to this lag factor, then the message from the top might be skewed.

The leader could be thinking “Come on people, don’t you get this? Why aren’t we further along?”

In reality, the team may be lagging behind the leader’s position moving along the curve. A little bit of lag is normal. However, the leader must decide how much lag is tolerable.

Back to ProgressGiven the tremendous effort and disruption a change may cause at work, leaders must be mindful of the progress being made.

Leaders need to ask: “Is the company moving ahead because of this change or are we merely spinning our wheels, burning out the staff, and creating very little value?”

Question: What change initiative has your company gone through recently? Or were you the one directing it?

The post Change and Progress, Are They Twins? appeared first on Business Advisor and Executive Coach | Doug Thorpe.

View Details

On Deepavali Eve, my partner called to inform me that it was happening again. I had texted partners and employees early in the morning and followed up multiple times. He reminded me of such a behavioral pattern in January, which resulted in an organization’s implosion, and almost all employees left.

I tried to explain my side — first, how the organization was chasing deadlines, and then how I was built. His point was that if the employees did not understand the importance of deadlines, they wouldn’t do it anyway. And some things, my friend, do take time.

Fact. That is just about right. If only, the organization could grow at everybody’s whimsical pace. I was the managing partner and therefore responsible for all facets of the organization. But sometimes, that is just the honorable name for a beast of burden. My other partners are smart, learned, and perhaps, even wise. They have their fries in the oven.

Here, I decided to step back. Well, that’s that.

I strongly dislike the term “silent partners.” These partners possess substantial equity in a company and usually have their positions due to passive support from a group of founders.

The managing partner and operating partners are supposed to run the show. The silent partners are to be just that — silent. So, I realized that when I rushed to seek help from them — their purpose of existence anyway — I was not getting the support I needed. But in review meetings, the remarks of dissatisfaction and innovating answers of why they are yet to be satisfied enough to contribute — they expressed that their contribution was a risk they would not take yet.

The load on me, the managing partner, has piled on as a result. There are deadlines because some transactions were coming to fruition. The complaint that the product was not there for fundraising is now gone.

The most frustrating aspect of their approach is their indifference and silence. From just seeking help, I am not sure if they want me to pray and beg, that I would not.

I operate from Chennai, which is about 300 km away from our office in Bengaluru. While Bengaluru is an attractive city, I can’t afford to relocate there. My wife prefers to stay in Chennai due to her familiarity with the area and the support network she has established here. My previous move to Mumbai was a disaster, so I am very cautious about considering another relocation.

We are well-equipped to work remotely. My business partner works from Mumbai and can effectively handle her responsibilities. The challenge we face is that, since we operate remotely, I rely on frequent updates from our employees to keep things moving forward.

When the updates are unclear and undefined, I have to get specific and more frequent updates and follow-ups.

I designed the roles of program manager and operating partner to oversee the business-as-usual processes. Initially, everything was going well; however, issues began to arise in January when deadlines started to be missed. I faced criticism for my aggressive follow-ups and for sending messages at inconvenient times. The program manager left, and a new team gradually settled in after a mass exodus. Currently, the team is still short three qualified candidates, and we have encountered challenges related to working capital during this difficult period.

I established a daily huddle mechanism in which I participated. The partner who advised me at the beginning of this process suggested that I step back. I handed over the assignment to the new program manager and stepped away from direct involvement. Since then, things have generally gone well. While there have been a few minor issues, the new team has come together effectively and is emerging as a cohesive workgroup.

Then, there are new operating partners who funnel their requests through me. The transmission of these priorities from working partners to the team is critical. This is the unaddressed space.

Why am I responsible? Because I don’t want anything to go wrong. If somebody understands the requester’s priority, then my job is done. Somehow, that is the reason for the current situation. However, it also brought forth, the challenge I posed.

Once again, I have the responsibility of setting the stage. Therefore, I have decided to take a step back.

Instead of making impetuous decisions or snap judgments, we must step back, sometimes, and grant ourselves time for slow thinking, allowing critical thinking to open deadlocks and clear up clouds dimming our journey.

― Erik Pevernagie (“The postman always rings twice”)

*Step Back and Observe: *

Stepping back means allowing myself to be for a while simply. I plan to remain quiet and inactive, letting time pass to observe how people collaborate without my involvement. This approach differs from my usual style. However, as a visionary and someone responsible for strategy and operations, I recognize my right to intervene if necessary. For now, though, I will hold my opinions and be discreet about follow-ups and interventions.

*Set Rules of Engagement: *

There will be a Category B, where the team can talk to their supervisors, which is business as usual. There will also be Category A, which deserves my time, attention, and decision-making. This will evolve into an informal mechanism that will slowly become an unspoken rule. This way, adoption will be more effective.

*Review and Support: *

There are already designated review time slots. I will focus on engaging with the team only during these times. I will ask for updates before meetings and minutes after. The team will run the meetings, and I will offer help only when needed.

*Give It a Month: *

Let’s try this out in November and share the results and learnings afterward. Why don’t we wait until then?

View Details

My recent post on “Musical Thinking” drew excellent comments. I found that some of the commenters summarized the idea of my post better than I did.

This was initially surprising for me. Thinking more about this I concluded that it is the “The Proximity Effect” that is in play.

The author focuses on the main idea but the readers focus on the whole article. Besides, the author is very close to what he is writing which may blur his eyes from seeing the whole post clearly.

Back to the Musical Post, Dennis Pitocco summarized it very elegantly. He wrote, “What a great analogy, my friend Ali Anani, PhD … Ideas are the building blocks of creativity, and just like musical notes, they sound best when harmonized. A diverse team, like a well-orchestrated ensemble, can create something truly magical when everyone plays their part and works together. It’s a reminder that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

This comment coincided later with a comment from Sujit Patel in which he wrote. “– If an individual is good at a musical instrument – chances are he/she might or might not make it to a commercial success. Now, Instead of each individual playing an instrument in a silo – why not – play in an orchestra/band – where a group of performers is showcasing their art on various musical instruments, for symphonies, theatricals, opera, etc. – all guided by the conductor/director”.

This comment invoked two ideas that I want to share with the readers. First, one is about the “Team Blurring Effect” in which the noise from the individual is hidden by the beauty of the teamwork.

Blur effect distorts the detail of an image which makes it less clear. The most common use of image blurriness is to remove noise from the image.

Teamwork does that for the individual in a similar manner to a band concealing the noise of individual musicians.

The other effect is the “Team Uplifting Effort”. This includes the synergistic part which Dennis Pitocco expressed in his comment, “. It’s a reminder that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

The other part is the uplifting of individuals’ performance by “beautifying” their work in hiding their noises. Not only do we uplift the individual’s productivity but also that of the team.

Team leaders are like great musicians and photographers. They know how to blur the shortcomings of their team members and make them look great within the team effort.

Team leaders are not pursuing defects in others, but in beautifying them and planting confidence in what they do.

It is not a game of finding defects; it is in hiding them so that the good efforts shine out. This boosts the morale of every team member and amplifies the effort of all team members.

View Details

I recently said this to a client I was working with…

All the problems we encounter and all the opportunities we create, stem from what goes on in our minds. That’s why studying and being more aware of the mind is so fascinating.

He agreed and immediately looked up the word psychology. He discovered it comes from the Greek words psyche, meaning soul or mind, and logos, meaning study or discourse. Combined, psychology literally means the study of the soul or the study of the mind. The word has evolved over time to encompass the scientific study of behaviour and mental processes, reflecting the broad scope of the field as it is understood today.

If psychology is concerned with studying how we humans experience life, we might ask what are the principles that underpin it.

In my own journey looking at this question, I landed on these three principles:

Thought: we have a capacity to think. We humans receive between 70 and 150 thousand thoughts a day, most of which we’re unconscious of. By ‘capacity to think’ whatever we do think, I’m talking impersonally, as one principle making up experience. This capacity is distinct from your or my personal thinking.
Consciousness: whatever thoughts we are aware of come to life via the gift of consciousness. Thoughts arrive in consciousness neutrally, before, quick as a flash, we fuse meaning into them. Whatever that meaning-making happens to be, it shows up as sensations and feelings in the body. We get tingles of excitement, knots in the stomach, sweaty palms, and feelings that range from joy and bliss at one one of the scale to shame and guilt at the other end.
Being alive: how we got here, with the gifts of Thought and Consciousness is somewhat mysterious. Often referred to as ‘The God or Spiritual Principle’, it refers to that formless energy that underpins all things and is beyond any one human’s intellect. It may be collectively felt, and if experienced profoundly, either naturally or under the influence of psychedelics, is ineffable.

Suffice to say, for our purposes here, without being alive and having the gifts of consciousness and thought, human experience of any kind whatsoever cannot form. To test how true this is for you, see if experience exists should you take one of these principles away. Have no thinking capacity? Not conscious? Not alive? Your moment-to-moment experience resides in these three principles.

Another way to think about them is to sit with the idea that you, me, and everyone else on the planet are doing the best we can given the thinking we are experiencing. Should that look vaguely true to you, you might avoid doing what I used to do, hurtle into the world of blame when business problems arise. And instead, seek to understand precisely what thinking might be causing people to feel and act as they do. Understand that and new solutions may appear that otherwise would not if we’re caught up in the blame or any other game.

Psychology and how it relates to business problemsArmed with the above principles, let’s take a look at how people experience some common business problems.

#1. Cash Flow Management

At one time I worked as an accountant. The cash-is-king mantra rang out in my head a lot. Metaphors like cash are the lifeblood of the organisation too. Whether we had just the right amount of cash to do what we needed to do, was a good measure of the firm’s health.

Cash doesn’t always flow at the same rate though, in or out. It can also debase over time, think how much £100 buys you today compared to just five years ago. Holding too much of it is not good, not having enough bleeds you, and creates dependencies on other providers of funds such as banks.

There are many systems for managing cash flow. The numbers they produce, however, reflect the psychology of those who influence how cash flows most. If you think hoarding cash, for that rainy day, makes you feel safer, doing just that would make complete sense. Conversely, if you think holding as little as possible frees up cash to reinvest in the business or elsewhere, just-in-time systems will appeal more than just-in-case ones.

How cash is managed is governed by whatever makes psychological sense to key influencers. What makes the most sense to you?

#2. Market Competition

Staying ahead of competitors can seem like an obsessive preoccupation to some. It taps into that survival-of-the-fittest meme wrongly attributed to Darwin. Tactics like deliberate price undercutting, limiting access to resources, and dirty tricks in marketing campaigns can result.

Conversely, I know of purpose-driven firms in the healthcare sector that is so determined to help patients live independent lives at home surrounded by supporting neighbours, that they train their competitors how to accomplish this in less-expensive-yet-more-patient-centred ways. You might call that a collaborative approach to competition.

Once again, how an organisation competes, reflects the dominant ideas present in its leaders’ psyches. What’s in yours?

#3. Regulatory Compliance

Some leaders resent compliance with industry regulations and laws. They think it’s too complex, time-consuming, costly, and an attack on their free will or free market principles. “Too much red tape” is a rallying call in political circles too.

This was the case when the Financial Services Authority became the Financial Conduct Authority here in the UK after the financial crisis of 2007 / 8. The switch to the regulation of conduct reflected how the integrity of the market as a whole can suffer when actors in it make up their own moral code when faced with a chance to make a lot of money even at someone else’s expense. Nowadays, unlike back in the noughties, named individuals in financial services firms carry personal liability and potential imprisonment for rule breaches. A long way from the laissez-faire ideals of those pre-crash times.

Others see compliance regimes as the minimum and use it as a base to build off; to do even more than the regulations require. Outstanding schools that see the national curriculum as just a baseline, rather than the standard to reach, are good examples.

What would you say the predominant thinking on regulation is where you work? What impact does this have?

#4. Talent Acquisition and Retention

I’ve written a lot about culture and how I think of it as an overall feeling people have about the way things get done around here. A vibe that can attract new people to join, keep skilled employees, and bring out all staff members’ potential to adapt and develop as changes in their operating environment unfold.

For instance, I recently spoke to someone who was creating what they called a prejudice-free culture. It was premised on the fact we humans are essentially the same in that we each navigate our way through life using the three principles described above, whether we’re aware of them or not. Prejudice is what she called “contaminated thinking”. It only led to notions of inequality, exclusion, and a lack of diversity; three traits that inhibit how organisations learn and adapt in these uncertain times.

While prejudice could be understood, given how deeply rooted it is in our societal culture, her view was we don’t need to blame people from all backgrounds for being contaminated. The main issue is to be aware of it and dissipate thinking that doesn’t help living a prejudice-free existence as much as possible.

This thinking is a far cry from employees being viewed through the lens of cost, or a resource that needs to be tightly monitored and controlled if it is to deliver that which is expected. This creates a very different vibe, which if accompanied by overly competitive, silo-like working, can become toxic.

Once again, people’s willingness to join you or leave is, in part at least, a function of the vibe present in your workforce, which, in turn, is driven by a leadership mindset when it comes to how best to get people to work with and for you.

#5. Technology Integration

What do you think about the technological changes that have taken place in your lifetime?

From air travel to the mobile revolution to artificial intelligence, do these disruptions excite and enthrall, offering up new opportunities or evoking that well-worn idea that we humans don’t like change, despite it being pretty constant and fast of late?

See how minds work here? If you’re implementing a change of whatever kind, technical and behavioural, people’s sense-making will differ. And it’s through understanding why those differences exist that gives you the best chance of seeing what the next best step for your project might be.

#6. Customer Satisfaction

Ever had the experience of a waiter in a restaurant wishing you a nice day but not really meaning it – as if that’s what they’ve been told to say?

Often, client satisfaction is thought about in mechanistic terms – say this twice, that three times, and this when the customer leaves. That’s what gets measured and conclusions about satisfaction levels drawn.

It’s quite different to clients saying of their own accord how a supplier really ‘gets’ them, listens so well to what they need but don’t have, and responds to this in delightfully surprising ways. This is about trust and delight not just satisfaction.

What’s in your leaders’ and teams’ psyches when it comes to serving those who depend on the work they do?

I have found the psychological lens really useful in my work. Sure other issues like systems, processes, procedures, contracts, rules, and incentives matter too, but how these are designed and implemented still reflects the deeper thinking we each live from, but often aren’t aware of.

The golden nuggets regarding how best to initiate and lead change lie in understanding thoughts embedded deeply in our individual and collective psyches. Surfacing these and helping people perform at their best, no matter what circumstances they’re in, becomes much easier.

Thanks for being here. I hope you’ll join me next time.

Until then,

Kindest,

Roger

View Details

Employee retention is one of the most important features for the success of restaurants. High levels of turnover disrupt operations, increase training costs, and impact customer service. It will make sure that skilled employees provide greater stability among the staff, boost team morale, and ensure a consistent level of service for guests. Loyal and long-serving staff can also enhance the restaurant’s reputation, as they start building good relationships with regular customers besides knowing the work cycle. Employee retention strategies therefore can pay enormous dividends as one builds up a reliable and experienced team.

Develop a Positive Work Culture

There is a need to develop a positive work culture that will attract employees to want to stay longer with your restaurant. People stay where they are appreciated, taken care of, and valued. Encouraging open communication, ensuring that everyone’s contribution is recognized, and promoting teamwork will contribute greatly to a harmonious and pleasant work culture. A positive atmosphere will be very much provided when the managers lead by example and respect one and all. Trust and support at work allow restaurant workers to feel much closer to their place of employment, therefore being more eager to continue with the business.

Provide Opportunities for Growth and Development

When employees see opportunities for growth and advancement in your restaurant, they are likely to remain with you longer. So, if you want employees to stick longer, be sure to avail them of training opportunities and career development options that include mentorship and avenues to leadership within the organization. For instance, cross-training in other stations or jobs not only enhances their skill base but also provides variety in their working experience, thus keeping them interested and motivated. Employees who feel that they are growing professionally are less likely to look elsewhere for opportunities, hence contributing to better retention and skilled workforce.

Offer Competitive Pay and Benefits

Competitive compensation and benefits would enhance the retention of employees in competitive industries. While attractive salaries may be important, many other benefits can add a great deal of value to a compensation package, such as healthcare, paid time off, meal discounts, etc. Employees would more likely stay attached to their jobs when they feel fairly compensated and that their contributions are being valued. Even small benefits can mean a lot to job satisfaction and contribute to building a loyal team that values and respects them.

Apply the Use of Effective Technology Solutions

Technology, such as a kitchen display system, makes the jobs of employees easier and less stressful, thus contributing to retention. A well-organized KDS simplifies the orders, reduces errors, and improves communication between the kitchen and waitstaff, making the work process much easier. With efficient systems to fall back on, staff are less likely to feel overwhelmed with the workload, something that often leads to stress and burnout. Useful technology will make the work environment more pleasant and productive, which will translate into a better employee experience and a desire to continue with the restaurant longer.

Recognize and Reward Effort

Probably one of the best ways to build morale and loyalty among your staff is to appreciate hard work and dedication. Regular acknowledgment of individual and team achievements allows employees to feel their work is recognized and valued. This doesn’t have to be formal; sometimes a simple thank-you or reward given for good service or to mark an achievement is meaningful. This recognition program, based on such milestones, standout performances, or dedication, will add value to an employee’s job and improve their chances of continuing on with your restaurant.

Foster a Supportive Work-Life Balance

With restaurants comes a fast-moving pace and late-night gallery; hence, helping employees achieve a good balance of work and life is very important. You can prevent burnout among your staff by offering flexible scheduling, distributing shifts fairly, and providing time off. Workers will be more apt to stay with a job that allows them to meet their commitments both personally and professionally. Fostering a supportive work-life balance will empower you to enable a team that’s truly happy, more productive, and less likely to desert ship anytime soon.

Retaining restaurant employees can be effectively actualized with a supportive culture, growth opportunities, fair compensation, effective technology, recognition, and work-life balance. It is then and only then that employees feel valued, respected, and cared for, and are really committed to their job. The focus, for these retention strategies, should be on getting more dedication from the team, smoother operations, and an improved dining experience for your customers.

View Details

Is it ever beneficial to intentionally send the wrong message? That’s the question that drives the conversation when Richard Bistrong, Ron Carucci, and Heather R Younger, J.D., CSP® join the ethics panel to Grapple with the Gray.

Here is our topic: Earlier this summer, a CEO and tech entrepreneur named Rob Dance ignited a firestorm on Twitter with a post titled: “Things I’m sick of hearing from my employees.” His list included: Can I leave early today? I’ll be in late this morning. My child is sick, can I rush off? I’ve got a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, is that okay? I’m going to be late back from lunch, I’ve got some things to sort.

He concludes with this pithy, editorial remark: I don’t care. Not surprisingly, the post attracted a barrage of critics, decrying his insensitivity and calling him a variety of colorful names. To which he replied with a short question: Did you finish reading the whole post? Because he concludes with these comments: “I hired you for a job and I fully TRUST you to get it done. I don’t need you to account for every single hour. Times have changed, and the workplace is different these days. People are sick of being treated like children. “All that should matter is that everyone is happy, and that the work gets done. My advice to companies: Treat your staff like adults. That’s it, that’s the big secret. Give them autonomy, respect that they have lives outside of work, don’t gaslight them into being grateful for not being fired every day. Output should always trump hours.”

One of my mantras is that Trust is the T in ETHICS. But is it wise to trust that readers will make it to the end of a provocative post and not miss the twist at the end? Does this style come across as snarky or refreshingly candid? Is it worth the risk of being misunderstood to make a critical point? And aside from style, is Rob Dance’s advice practical in a culture where so many employers complain about workers slacking off and shirking their responsibilities? And if it is, why does it seem to be so rare?

Richard Bistrong is CEO of Front-Line Anti-Bribery, LLC, assisting organizations with ethics, compliance, and anti-bribery challenges to help surface unknowns and shine a light on the real-world importance of operationalizing ethics & integrity.

Ron Carucci is the owner and managing partner of Navelent, helping organizations articulate a strategy for success, translate that strategy into results, and develop exceptional leaders along the way.

Heather Younger is a Certified Speaking Professional and LinkedIn Learning instructor. She is also CEO and founder of Employee Fanatix, helping equip companies and organizations with the intelligence they need to improve the quality of work life for their employees.

View Details

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 6: 11

Can our businesses and careers be subject to attack by the ‘spiritual forces of evil’? And, if so, what does that look like?

Scripture can shed some light on this subject. We know that Job was attacked by Satan, and lost his business, his family, and his home. That is as clear a case of Satanic attack as there is.

More subtly, we know that the Israelites, in their many seasons of falling away and worshipping strange gods, were often condemned for taking advantage of the poor and striving after money and wealth. These actions were certainly empowered by the spiritual forces of evil represented by the various false gods. Evil twisted their business to its own end.

And remember that Jesus, at the very beginning of his ministry, was subjected to Satan’s temptations.

So, we have some indications in scripture that evil can and does influence our marketplace lives. In order to examine the practical, day-to-day manifestations of evil in the marketplace, we need to rely on the experience of wise and mature Christian men and women who have striven against evil forces in the marketplace for years.

For a practical answer to the question “How do the powers of the dark world and the spiritual forces of evil war against our careers and businesses?” here is one person’s opinion. I see evil operating in the marketplace in these ways.

Keep them on the bench.

Evil has removed most of the Christian businesses from the playing field and they sit comfortably on the bench. No need to personally attack these businesses and their executives. They have been removed from the game.

These are those thousands of Christian-owned businesses who never consider the idea that their business or career could be a ministry – a powerful force for good in the communities they serve. These folks compartmentalize their businesses. They think that since they attend church regularly, they can operate in the marketplace as if they had no relationship with Christ.

This is one of Satan’s greatest ploys. By convincing millions of Christian businesspeople that their business and careers don’t matter to God, he has effectively kept them out of the game. As a result, millions of people, across time and geography, have never been exposed to a loving God manifesting through the heart and action of a Christian employer.

Cripple them with false beliefs and paradigms.

Certain false beliefs serve to rob a Christian business of its power in the marketplace and keep it operating at a fraction of its potential. The forces of evil have sown some false beliefs among Christian businesspeople. Some of these are:

God isn’t interested in my business/career.
Ministry is only done under the auspices of the institutional church. So, my business is not a ministry.
If I am visible with my faith, I’ll jeopardize my business and offend people.
The obstacles to succeeding in business are too great for me to even try.
Success in business is all about making money.

No matter how pious you are, if you hold any or any combination of these beliefs, your potential has been severely crippled by the forces that instilled those beliefs into your head.

Until you rid yourself of these beliefs, your career/business will never reach its full potential to be a force for the kingdom.

There’s more.

These two major efforts of the ‘forces of evil’ are very successful and have served to keep the vast majority of potential Christian marketplace ministers on the bench and out of the game.

A few manage to emerge from this caldron of deceit. They see themselves as ministers to the marketplace and fully embrace that commitment. Since they attempt to be visible and impactful in the marketplace, they become subject to other sinister forces.

Harass and distract them.

For those who have embraced the ‘business is ministry’ concept and are committed to having a kingdom impact through their business and career, the forces of evil resort to a much more hands-on approach – attempting to deceive and discourage us.

Here’s an example of what this looks like in real life.

A number of years ago I was filming a series of lessons for Bible school teachers.

Everything that could go wrong did. We’d arrive at the studio to film, and the cameras didn’t work. Or the lighting technician didn’t show up. Or an important bulb had burned out. There was always some glitch that prevented or delayed the filming. No filming session went the way it was supposed to.

We saw the same thing in editing. The editing equipment didn’t work, even though it was new and state-of-the-art. The software had a glitch. It was one small delay after another. What was supposed to take a couple of months took almost a year. I remember, in a fit of frustration, shouting, ‘What is going on here?”

What was going on was Satan was trying to derail the project. Today, we call that spiritual warfare. For those of us in business it means that Satan will try to thwart our business effort and discourage us to the point where we give up.

It’s a very real issue for Christian businesspeople.

Here’s another example involving the publication of The Good Book on Business, my most recent book. The Lord led me to write that book, and I had a very real sense of his guidance as I wrote it. Getting it published was another story. First, I sent it to my literary agent, with whom I had worked for 20 years. He repackaged the book and tried to sell it to mainstream publishers, who all declined, saying it was too religious for their markets. He suggested I find an agent who dealt with the religious market, as he did not. I contacted a half a dozen Christian literary agents and was rejected because I was not a pastor with a big church following. My book didn’t have the potential for enough easy sales.

So, after almost a year of pursuing a trade publisher, I decided to self-publish. I found a suitable self-publishing company and got the book ready for them. While the book was going through the publishing process, we created a marketing plan to sell it. At last, the book was published. We were happy with it, and were about to begin marketing it, when the publisher announced that they were going out of business and would no longer support any of their titles.

We put everything on hold and set about publishing it through Amazon. The process turned out to take twice as long as we had hoped, as we experienced glitches at every step in the process. Finally, two years later than planned, we got the book out and began marketing.

I attribute all the glitches and the difficulties to harassment by the spiritual forces of evil. Satan did not want this book published and relentlessly tried to derail it.

Those are examples from my life, but they are hardly unique. Almost every Christian businessperson has a similar story of some effort being supernaturally hindered.

Satan is real, and the Bible indicates that he wants to destroy us and our works. He and his minions have the ability to intervene in circumstances and plant thoughts and ideas into our heads and in those around us in order to derail our efforts, discourage us, and eventually defeat us.

“Dogs don’t bark at tombstones. “I remember that expression booming from the lips of an old southern preacher years ago. His point was this – if you are just taking up space on the planet, like a tombstone, you won’t attract Satan and all the other detractors. But, if you are trying to have an impact, you’ll draw the attention of the forces of evil.

In our terms, if you believe that your business or your career is just about making money and has no potential to impact the kingdom, you probably won’t be bothered. Satan already has you where he wants you – distracted by money and impotent in the Kingdom.

If, however, you believe that your business and career can be a force in the Kingdom, and you are attempting to transform it into a Biblical business, you’ll attract the attention of the forces of evil.

In those circumstances, spiritual warfare is inevitable. You’ll be wise to prepare for it.

View Details

This story of mine uses on one hand the filter of direct experience in the field and on the other the comparison with the evolution of the world, of organizations, and above all of the people who live in them.

Capitalism could have a thousand meanings, positive or negative.

My thought is that capitalism has among its merits those, in particular, of having determined significant economic growth, but also innovation for society, not only for itself. The capitalist economy is not based only on quantity, but also on quality. A quality is capable of breaking traditions, pre-established mental patterns, and previous habits.

On the other hand, however, capitalism has revealed its fragile face in the lack of adequate protection and guarantee of some essential rights of each person. Important elements for people have been neglected, such as, for example, everything that concerns their health, relationships, family, and community.

It is for this reason that I believe that the maximization of profit ends up dehumanizing the economy and, therefore, it is essential to think of a more ambitious model, that takes entrepreneurs out of the monopolizing tunnel of profit, which obviously we must not demonize as such, and which opens the doors to a much wider range of opportunities.

In fact, we must also consider as capital the natural environment, health, psychological well-being of people, the spiritual sphere, society, and culture.

These are not spheres that can be put on the sidelines of a company’s business, because of its tension towards a profit that excludes any distraction.

This makes the call to ethics and social justice inevitable, to an economy at whose center is the well-being of each person, in an attempt to articulate new visions, with sustainability as a fundamental element, considering the concept of common good at the basis of the economy.

Adapting to a more humane and ethically sustainable model requires a decisive change of pace.

The new generations are also asking us to do this, as they no longer see work as the only answer to the question of meaning. Work is part of life and, in addition to enhancing personal skills and talents, it must not prevent people from realizing themselves through relationships, family, and the need to grow even outside of work dynamics.

So, here is the innovative element that can only be the impact assessment, which must become a parameter and guide for each assessment and each production.

We have numbers and technologies that we can put at the service of human development. Every economic fact must be correlated with what comes from it in terms of impact on people and the environment, generating inclusion and overcoming suffering and new poverty.

The aim, the objective, the purpose of the entrepreneur must be to generate profits also for the well-being of people; not only for redistribution, but use of such profits for positive actions of sustenance, training, and social inclusion.

The company must be understood as an integral part of society, in which the needs of citizens and communities weigh as much as the requests of shareholders, in which the entrepreneur directs the mission (free from thoughts of mere philanthropy) not only towards the achievement of profit objectives but towards the welfare of his collaborators and the community.

For this purpose, we need visionary capitalist figures, protagonists oriented without laziness towards change, towards a change of direction, towards the generation of value.

Humanity is ready for a new model, which puts people and their enormous responsibility at the centre of everything: respecting the biosphere and the rights of future generations, as well as those of all peoples.

Being human to me means recognizing vulnerability to experiences such as shame, judgment, and reprimand. Admitting our own limitations is the key to everything, and is a sign of courage.

And then, cannot miss the sense of humor, which is essential to survive difficult moments and to not take him/herself too seriously!

That’s all.

I am convinced that the best people are those who live and work putting their heart first (the one made of emotions, passion, fears, and courage. The one that fights. The one that forgives. And that helps. The empathetic one. The genuine one). If a person can then mix heart and head without ever losing sight of the focus on their goals, they can give life to success stories.

The core value of a company is humanity. The company is the place where we spend most of our lives: the workplace defines our existence, relationships, and quality of life. This is where the revolution for well-being and gratitude begins.

View Details

In the intricate dance of human relationships, conversation serves as both the foundation and the wrecking ball. It’s through dialogue that we connect, understand, and navigate the complexities of interpersonal bonds. Yet, conversations can also harbor the seeds of misunderstanding, conflict, and ultimately, dissolution. Work relationships are the bonds that develop between us and others in our professional lives.

We can develop working relationships with colleagues, including members of our own department and our supervisors. We can also create strong professional relationships with people outside of our department and even customers. Building working relationships with everyone we encounter in our work environment is important to our overall career success and job satisfaction. Work relationships can lead to better customer engagement and increased profit.

In this article, we shall make an attempt to explore the profound impact of conversations on the construction and dismantling of relationships, delving into the dynamics that shape our connections with others.

What is a Working Relationship?The most asked question in today’s workplaces is: What are work relationships?Working relationships are the connections we establish with coworkers, colleagues and managers in the workplace. Although the relationships you build with colleagues and managers may not be as intimate as those you have with family and friends, they are nonetheless crucial.All jobs require interaction with others at some point.

Even if you are a freelance writer who works solely online, you still need to build relationships with them to have a fulfilling work environment and excel at your job.It is important to realize that a working relationship is different from a personal relationship. A personal relationship involves sharing emotions and personal truths, while a working relationship is a formal association and serves the specific purpose of ensuring good teamwork and productivity.

How to Build Working Relationships?Building strong relationships at work can take time and patience, but it produces great results. Here are some guidelines to follow when trying to improve working relationships:

1. Communicate often

One of the most important aspects of relationship building is effective and clear communication, which involves just as much listening as it does talking. This means that we should actively listen when a coworker, a manager and above all a customer approaches us and consider their point of view before responding. Apart from carefully considering the opinions of others, we should also strive to understand their circumstances.

For instance, if a colleague is experiencing a challenge in their personal life, it can be helpful to listen to them and be careful in our interactions. Also, let’s take note of nonverbal communication, as this may offer valuable insight that words may not be able to convey.

2. Be Trustworthy

Trust is a very important aspect of any relationship. If we ever commitment to someone, let’s make sure that we fulfil it as committed. We should also strive to demonstrate our trustworthiness by offering our support and help when team members need it. Also, it’s vital when building relationships that we act consistently. Building the trust of our colleagues and team members involves consistently acting in a trustworthy and supportive way.

3. Stop Gossiping

If we want to nurture positive relationships at work, it’s best to avoid gossip. If we ever hear gossip about another coworker, let’s not be part of it, or try to change the subject. If we have an issue with a fellow worker, let’s first try to have a polite and honest conversation with that person. If this does not yield positive results, we can call a meeting with a superior and the colleague in question, so we can address the issue in a transparent and professional manner.

4. Stay Positive in Interactions

When faced with deadlines or a stressful time at work, staying positive can help keep our team members motivated. Instead of getting upset or worried, we can encourage ourselves and coworkers by offering positive insight and inspirationto continue working. Keeping a positive demeanor can help us become the team members that others seek for assistance or guidance, building excellent working relationships.

5. Deliver Quality

Especially when on a team, the the projects that we execute directly affects our coworkers. If we want to build positive relationships, one of the best ways to do so is to produce quality work on time. This demonstrates not only that we’re professionals and good at what we do but also that werespect our teams and consider them when we perform our daily routines.

Take AwaysIn the intricate tapestry of human relationships, conversation serves as both the architect and the demolition crew, shaping our connections with others in profound and multifaceted ways. From the initial sparks of attraction to the deepening of emotional bonds over time, conversations lay the foundation for intimacy, trust, and mutual understanding. Yet, when wielded carelessly or maliciously, conversations can also serve as a destructive force, unraveling the bonds that once held us together.

Ultimately, the key to building and sustaining healthy relationships lies in the art of conversation: the ability to listen deeply, speak honestly, and navigate conflict with empathy and grace. By cultivating open and honest dialogue, fostering emotional intimacy, and addressing conflicts constructively, individuals can strengthen the bonds of connection and build relationships that stand the test of time.

Suggested Reading

‘Conversation’ — the key that unlocks just anything
5 Communication mistakes we all make
How to ‘Walk the Talk’ in Leadership?
Speak Less and Listen More
Overcoming Leadership Blind spots

View Details

As we’re transitioning into 2025, the past year has revealed a lot about how the current job market operates. With the rise of AI, low-code/no-code platforms, and other new technologies, the job market has indeed become competitive, and employment trends have taken a complete shift.

Employers are adapting to these changes by changing hiring protocols and workplace policies and scouting for specialized talent all over the globe. And we’re in a place where some of our skills have become obsolete; for instance, AI is now being used to create social media content that graphic designers and writers were previously needed for. Even though we’re quite far from the time where AI will replace our jobs, we still need to adapt toward how our skills will complement the rise of AI, instead of competing with it.

Understanding current market trends has now become more critical than ever for anyone who’s seeking employment, and this article will shed some light on the matter.

Current Employment Market Trends:Some of the current market trends employers and job seekers both need to look out for to stay ahead in the game include the following:

1. Demand For Specialized Skills:

The technologies around us are evolving at a very rapid pace, and industries are doing whatever they can to keep up because it lets businesses create or maintain their competitive advantages. This makes it all the more important for job seekers to understand where the gap lies and address those gaps, too. For instance, in the tech industry, employers are aggressively hunting for people in cloud computing, AI, and cybersecurity, to name a few.

Some employers focus on upskilling their internal teams, whereas others move beyond borders to recruit the best talent. And if we look at it, both are very sound strategies. Upskilling internal teams gives current employees the career growth they want and in return, employers get an unwavering sense of loyalty to the company. Nearshoring and offshoring gives people in other countries the chance to be recruited by well-known employers.

In today’s world, a degree is simply not enough anymore. It’s become more than crucial to invest in skills, so it makes people working jobs as versatile and specialized as possible. Bearing this in mind, it’s a wise move for job seekers to route their career paths accordingly and invest in skills that will pay off.

2. A Focus On Employee Well-Being:

The well-being of employees has definitely gained traction in recent years. And employers have now started placing an increased focus on this topic outside of traditional methods like competitive salaries. Access to mental health support, career growth, and a better work-life balance are just some things that employers are focusing on for their employees because workers are now more aware than ever about their rights.

This shift not only benefits employees but also lets employers retain their best talent in today’s hyper-competitive market. And businesses are definitely leveraging this to their benefit as well. State laws are also allowing employees to protect themselves and reduce the possibility of exploitation. If you, as an employee, need more insight into your rights within the workplace, consider reaching out to an employment lawyer.

3. A Growing Demand for AI:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has certainly become a buzzword, and every business is looking for tools to streamline and automate processes. Organizations are heavily restructuring themselves, regardless of industry, and deciphering how AI can add value to their business processes.

AI is helping us open more and more gateways to innovation, increasing the demand for people who can work alongside this technology. Businesses now need people who can leverage AI tools to get work done faster. Soon, we’ll have an entire economy that’s leveraging AI. And it’s up to job seekers how they can contribute to this economy.

In an effort to make this happen, employers are also heavily investing in their current workforces and transitioning them into adopting AI tools, which help replace many manual or repetitive jobs.

The employment market may look very tough at the moment, but it’s between the gaps where we’ll find plenty of opportunities. At such a time, it’s important we ask ourselves what we can bring to the table as a resource, and with that question answered, we route our way to building a solid network as well as a robust skillset accordingly. Building a portfolio that’s relevant to today’s market will allow you to show what you’re capable of, and in the end, that’s the only thing employers are looking for.

View Details

Many of my coaching clients have recently shared their struggles with feeling tired, emotionally overwhelmed, and cognitively overloaded and are close to burnout. They attribute these issues to the pervasive and addictive nature of technology, exacerbated by the pandemic and divisive global conflicts, accelerating change, and the rise of AI and hybrid work. As a result, many have retreated and frozen into habitual, reactive ‘busyness.’ This affects their overall emotional, physical, and mental health and wellness, inhibits their ability to focus, create, invent, and innovate, and restricts their optimism, hope, and positivity about their future in an unstable and uncertain world. Coaching creates a unique opportunity to partner with people to develop their pause–power to identify the transformative actions to reverse this pervasive phenomenon.

What is pause-power?

A coaching session usually serves as a first step towards cultivating the pause power needed to stop, observe, reflect, and take valuable time out to rest, replenish, re-energise, and reboot. This allows people to courageously notice, attune to, and express their true feelings and thoughts, to disrupt, dispute, and deviate them to develop the pause-power required to heal and provide relief, hope, and optimism for a better future.

Everyone must cultivate intentional pause power to empower them to observe and understand their inner and outer worlds. This practice helps them remove distractions, stop multitasking, and break free from the ‘busyness’ that depletes their cognitive, emotional, and visceral resources, putting them in the driver’s seat of their mental and emotional well-being.

Self-reflection and reflective practice become potent tools, enabling people to move away from reactivity and short-term focus and towards taking the transformative actions to adapt, create, invent, and innovate.

Hitting your pause button

Being adaptive, creative, inventive, and innovative involves consciously taking your hands off the controls and encouraging yourself and others to notice and disrupt your habitual and addictive ‘busyness’ (time scarcity + task focus).

This awareness is the first step towards reclaiming your focus and attention so that you can engage with and interpret the modern world rather than try to control it or withdraw from it.

Being willing to take a break and hit the ‘pause button’ stops your continuous cycle of doing. It focuses your attention on breaking limiting beliefs or unresourceful patterns and provides a support structure for applying rigorous perception practices to our daily lives.

Using pause power to create a place, as recently described by Otto Scharmer from the Presencing Institute:

“Between action and non-action, there is a place. A portal into the unknown. But what are we each called to contribute to the vision of the emerging future? Perhaps these times are simply doorways into the heart of the storm, a necessary journey through the cycles of time required to create change”.

What does pause power involve?

A pause is created when you suspend activity, a time of temporary disengagement when you no longer move towards any goal. It can occur amid almost any activity and can last for an instant by taking a deep breath to get grounded, for minutes to become mindful or to take a rest, for hours to enjoy a well-deserved break, or for years to experience life in a different culture or place.

Intentionally pausing enables you to take time between your range of habitual, largely unconscious reactive responses; it helps our brain’s executive function utilise the valuable ‘empty spaces’ between stimulus and response and between different ideas. It creates a space open to options and choices for being, thinking and acting differently.

Doing this allows you to notice and disrupt unresourceful and habitual auto ‘stimulus-response’ default patterns, which usually occur when things go wrong, you make a mistake and fail, or you dive into blaming, shaming or avoiding others as part of our naturally wired defence mechanisms.

Radical acceptance

Learning to pause is one of the critical steps in innovation because it helps you initiate a practice of radical acceptance. This requires embracing uncertainty, or ‘what is’ truly happening in the present moment, relationship, or situation, by accepting things just as they are.

“During the moments of a pause, we become conscious of how the feeling that something is missing or wrong keeps us leaning into the future, on our way somewhere else. This gives us a fundamental choice in how we respond: We can continue our futile attempts at managing our experience or meet our vulnerability with the wisdom of Radical Acceptance”.

By being willing to dive into an ‘empty space’ from an emergent process, you can unleash possibilities, opportunities, options, and choices toward identifying the transformative actions that create your desired future.

People who can artfully and skillfully facilitate creative conversations that funnel pause power and co-create valuable ‘empty spaces’ to occur can generate our imagination and curiosity to manifest glorious moments of insights required to emerge creative ideas.

Pausing also enables you to observe, pay attention, notice, and regulate how your overall nervous system impacts and manages your brain’s functions. This is key to being practical, resourceful, healthy, and productive in the face of volatility, complexity, uncertainty, and accelerating change in our hyper-connected world.

It also needs rest to do this. By applying our pause power and giving ourselves some rest, we offer our bodies, hearts, and minds a chance to recharge, keep moving, and work towards taking the transformative actions required to build better workplaces and flourishing futures.

A valuable toolkit and habit

This skill is valuable for everyone to reflect upon, cultivate and master. It is initiated by intentionally stopping by hitting an invisible cognitive ‘pause button’ to observe, pay attention, notice your inner experience, and see yourself as the cause of it.

Developing pause power involves six simple vital steps and questions:

1.Retreat from reacting to the situation – by stepping back into the present moment or time to notice, be with, allow, accept (radical acceptance), and acknowledge ‘what is’ going on internally and externally, and be willing to name it with detachment and discernment.

What is going on for me right now – how am I feeling about it?

2. Step up and out to disrupt yourself and create an opening, doorway, threshold, or empty space – to allow something new to emerge.

What can I learn from this situation?

3. Step up and out to disrupt yourself and create an opening, doorway, threshold, or empty space – to allow something new to emerge.

– What can I learn from this situation?

4. Be willing to introduce and explore options and choices that allow you to deviate and refocus your attention on what really matters – taking a rest, having a holiday, completing a project, being a better person, getting a new job, or getting a promotion.

What are some of my options for change?

5. Be inquisitive, curious, and open to reimagining, reinventing, and pivoting – an intention, mindset, behaviour, task, goal, or business focus to re-plenish, re-energise, re-engage and re-boot to mobilise yourself.

How might I feel, think, or act differently to achieve my outcome?

6. Step out into the system’s edges – by being calm, hopeful and optimistic, to identify the transformative actions required to move towards and exploring new creative, inventive, and innovative solutions for providing value in ways people appreciate and cherish.

What will I do next?

Engaging in a Looking Lab

As many of our ImagineNation community members know, I am currently writing a book on ‘Being Innovative.’ There is a whole chapter on developing pause power to help people engage what Christian Madsbjerg calls in his latest book “Look: How to Pay Attention in a Distracted World” (Riverhead Books) – a Looking Lab, to:

“Get away from your screens, turn off your notifications, go out into the wilds of reality, and look around. Let go of all filters—clichés, conventions, colour corrections, whatever they may be. Try to pay attention to the simple act of seeing.”

He reveals that “if we choose to look for them, there are invisible worlds all around us ready to reveal their magic. The seemingly mundane or average can appear extraordinary, but only if we take the time to notice and see it”.

This is a vital part of our remarkable human capacity to transform through the slow, patient act of observing, attending, noticing, replenishing, re-energising, re-engaging, and re-booting to take the transformative actions that will help you make the world a better place and achieve your 21st-century growth and success differently.

View Details

ProblemsDo you sometimes go to a meeting and find the experience a struggle? You feel cross and tired at the end and wonder if the effort was worthwhile. Many meetings are like this, but they don’t have to be. It is utterly knackering when you have lots of these back-to-back.

Meetings are difficult because people feel they have to compete to be heard. The noisy ones find listening hard because they are bursting to speak. The quiet ones give up because they think no one will take any notice anyway, or they will be interrupted, so what’s the point?

These difficulties get worse if the subject is controversial or the objectives of the meeting are unclear.

SolutionsThe “Go Round”

You ask everyone to share their best thinking about the topic for (say) two minutes while everyone else listens attentively without interrupting. They will get their turn later. This format ensures everyone gets an equal chance to speak and be heard, so competing is unnecessary. Quiet people gain respect because their thinking is often clear and valuable as they work on it inside before they speak. The noisy people have to focus their thinking to get it into a fixed time, so it is often sharper than usual.

This simple method works even better if you go around the group in reverse order of seniority! If bosses go first, people will tend to agree with them, so you get less original thinking.

After a “go round”, you can have a more conventional discussion that will go well or extend the method. There is more about this in Nancy Kline’s “More Time to Think” book.

A storyI used this method to help a utility avert a damaging strike. Afterwards, my client told me, “That was brilliant, bill me what you like!”

Pairs and Share

When feelings are running high or everyone is confused, you need to increase the amount of attention in the room and give everyone space to think, talk, and be heard very quickly. Stop and have each person spend (say) two minutes listening to the colleague next to them about what they think and feel about what is happening and what should happen next. Then, swap roles. After this, use a quick “go round” as above to share conclusions. You will find the heat has left the situation and know what to do. This process is one way to use coconsulting or cocounselling in practice.

Clarify Aims

Coverdale training teaches a systematic approach for getting things done. One of their key ideas is that the aims of the activity (or meeting) should be clear to achieve anything. It is worth spending some time at the beginning of a meeting or item seeking agreement to what you are trying to do. Being awarely naive is very powerful if you are a member rather than a chairperson. “I think we are here to decide what we will do about developing our managers next year. Is this what the rest of you think we are here to do? You can also seek agreement on success criteria. You ask, “If this meeting was a complete success, what would have to take away at the end?” This sharpens up the focus no end.

Create the right setting.

If you want to have a discussion that can go deeply into an issue, especially a controversial one, then the right setting will make a huge difference. Many of the conventional settings are unhelpful. Emotional closeness often follows from physical closeness. So, think about being informal without barriers like desks and tables and sitting in a “huddle” where you can easily see and sense each other. Putting chairs in a circle will encourage participation.

You can also help to create a productive climate by stating the “norms” or rules for the interaction. For instance, you might say “This meeting will go much better if we concentrate on listening to each other and sharing our thoughts on what to do about the situation, I don’t think agonising about how we got here will be helpful at this stage, do you agree?

Finally, review the process of the meeting.

Some things will go well at every meeting, and others could improve. It helps to ask people at the end. What was the most significant thing you learned at the meeting? What was good about how we worked together? How could the next meeting be even better? You will get some good ideas and make everyone think about how they work together.

I often do this after one-to-one meetings. It helps me improve my practice as a coach and consultant.

View Details

In the realm of modern leadership, where empowerment and growth are paramount, the philosophy of servant leadership emerges as a guiding light in performance management. This chapter delves into the seamless integration of servant leadership principles with purpose-driven performance management—a transformative approach that shifts the focus from mere productivity to holistic growth.

By prioritizing individual development, aligning goals with organizational purpose, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement, servant leaders create an environment where every team member thrives, contributing their best to the collective success.

Servant Leadership: A Paradigm Shift in Performance Management

Traditional performance management often revolves around numerical metrics, rankings, and evaluations. The essence of servant leadership challenges this approach, emphasizing that leaders are not just supervisors, but mentors invested in their team members’ success.

Servant leaders focus on unlocking potential, nurturing growth, and encouraging self-discovery. They believe that genuine growth stems from intrinsic motivation rather than external pressure.

Purpose-Driven Performance Management: Aligning Goals with Organizational Purpose

Servant leadership finds synergy with purpose-driven performance management—a philosophy that emphasizes the alignment of individual goals with the organization’s overarching purpose. When employees understand how their contributions contribute to the bigger picture, their sense of purpose and motivation soar.

Servant leaders facilitate this alignment, ensuring that each team member’s objectives resonate with the organization’s mission, creating a collective sense of purpose.

Continuous Improvement and Feedback: Nurturing Growth

The journey of growth is a continuous one, and servant leaders are keenly aware of this reality. They prioritize ongoing feedback and learning as integral components of performance management. Constructive feedback is delivered with empathy, focusing on growth rather than critique.

Servant leaders create a safe environment where mistakes are seen as opportunities for improvement, nurturing a culture of continuous learning and refinement.

Employee-Centric Approach: Empowering Ownership

Servant leaders empower employees to take ownership of their development. Rather than dictating solutions, they encourage individuals to identify their strengths, areas for growth, and career aspirations. This employee-centric approach instills a sense of accountability and autonomy, leading to heightened engagement and commitment.

Servant leaders provide the support and resources necessary for individuals to flourish, allowing them to contribute their unique talents to the organization’s success.

Performance Management for Well-Being: Balancing Work and Life

Servant leaders recognize that holistic development extends beyond the workplace. They prioritize employee well-being, understanding that a harmonious work-life balance is essential for sustained growth.

By offering flexible work arrangements, promoting well-being initiatives, and fostering a culture of self-care, servant leaders contribute to the overall well-being of their teams, resulting in increased job satisfaction, improved mental health, and enhanced performance.

Unleashing Creativity and Innovation: A Holistic Approach

The marriage of servant leadership and purpose-driven performance management cultivates an environment that nurtures creativity and innovation. When employees are empowered, aligned with purpose, and encouraged to contribute their unique ideas, the organization benefits from a wealth of creativity.

Servant leaders encourage risk-taking, recognize contributions, and celebrate diverse perspectives, fostering an innovative culture that thrives on continuous exploration and improvement.

Conclusion: A Future of Purposeful Performance

In the chapters ahead, we will delve further into how servant leadership transforms organizational dynamics by fostering diversity, embracing change, and envisioning a future that thrives through authentic connections and sustainable impact.

Purpose-driven performance management, guided by the principles of servant leadership, emerges as a cornerstone of this transformation—a method that empowers employees, aligns goals with purpose, and creates a culture of continuous growth and improvement. As we proceed, we will uncover practical strategies, real-world examples, and actionable insights that illuminate the path towards holistic growth through servant leadership.

By nurturing purposeful performance, servant leaders create organizations that transcend traditional boundaries, celebrate individual growth, and thrive as beacons of excellence in a dynamic world.

Reflections:

Reframing Performance Management: Reflect on traditional performance management practices. How does a purpose-driven approach, guided by servant leadership, differ from these conventional methods?
Aligning Individual and Organizational Goals: Think about a time when your personal goals were aligned (or misaligned) with your organization’s mission. How did this impact your performance and motivation?
Feedback and Growth: Consider the role of feedback in your professional development. How can servant leadership principles transform feedback from a critical assessment into a tool for growth and learning?
Employee-Centric Approaches: Reflect on how an employee-centric approach to performance management can empower individuals. Can you think of ways to implement this approach in your current or future leadership practices?
Balancing Work and Life: Servant leadership emphasizes the importance of work-life balance. How does maintaining this balance contribute to overall performance and job satisfaction?
Creative and Innovative Environments: Think about an environment that fosters creativity and innovation. How can servant leadership principles help in creating and maintaining such an environment?
Purpose in Performance: Reflect on the concept of purpose-driven performance. How does understanding and connecting with the larger purpose of one’s work change one’s approach to performance management?

These questions are designed to stimulate thought and discussion about the integration of servant leadership principles into performance management practices, encouraging a more holistic, purpose-driven approach.

View Details

As we’re transitioning into 2025, the past year has revealed a lot about how the current job market operates. With the rise of AI, low-code/no-code platforms, and other new technologies, the job market has indeed become competitive, and employment trends have taken a complete shift.

Understanding current market trends has now become more critical than ever for anyone who’s seeking employment, and this article will shed some light on the matter.

Current Employment Market Trends:Some of the current market trends employers and job seekers both need to look out for to stay ahead in the game include the following:

1. Demand For Specialized Skills:

2. A Focus On Employee Well-Being:

3. A Growing Demand for AI:

In an effort to make this happen, employers are also heavily investing in their current workforces and transitioning them into adopting AI tools, which help replace many manual or repetitive jobs.

View Details

Organizational culture refers to a company’s mission, objectives, expectations, and values that guide its employees. Businesses with an organizational culture tend to be more successful than less structured companies because they have systems in place that promote employee performance, productivity, and engagement. Having a strong company culture motivates everyone to do their best work.

Companies with a strong work culture appeal to job candidates looking for a permanent position and the opportunity for growth. Organisational culture promotes a positive, structured work environment that helps companies achieve success. In this article, we discuss why organisational culture is important and how to improve culture in the workplace.

Here are five reasons why organisational culture is a must in today’s competitive business scene:

Strong Brand IdentityIn my professional capacity, whenever I visit a client, it hardly takes me a few seconds to make my first impression as soon as I come out of the elevator or enter the office premises. People make quick impressions about businesses based on their brand presence at their workplace much before they meet their people. If it lacks organisational culture or has a weak image, customers actually hesitate to do business with anyone who is associated with the brand.

Businesses with a strong brand identity tend to attract more business and potential candidates with similar values who support their mission. When employees have the resources and tools they need to succeed, it helps increase productivity and performance levels overall. Organisational culture impacts the structure of a workplace in ways that bring people of the same skill set together. Those who share similar backgrounds and skills may work more quickly together when tackling company projects.

Suggested Reading: Loyalty, Slavery or Competence?

Increased Employee EngagementA strong company culture fosters a sense of belonging and purpose among employees. When individuals resonate with the organisation’s Vision, Mission, and Values, they are more likely to feel engaged and motivated in their roles. This heightened engagement translates into higher levels of productivity, as employees are driven by a shared commitment to achieving common goals. Moreover, a positive work environment cultivates loyalty and reduces turnover rates, saving resources associated with recruitment and training.

A work environment that possesses organisational culture is driven by purpose and clear expectations. This motivates and inspires employees to be more engaged in their work duties and interactions with others. It also leads to high levels of workforce engagement, which drives productivity. Having a strong connection to an organization and its people creates an atmosphere of positivity that is hard to ignore.

Transformational PowerA culture that encourages open communication, collaboration, and risk-taking provides fertile ground for innovation to flourish. When employees feel empowered to voice their ideas without fear of judgment, they are more inclined to think outside the box and experiment with new approaches. By embracing diversity of thought and fostering a culture of continuous learning, organizations can unlock the creative potential of their workforce, leading to breakthrough innovations and a competitive edge in the market.

Not all businesses have the power to transform ordinary employees into total brand advocates, but those with a strong organisational culture do. Companies that recognise their employees’ efforts and celebrate team successes are more likely to notice a change in employees as they experience a sense of accomplishment.

High PerformanceOrganisations that focus on brand identity and conducive work culture are actually more concerned about employee performance. They expect great business results through the employees they hire. They undergo rigorous talent acquisition cycle and onboarding programs and expect the very best from the candidates they hire.

Let’s remember that companies that promote “community” concept in the workplace are more likely to retain their best employees. Employees who are good at what they do and know the value of their skills commonly leave negative work environments where they feel undermined, ignored, and unappreciated. Organisational culture builds a high-performance culture that strengthens the work of people within the company, resulting in a positive employee experience overall.

Healthy Work EnvironmentCompany culture serves as a magnet for top talent and influences the perception of the organisation in the eyes of both existing and prospective employees. A reputation for a positive work environment, ethical practices, and a commitment to social responsibility enhances the employer brand, making it more attractive to potential recruits. Moreover, satisfied and engaged employees are the best ambassadors for promoting the organization’s brand externally, contributing to a positive public image and differentiation in the talent marketplace.

Employees who feel valued and respected at a company are less likely to leave. That’s why it’s essential for brands to foster a winning organisational culture that supports their core values and mission statement. Happy employees mean lesser turnover, which saves companies time, energy and money in the hiring process.

BottomlineNeedless to say here company culture is not merely a “buzzword” but a strategic imperative for driving performance and achieving sustainable success for any organisation. Unfortunately, this concept is not very well understood by the family-owned businesses in our part of the world.

By investing in a culture that craves high performance prioritises employee engagement, innovation, adaptability, customer-centricity, and ethical conduct, organisations can create a thriving ecosystem where employees flourish, customers thrive, and the business prospers in the long run.

On the other hand, as leaders and decision-makers, we must ensure that we have a single and the same yardstick for performance measurement across the organisation. We just cannot treat different levels with the same company differently — be it performance or otherwise. It’s crucial to recognise the profound impact of company culture and nurture it as a cornerstone of organisational excellence. After all, a strong culture isn’t just a competitive advantage — it’s the heart and soul of an organization.

View Details

The problem about appreciationI think what happens is that people are very concerned about getting appreciation. Most of us had very little as children and young people and far too much criticism. So it is hard to give now what we did not have and have not learned how to give. Appreciation is like a smile, if you give it away it comes back to you.

Some solutionsJust do it

I encourage you to decide to give three appreciative comments a day for a week and also to decide not to worry about whether you receive any. Your work place or family will become brighter and you may well get some back!

A good appreciation is genuine and believable. It can be light and still make someone’s day and increase their energy and motivation.

Here are some examples.

“Thanks for that report, it was short, readable and elegantly presented”

“I appreciated your support and courage in the meeting. It would have been easier for you to agree with the majority”

“I always enjoy talking to you, you listen really well”

“What a great idea!”

You can often catch people doing things right, if you want to.

I remember saying to my daughter at nine years old that she could be anything she chose when she grew up. She responded so well and is now living her dream.

An appreciation exercise

I like to do this with a group at the end of a workshop or long meeting when people have learned a bit about each other. Each person has a sheet of A4 paper and writes their name clearly at the bottom. You then pass the paper to your neighbour who writes on the top of the page a word or words that describe what they have most appreciated positively about the person whose name is on the bottom of the sheet. Each person folds the sheet of paper forwards to cover what he or she has written and passes it on to the next person, who writes their comments and does the same. Eventually, you get your piece of paperback.

Then ask each person to note the comment she or he likes the best. Then everyone stands up, in a close circle and reads out his or her favourite comment preceding it with “I am”, while everyone else listens attentively.

I always take part in this exercise and keep the comments. They are good to refer back to. I had a very dour manager called Tom on a counselling course once when we did a version of this. I met him a few months later to enquire how things were going at the end of our chat he said, “That exercise at the end really was useful, whenever I feel really down I pull out my sheet and realise that I am OK!”

Self-appreciation

Because of the invalidation and criticism most of us have experienced we can carry internalised “tape recordings” that plays all the time that says something like “You are no good/bad/useless/worthless” or “You are only valuable or loveable if you achieve/are clever/are rich/win”. These messages all imply that we have no intrinsic worth just for being ourselves. Babies and very young children, if treated well, appear to feel valuable and expect to be loved for “being”. They have nothing to prove.

It is possible to reduce the impact of these tape recordings and even eliminate them entirely by appreciating yourself. It is very counter cultural to stand in a group and tell the other people all the things you like about yourself, but it is possible. You don’t die of embarrassment but it feels close! There is a very good chapter in The Human Situation by Harvey Jackins about this. The book is available via the Re-evaluation Counselling website http://www.rc.org/

Strength Building

This is another exercise that uses appreciation and can be very effective for building teams and relationships.

The participants are in a small face-to-face group. In a larger group when time is short, demonstrate the process with one person in front of the group. Then break people into groups of four and five.

Each person has a turn of say 15 minutes as the focus of the group.

She or he describes an event in which she or he achieved something they felt good about. It does not have to about work. Everyone else listens intently.
Each group member tells the person above two or three strengths she must have used to achieve it. The person adds one or two of his own.
The person states the one strength of all the ones she has heard that she /he likes the best. If people are ready they may “own” this by going round the group and saying to each person in turn “I am (e g) resourceful!” A facilitator may encourage further growth by encouraging her/him to use a clear and positive tone of voice and posture with no trace of self-deprecation.

After everyone has had a turn, ask people how they feel about themselves and the group and what they have learned.

The effects

People develop in confidence and self esteem as they discover their achievements and skills are valuable. They appreciate the depths in other people and want to know more. The shared and rather intense experience builds group cohesion. People enjoy it too.

View Details

Andrea Carter, Adler University

Diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts have become increasingly visible in U.S. workplaces, especially over the past five years. However, DEI has recently come under attack, with companies scaling back their DEI plans.

As a professor of organizational psychology, I believe businesses should refine rather than abandon these efforts. Introducing a powerful concept, “belonging,” could hold the key. Although people mistakenly use “belonging” and “inclusion” interchangeably, their differences matter a lot – and can have a significant impact on employee satisfaction and organizational success.

What DEI is and why it’s strugglingDiversity initiatives have a long history in American workplaces, but it’s only recently that “DEI” has become a buzzword. DEI refers to policies and initiatives implemented by organizations to ensure fair treatment of and full participation by all people.

Adoption of formal DEI programs has seen significant growth. In 2019, around 64% of organizations had some form of DEI initiative. By 2023, this rose to 89%, demonstrating a clear upward trend. Research shows that companies with diverse teams are 70% more likely to capture new markets and are 87% better at making decisions. Additionally, 85% of CEOs report diverse workforces improving profitability. Despite this, a trend of businesses and schools significantly or completely eradicating their DEI initiatives has become prevalent in 2024.

What happened? While external factors contributed to the backlash, including political pressure and a changed legal environment, research suggests that problems with how DEI is conceptualized and practiced also bear a fair share of the blame.

Misunderstanding DEIWhile diversity and inclusion are often well-intentioned, many organizations that approached change initiatives solely through diversity metrics have failed. Effective DEI strategy focuses on learning and development, mentorship, and allyship, extending beyond race and gender. The challenge comes from narrow views of DEI, driving oversimplifications and zero-sum thinking.

For example, people have multiple intersecting identities, with complex traits that often depend on social context. But some DEI efforts ignore that complexity, reducing employees to a single category, such as gender, race, age or disability status. That leaves people, regardless of whether they feel included in “ingroups” or “outgroups,” feeling diminished.

Similarly, research shows that people’s actions and opportunities are strongly influenced by their environment. But too often, DEI efforts place the responsibility for growth entirely on individuals. That actually reinforces people’s biases because group dynamics and social structures shape collective behaviors.

When models fail to distribute accountability and responsibility effectively, collective behavior will uphold toxic environments.

To be fair, not all organizations have fallen into these traps. Those with leaders that adopted a more contemporary understanding of power and bias have developed more effective strategies for employees to thrive. My research suggests that for DEI initiatives to succeed, respect and fairness must be present. These requirements are rooted in the foundations of belonging.

DEI’s evolution: Integrating belonging for lasting impactWhile belonging is related to inclusion, research shows it’s much more than just a synonym. Inclusion may focus on being seen, accepted, and valued within a team or community. Belonging goes deeper, involving a genuine sense of connection and identity within a group. To truly experience belonging, it’s not enough to feel included; my research shows that five critical indicators must also be present. These elements ensure that individuals feel a deep, meaningful attachment to the group, which inclusion alone cannot fully achieve. This distinction underscores that belonging is a unique and essential experience, distinct from inclusion, and critical for fostering a truly cohesive and supportive environment.

So what are the five indicators of belonging? They are comfort, connection, contribution, psychological safety, and well-being, and all of them can be measured.

When an environment is high in each of the five indicators, and the measured gap between the ingroup and outgroup is low, it suggests an environment where responsibility for creating opportunities to thrive are shared and balanced. Let’s unpack these concepts:

Comfort. When an organization is high in comfort, people feel seen for who they are. This requires them to accept that others have complex, sometimes contradictory identities, and to adopt a mindset of awareness. Perhaps counterintuitively, achieving comfort requires being a little uncomfortable, too. That’s because respectfully seeing and being seen means acknowledging other people’s discomfort.
Connection. Connection is the need to be known and trusted. For an organization to score high on connection, people will be aligned on values and goals. Connection creates a shared sense of responsibility and accountability. This shared responsibility is a foundation for empathy, since trust and fairness are born from understanding and empathizing with the social and emotional needs of others.
Contribution. An organization high in contribution values its members for the unique and diverse attributes they bring to the table. In belonging environments, an individual’s contribution is evaluated through curiosity and openness; ideas and perspectives are shared to influence and challenge the status quo, driving innovation and creativity. When someone is genuinely acknowledged for their contributions, both they and their team feel fulfilled.
Psychological safety. When a person is genuinely accepted into a group, making a mistake or even failing is seen as a chance to learn and grow, not an opportunity to shame, blame or exclude. This is the essence of psychological safety. In cases where people’s perspectives are dramatically different, psychological safety requires everyone to reflect and put themselves in the shoes of the other to respect their differences and be accountable for behavior.
Well-being. In an organization high in well-being, members’ experiences are considered and cared for. This requires everyone to share responsibility for caring for individuals, groups, teams and the organization as a whole, each with their authentic needs.

Belonging, based on my research, is not just a buzzword; it’s the bedrock of a thriving, innovative workplace. Leaders who understand this and take action can enhance individual well-being while unlocking the full potential of their teams.

By committing to building environments where the indicators of belonging are prioritized, leaders can ignite passion, loyalty, and excellence in their workplaces.

Andrea Carter, Adjunct Faculty in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Adler University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

View Details

Some years back, I was deeply shocked to hear that a good friend and ex-colleague had committed suicide in England. It seemed incomprehensible that a man of such remarkable character should be driven to the ultimate act of despair, leaving behind his wife and child.

We had taught together at a high school in Rhodesia, where he had been Head of Science, and probably the best teacher I have ever known. Many men, now in their sixties, still passionately testify to the moral and intellectual impact this great man had on their lives. Brilliant, dedicated, compassionate, and creative, he was everything a teacher needs to be. How on earth had such a tragedy come to pass? A mutual friend provided the answers.

As teachers, we also did military service during the Rhodesian War. On one stint in the bush, our friend had witnessed the interrogation of an insurgent, who was taken several hundred feet up in a helicopter so as to terrify him into giving up intelligence data. The young man was then hurled out of the chopper, and fell screaming to his death. Our friend was horrified by this act of cruelty, but the Official Secrets Act, and an atmosphere in which criticism of the armed forces was treated with suspicion, prevented him from saying anything.

Not long afterwards, he and his family emigrated to the UK, where he was appointed to teach at a famous public school. There he was subjected to relentless pressure and bullying by senior staff who were well-aware of the employment insecurity of new immigrants, and the unlikelihood of any pushback.

Who can fathom the depths of human anguish even when the victim is allowed to openly express his or her feelings?

Our friend was not, and a great soul finally broke down. The suppression of truth is inescapably destructive of the psychological well-being of both individuals and society.

The current climate of political correctness, cancel culture, calumny, corporate censorship, fear-mongering, fake news, and almost universal employment insecurity is doing precisely this to millions of people, who are daily subjected to the elevation of untruth as truth, injustice as justice, treason as patriotism, and quackery as science. Vaclav Havel and all those brave men and women who have opposed tyranny would be aghast at the docility with which we have allowed this cancer to come upon us so soon after the tragedies of the 20th century.

The choice is between truth and lies, leadership and misleadership. This is the challenge we all face in this critical moment for civilisation. Consider two propositions, and the logical conclusion that may be inferred:

Insanity is the inability to reason and the consequent denial of reality.
The incidence of mental health problems is increasing in the western world today.
Inability to reason and the denial of reality are increasing in the West today.

Evidence supporting the conclusion is copious. Consider a small sampling of facts that are not allowed to be argued, and realities that are denied by governments, multinational corporations, the media, and academia:

The most humane, albeit flawed, civilization in history is incessantly misrepresented
National self-loathing is promoted by politicians, academia, schools and the media
Illegal immigration is actively sponsored in a time of terror, disease, and drug abuse
The rule of law is violated at every turn, with the inevitable increase in crime
The family is relentlessly undermined, and social dysfunction proliferates
Promiscuity and pornography destroy individuals, relationships, and community
Nations with the greatest ethnic diversity, who led the war on slavery, are called racist
Ugliness is celebrated in art, literature, music, architecture and junk culture at large
Science, reason, and common sense are dismissed as tools of ‘White Supremacy’
Financial and economic mismanagement and malfeasance are rampant

People living in a socio-political atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, in which once trusted mechanisms of law and order are perverted and used as instruments of oppression, will struggle to make sense of their lives, more especially without a rational religious worldview to guide them. The radical freedom to define reality for oneself, except when political correctness decrees otherwise, has ushered in a pandemic of social dysfunction and the ever-increasing power of the managerial state, with its bloated bureaucracy intruding on every aspect of life.

This is the root of the civilisational crisis in which we find ourselves. All the other disorders that crowd in on us are but symptoms. Reality or ideology, truth or lies, sanity or insanity, leadership or misleadership – the choice is clear, but who will have the courage to make it.

View Details

In the dynamic landscape of contemporary leadership, the philosophy of servant leadership has emerged as a transformative catalyst for holistic organizational development. As we venture deeper into the exploration of this philosophy, we uncover its profound impact on fostering an environment of collaboration, empathy, and empowerment—an environment where the growth of individuals, the alignment of purpose, and the well-being of the collective take precedence over traditional notions of leadership. This chapter delves into the core principles and practices of servant leadership and unveils its harmonious alignment with the ideals of holistic growth.

The Essence of Servant Leadership: Leading Through ServiceAt its heart, servant leadership redefines leadership as a service to others. This paradigm shift challenges the conventional notion of leaders as authoritative figures who dictate directives. Instead, servant leaders view their role as that of facilitators, mentors, and enablers of growth. They prioritize the needs of their teams, acknowledging that their own success is intrinsically tied to the success of those they lead. This fundamental shift in perspective sets the stage for the creation of an environment where collaboration and empowerment flourish.

Nurturing a Culture of Collaboration: Open Communication and Shared PurposeCentral to the philosophy of servant leadership is the emphasis on open communication. Servant leaders create spaces where individuals feel safe to voice their opinions, share ideas, and engage in dialogue.

By actively listening and valuing diverse perspectives, servant leaders cultivate an atmosphere of inclusivity and mutual respect.

This culture of collaboration not only fuels innovation but also ensures that the organization benefits from the collective wisdom of its members.

Shared purpose is another cornerstone of servant leadership. Servant leaders work to align individual and organizational goals with a broader sense of purpose—one that transcends financial success and encompasses a positive impact on society.

By imbuing every action and decision with purpose, servant leaders inspire a collective commitment that goes beyond personal gain and elevates the well-being of all stakeholders.

Empathy and Empowerment: Fostering Individual GrowthEmpathy lies at the heart of servant leadership. Servant leaders possess a keen understanding of the emotions, concerns, and aspirations of their team members. This empathetic approach not only nurtures a culture of trust but also creates a sense of belonging within the organization. By acknowledging the holistic well-being of individuals, servant leaders create an environment where employees are valued not just as resources, but as human beings with unique talents and needs.

Empowerment is the natural outcome of this empathetic approach. Servant leaders provide their teams with the autonomy, resources, and support needed to excel. They encourage individuals to take ownership of their roles, make decisions, and contribute to the organization’s growth. This empowerment unleashes untapped potential, driving innovation and fostering a sense of pride and ownership among employees.

Leading by Example: Humility and IntegrityServant leaders lead by example, embodying qualities of humility and integrity. They are not afraid to admit their mistakes or acknowledge their limitations. This transparency creates an atmosphere where individuals feel comfortable taking calculated risks and learning from failures.

By upholding a high standard of ethical conduct and moral integrity, servant leaders set a precedent for the organization’s values and contribute to a culture of accountability.

Servant Leadership and Holistic Organizational Development: A Seamless IntegrationServant leadership seamlessly aligns with the principles of holistic organizational development. Its emphasis on collaboration, shared purpose, empathy, and empowerment resonates deeply with the holistic perspective that considers the well-being of employees, communities, and the environment. In organizations guided by servant leadership, growth is not confined to financial metrics but extends to the growth of individuals, relationships, and societal impact.

As we journey further, we will explore how servant leadership forms the bedrock for navigating change, embracing diversity, nurturing employee well-being, fostering purpose-driven performance management, and envisioning a future where organizations thrive through authentic connections and sustainable impact.

The subsequent chapters will unveil the practical strategies, real-world examples, and actionable insights that illuminate the path towards holistic growth through servant leadership, creating a blueprint for leaders who seek to shape organizations that transcend conventional boundaries and embrace holistic excellence.

Reflections:

Personal Reflection on Well-Being: How have you experienced the impact of leadership styles on your well-being in the workplace? Can you recall a time when a leader’s approach positively or negatively affected your job satisfaction and overall well-being?
Empathy in Leadership: Reflect on how empathy in leadership can influence employee well-being. Can you think of specific examples where empathetic leadership made a tangible difference in an organizational setting?
Fostering Growth and Empowerment: Consider how servant leadership principles can foster individual growth and empowerment. How might this approach contrast with more traditional leadership styles you have encountered?
Servant Leadership in Action: Think about a scenario where servant leadership could have a significant impact on employee well-being. How would you apply servant leadership principles to improve the situation?
Challenges to Implementing Servant Leadership: What challenges might a leader face when trying to focus on employee well-being within an organization? How could these challenges be addressed through servant leadership?
Personal Alignment with Servant Leadership: How do your own values and leadership style align with the concept of enhancing employee well-being through servant leadership? Are there areas where you see opportunities for growth or change in your approach?
Long-term Impact on Organizational Culture: Reflect on the long-term impact that a focus on employee well-being can have on organizational culture. How does investing in the well-being of employees contribute to the overall success of an organization?

These questions are designed to encourage introspection and application of the concepts of servant leadership and employee well-being in both personal and professional contexts. They aim to deepen understanding and inspire practical application of these principles in the workplace.

View Details

In a search for great examples of leadership in movies, war, battles, and conflict feature heavily as does the call for courage. Undoubtedly we can all associate with the challenges of courage in a conflict situation especially one involving physical life and death.

Reflecting on what we mean by courage in leadership can often take us into the need to stand up for something that’s unpopular or against the grain – an idea, a principle, a direction of travel. There’s a sense of a ‘cause’ or moral or ethical values that often underpin the courage we need to access.

Famous examples include Churchill’s ‘fight them on the Beaches’ leadership speech calling on the valour of a nation, or Lincoln’s abolition of slavery in the face of so much opposition. Courage is engaging in a battle but so often it’s a battle for what’s ‘right’. A battle for what it means to be human and then to access and use our courage – whether in small everyday situations or in the landscape-changing, more overt global sense.

To be able to demonstrate true courage in leadership, we must look to our own moral compass. We must be in relationship with the guiding principles that inform our thoughts and actions. We must stand firm in our own self without becoming isolated or myopic. Our intelligences – intellect, emotional, spiritual – must be fully active.

We have great need for leadership courage at this time in our world. Whether it’s the political, business, or religious arenas…in fact any major area of human endeavour. The courage to sacrifice self-interest in favour of the collective and the greater good. The leadership to listen, engage in true dialogue, and build a coalition for change.

True leadership courage is about standing up, and, standing apart when needed, but always working toward the greater good. It’s daring to inspire with a vision for something better and to commit oneself to the achievement of that. We have so many opportunities to make our world a better place…courageous leadership, centred in and through the heart (coeur) will help us succeed.

View Details

When does character assessment become invasion of privacy? That’s the question that drives the conversation when Deb Coviello The Drop In CEO, Diane Helbig, and Raj Tut join the ethics panel to Grapple with the Gray.

Here is this episode’s ethics challenge:

A woman shows up at a company office to interview for an administrative position. Her resume is impressive, she is dressed professionally, and she enjoys a cordial and comfortable conversation with the interviewer. As the interview seems to be winding down, she feels confident and encouraged, when out of the blue the interviewer says, “May I take a look in your purse?” The candidate is caught completely off guard. When she asks why, the interviewer replies, “It’s the best indicator of a woman’s organizational character.” More bewildered than before, the candidate hands over her purse. The interviewer looks quickly through it, hands it back, then thanks the candidate for coming in and shows her the door. A few days later, she receives an email that her application was not successful.

This case, which was posted online, generated considerable speculation as to the interviewer’s motive. What did they hope to learn? Why might the candidate have been rejected? And should she have handed over the purse when asked?

Other stories include the interviewer who gives candidates a wobbly chair to see if they would speak up and ask for a different one, or the interviewer who invites candidates out for a drink to see if he can get them drunk.

Assuming that the intent is to discover insights into a candidate’s character, are these kinds of tactics ethical, or are they deceptive?

Even if they reveal what the interviewer hopes to discover, are they worth the cost in undermining trust and respect? And how should interviewees respond if they feel boundaries are being crossed by their prospective employers?

Meet the panelists: Deb Coviello, aka the Drop in CEO, is an author, speaker, podcast host, and silver medalist curler who coaches C-Suite leaders of today and tomorrow to navigate challenges with confidence. Diane Helbig is Chief Improvement Catalyzer at Helbig Enterprises, providing guidance and training to business owners and leaders around the world. Raj Tut is founder and CEO of Storyboard Living, creating communities that provide a safe, beautiful backdrop for life’s greatest moments.

View Details

A serious debate about workplace culture and employee welfare in corporate environments has erupted with the death of Anna Sebastian Perayil, a chartered accountant at Ernst & Young (EY) India, who tragically passed away in July, just four months after joining the firm. Her parents have attributed her death to the excessive workload and pressure she faced at her new job.

EY’s India chief, Rajiv Memani, has since said the firm attaches the “highest importance” to the wellbeing of its employees. “I would like to affirm that the well-being of our people is my top-most priority and I will personally champion this objective,” he stated in a LinkedIn post.

While every company wants their teams to work hard, and produce, it’s important to remember more hours don’t always equal better results. Overwork can lead to the creation of a toxic work environment which – along with low productivity and stressed-out employees – often creates burnout and eventual quitting.

According to recent research:

33% of workers feel constantly exhausted due to work pressure
44% of U.S. employees report feeling overworked
50% of full-time employees work more than 40 hours a week.

A toxic workplace (also considered a hostile work environment) is characterized by a negative and harmful workplace that can have a significant impact on employees’ mental and physical health, as well as job performance.

For example – many companies, that underwent layoffs earlier this year, are now burdened with employees stressed out and overwhelmed by increased workloads, having to pick up the pace as well as handle the workload created with the loss of the laid-off workers. These employees, often not compensated adequately for their additional responsibilities, are quitting or considering leaving their jobs.

Clinical Health Psychologist Amy Sullivan PsyD says “A toxic work environment is a feeling and not necessarily a checklist. People know when they’re in a toxic work environment because you pay attention to what your gut is sharing with you as well as any physical responses. Your gut reaction is intuitive, but it’s also that feeling of, ‘something feels off for me right now. Either the way I’m being talked to or the way I’m not being included,’” says Dr. Sullivan.

And, by the way:

An employer can force employees to work mandatory overtime plus terminate an employee – either salaried or hourly – for refusal to work the required overtime. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), as formed by the US Department of Labor, is responsible for establishing the 40-hour work week for employees. However, the law does not place a maximum limit on the number of hours employers can require their employees to work. 

Workers, psychologists tell us:

Employees have changed their attitude towards work since COVID – prioritizing work-life balance, and seeking less stressful jobs. Plus unwilling to return to what they now realize has been a toxic work environment in favor of continued remote work.

People are becoming more aware of the importance of mental health and are willing to sacrifice higher salaries or job titles for a less stressful work environment. Bottom line – prioritizing work-life balance is essential for overall well-being and job satisfaction.

View Details

The journey from ordinary to extraordinary is a thrilling yet treacherous climb. As you ascend, the landscape of your relationships shifts. The camaraderie that once defined your interactions must now accommodate new responsibilities and expectations. It’s a delicate dance, requiring you to redraw boundaries without severing the bonds of trust and respect.

As a mass communication specialist and ACC-certified life coach, I’ve witnessed countless individuals grapple with this midlife crisis. Drawing from the principles of NLP, I believe that authentic leadership lies not in asserting authority but in mastering the art of “relationship recalibration”. In my career spanning over 30 years, I have followed a conscious and compassionate approach to navigating change while staying true to myself.

“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.” – Ronald Reagan.

Whatever stage of your career you may be always remember: It’s not about building walls but about creating healthy, empowering spaces where trust and respect flourish. It’s about recalibrating, not rupturing, the connections that fuel your team’s success.

Shifting Landscape: Navigating the Changes in Relationships

Step up, refocus, and take charge!

The moment you accept a leadership role, the ground beneath your relationships subtly shifts. The casual banter and shared confidences that once characterized your interactions may now feel tinged with a newfound awareness of your authority. This isn’t a betrayal of your past connections but a natural evolution as you step into a position of greater responsibility.

New Role, New Rules

As a leader, you’re no longer just a member of the team; you’re its guide. This brings along its own distinct set of challenges:

Decision-Making: Your decisions now carry weight and impact the entire team. This can create a sense of distance as you grapple with choices that may not please everyone.
Accountability: You’re ultimately responsible for the team’s performance, which can lead to difficult conversations and the need to hold others accountable.
Confidentiality: You may be privy to sensitive information that you can’t share with your former peers, creating a sense of separation.

Balancing Act: Preserving Camaraderie Amidst Change

Balancing existing relationships while stepping into your new role demands careful navigation and finesse.

Acknowledge the Shift: Openly acknowledge that your role has changed, but reassure your team that your commitment to their success and well-being remains unwavering.
Set Clear Expectations: Communicate your new expectations and boundaries clearly, ensuring everyone understands the shift in dynamics.
Be Approachable: Foster an environment where your team feels comfortable approaching you with questions, concerns, or even just casual conversation.

The Power of Transparency

Transparency is the cornerstone of trust during this transition.

Open Communication: Keep the lines of communication open, sharing information whenever possible and addressing any concerns directly.
Explain Your Decisions: When making decisions that impact the team, take the time to explain your reasoning, demonstrating that you value their understanding.
Be Vulnerable: Share your own challenges and uncertainties as a new leader. This humanizes you and encourages open dialogue.

Remember, this transition is a journey, not a destination. By embracing transparency, setting clear expectations, and acknowledging the changing dynamics, you can navigate this shift with grace and authenticity, preserving the trust and respect that underpin your relationships.

The Cornerstones of Connection: Trust and Respect

Trust and respect are not bestowed upon leaders simply because of their title; they must be earned through consistent actions and genuine connection.

Open and Honest Communication

Clear communication forms the foundation upon which trust is established. As a leader, be transparent about your decisions, motivations, and even your vulnerabilities. Invite your team to share their thoughts and concerns openly, fostering an environment free from judgment. Create an environment where dialogue flows freely, fostering a sense of shared ownership and mutual respect.

Active Listening: Beyond Hearing

True listening goes beyond merely hearing words; it involves seeking to understand the underlying emotions and perspectives. When your team feels heard and understood, it strengthens their trust in your leadership. Maintain eye contact, ask follow-up questions, and restate their concerns to confirm mutual understanding.

Leading by Example: Actions Speak Louder

Your actions shape the team’s culture. Model the qualities you expect from them—integrity, accountability, and respect. Be dependable, honor your commitments, and own up to your mistakes.

When you lead by example, you inspire trust and cultivate a culture of respect.

Remember, fostering trust and respect is an ongoing process. By prioritizing open communication, active listening, and leading by example, you can build strong, resilient relationships that empower your team and elevate your leadership.

Feedback: The Catalyst for Growth

Feedback, when given and received effectively, is a powerful tool for individual and collective development. As a leader, mastering the art of feedback is essential for fostering a high-performing and engaged team.

Constructive Criticism

Constructive feedback targets specific behaviors and their effects, providing actionable suggestions for improvement.

Be Specific and Actionable: Focus on observable behaviours, avoid generalizations and provide straightforward suggestions for improvement.
Focus on the Impact: Explain how the behaviour affects the individual, the team, or the project.
Offer Support: Frame your feedback as an opportunity for growth and development, and offer your support in achieving those goals.

Receiving Feedback with Grace

Accepting feedback gracefully demonstrates humility and a willingness to learn.

Listen Actively: Resist the urge to defend or justify yourself. Listen carefully to understand the feedback.
Ask Clarifying Questions: If something is unclear, seek clarification to ensure you fully grasp the feedback.
Express Gratitude: Thank the person for their feedback, even if it’s difficult to hear. It reflects maturity and a dedication to personal growth.

Cultivating a Culture of Feedback

Foster a culture where feedback is appreciated and welcomed.

Lead by Example: Regularly seek feedback from your team and demonstrate how you use it to improve.
Normalize Feedback: Encourage regular feedback exchanges between team members, fostering a culture of continuous learning.
Celebrate Growth: Acknowledge and celebrate individuals who actively seek and implement feedback, reinforcing its value.

Remember, feedback is a gift. When given and received with the right intentions, it can unlock potential, strengthen relationships, and drive collective success.

Stepping into Your Power: Embracing Leadership

Transitioning into a leadership role isn’t just about managing tasks; it’s about inspiring and empowering others. Embrace your leadership with confidence, clarity, and a vision for the future.

Confidence and Clarity: The Compass for Decision-Making

Leaders make decisions, both big and small, every day. Project confidence in your choices, even when faced with uncertainty.

Do your homework: Gather information, weigh the pros and cons, and consult with relevant stakeholders before making decisions.
Communicate clearly: Explain your decisions to your team, outlining the rationale and the expected outcomes.
Be decisive: Avoid waffling or second-guessing yourself. Once you’ve made a decision, own it and move forward.

Ask yourself: Am I making decisions based on fear or informed confidence? How can I communicate my decisions more effectively to my team?

Delegation and Empowerment

Delegation isn’t just about offloading tasks; it’s about empowering your team to grow and contribute.

Identify strengths: Acknowledge the unique skills and talents of each team member.
Assign tasks strategically: Delegate tasks that align with individual strengths and provide opportunities for growth.
Provide support and guidance: Offer clear instructions, set expectations, and provide ongoing support as needed.

Practical step: Start by delegating a small, manageable task to a team member. Observe their progress, offer feedback, and celebrate their success.

Vision and Inspiration: Charting the Course

A leader without a vision is like a ship adrift without a rudder. Paint a compelling picture of the future and inspire your team to join you on the journey.

Share your vision: Clearly articulate your goals and aspirations for the team and the organization.
Connect to individual goals: Help team members see how their contributions fit into the larger vision.
Celebrate milestones: Acknowledge and celebrate progress towards the vision, keeping the team motivated and engaged.

Practical step: Organize a team meeting to share your vision. Encourage discussion and brainstorm ways to achieve collective goals.

Remember, true leadership is about more than just authority. It’s about inspiring trust, empowering others, and guiding your team towards a shared vision.

Embrace your role with confidence, clarity, and a genuine desire to help others succeed.

Conclusion

Lead with Heart, Guide with Grace. As you step into leadership, remember that your relationships are not obstacles to overcome but bridges to build upon. Recalibrate, don’t rupture. Lead with authenticity, communicate openly, and foster a culture of trust and respect. Embrace your new role with confidence, knowing that genuine leadership lies not in wielding power but in empowering others. As you navigate this transition, may your journey be marked by grace, growth, and the unwavering support of those you lead.

View Details

What is a Working Relationship?The most asked question in today’s workplaces is: What are work relationships?Working relationships are the connections we establish with coworkers, colleagues, and managers in the workplace. Although the relationships you build with colleagues and managers may not be as intimate as those you have with family and friends, they are nonetheless crucial. All jobs require interaction with others at some point.

1. Communicate often

One of the most important aspects of relationship building is effective and clear communication, which involves just as much listening as it does talking. This means that we should actively listen when a coworker, a manager, and above all a customer approaches us and consider their point of view before responding. Apart from carefully considering the opinions of others, we should also strive to understand their circumstances.

2. Be Trustworthy

Trust is a very important aspect of any relationship. If we ever commit to someone, let’s make sure that we fulfill it as committed. We should also strive to demonstrate our trustworthiness by offering our support and help when team members need it. Also, it’s vital when building relationships that we act consistently. Building the trust of our colleagues and team members involves consistently acting in a trustworthy and supportive way.

3. Stop Gossiping

4. Stay Positive in Interactions

When faced with deadlines or a stressful time at work, staying positive can help keep our team members motivated. Instead of getting upset or worried, we can encourage ourselves and coworkers by offering positive insight and inspiration to continue working. Keeping a positive demeanor can help us become the team members that others seek for assistance or guidance, building excellent working relationships.

5. Deliver Quality

Especially when on a team, the projects that we execute directly affect our coworkers. If we want to build positive relationships, one of the best ways to do so is to produce quality work on time. This demonstrates not only that we’re professionals and good at what we do but also that we respect our teams and consider them when we perform our daily routines.

Suggested Reading

‘Conversation’ — the key that unlocks just anything
5 Communication mistakes we all make
How to ‘Walk the Talk’ in Leadership?
Speak Less and Listen More
Overcoming Leadership Blind spots

View Details

Rotageek continues to secure new clients, with a solution designed to address key findings from Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2023 Report. These solutions are aimed at empowering organisations to improve engagement in an evolving work landscape.

According to Gallup, workforce engagement is fluctuating globally due to the lingering effects of the pandemic, advances in modern technology, and changing employee expectations. In response, Rotageek’s workforce management tools help businesses adapt by promoting flexible management styles and using advanced technology to maintain a competitive advantage and employee satisfaction.

The report also highlights regional variations in stress and engagement levels, requiring unique management strategies that consider cultural and regional contexts.

Post-pandemic, Rotageek supports industries where remote work isn’t possible by offering solutions like flexible scheduling and enhanced communication structures, which are essential for reducing stress and encouraging a productive work environment.

“Employee engagement still remains one of the top priorities for our customers. Businesses are looking for ways to not only better engage frontline employees, but also reduce the admin burden and stress in head offices. As many places of work have evolved to be able to offer flexible and hybrid working, location-based businesses such as those in the retail and hospitality industry aren’t able to keep up.

However, with innovative digital workforce management solutions that make it simple for employees to submit preferences, see who they’re working with on shift and swap, drop and pick up shifts at any time, it can come close. Solutions like Rotageek, aim to promote flexible management, increase employee satisfaction and lower stress levels in these industries where true flexible working isn’t possible” said Chris McCullough, CEO at Rotageek.**

Rotageek’s technology is key for businesses refining their workforce strategies in 2024, making sure they thrive amidst global workforce shifts.

For more information, visit Rotageek.

About Rotageek

Rotageek is a leading provider of workforce management solutions that help businesses optimise staffing, increase engagement, and improve productivity. Their workforce management solutions range from intuitive digital schedules to AI optimised rotas using forecasts from data points at your locations.

Disclaimer

Note: The insights by Rotageek are based on an analysis of Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2023 Report. The views expressed are those of Rotageek and do not necessarily reflect those of Gallup, Inc.

View Details

In the dynamic landscape of contemporary leadership, the philosophy of servant leadership has emerged as a transformative catalyst for holistic organizational development. As we venture deeper into the exploration of this philosophy, we uncover its profound impact on fostering an environment of collaboration, empathy, and empowerment—an environment where the growth of individuals, the alignment of purpose, and the well-being of the collective take precedence over traditional notions of leadership. This chapter delves into the core principles and practices of servant leadership and unveils its harmonious alignment with the ideals of holistic growth.

The Essence of Servant Leadership: Leading Through Service

At its heart, servant leadership redefines leadership as a service to others. This paradigm shift challenges the conventional notion of leaders as authoritative figures who dictate directives. Instead, servant leaders view their role as that of facilitators, mentors, and enablers of growth. They prioritize the needs of their teams, acknowledging that their own success is intrinsically tied to the success of those they lead. This fundamental shift in perspective sets the stage for the creation of an environment where collaboration and empowerment flourish.

Nurturing a Culture of Collaboration: Open Communication and Shared Purpose

Central to the philosophy of servant leadership is the emphasis on open communication. Servant leaders create spaces where individuals feel safe to voice their opinions, share ideas, and engage in dialogue.

By actively listening and valuing diverse perspectives, servant leaders cultivate an atmosphere of inclusivity and mutual respect. This culture of collaboration not only fuels innovation but also ensures that the organization benefits from the collective wisdom of its members.

By imbuing every action and decision with purpose, servant leaders inspire a collective commitment that goes beyond personal gain and elevates the well-being of all stakeholders.

Empathy and Empowerment: Fostering Individual Growth

Empathy lies at the heart of servant leadership. Servant leaders possess a keen understanding of the emotions, concerns, and aspirations of their team members. This empathetic approach not only nurtures a culture of trust but also creates a sense of belonging within the organization. By acknowledging the holistic well-being of individuals, servant leaders create an environment where employees are valued not just as resources, but as human beings with unique talents and needs.

Leading by Example: Humility and Integrity

Servant leaders lead by example, embodying qualities of humility and integrity. They are not afraid to admit their mistakes or acknowledge their limitations. This transparency creates an atmosphere where individuals feel comfortable taking calculated risks and learning from failures.

By upholding a high standard of ethical conduct and moral integrity, servant leaders set a precedent for the organization’s values and contribute to a culture of accountability.

Servant Leadership and Holistic Organizational Development: A Seamless Integration

Servant leadership seamlessly aligns with the principles of holistic organizational development. Its emphasis on collaboration, shared purpose, empathy, and empowerment resonates deeply with the holistic perspective that considers the well-being of employees, communities, and the environment. In organizations guided by servant leadership, growth is not confined to financial metrics but extends to the growth of individuals, relationships, and societal impact.

Reflections:

Personal Reflection on Well-Being: How have you experienced the impact of leadership styles on your well-being in the workplace? Can you recall a time when a leader’s approach positively or negatively affected your job satisfaction and overall well-being?
Empathy in Leadership: Reflect on how empathy in leadership can influence employee well-being. Can you think of specific examples where empathetic leadership made a tangible difference in an organizational setting?
Fostering Growth and Empowerment: Consider how servant leadership principles can foster individual growth and empowerment. How might this approach contrast with more traditional leadership styles you have encountered?
Servant Leadership in Action: Think about a scenario where servant leadership could have a significant impact on employee well-being. How would you apply servant leadership principles to improve the situation?
Challenges to Implementing Servant Leadership: What challenges might a leader face when trying to focus on employee well-being within an organization? How could these challenges be addressed through servant leadership?
Personal Alignment with Servant Leadership: How do your own values and leadership style align with the concept of enhancing employee well-being through servant leadership? Are there areas where you see opportunities for growth or change in your approach?
Long-term Impact on Organizational Culture: Reflect on the long-term impact that a focus on employee well-being can have on organizational culture. How does investing in the well-being of employees contribute to the overall success of an organization?

View Details

In a comment on a recent post of mine titled, “The Ice Cream of Success” Gladstone Leslie Samuel wrote, “Climbing the summit is success. To remain at the top is a perpetual challenge”.

This comment brought up the question of positional change, and if what positions we hold dictate how fast we need to change?

Leaders are on top and have maximum exposure to outside challenges and obstacles. The heat of challenges may melt them and start flowing their effect on employees and dishearten them.

Those leaders may cause their organizations to shrink. They need to self-inspect their mindsets and view challenges and obstacles as the salt that lowers their freezing temperature to remain “solid” in facing challenges.

The world we live in is witnessing rapid change. Change brings opportunities and challenges. Leaders may need to adapt faster than change to meet the challenges of change and grasp its opportunities.

This means leaders must foster their self-belief to make their employees feel the same. The big challenge is to keep self-belief in times of rapid change and not melt because of their heat. And if they do then only to become more fluid leaders to go around challenges and obstacles and even melt them.

Leaders may melt under the heat of challenges to enhance the speed of their leadership. Those leaders melt to enable them to execute fast and execute right.

Fluid leaders are not slow leaders who only act if they go wrong and not as planned or hoped for. They are accountable and have the agility to spring back fast.

Those leaders know well the challenges ahead but also know what opportunities are hidden in those obstacles.

Those leaders work to foster collaboration and innovation as Dennis Pitocco mentioned in his recent post on “Community Matters: Because “Everything Belongs Together”.

To do so, those leaders have the ability to keep their empathy and open communication, conflict resolution, powerful persuasion, high agility, and trust.

Those leaders adapt their leadership style to be in alignment with the challenges lying ahead. The five leadership styles are authoritarian, democratic, participative, delegating, and do as I want style.

Not all leaders are in the same position and so no leadership style shall fit all situations of the position in which leaders are.

Maybe this is a “Customized Leadership” style.

View Details

When have you heard that someone went into risk, or danger for another because they were “psychologically safe”? You haven’t. You don’t, and, you won’t. Because we don’t go towards danger because we’re psychologically safe. We go into the unknown, the risky places, and the danger, and then innovate, for those who matter to us. For those with whom we belong.

Simply, they matter more to us than the danger. So, when it comes to that line in the sand, where on the one side we’re psychologically safe, and then on the other, we’re not, we ignore it. Our line of inhibition to take action diminishes as our belonging gets stronger.

No amount of psychological safety motivates you to have somebody’s back. You know, stick your neck out for them. That’s a function of belonging in our neurobiology. And that’s why I say, this big push to enable DEI through psychological safety misses the mark.

Companies have been spending some $8 billion a year on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) (in the US)—and see remarkably few results (Fortune, citing McKinsey & Company Dec. 7, 2021). I know the statistics show that DEI is better for business. I agree 100%!!! It’s just that the evidence and arguments don’t pan out very well across the work world. If they did, we’d have progressed way farther. I mean, really, the data proves it’s not working.

And, don’t get me wrong, a psychologically unsafe environment can definitely inhibit DEI efforts. But more importantly, a psychologically safe environment can’t pave the way for DEI. Harder still, DEI efforts threaten the status quo. And here again, I believe the status quo really needs to change. It’s a disgrace. In 2021, companies founded solely by women garnered 2.4% of the total capital invested in venture-backed startups in the US. Here’s a quick unscientific study. Just did a LinkedIn search: CTO in People. Out of the first 100 people, only seven are women. No one steps into the discomfort to disrupt the status quo because they’re psychologically safe. Other reasons, yes, just not that.

I’m a former VP of people & culture, and now, an executive/orgdev coach. I’ve observed these four things about DEI efforts in both, psychologically safe and unsafe environments. And, the answers are the same.

When DEI comes before B(elonging) DEI, outside of belonging is fraught with resistance. * Diversity, without belonging, it’s a quota that gets fought * Equity, outside of belonging, gets seen as an unjust handout * Inclusion*, less belonging’s embrace, makes for a stranger in an unfriendly land

This is why, regardless of the arguments, all the data-driven evidence, the anti-bias training, training on how to make a psychologically safe workplace, etc… at 8 billion dollars a year hasn’t done much to change things. The arguments and the mandates keep failing. Because, the moment DEI efforts, even with all their honorable objectives, threaten our belonging, DEI becomes the adversary. It’s neurobiology. We’re wired to belong, as in, to really belong, before anything else.

Outside of belonging and regardless of how psychologically safe, each area and DEI easily triggers fight/flight responses.

We don’t think about DEI efforts as threatening our belonging. They’re supposed to expand belonging! But if we’re willing to be honest, yes, DEI can and does threaten. As a VP of people and culture, I found myself in an inequitable situation. It was time for raises and I was reviewing salaries. I found out that a couple of my women co-VPs were making less than me. So, I made the case for our salaries to be on par. And as much as I love the infinite game thinking, the reality is, company financial resources are finite. Their getting moved into a salary range on par meant my slated raise wouldn’t happen. What does that have to do with belonging? Lots!

My choice for equity for them came into conflict with my primary circle of belonging, providing for my family. It was my belonging with my women co-VPs that opened the door for me to choose also them, and, my family. No “Belonging” and the “E” in DEI didn’t stand a chance. And that’s regardless of how psychologically safe the environment was.

Know this. If you put your DEI efforts in the way of your people’s belonging, expect those efforts to go nowhere in the face of passive-aggressive resistance.

But when you start with belonging, real Feel, Own, Care Belonging, not a Sense of Belonging, we can open the hearts and minds to embrace DEI

We are not thinking beings that feel. We are not feeling beings that think. We are belonging beings that feel and think.

It’s from the story where we belong, that we’re willing to give, even go without, for another, to bring them into our company tribes. Moreover, each we bring in each person with their full uniqueness. We bet on their potential. From the heart in belonging, we feel, own, and care for each other. DEI gets a red carpet treatment when the filtering bias for who’s in and who’s out, gets measured by living the ways we belong* in the company and accomplishing the belief in her shared purpose. DEI becomes the means for a better Us Story. Here, filtering by how one sounds and looks, seems kind of dumb.

*(The Ways We Belong = how the lived core values guide all company deecisions.)

I love Susan LaMotte‘s definition of culture.

When asked what culture is, I use the word tribe. A functioning tribe has rules to join, rules to leave, and rules that keep the tribe running smoothly. Take modern American Indian tribes. They still run by tribal councils, and have rules to enroll and dis-enroll in the tribe. They have traditions, symbols and ways of being that are different and may even seem strange or odd to non-members. But members of the tribe relish in them. They belong.

The codified ways we belong prevent the vacuum that would otherwise get occupied by the fight/flight that comes with fitting in. Fitting in is the natural outcome in the absence of clearly defined ways of belonging. People who fight for DEI outcomes from their belonging, on the other hand, fight for each other’s diverse uniqueness. Belonging provides the inviting embrace as well as the clear and agreed-upon boundary. And, no, not everybody belongs. Only those who adhere to the ways the company tribe belongs in pursuit if it’s shared belief in purpose. (Yeah, I know I sound a little Brené Brown-ish.)

With respect to a “Sense of Belonging,” I’ll just ask you. Will you work for a sense of a paycheck?

Pause… would you work for a “sense” of a paycheck?

And though belonging is the answer, the current often-cited institutional models for understanding belonging also add even more resistance to DEI. The problem: they are one-way, receiving transactional models of understanding. An affirmation model. One-way-emotional streets. I get, therefore I belong. You’re left asking, “When the money runs out, will you still have my back?” “If they get, and I don’t, do I belong?”

Here’s Cornell University’s understanding of a Sense of Belonging for reference:

Belonging is the feeling of security and support when there is a sense of acceptance, inclusion, and identity for a member of a certain group. It is when an individual can bring their authentic self to work.

Here’s the APA definition:

n. The feeling of being accepted and approved by a group or by society as a whole. Also called belongingness.

Both of these popular definitions get cited regularly. And they’re both one-directional and in receive mode. They’re both affirmation/acceptance models. Nothing in them says, “we belong… I got your back.”

A New Model for Belonging, Feel, Own, CareBelonging, it’s a state of being, in relationship with others:

When you feel, own, and care for them, in their successes, dreams, and failures. And, they feel, own, and care for you in yours. It’s a two-way street.

DEI efforts need the “we’re in this together” bidirectional space so it’s not working against the neurological tide. Belonging fills the emotional space with a unite-and-fight neurochemistry, leaving less room for fight/flight. It’s a two-way street of feeling for yourself and them, owning your life and theirs, and, caring for yourself and them. And they do the same with you. If you prefer today’s typical business emotional intelligence language, it’s mutual- empathy (feeling), accountability (owning), and compassion (caring for).

I prefer to use the simpler regular language of, feel, own, and care for. It’s how we would actually talk to each other, and think, and feel towards each other if we were sitting in a coffee shop, or bar, or now, across the Zoom. We say, “I feel for you, my sister (or xi, or brother), what can I do to lighten your load?” We don’t say, “I empathize with you, person I am accountable towards, what act of compassion do you need?” The more academic and intellectual the language, the farther from the heart we seem to get.

Belonging requires all three – Feel, Own, and Care forThere’s a hollowness that we know, that comes when any of the three: feel, own, or care for, aren’t genuine, or, are missing.

Without the Feel, (empathy) we question whether or not we’re really theirs, when they say, “You’re my friend… or my employee…” We question the “why” of their care for us.
Without Own, (accountability) we’re stuck with the nagging doubt of whether their expressed feelings for us are true. We doubt if their care for us is actually for us.
Without Care for, (compassion) we disbelieve in the genuineness of their expressed feelings and their claim that we are theirs.e Feel Own Care Belonging

But when you have all three, look out, you get a company of people that will find a way for each other.

You know you belong because first, YOU feel, own, and care for them, AND, second, THEY also feel, own, and care for you. If it’s just them, you’re getting affirmation, and yeah, that feels good. If it’s just you, you’re probably just fitting in, or in codependency.

It really comes down to this, we’ll fight for those that we feel, own, and care for. It’s how we get to this type of scenario.

Maori Woman With Face Tattoo Is 1st to Anchor Primetime News

You love and belong at your company so much you want to include someone from another circle of your belonging, into it. So you invite her to join. Her values align. She’s excited about joining in purpose. She didn’t come from a fancy college, but you don’t care. Hard knocks couldn’t stop her. She meets with the team, and they see she’d need some added mentoring and training, well, in the comparison of the skills to the other candidates. She’s been out of the workforce for 20 years. You could invest in her, and give some equity on her behalf, for a better company in the future. And, she even looks different, diverse, in her bright-colored clothes, and what looks to be she-warrior tattoos on her chin and up her right arm to her bicep. She sees things differently than you, but comes from the same heart, with similar enough core values.

When she told her back story, you could hear the company’s core values echoed in it. Your people could tell she’d already chosen them, and she was bold and vulnerable about it. She wanted in on the tribe. And they chose her too. Belonging’s a 2-way-street.

That’s what you get through feeling, owning, and caring for each other – real F.O.C.’n belonging.

Win the DEI long game in FOCn’belonging! Think BIED, not DEI+B1. Create a place where the ways you belong (feel, own, care for) come from your no-compromise lived core values for each other, as you work towards your shared belief in purpose. This is your primary bias/filter. 2. Include, or invite someone in, based on whether they’d embrace the ways your company tribe belongs and in their shared belief in purpose. 3. Look more towards their potential, what they can and would agree to do, vs just what they’ve done before and where they’re from. You’re willing to use equity to get them and bring them into the company belonging. 4. Seek those, in their complete and individual diversity, from a biased filter of, they’d embrace the company’s ways of belonging, and pursue its shared belief, promised land.s We take action sooner in belonging.

When your people belong, their efforts pertaining to DEI play a natural part in deepening the company tribe. In the search for adding another person to the company Us Story, they’ll unite and fight for each other’s diverse uniqueness, because the ways your people belong are clear in their invitation and boundary. They’ll act for it sooner!

Psychological safety can’t provide that. You can’t just play it safe.

You play to belong, and then you win with DEI.

I’ll leave you with a wonderful description of belonging by Owen Eastwood, the author of, Belonging, The Ancient Code of Togetherness.

Whakapapa (Maori for, “you belong here”) points a finger at us and tells us, You will not be judged by your money or celebrity or sense of self pride . . . you will be judged by what you did for our tribe. When the sun is shining on us, we must be guardians of our tribe and of each other.

Belonging, The Ancient Code of Togetherness. (pp. 18-19).

Thanks for taking the time to read this, really. If you’re curious, or, you’d like to couch your DEI in belonging for real success, give me a holler. Catch ya, Paul

This piece was originally published on LinkedIn, , November 2022.

View Details

This episode of The Mind Takeaway podcast explores how to plan for success and prepare your team and business for opportunities. We share insights on effectively planning for the future while leaving room for flexibility and unexpected opportunities. We discuss the importance of getting into the right mental and physical state, the benefits of changing your environment, and how to facilitate creative and strategic thinking within your team.

We explore practical steps for planning sessions, including taking your team to an inspiring location, even if it’s just a local park or woods. Learn how to ensure your team is in the best state of mind to foster creativity and collaboration. Discover why documenting your ideas and having a facilitator can streamline the process and help you refine your plans into actionable goals.

We explore how to set realistic goals, the importance of flexibility, and the value of learning from what doesn’t work. Whether you’re a startup founder or part of a larger organisation, this episode offers valuable strategies to help you plan effectively and achieve success.

Timestamps

01:15 The importance of getting into the right mental and physical state for planning

03:40 Why changing your environment can boost creativity and collaboration

06:28 How to plan effectively without a big budget

08:45 The benefits of team-building activities during planning sessions

12:30 Documenting your ideas and the role of a facilitator

15:20 Setting realistic goals and the importance of flexibility

18:10 Learning from what doesn’t work and adapting your plans

20:35 How to ensure your team collaborates effectively

22:50 Using these strategies for specific projects and innovation

View Details

Hey, there. AmyK here.I just got off a coaching call with a new Client, and he has two conversations ahead of him today that are necessary to his health and well-being. Perhaps, you can relate?

One is with a long-time employee who checked out PRIOR to the pandemic. Yep, this conversation is waaaayy overdue.

The second is with himself and his health. He has not made choices that support his longevity these past two years. Yep, this conversation is waaaayy overdue too.

And here’s the kicker- the freedom you crave, the life you desire, the elevated energy that makes life easier … it’s all on the OTHER side of a tough conversation.

Watch this short video for a few Magical Phrases to get these conversations started right – right from the start.

To creating the life you desire … one magical conversation at a time.

Hugs,
AmyK

View Details

Every business I have consulted on leadership, teamwork, and performance has had essentially the same malady: management wants employees to be more enthusiastic, hard-working, and cooperative, without understanding what they think. The content of employees’ minds drives their behaviour, and if it is deceived, distorted, or disengaged, enthusiasm, hard work, and cooperation will remain elusive.

Ironically, the surveillance and data-collection that characterises consumer society seem to have left management more out of touch with what people think than ever. This is even more curious when one factors in fifty years of dumbing down driven by political correctness, state schooling, and the media, which has produced a shallowness of mind one might expect to be easy to read.

Public opinion is obviously significant in democratic politics, but employee opinion, for the most part, carries little weight in business, because managers are not usually elected. Yet what people think adds up to the corporate culture, and a dysfunctional culture will inevitably produce dysfunctional performance. It matters what your people think.

Everyone is a philosopher because everyone thinks about what happens in their lives. Sadly, not everyone is a competent philosopher. Thinking our way to valid conclusions requires an ever-expanding general knowledge that enables us to understand the concepts of our experience, provides us with facts about which we make judgments, and encourages us to reason about the causes of the things that happen to us.

So the constant growth of knowledge boosts the quality of one’s thinking. Yet how many managers can count on their employees to think accurately, creatively, and positively about the business?

Democracy is shaped by what people think, and it hardly needs noting that most democracies today are dysfunctional – consider only the low voter turnout in elections. The anti-intellectualism promoted by state schooling and the media shows how political and commercial interests manipulate culture to promote their own ends.

For better or worse, people with authority have not only the means but also an obligation to guide the way people think. And that obligation is to truth; if not, then it can only be to some ideological agenda, which by definition, is a distortion of the truth.

Leaders shape culture, i.e. they shape what people think. If they do not, then they have ceased to lead, and words like vision, mission, and strategy, become meaningless. Truth is reality, the way things are. And knowledge can only be truth; because having knowledge means knowing reality, that which is and that which is not. If you have information that is not true, you do not have knowledge, only nonsense.

Yet the war against truth has always been around, as is memorably illustrated by Plato’s debates with the Sophists, who in thoroughly modern fashion, were motivated by utility rather than truth. Plato toiled for fifty years to pin down what made the Sophists so dangerous. In a final dialogue, he showed how they set out to manufacture a fictitious reality. This Platonic nightmare has greater relevance today than ever as politicians and managers construct the fictions they hope will extend their power.

Public opinion has been impoverished because people no longer know where to find the truth. Worse still, most people are not even inclined to look for it, deceived and manipulated as they are into going along with the fictitious reality created by the elites through the corruption of language.

Plato insisted on three principles: first, a meaningful human life requires an understanding of things as they actually are, and living in accordance with that reality; secondly, the potential of a person can only be brought to fruition by access and receptivity to truth, and society can only be sustained by a commitment to truth; and thirdly, the truth lives and grows naturally where there is free and open communication.

Truth is promoted in dialogue because its habitat is language or the word. Business leaders need to think long and hard about the implications this has in the workplace where disillusionment, demoralization, and disengagement are the reigning realities.

In order to think productively about the contribution required of them, people in any business need to know, at the very least, the following:

• The corporate vision aims at the good of all, including the wider community

• Making the vision happen depends on achieving specified goals along the way

• This requires dedicated teamwork and constantly growing personal excellence

• Personal development demands a balanced lifestyle and healthy relationships

• This requires practical wisdom, courage, self-control, and a sense of justice

• These virtues depend on personal honesty and respect for the dignity of others

• Customer satisfaction is the responsibility of all, demanding personal integrity

• Reading history and classic literature is the best way to improve one’s ability to think

• Wisdom grows from expanding knowledge, experience, and living the virtues.

In my experience, people from most cultures readily embrace these principles and their far-reaching implications. It is the misleaders and the cynics who hedge and carp and unleash the deluge of Sophist deceit. Their present ascendency explains the sense of hopelessness so common in the workplace and the polling booth.

View Details

There are, as we know, a plethora of leadership models, frameworks, qualities, and quotes that define leadership, and we can be forgiven for being somewhat confused about what the definitive description of leadership really is.

To come to new answers or insights on this question it is important to elevate the thinking beyond the conditioning of the past, even in cases where we are trying to add new qualities that feel right for a more balanced definition. For example, we know that many of the descriptions contain a very masculine energy – using language such as drive, achievement, delivery (though in this case, that’s really about management), self-reliance, power, and authority. When we look at modern-day language about leadership it now includes more feminine language such as vulnerability, inclusion, and supportive and this is very important.

If we were, though, to elevate the discussion to another level and explore more androgynous or future-focused words that include both masculine and feminine it could potentially take us to some interesting places.

For example, what if we were to describe leadership as a deep commitment to the greater good? What could this evoke as an expression of leadership in its truest sense?

Or the capacity to move beyond the concrete, material, physical phenomena and to connect with more subtle and intuitive energies. What might that bring forward by way of leadership practices?

We could also consider defining leadership as ‘presence’ – a state of being that is both strong and powerful and subtle and magnetic.

So, the challenge is this – if you were defining the ‘new leadership’ for the future what criteria would be in the centre for you?

View Details

In an increasingly interconnected world marked by diversity, the philosophy of servant leadership emerges as a beacon of inclusion and shared humanity. As we delve into this chapter, we unravel how servant leadership not only acknowledges the value of diverse perspectives but actively embraces them, fostering an environment of inclusivity and crafting a tapestry of collective excellence.

This chapter explores the powerful intersection of servant leadership, diversity, and inclusion—a triad that serves as the foundation for creating organizations where every voice is heard, valued, and celebrated.

Recognizing the Power of Diversity: A New Paradigm

Traditional leadership paradigms often fall short in harnessing the true potential of diverse teams. Diversity goes beyond demographics; it encompasses unique perspectives, experiences, and ideas. Servant leadership brings a paradigm shift—recognizing diversity not as a mere checkbox but as a dynamic force that drives innovation and creativity.

By actively seeking out diverse voices, servant leaders amplify the richness of thought, enabling organizations to navigate complexities with agility and insight.

Empathy as the Bridge to Inclusion: Understanding Unique Journeys

At the core of servant leadership lies empathy—a quality that proves indispensable in the pursuit of inclusion. Servant leaders understand that fostering an inclusive environment goes beyond merely having diverse individuals present; it involves creating a space where every voice is heard and respected.

Through active listening and understanding, servant leaders bridge gaps of understanding, acknowledging the unique challenges and contributions of each individual.

Shared Purpose Amidst Diversity: A Unifying Vision

Servant leadership seamlessly aligns with the goal of fostering an inclusive culture with a shared purpose. By aligning diverse talents towards a common vision, servant leaders inspire a sense of belonging that transcends differences.

This shared purpose becomes a unifying force that enables diverse teams to collaborate harmoniously, leveraging their collective strengths to drive innovation and deliver impactful results.

Empowerment through Inclusion: Nurturing Potential

Inclusion doesn’t end with representation; it extends to empowering individuals to realize their full potential. Servant leaders provide opportunities, resources, and mentorship that allow individuals from all backgrounds to excel. This empowerment fosters a culture where everyone can contribute meaningfully, building a sense of confidence and self-worth among team members.

Fostering Innovation through Cognitive Diversity: A Competitive Edge

Cognitive diversity—a range of perspectives, approaches, and thinking styles—becomes a catalyst for innovation in organizations guided by servant leadership. Servant leaders recognize that breakthroughs often emerge from the collision of diverse ideas. By creating an environment where varying viewpoints are welcomed and encouraged, servant leaders cultivate a breeding ground for creative solutions and novel approaches to challenges.

The Ripple Effect: Inclusion Beyond the Organization

Servant leadership’s commitment to diversity and inclusion extends beyond the organizational borders. Organizations led by servant leaders recognize their social responsibility and actively engage with communities. Through initiatives that promote social equity, education, and inclusivity, servant leaders leave a positive impact on society at large, creating a ripple effect of change that resonates far beyond the confines of the workplace.

Holistic Excellence through Inclusion: A Fulfilling Future

Servant leadership and the values of diversity and inclusion converge to create a holistic approach to organizational development—one that thrives on the collective strengths of a diverse workforce. As we proceed through this exploration, we will uncover how servant leadership serves as a compass for navigating change, nurturing employee well-being, fostering purpose-driven performance management, and envisioning a future where organizations flourish through authentic connections and sustainable impact.

The chapters to come will illuminate the practical strategies, real-world examples, and actionable insights that guide leaders in embracing holistic growth through servant leadership. By weaving the threads of diversity and inclusion into the fabric of servant leadership, we empower leaders to create organizations that transcend traditional boundaries, celebrate individual uniqueness, and foster a culture of collective excellence.

Reflections:

Understanding Diversity in Leadership: Reflect on how servant leadership can help in embracing and leveraging diversity within an organization. How does a diverse team contribute to the strength and success of an organization?
Inclusive Leadership Practices: Think about a time when you felt included or excluded in a professional setting. How did this experience shape your view of leadership and organizational culture?
Empathy and Inclusion: Consider the role of empathy in fostering an inclusive environment. How can servant leaders use empathy to better understand and support diverse team members?
Challenges to Inclusive Leadership: What are some challenges leaders might face in creating an inclusive workplace? How can servant leadership principles help overcome these challenges?
Impact of Diversity and Inclusion: Reflect on the broader impact of diversity and inclusion initiatives. How do these efforts extend beyond the organization to influence the community and society at large?
Personal Growth in Diversity: How can your personal journey toward understanding and valuing diversity contribute to your growth as a servant leader?
Actionable Steps for Inclusion: Think about actionable steps you or your organization can take to promote diversity and inclusion. How can these steps align with the core principles of servant leadership?

These questions are designed to encourage readers to introspect and apply the concepts of diversity, inclusion, and servant leadership to their own experiences and organizations, fostering a deeper understanding and commitment to creating inclusive excellence.

View Details

Murphy’s Law states that “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” What this law did not say is that if we make a wrong start not only things will go wrong but their harm will produce a butterfly effect. One example is making the wrong decisions at the wrong time such as cost reduction.

Cost ReductionMany companies decide to cut costs to increase their profits and enhance efficiency. This is the immediate effect and the first-cost-minded thinking. To make a wise decision balancing immediate effects versus medium-term effects is essential.

Some harms may not appear immediately but suddenly start to compound. Laying off is one way of reducing costs. It does but what happens afterward? The remaining employees are filled with anxiety and believe they are the target of the next layoffs. Anxiety of employees leads to a decrease in their productivity. Decreased productivity leads to compiling more work on employees. Loading employees with more work leads to stressing them. Stressed employees burn out and their productivity goes down so the quality of products may not be of the required quality. Lower quality and deferred delivery of products anger customers who may seek another supplier.

Legal issues initiate- more piling of costs. Churning customers causes losses that may offset the initial cost savings. So, profits go down and again back to more laying offs

You noticed the feedback effect where the cause became the effect and in turn, the effect became the cause, and so on.

I shared recently a post on “What to Do with Low Performers?” The story is about a boy who was second among three brothers. He felt sandwiched between them and that gave him the impetus to try to be first to draw attention.

My friend Dennis Pitocco wrote a comment in which you can easily see how a benefit can lead to a greater one and so on. I reproduce the comment as it is to keep its depth and integrity.

“Excellent insights here, my friend Ali Anani, PhD Highlighting an employee’s strengths and areas of expertise, rather than focusing solely on weaknesses, can lead to numerous benefits in the workplace. This approach tends to increase motivation and engagement, boost job satisfaction and morale, and improve team dynamics as each member’s unique talents are recognized. It also allows for more efficient task allocation based on individual strengths and can create opportunities for mentoring or leadership roles in areas of excellence. While addressing weaknesses remains important for personal and professional growth, a strengths-based approach often yields better overall results and fosters a more positive work environment. Managers can still provide constructive feedback on areas for improvement, but within a context that primarily emphasizes and leverages the employee’s strengths, ultimately leading to a more productive and harmonious workplace.”

Start with the right step to reach your goal.

View Details

It took me years to comprehend and digest a few questions that always disturbed me during my work career:

Why do people function so differently in the corporate world compared to where I was coming from?
How people can spend their whole life in the same organisation and get retired after that. Isn’t it boring?
Are they less competent, lazy or content?

On the other hand, I found that when it comes to people skills, particularly networking, leveraging, and influence, my value system was very different from the one I was thrown into. If you happen to be unhappy with your job and you are surrounded by the fears of joblessness under the given market situation, before turning in your resignation, take a look at these tips on how to keep your position and still hunt for better opportunities.

We’re as Good as our Last AppraisalI’m not kidding. We’re as good as our last performance review. Even if you were top performers for 5 years in a row, if, for whatever reason, we did not manage to get a top rating this year, we’re doomed. And to play the rating game is like being in a war zone; it’s a blood bath out there. All companies are not the same. Some get tensed as to what has gone wrong and where and they start working on such candidates.

We may think that in our amazing company, they really sit down and evaluate all our results, compare them with our peers, iron out the differences in work plan and workload, and give you a fair assessment on where you stand. If we go to work thinking that at the end of the year, this is how the evaluation will be done, we are in for a huge setback. So, the message here is the stay consistent if we’ve performed well over time.

People are Nice to Us Only …Is that true that people behave nicely to us only when we are influential or when they need us? Once the need or influence changes, so does their behavior. Some people who become our best friends over time as we work with them day in and day out for years, would not even stop saying “hi” as soon as our role changes.

As if that wasn’t enough to shock the living hell out of us, more time passed, and before we knew it they were back on our team, with a bang, having the audacity to become our best friends again. This is nothing else but serving their self-interest. I’ve experienced this twice and I’m still baffled as to how people can manage such an extreme level of fakeness. Maybe they think I suffer from memory loss?

Promotions = Performance or Perception?Promotions are made on performance or perceptions? What does that even mean? At best they are linked to the perception of our performance. We all view things with our own perceptive lens — my map of the world could be drastically different to anyone else based on my values, beliefs, experiences, culture, and communication. People including our bosses judge us for the impression we leave at our workplace, the way we network and the people we hang out with during working hours.

When we are working in a diverse, multi-ethnic organisation where people come from all sorts of cultures and backgrounds, the way each person views the world, filters information, processes it, and then makes meaning out of it could differ significantly. Perception is reality. It is imperative that we portray the right perception of our work and results to the decision-makers who matter and will decide on our promotion.

Mistakes are forgiven for Superstars That’s quite a big one. I have had the privilege to make some lethal mistakes at one of my previous workplaces that could have ensured my immediate departure from the company, but they were overlooked because I was a blue-eyed one and was delivering results as per my management’s “so-called” expectations and probably everyone around was also happy with me. But that too didn’t last forever.

Yet, at the same time, I’ve also seen cases when the bosses were found just fishing for employees’ mistakes to happen so they could say goodbye to them. The key is to be diligent and cautious all the time, especially when are are not performing as per expectations because even the slightest issue can get us into trouble.

Gaining Experience vs. Getting RustyWe must always remember that there’s a fine line between gaining experience and getting rusty in our careers. Let’s know when to draw that line. Otherwise, we will be left behind. Sometimes we think that we have 10+ years of experience in our existing job role, how about taking a chance to attract the competition for a similar or a better role out there?

Well, let’s think again! In those 10 years, what have we done? Didn’t we do pretty much the same things over and over again, working with almost the same people, and haven’t delivered results that could be quoted as slam dunks? Why would anyone be interested in me as compared to this other guy who has worked in 3 different organisations, small and big, has rolled up his/her sleeves to deliver on the unique roles offered, all while building his/her skill set and led the diverse multi-cultural teams to achieve stellar results. The lesson here: Don’t get rusty. Don’t gather dust on the shelf. Know the difference.

Wrap UpI’ve seen firsthand that there is a bias against people who job-hop. This issue probably exists in traditional and/or old-fashioned companies where the safety net is an issue. People are either under-qualified or under-skilled. If someone doesn’t stay for three years, it might prevent him/her from getting a dream job because we are thought to lack stickability and loyalty.

If we have been in a role for five years and have not gotten a raise or a promotion, we should probably start to hunt for a job because the company is overlooking our contributions rather than rewarding us for them. One of the comments I get over and over again from unemployed job seekers is to do whatever they can to keep the job they have unless they’re ready to move on and have a new job lined up.

View Details

In The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976), the American sociologist, Daniel Bell, identified the greatest threat to Western societies as the loss of civitas, the spontaneous commitment to obey the law, to respect the rights of others, and to reject the temptation of personal enrichment at the expense of the community. Civitas honours the ‘city’ of which one is a member, the ‘city’, of course, referring to the nation. It is a concept essential to the entire ethos of leadership.

The survival of liberal democracy depends on the willingness of all citizens to subordinate personal desires to the common good, so the loss of civitas has been a catastrophe. The descent from debate into diatribe, and the everyday evidence of socio-political anomie reveal the seriousness of the situation in which we find ourselves.

Bell emphasised society’s need for firm ethical common ground: “No moral philosopher, from Aristotle to Aquinas, to John Locke and Adam Smith, divorced economics from a set of moral ends or held the production of wealth to be an end in itself; rather it was seen as a means to the realisation of virtue, a means of leading a civilised life.”

The erosion of sociological self-knowledge and civitas in the West spawns countless stories of social dysfunction, relationship failure, and the sad consequences that flow from estrangement. It can be seen in family breakdown, conflict between the sexes, toxic corporate cultures, deceitful media, corrupt political practices, and dangerous jousting in geopolitics. An example from the workplace demonstrates the cost to communities and individuals.

Tom Burns was a professor of sociology at Edinburgh University, who also taught at Harvard. His study of the British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC: Public Institution and Private World, delivers some very important insights into community dynamics. Burns’ observations of attitudes and behaviour in the production of television programs, first in 1963, and then in 1973, provide a classic story of social and corporate folly.

His 1963 investigations revealed a communal understanding of the enormous creative potential unleashed when talented individuals in diverse fields, engineers, scene-shifters, directors, actors, stage-managers, gaffers, grips, lighting supervisors, accountants, cameramen, secretaries, and others, were able to successfully merge their activities and to handle crises through rapid-response interventions from all the complementary fields.

Burns likened this spontaneous mobilisation of expert routines and professional improvisation for the good of the common project and the organisation to the dedicated performance of a surgical team in the operating theatre. And he was able to hold up the high-quality of the work achieved as the obvious consequence.

In 1973, he encountered rather different attitudes and behaviours at the BBC, and a deterioration of standards in the production of television programs. No longer did managers and administrators secure the space and resources for all the diverse talents involved in each project, so that the creativity and expertise of the people doing the work could direct operations in pursuit of their common goal.

Instead, the endeavours had become bureaucratised, with managers and administrators imposing their own agendas on the multi-layered project teams, and dictating what people should be doing, how they should be doing it, and when they should be doing it. They had destroyed the functional relationships of a decade earlier, and in so doing had unwittingly put a lid on creative endeavour. Management had undermined a vibrant culture and the intricate network of relationships it nurtured, stifling leadership in every area.

In a narcissistic society like that of the postmodern West, thinking about relationships tends inevitably to be self-centred, and therefore, superficial. Yet the simple reality is that any one of us will only find personal fulfilment in the context of relationships.

We are rational, relational beings whose mental and spiritual well-being depends on honesty and respect in regard to other people and ourselves. And let’s not forget how much we rely on the hard work, respect, and good will of others for our physical well-being as well. The individual needs community, and community needs the individual. That’s how human flourishing is achieved.

We develop emotional maturity by accepting our radical dependence on other people, who are not merely means to our ends, but ends in themselves, all fallible human beings with their own desires, disappointments, and demons. This involves recognising that each of us has limits as an individual, and that it is only in the context of healthy relationships, in which giving and forgiving are more important than getting, that we find meaningful self-expression.

It is a commonplace to say that leadership is about people, but what that really means is that it is primarily about relationships. That’s why the most serious indictment that can be made of leadership – in the home, workplace, community, or nation – is when the loss of a common vision, the consequent absence of sociological self-knowledge, and the scourge of narcissistic self-assertion tear people apart.

Bringing people together is, logically, the first requirement of leadership.

View Details

To answer this question we should start from the consideration that work cannot only be the means through which we earn a living but also the opportunity to make the most of our talents, to feel useful to others, to contribute together with others an efficient community. Work should always have meaning for those who carry it out, and generate self-esteem and deep satisfaction.

Unfortunately, these opportunities cannot always be seized, jobs are not always full of meaning and opportunities for growth. There are, in fact, workers who feel humiliated by the work they do, jobs that make them suffer, which produce “existential expropriation” in those who find themselves trapped in them.

The dignity of a job, and its profound meaning, derives from two connected but distinct dimensions:

The first is the very nature of work, its usefulness, its ability to mobilize creativity, skills, ingenuity, and relationships: the doctor who saves lives, the engineer who builds bridges made to last, the cleaner who makes liveable the environments in which they work and operate, the baker and the hairdresser who feed us and make us presentable.

Then there are jobs, such as, for example, those who design bombs that also seem like toys and, instead, are explosive devices that maim and kill. Or like those where chemistry is used in an extreme or careless manner causing damage to the health of consumers; or even those who produce slot machines that create dependencies.

And what about that public official who uses his discretion, even within the scope of legality, to grant favors rather than to protect rights?

These jobs certainly cannot be considered worthy in the same way as many others, by their very nature. Legal, yes, perhaps, but certainly not worthy.

The second aspect is that relating to the conditions in which each job is carried out. In general, in short, there are activities that are made more or less worthy in relation to the environment and the conditions in which they are carried out. Worthy work, made unworthy by external conditions.

A simple example: that of the teacher, which is perhaps the most beautiful profession in the world, but when the pact of trust with families is broken, and society questions the importance of culture and competence, then also the profession of The teacher loses meaning and dignity.

Admitting that not all jobs are equally worthy simply means asking that all jobs, especially the most humble ones, can at least be carried out in conditions that are respectful of the rights and intrinsic value of every human being.

No one should be forced to do a job they don’t want to do, to accept a job that is socially useless or even harmful to others.

The risk that can be glimpsed is that the narrative of “all jobs are worthy”, disguised as egalitarian humanitarianism and magnanimous liberality, does nothing but block social change, silence the just demands for basic rights, the requests for more humane conditions and delegitimize any possible attempt at reform.

Instead, stating forcefully that not all jobs are worthy provokes us and also forces us to ask ourselves through which mechanisms we end up doing one job rather than another.

We can ask ourselves whether certain jobs are devoid of meaning and dignity because they are generally carried out by marginalized individuals, with a lower social status, with little education and self-esteem; or, these jobs are carried out by certain people because it is the jobs that are intrinsically devoid of meaning and dignity.

And this question recalls another, that of the “rhetoric of meritocracy”, according to which those who “made it” are because they deserved it and those who, however, did not make it are because he hasn’t worked hard enough and must therefore be satisfied with unworthy jobs.

In this way, however, all we do is reproduce inequality, legitimize injustices, even giving them a moral justification.

Decent work for all means dignity in all areas of human activity, for those who have a formalized employment relationship. It means dignity at home and safety on the way to and from work; it means dignity in the countries of origin, transit, and destination. It also means freedom and liberation for people forced to work against their will and for children subjected to the harshest working conditions.

We could therefore agree on the fact that not all jobs are equal in their ability to promote well-being for oneself and others, to generate self-esteem and respect, and that this fact cannot be hidden by stating, instrumentally, that every job is equally worthy only because it allows you to make a living.

We cannot talk about dignity if working is only to survive, without perceiving a minimum purpose, an objective.

We can talk about dignity if humanity is a priority in the workplace if work is a real continuous encounter between rights and duties, a relationship of respect between those who work and those who offer work.

View Details

The success of any business lies not only in the quality of its products or services but, more importantly, in the skill of its team. Strategic recruitment is required for comprehensive business development, helping to create the right talent that drives growth, innovation, and sustainability across the industry. Building a capable team and nurturing each member’s talents will set you up for success. This article discusses the significance of skilled team members in business development and advocates for efficient recruitment strategies.

1) Gaining Talents:One of the most critical factors dictating a business’s success is people—a lack of the right talent and the right kind of culture is destructive. Tapping the right recruitment strategy helps build a team you can rely upon for growth, innovation, dominance, and sustainability in the long run. These people have the knowledge and know-how to assist and help you.

They can solve complex problems and are a large driver of innovation and efficiency. Further, a skilled employee can help identify avenues for growth, optimize ongoing operations, and improve customer experiences, all of which fall under business development.

2) Define Skill Gaps:Identifying the skill gaps in your current team before you start recruiting is essential. The primary starting point is conducting a critical business-needs analysis check against your workforce’s capability.

This will help determine which skills are deficient and identify the roles that must be filled immediately. This type of audit can then be linked to creating efficient team-generation strategies or your HR department’s action plan.

3) Clear Job Descriptions:Write a complete, accurate job description to attract suitable candidates. The job description should be clear, including the amount required, the position responsibilities, qualifications, and requirements expected of the role.

Mention necessary experience and skill levels (if any) and the prospects available for growth and professional development within your organization. A relevant job description will help prospective employees comprehend their roles, help you reject unsuitable candidates in advance, and save lots of time and resources.

4) Leveraging Recruitment Technology:This is where recruitment technology plays its part. ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems) are software applications designed to automate the recruitment and hiring process, providing centralized management of job openings, applicants, candidates, and onboarding.

Use online job boards, social media platforms, and professional networks like LinkedIn to source active and passive candidates. Generally, an organization starts sourcing candidates internally as most companies realize the importance of having good employees.

5) Screen For Cultural Fit:Always consider the importance of cultural fit, even when focusing on skills and experience. The right employees integrate well with the company’s values and cultures and are more engaged, motivated, and devoted to achieving the company’s objectives.

Culture fit is critical at every hiring process step, from sourcing candidates to onboarding and employee development. Finding applicants who share a company’s goals and values will aid in promoting group dynamics, improve job satisfaction, and decrease turnover.

6) Competitive Compensation:Competitive salary packages are often needed to attract and retain high-caliber applicants. Understand the salary range and level of benefits across different job roles so that you can adjust the salary or provide additional benefits if required. According to a report from LinkedIn, pay was a primary reason job seekers considered new job openings.

Competitive compensation attracts talent and signals that the company values employees and is dedicated to their success. Finally, if you invest in employee happiness and satisfaction, productivity will improve with your staff’s compensation.

7) Onboarding and Training:Onboarding and training make a huge difference in ensuring new hires feel welcomed and included on your team and are prepared to hit the ground running. Develop a comprehensive onboarding program that introduces new hires to your company’s policies, tools, and culture.

Provide continuous in- and out-of-house training opportunities for your workforce to acquire new skills and grow in their roles. A well-structured training and development process can be an excellent reason to keep your best employees.

8) Motivate for Professional Growth:Providing ample opportunities for employees to grow benefits an organization and individual workers. Offering training programs, workshops, and seminars creates a company culture conducive to lifelong learning. Support employees in getting certifications, licenses, or advanced degrees related to their field. By creating a culture of continual learning, you can maintain a higher level of skill and motivation among your team.

9) Use Remote Work and Digital Tools:Remote work and collaboration have become the new normal. Allowing your team to work from anywhere can increase your access to better talent, attracting great people seeking more flexible or remote job options.

Here are some collaboration aids you might consider: project management software, cloud storage, communication tools, etc. Equip your employees with a download VPN for Windows or any other operating system to ensure they can work securely while on the go or when remote.

10) Employer Brand – Build Strong:Every touchpoint, from your company’s website to its LinkedIn page or Glassdoor profile, should communicate your commitment to the culture, values your employees share, and the organization’s accomplishments.

Showcase your focus on work-life balance, your attitude towards diversity and inclusion, and the steps the organization takes to help move its employees forward. A strong employer brand can attract well-matched candidates and ensure they boast pridefully while working with you.

In conclusion, strategic hiring is the missing puzzle of business development, and it can play a significant role in ensuring your company’s success. By understanding the talent gaps, clarifying job descriptions, staying ahead of trends in technology, focusing on cultural matches, offering competitive compensation, and onboarding and training from there, you can build a high-performing and motivated team. Ensuring employees can grow and perform well with (or regardless of) their coworkers and managers can be done by encouraging that growth, using new work strategies or tools, and emphasizing benefits, amongst which a strong employer brand stands tall. Growth and sustainability often come from growth at the team level outside.

View Details

Ensuring that your employees are performing at their highest potential is crucial for the success and growth of any business. To maximize employee productivity, it’s essential to foster a supportive and engaging work environment, provide necessary resources and training, and implement effective management practices. Here is a comprehensive guide to help you get the most out of your employees.

Foster a Positive Work EnvironmentCreating a positive work environment is the foundation of high employee productivity. A supportive and inclusive atmosphere encourages employees to perform at their best.

Encourage open communication by promoting an open-door policy where employees feel comfortable sharing their ideas, concerns, and feedback. Regular team meetings and one-on-one check-ins can help maintain transparent communication and address any issues promptly.

Recognize and reward achievements by acknowledging and rewarding employees for their hard work and accomplishments. This boosts morale and motivation. Implement a recognition program that highlights individual and team successes, whether through monetary rewards, public recognition, or additional responsibilities.

Promote work-life balance by encouraging a healthy work-life balance. This helps prevent burnout and keeps employees engaged. Offer flexible work schedules, remote work options, and promote the importance of taking breaks and vacations.

Provide Necessary Resources and TrainingEquipping employees with the right tools and knowledge is essential for maximizing their productivity. Ensure that they have access to the necessary resources and training to perform their tasks efficiently.

Invest in technology and tools by providing employees with up-to-date technology and tools that can streamline their workflow. This includes software, hardware, and other equipment that can help them work more efficiently.

Offer continuous learning opportunities by providing ongoing training and development programs. This can include workshops, seminars, online courses, and certifications. Continuous learning helps employees stay updated with the latest industry trends and improves their skills.

Implement Effective Management PracticesEffective management practices play a significant role in getting the most out of your employees. Good management fosters a positive work environment, boosts employee morale, and enhances productivity.

Set clear expectations and goals by clearly defining roles, responsibilities, and performance expectations. This helps employees understand what is expected of them and work towards achieving specific goals.

Provide regular feedback and support by offering constructive feedback regularly. This helps employees understand their strengths and areas for improvement. Support your employees by providing the necessary resources and assistance to help them succeed in their roles.

Encourage employee development by identifying and nurturing potential within your team. Create opportunities for career advancement and personal growth. This can include mentoring, coaching, and providing opportunities for employees to take on new challenges and responsibilities.

Foster Team CollaborationPromoting teamwork and collaboration can significantly enhance productivity and innovation within your organization. Encourage employees to work together on projects and share their ideas.

Organize team-building activities that help build trust and improve communication among team members. This can include workshops, retreats, or informal gatherings.

Implement collaborative tools and platforms that facilitate teamwork and communication. Tools like project management software, communication apps, and cloud-based document sharing can help employees collaborate more effectively.

Monitor Performance and ProgressRegularly monitoring employee performance and progress is crucial for ensuring that your team is on track to meet its goals.

Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your business objectives. Use these KPIs to measure employee performance and track progress.

Conduct regular performance reviews to assess employee performance and provide feedback. Use these reviews to set new goals, identify areas for improvement, and recognize achievements.

Encourage Innovation and CreativityFostering a culture of innovation and creativity can lead to new ideas and solutions that drive business growth. Encourage employees to think outside the box and come up with creative solutions to problems.

Create an environment where employees feel comfortable sharing their ideas without fear of criticism. Recognize and reward innovative ideas and solutions.

Provide opportunities for employees to explore new skills and areas of interest. This can include offering time for personal projects, attending industry conferences, or participating in innovation workshops.

Prioritize Employee Well-beingEmployee well-being is directly linked to productivity and job satisfaction. Prioritizing the well-being of your employees can lead to a more engaged and motivated workforce.

Promote a healthy work environment by ensuring that your workplace is safe and conducive to productivity. Offer ergonomic workstations, healthy snacks, and a clean and comfortable workspace.

Encourage physical activity by providing opportunities for employees to stay active. This can include gym memberships, fitness classes, or organizing walking meetings.

Support mental health by offering resources and support for mental health issues. Provide access to counseling services, stress management workshops, and create a culture where mental health is openly discussed and supported.

Leverage Technology and AutomationUtilizing technology and automation can significantly enhance efficiency and productivity within your organization.

Implement tools and software that streamline processes and reduce manual work. This can include project management software, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and other automation tools.

Provide online safety training to ensure that employees are aware of best practices and safety protocols. This helps in maintaining a safe work environment and minimizes the risk of accidents and injuries.

Measure and Adjust StrategiesRegularly measuring the effectiveness of your strategies and making necessary adjustments is crucial for continuous improvement.

Use data and analytics to track the impact of your initiatives. Collect feedback from employees to understand what is working and what needs improvement.

Be flexible and willing to make changes to your strategies based on the feedback and data collected. Continuous improvement ensures that you are always striving for better results and maximizing employee productivity.

ConclusionGetting the most out of your employees requires a comprehensive approach that includes fostering a positive work environment, providing necessary resources and training, implementing effective management practices, and leveraging technology. By prioritizing employee well-being, encouraging innovation, and continuously measuring and adjusting your strategies, you can create a productive and motivated workforce. This not only enhances employee performance but also drives the overall success and growth of your business.

View Details

Employee turnover is an issue most organizations are grappling with. Organizations with high turnover rates have low morale, reduced productivity, and poor finances. Understanding the root causes and applying appropriate strategies helps reduce turnovers and build a stable workforce that can enhance production.

The detailed breakdown of employee turnover rates gives information on states, thus showing the broader trends characteristic of various industries.

The real challenge of high employee turnover lies at the core of any long-term successful organization. High turnover disrupts teams and automatically leads to the inevitable loss of critical skills and knowledge. Looking deeper into such contributory factors, a company can find many practical solutions to carve toward a more committed and engaged workforce.

Factors Influencing Employee TurnoverThe factors contributing to high employee turnover are quite varied. These range from inadequate compensation and benefits to poor workplace culture. According to a SHRM toolkit, other important ones are the lack of opportunities for career advancement, inadequate training, and work overload. Understanding these causes is the first step toward effective retention strategies. Organizations have to consider the problems that prevail in the internal environment and also external factors that make their employees leave.

These are often multifaceted solutions to targeted problems. For example, while raising salaries would solve the compensation issue, it may not necessarily help in solving deeper problems such as poor job satisfaction or limited opportunities for personal growth. Organizational policies and practices should therefore be considered from an integrated viewpoint to ensure new attempts at employee retention are comprehensive and multi-dimensional.

Strategies to Improve RetentionOnce the significant causes of turnover are known, strategies to overcome these causes must be worked out. Some of the standard methods include:

Competitive remuneration: Make sure the pay and benefits package will be competitive for your industry. You would want to benchmark against the industry standard to ensure a competitive, not only attractive but also fair, package.
Career Development: Provide clear pathways for career advancement and professional growth. Employees are more likely to stay with a company that offers them opportunities to learn new skills and advance their careers.
Work-Life Balance: Offer flexible working hours and the possibility of telework to strike a proper balance between work and life demands. This may reduce burnout and affect one’s ability to address personal responsibilities.
Positive Work Environment: Foster an organizational culture focused on well-being and employee engagement. Recognition of accomplishments, inclusiveness, and speed in handling conflicts can develop a supportive atmosphere that respects employees.

Using Data to Inform Retention PoliciesData-driven decisions can make huge differences in making employee retention efforts infinitely more efficient. Sorting through turnover rates and employee feedback could give companies the informatics needed to know where to improve. Among tools and platforms that could be effective for data gathering are employee engagement surveys and exit interviews. Additionally, specific studies point out the newest HR trends—some of which are germane to creating an airtight retention strategy.

This data will help a business if regularly reviewed and interpreted to stay ahead of any potential turnover issues. Knowing the trends behind employee exits and their root cause allows companies to take pre-emptive actions that will guarantee sustainability and growth in the long term.

Real-Life Examples of Successful Retention StrategiesMany firms have been able to reduce cases of turnovers by developing an all-out retention strategy. For instance, a technology firm retained the best employees by giving them stock options and the type of organizational culture under which they could work collaboratively. Another example is that of a healthcare institute that invested heavily in employee training and provided packages for career development programs; it succeeded in minimizing its turnover rate. These examples show that though the methods may differ, the crux of the matter remains the same: cater to the needs and problems faced by your employees.

Other successful cases include those companies that have now adopted flexible working hours and policies on telecommuting, thereby showing trust in their employees’ ability to manage their time effectively.

Involvement of Leadership in Reducing TurnoverAnother major factor impacting employee retention is leadership. Good leaders communicate clearly and honestly, showing appreciation for good employee work and creating an inclusive atmosphere. Moreover, leadership development programs will enable managers to acquire skills to support their subordinates, reducing employee turnover.

The role of a leader in inspiring and motivating his subordinates can quickly determine the satisfaction level and loyalty of employees. In that respect, leaders manage to steer an environment wherein their subordinates feel heard with the establishment of trust and open communication. Continuous training programs on leadership have the potential to increase their potential for management and talent retention.

ConclusionIt won’t be one size fits all in reducing employee turnover. It’s nuanced and involves an understanding of turnover reasons and dedication to combating these with surgical strategies. Offering a positive work environment, competitive pay, and employee development enables an organization to build a dedicated and loyal workforce.

Building on continuous learning, adaptation, and genuine caring about employee well-being, an organization will be able to create workplace environments where every single employee is valued, motivated, and engaged in his or her work, with reduced attrition rates and long-term success.

View Details

Theory U is a change management method and a framework for transforming business, society, and self. Developed by Otto Scharmer, it emphasizes the importance of connecting to the deepest sources of self to bring about profound changes in individuals, organizations, and society.

The process of Theory U is shaped like a “U” and involves five key stages:

Co-Initiating: This stage involves building common intent and suspending past habits of judgment. It’s about coming together as a group and starting to open up to new possibilities.
Co-Sensing: In this stage, participants are encouraged to see from the edges of the system. It involves going to places of most potential and observing with fresh eyes, empathizing deeply to understand how others experience the situation.
Presencing: This is a pivotal point in the U where participants connect to the deepest source of self and will. It is a moment of profound reflection, where one lets go of old identities and intentions and allows a new sense of self and purpose to emerge.
Co-Creating: Emerging from the bottom of the U, this stage is about prototyping the new in living examples to explore the future by doing. It involves rapid cycles of thinking, doing, and reflecting to learn by doing and develop practical solutions.
Co-Evolving: The final stage focuses on institutionalizing the new practices, structures, and policies that have emerged. It’s about continually updating practices based on the feedback and learning gained through the earlier stages.

Theory U is particularly relevant to servant leadership because it emphasizes deep listening, empathy, and co-creation, aligning with the core principles of servant leadership. It encourages leaders to lead from the future as it emerges, rather than just based on past experiences

In the dynamic landscape of contemporary leadership, the philosophy of servant leadership has emerged as a transformative catalyst for holistic organizational development.

As we venture deeper into the exploration of this philosophy, we uncover its profound impact on fostering an environment of collaboration, empathy, and empowerment—an environment where the growth of individuals, the alignment of purpose, and the well-being of the collective take precedence over traditional notions of leadership.

This chapter delves into the core principles and practices of servant leadership and unveils its harmonious alignment with the ideals of holistic growth.

The Essence of Servant Leadership: Leading through Service

They prioritize the needs of their teams, acknowledging that their own success is intrinsically tied to the success of those they lead. This fundamental shift in perspective sets the stage for the creation of an environment where collaboration and empowerment flourish.

Nurturing a Culture of Collaboration: Open Communication and Shared Purpose

By actively listening and valuing diverse perspectives, servant leaders cultivate an atmosphere of inclusivity and mutual respect. This culture of collaboration not only fuels innovation but also ensures that the organization benefits from the collective wisdom of its members.

By imbuing every action and decision with purpose, servant leaders inspire a collective commitment that goes beyond personal gain and elevates the well-being of all stakeholders.

Empathy and Empowerment: Fostering Individual Growth

By acknowledging the holistic well-being of individuals, servant leaders create an environment where employees are valued not just as resources, but as human beings with unique talents and needs.

Leading by Example: Humility and Integrity

By upholding a high standard of ethical conduct and moral integrity, servant leaders set a precedent for the organization’s values and contribute to a culture of accountability.

Servant Leadership and Holistic Organizational Development: A Seamless Integration

Reflections:

Understanding Change: Reflect on a significant change you have experienced in your professional life. How did servant leadership principles, or a lack thereof, influence the outcome of this change?
Theory U and Servant Leadership: Consider the concepts of Theory U as they relate to servant leadership. How do these concepts complement each other in managing change within an organization?
Personal Reactions to Change: Think about your personal reaction to change. How do you typically respond, and how could a servant leadership approach alter your perspective or response to change?
Empathy in Times of Change: Empathy is a key component of servant leadership. How can empathy be effectively employed during organizational changes to support team members?
Openness to New Perspectives: Servant leadership encourages openness to new ideas and perspectives. Can you recall a situation where being open to new perspectives during a change process led to a positive outcome? If not, how could this approach have made a difference?
Leadership and Vulnerability: Servant leadership often involves showing vulnerability, especially during times of change. How does being vulnerable as a leader impact the process of navigating change?
Implementing Theory U: Think about a scenario where implementing Theory U’s principles could aid in a change process. How would you apply these principles to facilitate effective change?

These questions are designed to prompt reflection on the application of servant leadership and Theory U in managing change, encouraging readers to think critically about their own experiences and leadership approaches.

View Details

In today’s competitive job market, ensuring fair compensation for employees is crucial for maintaining a motivated and productive workforce. One important aspect of fair compensation is double-time pay. While many employees may be familiar with the concept of overtime pay, double-time pay often needs to be more understood. This blog post will delve into the intricacies of double-time pay, exploring the benefits it offers employees and the responsibilities it places on employers. By the end, you’ll have a comprehensive understanding of this vital labor practice and how it impacts both sides of the employment relationship.

Understanding Double Time PayBefore diving into the specifics, it’s essential to understand what is double time pay. Simply put, double time pay is a compensation rate twice the employee’s regular hourly rate. It typically applies to hours worked beyond the standard workweek, during holidays, or under the employer’s or labor laws’ exceptional circumstances. For instance, if an employee’s regular hourly wage is $20, their double time pay rate would be $40 per hour.

Double time pay serves a crucial role in acknowledging employees’ additional effort and inconvenience. It compensates them for working excessive hours or during times that are generally reserved for rest, such as weekends or public holidays. This practice ensures that employees are fairly rewarded for their time and commitment, which is a key aspect of maintaining a motivated and productive workforce.

Employee Benefits of Double Time PayThe following are the main advantages of double time pay for employees: The compensation directly impacts the satisfaction level in the workplace and the employee’s financial security. First, it offers quite a large amount of money for those employees who agree to go beyond the call of duty. It is beneficial for those who have a particular goal in mind, such as saving money for an expensive item or emergencies, paying off debts, or just enhancing their standard of living.

Also, it helps increase morale among employees because they are paid double their wages during that time. This way, the employers can be sure that the extra efforts are fairly compensated, and their employees will be more motivated to do more and be more productive. Employees are more likely to remain loyal to the employer, decreasing the turnover rates and increasing a sizable, experienced workforce.

Moreover, double-time pay contributes to work-life balance since employees can afford to do more things with a heavier pocket. The way to combat this issue is to set up compensation rates for overtime work and make employers pay more for the extra hours that their employees are willing to put in to lead healthier lives. This is also effective in preventing burnout and other issues that affect the mental and physical well-being of the employees and enhancing overall performance and contentment at the workplace.

Employer Responsibilities Regarding Double Time PayAlthough double time pay means gain to the employees, it also has some requirements that follow the employers. Therefore, every employee must know and be aware of these responsibilities so that they do not breach the law or make the workplace hostile.

Employers, among other duties, keep records and monitor employees’ working hours. This allows for proper compensation for any double time hours insofar as the employee is eligible for them. Employers need to ensure that they have sound methods for timekeeping, and the records must be scrutinized from time to time to ensure that there are no inconsistencies or mistakes.

Employers also need to learn more about when they can give out double pay according to labor laws and regulations. Such laws can be local and different from one state to another, depending on the period they were enacted. Employers must continuously update themselves with these regulations to fully adhere to them and avoid legal troubles. This paper discusses why failing to adhere to double time pay laws may lead to severe consequences and tarnish the company’s image.

In addition, managing employees’ expectations and ensuring that they are aware of their entitlements to double-time pay is crucial. Employers ought to ensure that they relay information that focuses on when and how double-time pay is applicable and how and when to fill out and submit records of such extra hours. Few situations lead to confusion and conflict, narrowing down the chances of tension in the workplace.

Employers should also reflect the extent of their pockets on a requirement of offering double time pay. Even though it is a standard procedure to apply for reasonable wages, this issue can significantly affect the company’s total payroll. Employers need to factor this into their budget and look for ways to help them overcome the overtime issue. This may entail such measures as increased recruitment of employees during high demand and adopting more relaxed working schedules to reduce congestion.

ConclusionDouble time pay is a component of wages that should be fair to employees, as it has numerous advantages for both the employee and the employer. It is a significant monetary reward for customers, motivates employee performance, and contributes to staff well-being. For employers, it entails the following requirements, namely, proper recording of working hours and other metrics, observation of the stipulated labor laws, direct communication with the workers, and goal-oriented managerial accounting.

View Details

Jason Walker, Adler University

Having meaningful connections in the workplace is essential for personal and organizational success. Most of us form these bonds naturally, as we spend a significant amount of our lifetimes at work.

After leaving college, many people in their 20s move to new cities for career opportunities, where they face the task of creating a brand new social circle from scratch. The workplace becomes an ideal place for people to connect. Activities like grabbing drinks after work, playing team sports or just sharing meals serve as opportunities to form connections with co-workers. These interactions not only help combat feelings of isolation, but also add a sense of camaraderie and support to the daily work routine.

However, as individuals reach milestones like getting married or starting a family, their priorities in life naturally shift. The enjoyed after work hangouts and casual meetups start taking a backseat to family commitments and home responsibilities.

Consequently, you might find that keeping up with work friendships becomes more challenging over time. Balancing professional growth and one’s personal life often leads to a decrease in the frequency and depth of these relationships while still preserving any already-established connections.

Making friends at workThere is a difference between typical co-worker relationships and true friendships. Generally speaking, people we work with are not necessarily friends. In our personal lives, it often takes years of building trust to bring someone into our circle of friends. Yet many of us do develop friendships with colleagues we have worked alongside — often for years. For instance, I’ve made friends at work whom I respect and trust immensely — one of my best friends is someone I met on the job. Our friendship continued to thrive long after I left that workplace.

That said, do I share my deepest, darkest secrets with work friends? Nope. So then, is a work friend worth it? In short, yes — even relationships with weaker ties can be beneficial. But it depends on the depth and nature of the relationship.

The benefits of friendships at workFriendships can result in substantial benefits. A 2021 survey on workplace friendships and happiness found that 57 per cent of workers said having a friend at work significantly boosted job satisfaction. Additionally, 22 per cent of survey participants believed friendships in the workplace enhanced their efficiency. Another 21 per cent thought these connections stimulated innovation.

When employees are happy, engaged and productive, and the organization is meeting their individual needs, they are more likely to meet their full potential.

When employees are happy, engaged and productive, and the organization is meeting their individual needs, they are more likely to meet their full potential.Strong relationships can facilitate communication and advice-sharing among co-workers.

However, it’s important to note workplace friendships can have a downside. Friendships at work can be problematic due to rumours of relationships, nepotism and favouritism, to name a few. The concept of “work” and “play” can often conflict when career goals intersect or worse when there is a conflict. That said, many of these issues can be mitigated with clear boundaries and communication.

Preventing burnoutEmployees are not the only ones who benefit from workplace friends — there are also significant benefits for employers. Promoting employee engagement through a respectful and inclusive work culture, for example, decreases employee turnover rates.

Employees with friends at work are twice as likely to feel passionate about their roles. These individuals also tend to interact with clients, deliver high-quality work and express overall greater degrees of well-being than those without work friends.

Apart from creating a supportive atmosphere, workplace friendships lead to people being less inclined to look for other job opportunities.

This element of workplace culture has become increasingly important as companies deal with the aftermath of the Great Resignation, where 4.3 million Americans left their jobs in August 2021 alone.

Inter-generational friendshipsInter-generational friendships are important to cultivate at work. You should consider expanding your networks to get the most out of these meaningful relationships.

However, forming friendships with supervisors can be challenging. Such relationships carry the risk of cronyism and nepotism and can undermine the integrity and effectiveness of a workplace.

A study in the health-care sector found that health-care professionals who felt unfairly treated were more likely to feel unmotivated, which impacted work performance.

This illustrates the struggle for organizations to combat perceptions of nepotism while fostering trust and camaraderie among employees. Friendships with a superior can work against personal relationships and the organization as a whole.

Instead, organizations should prioritize mentorship programs. Pairing younger employees with seasoned employees provides guidance, feedback and support, bridging the gap between individuals and the organization. Mentoring is also a great way to bridge any generational gaps.

Whether a traditional peer-on-peer program or someone taking you under their wing, the rewards are significant. About 70 per cent of Fortune 500 companies have some mentorship program, which speaks to their value.

Dos and don’tsTo ensure that workplace friendships are positive and don’t result in consequences, there are some essential guidelines and boundaries employees should consider following.

Go out of your way to greet your co-workers, celebrate their accomplishments and invite them out to lunch or happy hour after work.
Maintain your professionalism at work, even when spending time with friends. Remember that your supervisor could be watching.
Be kind to those around you: Avoid behaviours that may exclude others and steer clear of gossip. While not everyone may naturally form friendships, maintaining a respectful attitude is key.
Handle conflict maturely: If you and your work friend run into difficulty in your relationship, don’t place all the blame on them or ghost them. Address issues maturely and work together to resolve them.
Balance socializing with working: If your friendship is taking up too much of your time or impacting productivity, adjust how you interact at work.
Don’t engage in favouritism: Ensure your friendship doesn’t lead to cronyism or nepotism, which can harm team dynamics and trust.
Respect privacy: Don’t share personal information about your work friends with other colleagues without their permission.
Clearly communicate and stick to boundaries with your work friends.

Having friends at work can be a good thing — it’s good for mental and physical health, prevents loneliness and organizations perform better. But, like all relationships, it’s important to always remember and respect boundaries.

Jason Walker, Program Director & Associate Professor of Industrial-Organizational and Applied Psychology, Adler University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

View Details

Michal Lehmann, Carnegie Mellon University and Taya Cohen, Carnegie Mellon University

Every year, employees worldwide enter annual performance reviews with mixed feelings. Do employees enter these conversations with enthusiasm to learn new things? Rarely. Are managers eager to have these conversations and coach their employees on how they can improve in the coming year? No.

These meetings are typically experienced as difficult conversations. Opportunities for learning and relationship-building are often missed.

In an ideal world, employees would learn and improve from the feedback their manager provides in the annual review. But there are at least two obstacles that can stand in the way of that best-case scenario. It can be hard to hear painful truths. Critical feedback can trigger defensive reactions: That’s wrong. Who are you to say? This is a disaster, and I’ll never be able to improve. And, even if employees are receptive to the intended message, they may have trouble understanding the information and face difficulties implementing the feedback to improve their performance.

In an effort to get through, managers may try to soften their delivery. For example, they may use the much-maligned “feedback sandwich,” which bookends a critique between two compliments. But this tactic can obscure truthful and useful information, resulting in confusion, misunderstandings and worse.

We study organizational behavior and are especially interested in how people interact and communicate at work. Drawing from our research on humility and feedback, we suggest a new way for managers to approach performance reviews: Create what we call “humble encounters.”

By expressing humility, managers can transform performance reviews from monologues into dialogues, with greater learning and improvement as a result. Our studies indicate that when a team member expresses humility to a co-worker, it leads their partner to feel greater “psychological safety” – more comfortable sharing candid opinions and concerns without worrying about backlash or negative consequences. This, in turn, helps improve performance in the team.

Creating humble encountersHumility has a few key ingredients: You must be willing to view yourself accurately, as you really are. But that’s not enough to create a humble encounter. You must also show that you are teachable by exhibiting openness to feedback, ideas and suggestions. Finally, it’s critical that you acknowledge and express appreciation for the contributions that others make.

So, how might a manager do all this in a performance review?

You can signal that you’re willing to view yourself accurately by sharing personal experiences of dealing with challenges: “I also struggled with this issue when I first entered the company.” By sharing your own challenges and how you worked through them, you signal that you’re aware of your own weaknesses and vulnerabilities, as well as your strengths and achievements.

You can signal teachability by demonstrating that you’re open to learning from others. Managers can use what organizational culture experts Edgar and Peter Schein call “humble inquiry” – asking questions you don’t already know the answer to, listening intentionally and responding with curiosity.

Be mindful of assumptions implicitly conveyed to the listener by how you phrase your questions. Negative assumption questions
– like “What triggers you to argue with your co-workers?” – presuppose a problem. The employee might be surprised by this question and the assumption behind it because they don’t remember the last time they argued with someone at work. A negative-assumption question can help clarify undesirable behaviors if they are indeed happening, but at the same time it can signal distrust and hinder the receptivity of the receiver.

Another way to express humility is by good listening. It includes three crucial elements: paying attention to the speaker, showing positive intentions toward the speaker, and demonstrating that you understand their message. Managers who listen well to their employees elicit better performance and establish stronger relationships with them.

Spotlighting an employee’s strengths and contributions is active acknowledgment of the employee’s value without the manager devaluing their own. During the annual review, it’s possible to recognize an employee’s strengths while still providing developmental feedback.

Managers should provide support by conveying a sense of care, understanding and validation:
“I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations, and I know you can reach them.” Using language that communicates support fosters trust and a sense of belonging, thus breaking down walls of defensiveness.

Humble encounters enable growthBy modeling humility, managers provide employees with two key, seemingly contradictory signals.

They show relational acceptance – a signal that they accept the employee as they are, thereby calming feelings of threat and defensiveness. At the same time, they also communicate an expectation of change. Learning and improvement are not only possible but necessary for the employee to reach their full potential in the job.

In response to managers’ humility, employees will reciprocate humble behaviors, showing more willingness to view themselves accurately, be teachable and appreciate others’ contributions.

Managers might be concerned that expressing humility might signal weakness. However, research shows that this is not the case. When leaders are perceived to be humble, they are also seen as effective, competent and charismatic. Therefore, being a humble leader has benefits not only for employees, but also for the leader’s reputation.

Humble encounters can transform annual reviews into a more positive and enriching experience for both managers and employees. By enacting the three key aspects of humility – a willingness to view yourself accurately, teachability and appreciation for others’ contributions – you can both change your employees’ learning curve and strengthen your relationship with them.

Michal Lehmann, Postdoctoral Fellow in Organizational Behavior and Theory, Carnegie Mellon University and Taya Cohen, Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior and Business Ethics, Carnegie Mellon University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

View Details

The heart doesn’t keep an HR-approved memo on whom it is supposed to grieve for or for how long. Yet, traditional workplace policies on bereavement leave seem to send quite the opposite message—they come with a laundry list of who qualifies for emotional downtime and who doesn’t, almost as if loss could be parsed into standard categories. It’s high time for a radical rewrite. I am calling for organizations to relinquish the dated recipe of tying bereavement leave to the official-sounding ‘relationship status’ and instead advocate offering bereavement leave that accommodates all forms of loss.

A Paradigm Shift in PerceptionDismantling the relationship requirement isn’t a suggestion rooted in a rebellion; instead, it is a strategic leap toward a more inclusive culture and a reflection of the evolving human experience. To demand that employees prove the depth of their connection to someone who has passed before they are allowed to grieve on the company’s watch is, at its core, an invasive and outdated practice. Why should the anguish of losing a beloved pet warrant any less time for recuperation than losing a cousin?You Grieve, You Need LeaveThe tight grip on who qualifies for leave based on ‘relationship’ severely underestimates grief’s universality. Grief transcends the boundaries of familial ties; it can arrive unannounced, a sidekick to any form of loss, from a divorce decree to the funeral arrangements of a friend from the neighbourhood. By recognizing this, businesses have the power to not only support their employees through some of their darkest times but also to forge a company culture rooted in compassion and flexibility.

Addressing the Skeptics: Cultivating a Culture That TrustsSkeptics might fire back with fears that such a move could be ‘exploited’, leading to a culture of unwarranted absence. If so, your organization has a culture problem, not a bereavement problem. This could be a moment of reckoning to redefine expectations and redefine the covenant of trust between employer and employee.

Leaders Lead by ExampleOne of the most potent tools in this cultural shift is leadership endorsement. When leaders are transparent about their own experiences with grief and vocal about the policies in place to support it, they pave the way for company-wide acceptance. This is a journey that requires courage—from leaders to instigate it and from the culture to sustain it.

The Hidden Costs of InflexibilityThe rigidity of traditional bereavement policies can often lead to employees taking unsanctioned leaves or worse—showing up at work, emotionally scarred and potentially disruptive. The cost implications of such scenarios are rarely counted among the initial ledgers but they resonate in productivity loss, disengagement, and even tarnished reputations.

An inclusive bereavement leave policy demonstrates a company’s commitment to its most valuable asset—its people.

In return, businesses can expect a more engaged, loyal workforce with a higher level of psychological safety and, in turn, resilience through even the most tumultuous times.

The Roadmap to Implementation: A Stepwise ApproachRadically rethinking policies is one thing; turning them into a functioning reality is quite another. The key is to approach this in calculated steps, with culture-building initiatives alongside practical policy adjustments.

Review, Revise, Revise AgainBegin by critically reviewing your current bereavement policies. Who do they serve, and who do they exclude? I am sure that they don’t account for those who have to travel to a funeral for example. Once the shortcomings are clear, work with stakeholders to craft a revised framework that is not only a good starting point but also compassionate and sustainable.

Communication is KeyManagers are often the front line of such policies and they will ebb and flow around them. The most important part is that everyone knows what is allowable. If the baseline is reasonable, then we have more room for equity and inclusivity. Bob doesn’t get upset that Anne received 2 weeks’ accommodation and he only got 4 days.Introduce Feedback LoopsLastly, every employee coming back into the workplace should have a return to work-process. That process should include feedback loops that welcome critiques and suggestions for your policy review cycle. Continuous learning and adjustments will be the hallmark of a policy that truly serves the needs of the workforce.

As the conversation around mental well-being continues to gain momentum, the inclusivity of bereavement policies becomes a flagship issue. This isn’t just another paragraph in the HR handbook; it’s a nuanced reflection of our humanity and the kind of workspaces we wish to manifest in the world.

If you would like to learn more or are interested in support in cultivating new bereavement policies or processes, please reach in.

View Details

We’re conditioned to believe that those who work the hardest will be the most successful. Rewards will come to those who are the first to arrive and the last to leave. Pedal harder and faster and your efforts will be rewarded.

Amazon is a great example of the “pedal harder and faster” mantra. For years, Amazon has been criticized for treating employees as cogs in the larger business machine. This 2015 New York Times article exposes edicts such as “toil long and late,” and “when you hit the wall from the unrelenting pace, the only solution is to climb the wall” as the Amazonian rules for success. While Bezos has publicly disputed many of the claims, the company manifesto that he wrote himself states, “You can work long, hard, or smart, but at Amazon.com you can’t choose two out of three.”

While Amazon is known for its customer-centric approach, innovative capabilities, and long-term vision, the organization is notorious for putting profits over people. Based on interviews with over 100 ex-staff members, The New York Times discovered that Amazon’s culture exhibited the following characteristics:

Anonymous evaluations and forced elimination of underperformers: Employees engaged in informal agreements to provide negative feedback for specific colleagues, leading to their termination during annual performance reviews.
In hostile work environments: individuals were actively encouraged to engage in intense debates and criticism of their co-workers, often reaching levels of humiliation.
Poor work-life boundaries: Some employees were expected to participate in conference calls while on vacation or work weekends and nights from home. Additionally, the company demonstrated a lack of consideration and empathy toward individuals dealing with personal hardships. Culture 500Culture 500 provides a data-based view of company culture within some of the largest and most powerful organizations in the world. In a collaboration with MIT Sloan Management, Glassdoor and CultureX, they use cutting edge AI and other technology tools to examine how companies measure up on culture in the eyes of employees.

Culture 500 measures company performance across nine cultural values — agility, collaboration, customer orientation, diversity, execution, innovation, integrity, performance, and respect. These values are among the most frequently cited by large companies in their official corporate culture value statements as well as by employees in company reviews, and they are linked to a variety of desirable outcomes like financial performance, innovation, and employee engagement.

Among over 24,000 Amazon employees, the most frequently discussed cultural value is execution, and the most positively discussed value is innovation. While Amazon walks the talk when it comes to customer orientation and innovation, employees don’t experience the same with integrity, performance and respect — the three most negatively perceived values.

Even according to Bezos himself, the currency at Amazon is time and energy for money. Considering that the very definition of energy is the capacity to do work, the logic is twisted. The more time we put in the less energy we have. The less energy we have, the less productive we are. The cumulative effect becomes a powerful current that leads us right out of our peak performance zone.

“To win in the marketplace, you must first win in the workplace.” – Doug Conant, former CEO of Campbell’s Soup

Today’s leading companies strive for continual improvement across the board. Reduce costs, improve processes, increase revenue, streamline processes, build a better widget, be first to market, do more with less. But the most successful companies recognize the currencies that drive high performing, bright employees to achieve those goals. They understand that people go to work for more than a paycheck and are motivated by more than money.

The companies that nurture healthy high-performing teams breed an atmosphere of success by cultivating the kind of culture that inspires people to take pride and ownership in their individual contributions toward to those goals. In fact, employees who feel their contributions are valued are 60% more likely to deliver their peak performance for their employers.

People who love what they do are more engaged. But, people don’t love their jobs because they are making millions of dollars for shareholders. While the bigger bottom line may be the payoff for the organization, it’s rarely what inspires the individual. People love their jobs because they feel like their contributions matter.

“Everyone wants to know that what they do really matters.”
—Bob Chapman

Employee engagement is measured by individuals’ contributions to organizational success as well as the personal satisfaction people feel in their roles. Highly engaged employees are not just committed. They are passionate about the contribution they make to the success of the team, and they feel valued and respected for their talents. That collective passion fuels a collaborative culture rather than a combative one. These are the teams that recognize the competition is not “inside the house,” but out there.

Engagement isn’t a utopian ideal. In fact, a sense of belonging and value are innate human needs that contribute to the highest level of self motivation. Psychologists refer to this as self-actualization, and it ‘s the realization of one’s full potential – being the best one can be. People actually want to contribute to something bigger than themselves. Their level of engagement is defined by the alignment between the satisfaction they get from the contributions they are able to make.

“The engaged stay for what they can give; the disengaged stay for what they can get or leave to give their talents to someone else.”

A highly engaged culture, however, is not synonymous with a kinder, gentler, happier workplace. Happy people do not automatically create an engaged culture. The irony of a “smile and nod” culture is that, while it might feel good, it can actually cripple innovation by creating an environment where there is no impetus to change or there is too much pressure against rocking the boat to welcome new ideas.

Overachievers are looked down upon because they make mediocrity feel uncomfortable. Disagreements are uncomfortable. Challenge is uncomfortable. The status quo often wins. The 7 most expensive words in business, ‘We have always done it this way,’ not only prohibit the next big idea, they discourage people from even thinking about the next big idea.

“We tried that once; the guy who came up with the idea isn’t here anymore.”

Full engagement happens in a culture that inspires people to stretch and challenge themselves and each other. It isn’t written down in a binder; it’s deeply embedded in the way people feel about their capacity to contribute. Enabling people to take risks leads to innovation, creativity, and process improvement. But it requires a healthy balance between challenging new ideas and promoting teamwork.

Productive disagreements shouldn’t be sacrificed by harmony, nor should candor and respect. A healthy challenge of ideas is essential. Without it, people fall into the status quo mindset laced with apathy or complacency. However, challenging the status quo only works within the context of healthy relationships built upon mutual respect.

Organizations that truly want to not only achieve but fuel sustainable peak performance have to consider a new value exchange. What does it take to engage employees, enable them to contribute productively to organizational goals, and create the conditions where everyone operates within their zone of peak performance?

Care and empathy can coexist in a culture that fosters candor and honesty. Likewise, candor and honesty can be delivered with respect. Leaders who foster a culture of respect, learning, and individual contribution don’t take capacity for granted and they don’t mistake time for value. They create the conditions necessary for people to work in their performance zone and encourage them to shift to the renewal zone when they need to. These are the leaders that have the maturity and the vision to recognize that the health of the organization is defined by the health of the people within it.

So, the million-dollar question is this: What is the price of success? Perhaps it’s a good time to take inventory what you do each day, how it makes you feel, and how it impacts others.

The only way to do great work is to love what you do.

View Details

In a world marked by rapid technological advancements, shifting cultural values, and a renewed focus on social and environmental responsibility, the concept of organizational development has evolved beyond its traditional confines.

While the traditional models of growth emphasized the pursuit of profit and efficiency, a new paradigm has emerged—one that encompasses a more holistic approach to organizational development.

This chapter explores the transformative journey of organizational development, tracing its evolution from conventional growth models to the embrace of holistic paradigms, all within the context of servant leadership.

The Genesis of Organizational Development: Traditional Growth Models

Historically, the primary goal of organizational development was centered on financial success and market dominance. Businesses sought to increase profitability through strategies such as cost reduction, operational efficiency, and market expansion.

While these approaches delivered results in terms of bottom-line growth, they often overlooked the broader impacts of their operations. Employee well-being, community engagement, and environmental sustainability were secondary considerations, leading to a skewed perspective that failed to address the intricate interplay between business and society.

The Rise of Holistic Organizational Development: Beyond the Balance Sheet

The transition towards holistic organizational development signals a shift from profit-centric metrics to a more comprehensive approach. This approach recognizes that an organization’s growth is intertwined with its impact on various stakeholders—employees, customers, communities, and the environment.

Holistic development acknowledges the intricate relationships that exist within and beyond organizational boundaries, advocating for a harmonious coexistence rather than a one-sided pursuit of growth.

The holistic paradigm acknowledges that an organization’s long-term viability is directly linked to its ability to create shared value. This entails aligning business strategies with societal needs, ensuring that growth contributes positively to both economic prosperity and social well-being.

Holistic organizational development strives to create an ecosystem where organizations thrive not in isolation, but as integral parts of a larger societal fabric.

Servant Leadership as the Guiding Light: Aligning Holistic Values

In the midst of this transformative shift, servant leadership emerges as a natural fit—a philosophy that aligns perfectly with the ideals of holistic organizational development. Rooted in the belief that leadership is synonymous with service, servant leadership fosters an environment where the growth of individuals, the empowerment of employees, and the well-being of the community are paramount.

The core principles of servant leadership—empathy, active listening, humility, and a commitment to nurturing potential—resonate profoundly with the ethos of holistic development. Servant leaders view their role not as dictators, but as facilitators of growth. They create spaces where open communication thrives, ideas are valued, and a sense of shared purpose is cultivated.

By placing the well-being of their teams and the community at the forefront, servant leaders inherently align with the holistic perspective, ensuring that growth transcends financial numbers and encompasses a broader positive impact.

A Holistic Development Framework: Integrating Holistic Values

Holistic organizational development, guided by servant leadership, introduces a framework that extends beyond financial measures. It encompasses a spectrum of factors including employee engagement, diversity and inclusion, ethical practices, environmental sustainability, and community engagement. By considering these elements collectively, organizations ensure that their growth aligns with the well-being of all stakeholders, leaving a positive imprint on society.

Servant leadership serves as the connective tissue within this framework. It encourages leaders to embody qualities of empathy and compassion, making decisions that resonate with the organization’s purpose and values. By fostering an environment of trust and collaboration, servant leaders empower employees to thrive, innovate, and contribute meaningfully to the organization’s growth trajectory.

The Path Forward: Holistic Organizational Development through Servant Leadership

The convergence of holistic organizational development and servant leadership ushers in a new era of leadership—one that acknowledges the intrinsic interdependence between organizational success and societal well-being.

This chapter sets the stage for the exploration of servant leadership’s multifaceted role in the holistic growth journey. As we delve deeper into the subsequent chapters, we will uncover how servant leadership principles empower individuals, foster collaboration, navigate change, and ultimately pave the way for organizations to flourish holistically in an interconnected world.

In the chapters that follow, we will explore how servant leadership serves as the cornerstone for navigating change, embracing diversity, nurturing employee well-being, fostering purpose-driven performance management, and envisioning a future where organizations thrive through authentic connections and sustainable impact.

As we embark on this transformative journey, we invite you to explore the intersection of servant leadership and holistic organizational development, discovering how these principles can reshape the way we lead, grow, and create meaningful change in the modern world.

Reflections

Understanding Evolution: Reflect on your current understanding of organizational development. How has this evolved over time, and how does the concept of a ‘holistic paradigm’ fit into this evolution?
Personal Experience: Think about an organization you have been a part of. How did its development approach align or contrast with the holistic paradigms discussed in this chapter?
Challenges and Solutions: What challenges do organizations typically face when shifting towards a holistic development approach? Can you think of any solutions or strategies that might help overcome these challenges?
Holistic Impact: Consider the broader impact of embracing a holistic paradigm in organizational development. How do you think this approach affects employees, leadership, and organizational success?
Case Study Reflection: Reflect on a case study presented in this chapter. What key lessons can be learned, and how can they be applied in real-world organizational settings?
Future Perspectives: How do you envision the future of organizational development? What role will holistic paradigms play in shaping this future?

These questions are designed to encourage deep thinking and personal engagement with the concepts discussed in Chapter 1, aiding in the understanding and application of holistic paradigms in organizational development.

View Details

A note about Helpful Questions Change Lives:

If you’re curious about why you experience life as you do and what changes your experience when it’s unhelpful, the posts in my first series can help. They invite you to look more closely at the relationship you have with you. Especially the sensations, thoughts, and feelings that make up, and automatically appear as the contents of your consciousness in any moment. They invite inquiry into how liberating it can be to entertain and play with these unique-to-you contents, rather than be entertained or hijacked by them.

I make such an invitation because it’s that freedom bit that helps change lives – for the better. You not only see why your experience unfolds as it does more clearly, but why others behave as they do too.

Series 2 explores what makes sense to you in your relationship with the different groups you’re a part of – teams at work, professional networks, family and friends, for instance.

Suppose you, and other members of these groups were NOT bound by sense making that no longer helps you. Then what?

Enjoy playing with and wondering about what works for you on the questions in this series. Let me know in the comments if they help or not.

Colin Newlyn began The Decrapify Work Not-Newsletter as..

“a form of therapy… A way to work out loud, to figure out what I think and to connect with others who see the world in a similarly sideways and outraged fashion.”

His outrage is supported by numerous workplace engagement surveys, done by Gallup, Deloitte and many others, all of which point to high levels of disengagement among two-thirds of employees – and here’s the rub – persistently across about 20 years of surveying who knows how many people, yielding millions of data points, all around the world.

A post inEliza Filby’s Newsletter called Introducing Inheritocracy asked this question “Do young people want to be managers?”

Citing influencers on TikTok and an article in The Independent she writes..

“While we shouldn’t take a TikTok trend as representative of anything anymore, it’s interesting to note how prevalent this feeling is amongst older Gen Z/early Millennials (between 24-30) who entered the workplace at a time of the pandemic and who now find themselves in management positions. They were never exposed to good practise in this area themselves, and so are struggling now. The legacy of COVID continues to be felt at different points throughout the career ladder”.

Over the last 30+ years I’ve had countless coaching-and-mentoring conversation with leaders in both public and private sector organisations. Most entered these from a stressed state of mind to differing degrees. One big contributing factor, I concluded, connects to the way they think about their role. Being the chief sense maker, decision taker and action initiator, may have felt exciting once, but, over time, overwhelms many.

If my work points to leaders’ stressed, overwhelmed states of mind with respect to how they think about their role. And, among others, Colin’s speaks up on behalf those who’ve been on the wrong end of poor leadership. While Eliza highlights why many of the younger generation don’t want more of the same – not to mention you’re own direct experience of leading and leaders, of course, – we might conclude that many people believe leadership, as we’ve known it, isn’t working.

Our beliefs about leadershipBeliefs about the role a leader plays can hang around for a long while. They get passed on from one generation to the next. They are reinforced via art, literature and films. They take on more relevance and meaning when experienced first hand. And, like us, they may evolve and adapt as circumstances change. But they may not too. We have a tendency to hold on to beliefs. Which is why we get stuck sometimes.

Though I was once a subscriber to the belief that leaders are born not made, that doesn’t make sense to me now. In my experience, we are all provided with opportunities to take a lead even when we don’t see ourselves in a formal leadership role. Life invites is to make sense of being a parent, losing a loved one, getting married, caring for a friend, choosing a career, bringing out the best in others, having purpose, crafting a culture in our workplaces and other groups we’re proud of, resolving the inevitable differences that arise in these, and more. We may not always recognise it, but such sense making, choice making, and action taking opportunities are abundant.

Our beliefs about the leader’s role determine whether and how we seize such opportunities.

No matter whether you have a formal leadership role in a business or family, say, or are taking a lead on a particular issue, look at the beliefs we can each hold about leadership below. Note which resonate with you – that is to say what you’re drawn to, and which you find less attractive, because it’s less you, as it were.

Knowing what kind of beliefs about leadership automatically show up in you, makes playing with each, and wondering which are most helpful in your circumstances, easier.

1. The Tribal Leader

You see your role in terms of protecting your tribe and bringing cohesion to it. To be the one who is relied on for communal survival because of your strength, wisdom, and skill.

Though rooted in early human societies, this same belief can be seen today in those who run their part of the organisation, or family, as fiefdoms or factions, and are tribal in how they relate to others and compete for resources.

2. The Divine Right Leader

You believe your role is to deliver on a divine-given mission, which you see as essential for stability, order and authority. To be the one on whom power is bestowed and centralised as a way protecting the mission, or God’s work, and growing the number of fellow ‘believers’.

The consolidation of power through hereditary rule was often legitimised by claims of divine right, linking leadership to religious beliefs and establishing dynastic traditions. In modern times monarchies still prevail – think King Charles III’s divine-like coronation ceremony, which epitomised this belief. More commonplace, though, are leaders of dynasties or big family-run organisations who believe their mission is inspired by divine intervention and seek fellow disciples to enact it.

3. The Warrior or Military Leader

You see your role is to gain authority through conquest and (military-like) strength. To be the one who can maintain control and protect conquered territories (or market share gains.)

The feudal system thrived on a hierarchical structure, and leadership was closely tied to military prowess. Kings and lords gained authority through winning military battles using strategies designed to defeat an enemy, step by step. We get the term ‘command and control’ from here – needed to ensure each step of a strategy is executed well. Competitive marketplaces are often thought of as being analogous to battlefields and war.

4. The Enlightened Leader

You feel your role is to govern for the betterment of societal progress as a whole. To be the one who embraces, articulates and enacts new intellectual and philosophical shifts.

Rooted in The Age of Enlightenment, this belief marked a shift toward reason, science, and human rights. Leaders fostering the growth of cross-border collaborative networks, working on science-related topics such as vaccine research and climate change, would be examples of modern-day equivalents.

5. The Captain of Industry Leader

You see your role is to oversee enterprises that can manage complex processes, and navigate societal transition with attendant economic shifts. To be the one who can clearly envisage the benefits new technology brings before others have any inkling of these.

The Industrial Revolution brought about significant technological disruption, from agricultural to industrial production. New captains or pioneers like Brunel in the UK, Rockefeller in the US, and Benz in Europe, were driven by the benefits innovative new technology brings. Modern day captains in this digital age are epitomised by Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and leaders of many different start ups including those building new blockchain and AI technologies on Web 3.0.

6. The Inspirational Leader

You believe your role is to inspire others and win their hearts and minds. To be the one who sets out a clear vision of what is possible, builds up people’s resilience and motivates them in the face of rapid social changes.

The 20th century witnessed a shift toward this belief about leadership, especially at times of war, think Churchill regarding the cause of freedom, Gandhi and Mandela on equality, and on inspiring a nation to bold technical accomplishments, think JKF and the Apollo programme to the moon.

7. The Servant Leader

You feel your role is to be of service to those in your organisation or family whose work is valuable, and on which others depend. To be the one who understands wellbeing, inclusivity and the impact both have on collaboration and, ultimately, what is and isn’t achievable.

The shift to servant leadership responded to a growing awareness of the importance of wellbeing and engagement – the extent to which group members feel good about the way things get done and play a full part in making them even better.

View Details

In this episode of The Sanity Project podcast, host Joanne Victoria interviews Katherine Lazaruk, a leadership coach who began her career in image consulting. Lazaruk discusses her unconventional path to leadership development, emphasizing the importance of embracing one’s inner child and being open to various career possibilities. She shares her experience of building a business around her corporate job and eventually transitioning to full-time consulting, aiding clients in climbing the corporate ladder. Lazaruk also touches on the concept of “web thinking” versus linear thinking, encouraging the idea that diverse experiences can eventually interconnect to form a fulfilling career path.

Katherine’s foray into the professional world began with a vision—quite literally. During a pivotal coaching session, she experienced a flash of inspiration that would become the foundation of her first business, ICU Image Consulting. Despite the lack of regulation in the industry and the initial uncertainty, Katherine’s entrepreneurial spirit was undeterred. She leaped, balancing her corporate job with her burgeoning business, until the recession presented an opportunity to go all in.

Katherine’s background in music and education, along with her experiences in opera and teaching, shaped her multifaceted approach to life and work. She observed that few people have the luxury of a single, linear career path. Instead, most of us create a mosaic of experiences that, over time, weave together to form a unique and fulfilling professional life.

View Details

The second largest expense for most companies is HealthCare with relentlessly increasing premiums. The burden is so onerous most larger companies have decided to Self-Insure and accept the risk themselves. Employee Health claims are a perceived fixed cost in the sense that the decision maker for the Employer (i.e. CFO, Owner) does not monitor the actual individual claims, other than to typically require their Employees to get approval for more complex HealthCare procedures.

Whether an Employee needs an X-Ray to find out if they broke their wrist, a blood test to check their cholesterol, or an out-patient surgery such as getting a mammogram, the Employee is provided with all the choices where they are going to have the procedure done whether that is at a Hospital, Surgery Center, Clinic, or facility that provides the services that they need to have completed, including the facility that offers the best price. Employers and Employees alike are provided an online portal to access all the info.

Most Employers are not aware that due to current regulatory oversight in the United States, Private Equity firms have been allowed to not only purchase equity interests in the Insurance Companies underwriting HealthCare policies; but, also have been actively acquiring equity interests in the HealthCare providers themselves such as Hospitals and Outpatient Clinics. In this children’s fable, the fox now owns the henhouse and the hens!

The Employer has not had a solution that can provide real-time comparative cost savings within the geographic area proximate to their business or where their Employees reside. This means that the Employer, systemically, is paying a substantial amount of money more on an annual basis to subsidize their Employee HealthCare than they need to be paying in most of the gateway and secondary Cities in the United States, where there are multiple choices available for the same HealthCare procedure.

The good news is that there is now an option for the Employer to engage the services of an online HealthCare appointment oversight service that operates on a performance based shared benefit basis without any set-up fee or monthly subscription fees.

Here is how it works. Eligible businesses or organizations which are those that pay for their own Employees HealthCare costs are known to be Self-Insured, and have been in business for over three (3) years. While any Self-Insured entity is eligible, typically half those businesses and organizations who have over five-hundred (500) W-2 Employees. Statistically, 98% of businesses with one-thousand (1,000) or more Employees.

Once they have signed up, they provide the service provider with their historical claims data for the past three (3) to five (5) years. That data provides a comprehensive benchmark showing what the Employer was paying for HealthCare services such as Colonoscopy’s, MRI’s, Blood Tests, and X-Rays prior to them engaging the services of the HealthCare cost optimization provider.

The cost savings that are being identified include: 1) Bloodwork, 2) Imaging, 3) Urgent Care, which does not require getting an appointment which can include getting diagnosed and treating maladies such as Back Pain, Cold or Flu, Cuts or Small Wounds, Diarrhea, Earache or Sinus Pain, Minor Fever or Headache, Minor injury such as a Sprained Ankle, Painful Sore Throat, Rash or Minor Allergic Reaction, Small Burns, Urinary Tract Infections, or the Employee’s Primary Care Doctor’s Office is closed. 4) Surgeries, which can include Cataract, Colonoscopy, Ear-Nose-Throat, Endoscopy, Gall Bladder, Gynecological Procedures, Hemodialysis, Hemorrhoid Procedures, Lumpectomy, Minor Orthopedic, Skin Procedures, Urologic Procedures.

Prior to this new technology, when an Employee needed a medical procedure, they would just make an appointment. As an Employer, you had no idea how much money that medical appointment was going to cost you. So, if your Employee needed an MRI Exam, you might be paying an additional $2,000 for the same exam where there was another In-Network HealthCare provider that your Employee could have made an appointment with that charged $2,000 less for the same procedure. Now, when your Employee needs a medical procedure, you know the total cost of every provider that is delivering the same service.

The HealthCare Cost Saving Service provider which uses a proprietary Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology that provides the Employer with the myriad of HealthCare Appointment options has historically achieved gross savings of 40-55%, which means that Employers engaging their services can expect a net 20-27.5% cost savings by signing up for their services. So, if an Employer is paying $1,000,000 a year to cover their Employees Outpatient HealthCare costs, they can expect to pay only $725,000-800,000.

After each month, the Employer will be billed $1 for every $2 that the HealthCare Medical Appointment Cost Optimization service provider has obtained for them. In other words, every time that the HealthCare Medical Appointment Cost Optimization provider saves the Employer $2, the month after those cost savings have been realized, based on the Employers historical prior HealthCare Claims provided to the service provider, the Employer pays back the HealthCare Appointment Cost Optimization service provider $1. Simply put, if you buy a carton of milk at a Convenience Store, such as 7/11, you are going to pay more for that carton of milk than buying the same carton of milk from a wholesaler such as Costco. The Employer has the option of having their Staff look up HealthCare procedure options in real-time when an Employee in need of a procedure makes a request to have a medical appointment or allow the Employee to utilize the online comparative cost pricing to identify the lowest cost provider for the same procedure in their geographic area.

The Employer can establish in their Employee Handbook their policy of allowing the Employee to schedule their own HealthCare procedures by indicating to them that it must be the most cost-effective one identified.

View Details

At work we have all kinds of people. Some are extroverts and others are introverts. Some people love to socialise to their fullest and others stay reserved, uninviting and minding their own businesses. The extroverts, sometimes, really talk endlessly. We might think of those colleagues who hardly talk as unsocial but they may be doing it by design and in many situations, they are wise enough. They are also extremely good at observing what goes around them. The real game is what they need to disclose with colleagues @work and what to keep it to themselves. In fact, it’s a subtle art to maintaining our mystique at work.

Successful people know this very well — there are certain things, outside of work life, that we just don’t need to disclose it anyone at work. It’s not about being sensitive to information sharing and being secretive at the same time, rather, it’s about being strategic. Revealing too much can sometimes lead to unnecessary judgments or biases. But keeping certain things to ourselves can keep us on our path to success.

Let’s explore how these successful colleagues operate in their private and professional. What they disclose publicly and what keep under wraps.

Personal strugglesWorkplaces are often seen as professional environments, and successful people understand this very well. They know that their personal life, particularly any struggles or issues they might be dealing with, are usually best kept separate from their work life. This may include some family disputes, other issues i.e. health issues within the family etc. This isn’t about creating a false facade or pretending everything is perfect.

Rather, it’s about maintaining a professional image and ensuring that personal issues don’t distract from work related projects and assignments. This category of colleagues tend not to air their personal issues in the workplace. They also don’t add or invite office colleagues to their personal social media platforms. Needless to say that we all have our own life struggles. But successful people know that the workplace is not always the best place to discuss them.

Future Career AspirationsThese wise people also understand the importance of commitment and dedication to their current job roles. While it’s completely normal its their right to have long-term career goals or aspirations outside of the company if they cannot make it within the organisation for obvious reasons, voicing these openly at work may send the wrong messages for no reason.

Talking about plans to leave for other opportunities can create doubt in our dedication to the current job roles. It could impact our relationships with our current colleagues and bosses and even affect our progress within the company. While it’s crucial to have career goals and ambitions, successful people usually keep these future plans close to their chest until they’re ready to make their next move.

Self-doubtWe all grapple with self-doubt at times, even those who seem the most confident. I remember early in my career, I would often question my abilities and wonder if I was truly capable of succeeding in my role. Successful people are no strangers to this feeling. However, they tend not to reveal these insecurities at work. They understand that self-doubt can be perceived as lack of confidence or competence, which can impact their professional reputation.

This doesn’t really mean that one starts talking about it publicly or to the “trusted colleagues”. Instead, they work on overcoming these doubts on their own, focusing on not self-sabotaging their careers and craving for growth. They know that everyone has areas to improve on and they strive to turn their insecurities into motivation to perform better.

Past FailuresAs Michael Jordanvery rightly said: “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying”. Failure is a part of life and often a stepping stone to success. But successful people know when and where to discuss these failures. While it’s important to acknowledge where we go wrong and learn from them, dwelling on past failures at the workplace can create a negative impression. It can lead others to question our very existence at that organisation.

Successful professionals tend not to reveal their past failures at work, unless it’s relevant to a learning experience or a particular discussion. They focus on their achievements and future goals, using past setbacks as lessons they’ve already learnt, not as defining factors of their professional identity.

Political leanings / affiliationsThis one is highly important. I’ve seen a few colleagues losing their jobs and their sufferings due to making such an information public in one way or the other. Research suggests that political discussions at work can lead to decreased productivity, poorer work quality, and increased hostility. Successful people understand the potential pitfalls of discussing politics @workplace. While it’s natural to have political views, voicing them in a professional environment can lead to unnecessary conflicts.

Keeping political leanings to ourselves help maintain a harmonious working environment with colleagues of all backgrounds and beliefs. It’s all about focusing on what unites us in the workplace — our shared goals and tasks — rather than what might divide us.

Final ThoughtsLet’s remember that acting maturely at the workplace is all about creating and maintaining a ‘Fineline’.The road to success is often paved with caution, care and wisdom, and part of that strategy is knowing what to keep under wraps. The art of maintaining professional boundaries is a skill successful people have mastered. Recognizing that some aspects of life are best kept out of the workplace isn’t about creating a persona or hiding who they truly are. It’s about understanding the dynamics of a professional environment and fostering a productive and harmonious workspace.

Whether it’s personal struggles, political leanings, or health concerns, the decision to keep these matters private can significantly impact how others perceive us in our professional lives. Navigating these boundaries might not always be easy, but it’s an essential part of the journey towards success. And as we’ve seen from those who’ve walked this path before us, it’s a journey well worth taking.

View Details

Consistency in the day-to-day requirements of leadership is essential, but the best leaders also know how to intentionally create moments that inspire, engage, drive imagination, and have an impact that far outlasts the moment itself. In a recent reading of The Power of Moments by Chip Heath and Dan Heath (2017), I was fascinated by the dynamics that allow certain experiences to have an extraordinary impact upon our lives as humans and leaders within an organization.

Leadership moments matter, and they cannot be artificially created. They must stem from leaders who learn from life journeys and who remain authentic (Luthans, Avey, Avolio, & Peterson, 2010). Authentic leadership is “the result of combining your personal and professional identities into an integrated whole, allowing you to rise up and adapt to new challenges while still being true to yourself” (Her New Standard, 2023).

Good leaders bring their whole selves to the people they lead and the challenges they face with creativity and humility, which in turn can inspire others and bring life to an organization.

Listening

Defining moments are an important part of the leadership experience, but they can be hard to recognize when one is in the midst of such a moment. It should not be surprising that the first prerequisite to discerning an opportunity to create a leadership moment is listening. To be a good communicator is to be a good listener. It is absolutely fundamental to true leadership. (Wooll, 2021). Listening leads to relationships built on trust and a shared sense of loyalty. Inviting employees to share honestly and asking thoughtful questions to increase understanding indicates that a leader has others’ best interests at heart (Llopis, 2013). Leaders should consider listening to be their “full-time job,” as it helps them identify when a moment is needed to make a change, inspire, or simply to tell a story.

Engage

Good listening inherently requires a response from the leader. Actively engaging with people helps generate understanding and accountability. When leaders hold themselves accountable to follow-up with employees on what they have shared, “they will know that you are listening, paying attention and attempting to understand what matters most to them” (Llopis, 2013). This understanding helps build relationships. Research in the field of social psychology increasingly shows that leaders who “prioritize relationships with their employees and lead from a place of positivity and kindness” are more successful leaders in every sense of the word (Seppälä, & McNichols, 2022). Strong relationships must not be left to chance, but instead are a “matter of choice” (Zimmerman, 2016). Leaders can take positive action to build healthy relationships built on trust.

Inspire

Truly inspirational leaders “attract and engage others through their words, actions and beliefs” (Kurter, 2020). Leaders who desire to inspire must build the ability to discern when the moment is right to lean in and point the team back to their shared vision or goal (Garton, 2017). Moments like this can expand a team’s understanding of their goals, how they can each contribute, and what they might accomplish by bringing their full selves and unique skills together (Cohen, 2020).

Hypocrisy is the greatest danger to creating this kind of environment. It is nearly impossible to motivate and inspire a group when the leader’s integrity is in question. Attempts to inspire where respect is not present can actually do more damage in the long-term and create a memorable negative moment instead of a memorable positive one. Inspiration often comes from the consistent demonstration of values and follow-through, not just waxing eloquent about those values (Eades, 2019).

Translate

Good leaders must be good translators (Morgan, 2020). Dealing with complexity is part of the everyday job. However, disassembling an issue and then reassembling it in a way that creates understanding is an acquired skill. This requires a leader to have a full understanding of the issue and the use of “strong listening and communication skills to build bridges between people” (Benjamin, & Komlos, 2022). Leaders act as a translator for all parties so that the same language is being spoken, which is essential for creating a leadership moment.

Like a poem

Think about a moment that stands out in your memory—a moment that had special significance and meaning for you. Like the art form of poetry and story, such moments help us make meaning of our experiences. Leaders can harness the power of story to create moments that resonate (Xing, & Liu, 2015). “Ultimately, we bond over, grow through, and feel seen, heard, and valued through the specific moments that leaders create for us. These leaders and these moments leave us feeling capable, inspired, and like we belong” (Josh, 2023).

When you fail

Leaders are human, and at some point, will fail or experience letdowns. One cannot always control their circumstances, but good leaders control what they can—their responses to failure and disappointment. How a leader responds reveals their character. Every failure is an opportunity to demonstrate to every person in the organization, both in actions and words, how to move forward with grace and resilience (Russell, 2020).

A distinction should be made between a failure based on incompetence and a failure caused by experimentation (Good, 2015). “In the former, learning might focus on an individual’s capacity, the latter might look at how to evolve the experiment. Similarly, understanding the consequences makes a huge difference in how we deal with a failure and should help us determine how many and which people to involve in the learning process as well as how to turn that learning into change, and eventually, success” (Good, 2015).

Defining moments in leadership

As leadership experts Ed O’Malley and Julia Fabris McBride emphasize in their book, “When Everyone Leads” (2023): “Leadership is an activity, not a position of authority.” Because leadership is active, everyone has an opportunity to get better at it with practice (Birsel, 2018). Admittedly, this learning process is complex, and can at times, feel overwhelming and impossible.

Each step leaders take on this path of growing their ability to lead is a step toward becoming more human. “Leadership moments are ones that make your heart leap with hopeful anticipation or fear of taking the next step” (Martin, 2019)” Each step that is chosen is an opportunity for inspiration, understanding, and wholeness. This dialogue, so to speak, with one’s experiences and the world helps create moments with those around them.

Creating leadership moments has the power to open hearts and expand an organization’s vision for who and how they serve, and allows the leader to express that which has no easily definable shape or form, the essence of leadership. The journey toward this kind of leadership takes time, space, and the willingness to commit to being rather than only doing. For the individual leader and the people they lead, it is worth the struggle.

Resources

Benjamin, D. & Komlos, D. (2022). Why Leaders Should Make The Extra Effort To Translate Numbers: Insights From Author Chip Heath. Forbes.
Birsel, A. (2018). 4 Small Moments that Make a Huge Difference in Your Leadership Style. Inc.
Cohen, S. (2020). Leadership and the Power of Inspiration. Johns Hopkins Carey Business School.
Eades, J. (2019). 3 Ways to Immediately Inspire Anybody (From the Moment You Meet Them). Inc.
Garton, E. (2017). How to Be an Inspiring Leader. Harvard Business Review.
Good, A. (2015). 5 ways the best leaders learn from failure. World Economic Forum.
Heath, C., & Health, D. (2017). The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact. Simon & Schuster.
Her New Standard (2023). Authentic Leadership: What It Is and Why It Matters Now More Than Ever. Her New Standard.
Josh (2023). Leadership Worth Remembering: 10 Types of Moments the Leaders We Remember Create. 3×5 Leadership.
Kurter, H. (2020). 7 Powerful Characteristics Of A Truly Inspirational Leader. Forbes.
Llopis, G. (2013). 6 Ways Effective Listening Can Make You A Better Leader. Forbes.
Luthans, F., Avey, J., Avolio, B., & Peterson, S. (2010). The development and resulting performance impact of positive psychological capital. Human Resource Development Quarterly. 21(1). 41-67.
Martin, E. (2019). Your Leadership Moment. Medium.
Morgan, J. (2020). Want To Be A Better Leader? Master The Skill Of The Translator. Medium.
O’Malley, E., & McBride, J. (2023). When Everyone Leads: How The Toughest Challenges Get Seen And Solved. Kansas Leadership Center.
Russell, J. (2020). Just Move On: The Best Leaders Own Their Failures And Learn From Them. Forbes.
Seppälä, E., & McNichols, N. (2022). The Power of Healthy Relationships at Work. Harvard Business Review.
Wooll, M. (2021). The importance of listening as a leader in the digital era. BetterUp.
Xing, Y., & Liu, Y. (2015). Poetry and Leadership in Light of Ambiguity and Logic of Appropriateness. Management and Organization Review: University of Cambridge Press. 11(4). 763 – 793.
Zimmerman, A. (2016). The Things Successful Leaders Do and Don’t Do to Build Relationships. Entrepreneur.

View Details

Facing a workplace situation that feels more like a never-ending marathon than a fulfilling career? Sounds like you’re stuck in the “24/7 rule” circus, where the company’s demands are juggling you around like a reluctant clown! But fear not, it’s time to add a dash of humor to lighten the mood and find your way out of this job jamboree.

Imagine this: you’re the star performer in a workplace drama titled “The Great Escape from 24/7 Land.” Cue the dramatic music as you dramatically roll out of bed after hitting the snooze button more times than you can count. Your reluctance to face the day rivals that of a cat avoiding a bath – and trust me, that’s some serious reluctance!

But wait, there’s more! Your inner circle knows all about your workplace woes, making you feel like the lead character in a soap opera where everyone’s in on the juicy gossip. And as for having fun? Well, it’s become as elusive as finding a unicorn at a corporate retreat.

Now, let’s sprinkle in some wit and wisdom. Picture yourself sitting down with a trusted confidant, pouring your heart out over a cup of coffee. You lay out your grievances, and they respond with a quip so sharp, it could cut through the corporate red tape like a hot knife through butter. Together, you brainstorm a plan so ingenious, it would make even Sherlock Holmes proud.

As you jot down your thoughts on paper, you realize something profound: it’s time to reclaim your power and put yourself first. You’re not just a cog in the corporate machine – you’re a force to be reckoned with!

So, armed with humor, wit, and a newfound sense of determination, you set out on your journey to find greener pastures. Who knows? Maybe your next adventure will involve writing that book you’ve always dreamed of or embarking on a spontaneous trip to Singapore – because life’s too short to be stuck in a job that feels like a never-ending sitcom rerun!

Remember, laughter is the best medicine, especially when dealing with workplace woes. So, chin up, my friend, and let’s add a little humor to this chapter of your life story!

View Details

More than ever, organisations and individuals are looking ahead to the future with a close lens and keen insights. This type of big-picture thinking is imperative to the success of any company or a person. It’s part of building mental fitness. After all, our world is not static, rather it is in a constant state of change. With much of the future unknown and uncertain, companies (and people) need to stay agile and think strategically about what’s to come ahead. In fact, half of us feel unable to plan for the future.

Having said that, we also need to make sure to stay reactive. Our organizations know that the future isn’t set in stone. Nowadays, the future is fluid. To look at the bigger picture ahead, we know that we need to make space for reflection in case things don’t go as planned.

In this article, we shall deliberate on how to adopt habits to become a BIG Picture Thinker. Let’s find out how BIG Picture Thinking Pattern can keep ourselves and our organizations a step ahead from the competition, from the market place — and be better prepared to pivot when needed.

Who’re the Big Picture Thinkers?The BIG Picture People tend to be creative, strategic, and visionary, but they can also be messy, disorganised, and forgetful. On the other hand, the detail oriented people are conscientious and exacting, but may lack perspective or fail to prioritise long-term goals. These types of thinking skills aren’t inherently natural to us. Like any other sort of skill or muscle, it takes practice to start thinking with a BIG Picture view. Let’s see how BIG Picture Thinking should work for us and why it’s worth investing in building a future-mindedness in our respective workplacs?

Ways to Embrace Big Picture Thinking1. The Power of seeing the Whole

In most cases, particularly in our part of the world, we are not trained to have a holistic view of things. Rather, we look at the transactional value of the pieces. We love to work in silos and we feel good about it. Also, in most cases we don’t like others to interfere in our respective domains even for our own good. We live with this distorted desire to control i.e. I am the In-charge for my own little kingdom.

Unfortunately, most managers are trained like that, not bothered to look at the BIGGER Picture, e.g., the Heads of HR, Finance, IT or other support function are generally busy adding frills to their little empires without realizing the purpose or core of their organisational existence. Similarly, they train their successors in a similar fashion, living in their own (fool’s) paradise.

2. Spare Time to Reflect

Rather than acting on short-term conditions such as emotions, fatigue, time pressure or distraction, deciding based on the BIG Picture can ensure us prioritise effectively and set achievable goals. Here are a few methods we can use to think about the big picture:

Connect with the Divine and seek help
Write down the BIG Goals
Go for a thoughtful walk
Talk to a friend or a family member who is a good listener and seek advice

3. Build Future-Centric Skills

We all understand that due to the current economic situation around the world, the future will remain uncertain for a foreseeable time and that’s fine. Organizations and individuals everywhere are navigating the same uncertainty and unknown. In fact, 63% of Americans say they’re stressed about the unknown. But our workforce doesn’t have to feel like it’s navigating the unknown alone or without support.

Creating future-centric leaders in our organisations will help keep our employees agile, healthy, and engaged. Researchshows that future-centric leaders report increased team agility, team performance, innovation, and resilience. 82% of people have significant room for improvement in at least one area of future-centric leadership skills.

4. The Journey Starts from Within

It takes a “leadershift” — a balance between standing back and seeing the big picture (vision) and moving in close while painting all of the fine details (execution). BIG Picture Thinkers dream of the opportunities, not just the problems, they see possibilities, not barriers. They have the capability of see across the wall.

BIG Picture leaders then take those abstract thoughts and envision strategic outcomes. They can make a plan for how to create opportunities from challenges, and outcomes that drive an organization to somewhere ahead of where it is today. BIG Picture leaders elevate possibilities, processes and people.

5. Convert Plans into Action

Since we are discussing the BIG Picture Thinking and painting a vision, let’s see what the great artist Pablo Picasso had to say: “Our goals can only be reached through the vehicle of a plan. There is no other route to success.”

As we look through our own leadership lens today, let’s ask ourselves:

Do we have a vision for what we do?
Is our vision in sync with our life goals?
Are the goals outlined with a plan that is SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound)?
Does our vision include leading others toward the end state? If so, am I more focused on managing an operation or leading people?

SummaryIn short, “Symphony” is the ability to see the big picture not only in terms of analysis, but also to integrate and synthesise to see that the whole is greater than the sum of all the parts. It is a capacity that each person has to a degree. The more this symphony is cultivated the easier it becomes to communicate and understand the job as a whole, the significance of each part to success, and the subtle interrelationships among the parts.

Let’s not forget that the change is the only constant and is necessary for evolution. Leadership Guru John C. Maxwell writes in his book Leadershift, “You cannot be the same, think the same, and act the same if you hope to be successful in a world that does not remain the same”.

View Details

With all the talk about layoffs, and top companies laying off thousands at a time over the past year, we’re seeing more and more individuals using what’s called Career Cushioning. This refers to maintaining a safety net – or backup plan -while pursuing your primary career goals. This safety net includes such scenarios as a side job, freelance work, a secondary source of income. Not to mention, professionals are job searching with the hope of lining something up should they end up laid off.

The purpose: to provide financial stability and security, especially during times of uncertainty or transition in one’s primary career path. In short, this is a strategy where professionals take steps to create ‘just-in-case’ alternate paths of employment in the event they lose their current job.

According to a recent post on the HubSpot.com, a site with tools, software and info for businesses, Career Cushioning allows you to ‘cushion the blow’ if you lose your job unexpectedly. It’s about being proactive and creating additional opportunities for yourself in the event of a layoff or sudden termination.

The practice of career cushioning has continued to escalate. And while it wasn’t called Career Cushioning in the past, professionals have been doing just this for decades.

businessinsider.com says – “A slew of companies across the tech, media, finance, and retail industries made significant cuts to staff in 2023. Tech titans like IBM, Google, Microsoft, finance giants like Goldman Sachs, and manufacturers like Dow, all announced layoffs”. With all these layoffs by top companies, such as these – over the past year – workers are feeling unsettled. Even employees with a history of stable employment may harbor apprehensions about their future within their company. Also, we’re seeing the elimination of mid-level positions. For example – management roles. Unfortunately, the firing of a manager or specific leader can cause a domino effect in terms of staff turnover.

Remaining vigilant about the job market is prudent regardless the situation, and utilizing this practice can enable you to gauge the market regarding your skills. That said, this practice could also pave the way for significant discussions within your current organization. In short, staying aware of the marketplace can help you grasp the needs of prospective employers providing you an opportunity to upskill or venture into a completely new professional area via reskilling.

7 Tips for Career Cushioning1. Stay visible – Update your Profile on LinkedIn – post comments and articles of value on a regular basis. 2. Take time to diversify your skills. For example – broaden your skill set. This helps you make yourself adaptable to different roles and industries. Having a diverse range of skills can increase your employability and resilience in the face of changing job demands. 3. Develop and solicit feedback from mentors to identify areas for improvement and professional growth. A mentor can offer valuable guidance and support during challenging career transitions. 4. Participate in informational interviews. This is a meeting between an individual seeking information about a career, industry, company, or specific role and a professional who possesses relevant knowledge and experience in that area. Unlike a traditional job interview, the primary goal of an informational interview is to gather insights, advice and firsthand perspectives rather than securing a job offer. During an informational interview, an individual typically asks questions to learn about various aspects of the profession, such as day-to-day responsibilities, required skills and qualifications, career paths, industry trends and challenges, for example. It’s an opportunity for the interviewee to gain valuable insights into the field they’re interested in and to expand their professional network. 5. Get Certified. Skill Validation Certifications validate your skills and expertise in a specific domain. They provide tangible evidence to employers or clients you possess the necessary knowledge and competencies to excel in your field. In today’s competitive job market, having certifications can set you apart from other candidates. They demonstrate your dedication to staying current with industry trends and technologies, making you a more attractive candidate to potential employers. 6. Network. Networking exposes professionals to a broader range of career opportunities. Whether job openings, freelance projects or collaborations, networking can quickly connect individuals with opportunities they might not have otherwise encountered. Networking is engaging with peers, mentors, and industry leaders which can provide valuable feedback, guidance and mentorship opportunities. Professionals can learn from the experiences of others, gain new perspectives and receive advice on career advancement strategies. 7. Offer your services on a freelance site. Freelancing opens up a world of diverse opportunities. As a freelancer you can work with clients from various industries, regions and backgrounds, allowing you to expand your skills and knowledge, This can also provide opportunities for continuous learning and growth. Plus can help you build your network.

Overall, career cushioning is a strategic approach to career management which prioritizes financial stability and flexibility. Bottom line – it enables individuals to pursue their primary career goals with greater confidence and resilience, knowing they have a backup plan in place to support them during challenging times.

View Details

The Assumption of CompetenceIn the corporate world, there’s a pervasive assumption that once an employee climbs to a certain rung on the ladder, they inherently possess all the skills necessary to lead effectively. This belief is rooted in the idea that experience alone is a sufficient teacher and that seniority equates to leadership prowess. However, this assumption is flawed and can lead to a dangerous neglect of ongoing leadership development.

The Consequences of NeglectWhen organizations operate under this assumption, they inadvertently set their leaders—and by extension, their teams—up for failure. Leaders may become isolated, losing touch with the ground realities of their teams. This isolation can breed a form of insulation where leaders are cocooned in their established ways, resistant to new ideas or blind to emerging issues within their teams.

The Ripple Effect of IsolationThis isolation doesn’t just affect the leaders; it trickles down, affecting team dynamics and performance. Leaders who are not up-to-date with the latest management techniques or who lack self-awareness may inadvertently pass on bad habits to their team members. These habits can manifest as poor communication, ineffective feedback, or a lack of empathy—each of which can erode team morale and productivity.

The Need for Continuous LearningLeadership is not a static skill set but a dynamic one that requires continuous learning and adaptation. Just as industries evolve, so too must the skills and approaches of those who lead within them. Leadership training should be seen as a continuous journey, not a destination reached at a certain job title.

Investing in GrowthOrganizations must invest in their leaders at all levels, providing them with the tools, training, and support they need to grow. This investment pays dividends in the form of more engaged, productive teams and a culture that values growth and learning.

ConclusionThe myth of self-sufficiency in leadership is not just a disservice to the leaders themselves but to the entire organization.

By committing to continuous leadership development, companies can foster a culture of excellence, adaptability, and shared success.

Orlando Haynes and I talk about the negative consequences, need for continuous learning and investing in growth in their leaders on his CareerTalks podcast.

Listen to full podcast here:

View Details

Have you ever caught yourself making a snap judgment about someone based on their clothing, accent, or even the music they listen to? We all have. Prejudice, aggression, and violence – these dark aspects of human behaviour seem ingrained in our nature. But what if they’re not inevitable? Let’s delve into the fascinating science behind these behaviours and explore ways to cultivate a more peaceful world.

Our brains are wired for efficiency. We categorize everything, including people. This “in-group, out-group” mentality served our ancestors well, uniting them against threats. However, in today’s diverse world, it can fuel prejudice. A 2022 study in Nature Human Behaviour found that the brain activates the reward centre more when people from our in-group succeed, but punishes betrayal from that same group even more harshly. We crave belonging, and negativity towards outsiders strengthens our internal bonds.

Economic hardship and social anxieties can be a breeding ground for prejudice. A 2021 study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science revealed that people experiencing financial strain were more likely to hold negative attitudes towards immigrants. Fear of losing jobs or resources can make us see outsiders as a threat. Moreover, injustice breeds negative behaviour towards others. Though it can be justified yet it’s always advisable to take the high road. What’s the difference between someone who does wrong and someone who responded back the same way.

A constant stream of “us vs. them” narratives in news and social media can exacerbate these biases. Confirmation bias, our tendency to seek out information that confirms our existing beliefs, gets amplified in echo chambers online. This can lead to stereotyping and demonizing entire groups of people. People are different and will hold different opinions. It is not our job to diminish their identity or to develop a superiority complex. The person who downgrades others consistently reveals his/her insecurities. A confident person will always welcome diverse viewpoints.

From Jerk to Jewel!The good news is, our brains are also incredibly adaptable. We can combat these negative tendencies by Challenging stereotypes. When you find yourself making assumptions, question them. Actively seek out experiences that broaden your perspective. Reflect on why you get triggered by a specific person or situation. Acknowledge your own mistakes or improper behaviour. Stop playing the blame game. Be accountable and responsible.

Put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Read diverse stories, watch documentaries, and have conversations with people from different backgrounds. Acknowledge the fact that we all are different individuals, with our own unique strengths and weaknesses.

It is not always just about you or a single individual or organization. The world does not revolve around you. So, stop glorifying yourself and be humble. What you are blessed with today can be taken away from you tomorrow in the blink of a moment. So, there is nothing to feel so arrogant about. We never know what people are going through in their real lives, so it is always best to be kind.

Working or socializing with people from different groups can break down stereotypes and foster understanding. Communication is a powerful tool, provided you know how to use it. In this digital age, there is no excuse to not communicate properly. It is all about your willingness to invest in that relationship whether personal or professional. When people from different backgrounds open up we realize what was hidden and where we were blinded by prejudice, biases, and even arrogance. A person who struggles in life is far more stronger than one who gets everything easily.

Embrace The Power of “We”. By recognizing our shared humanity, we can build a more inclusive world.

Social psychologist Gordon Allport believed that intergroup contact is key to reducing prejudice. Schools and communities can play a crucial role in creating opportunities for positive interaction. When the foundation is strong, the structure is strong. True strength lies not in crushing dissent, but in the civility with which we engage it. A single act of civility can spark a ripple effect, weaving a tapestry of respect through the roughest of divides.

Prejudice, aggression, and violence may have roots in our evolutionary past, but they are not our destiny. By understanding the forces that shape our biases and actively promoting empathy and understanding, we can cultivate a world where “us” encompasses everyone. Civility is the bridge we build, not to surrender our ground, but to reach common ground.

Cracking the Code of Rudeness!Let’s take the example of why people troll: The Neuroscience Behind Online Nastiness. The anonymity of the internet seems to unleash a beast in some of us. Trolls spew vitriol, conspiracy theories run rampant, and civility takes a nosedive. Why are we so much meaner online than in person? It turns out, our dark side has a fascinating dance with technology, and the answer lies in the murky depths of our brains.

One culprit is the lack of social cues. Studies using eye-tracking technology show we focus less on emotional expressions online, hindering empathy. This disconnect from the human cost of our words emboldens us to be crueler.

Dopamine, the brain’s reward chemical, also plays a role. Upvotes, likes, and the notoriety of getting a rise out of others can trigger dopamine spikes, making negativity strangely addictive. Think of it as getting a twisted pat on the back for bad behaviour.

Social media algorithms can exacerbate the problem. They prioritize engagement, meaning inflammatory content often gets the most traction, creating echo chambers that reinforce negativity. It’s like being stuck in a room where everyone yells the loudest.

But there’s a silver lining. Research by Stanford University suggests virtual reality experiences that foster empathy can actually reduce prejudice. Imagine confronting your online persona head-on – a sobering thought!

Additionally, platforms that require real-name verification or gamify positive interactions could nudge users towards more constructive behaviour. Think of online badges for kindness or “cool down” periods before posting.

The internet is a powerful tool, and just like fire, it can be used for good or ill. Understanding the dark psychology behind online nastiness is the first step towards taming it. By harnessing technology’s potential to foster empathy and build better online communities, we can turn the tide of digital incivility and create a more humane virtual world.

View Details

I was looking outside when I glanced a luxurious car parking under what looked like a healthy tree. Suddenly, a big branch of the tree fell on the car and damaged it. This reminded me of the Fallen Tree Branch Syndrome. A tree that looks healthy is not.

My mind drew analogy between the fallen branch syndrome and the fallen branch of employees’ morale.

Researchers are still undecided on the reasons why a healthy-looking tree drops its branches suddenly. One reason is due to overwatering the tree and rotting its roots. This leads to the sudden fall of the tree branches.

There are early indicators of the fallen branch of the employees’ morale by lowering their emotions state. Morale in the workplace is a key driver of a company’s success. Detectable signs of fallen morale include

Lower productivity compared to previous performances.
Increased gossiping, backbiting and spread of rumors in an organization.
Increased illnesses among employees and reporting late to work.
Lower quality of customers’ service
Increased waste of time due to increasing mistakes by employees.
Forgetting appointments
Sleeping during meetings and agreeing with the group without serious discussions
Increased floor dirt such as thrown napkins on the floor
Increased conflicts among employees
Employees not putting their maximum effort in the work
Fallen creativity and continuing doing the same without attempting to improve work
Late to respond to customers’ phone calls and complaints
Prevalence of toxic culture

When employees’ morale is high, they engage, contribute and care for the quality of their work. This is because employees with good morale levels value their work.

This results in higher team unity and productivity. Employees care to work in keeping with the companies’ mission, vision and goals. Those employees try again if they fail and learn from their failures. They care to improve their work and generate new ideas.

Be careful to assume that what looks a healthy morale tree may drop its branches and fail the work. Care to detect the early signs of falling morale.

View Details

The importance of inspiration in leadership has been long known. When people are inspired by the behavior of an individual, that inspiration can shape actions, goals, and outcomes. Ultimately, those who inspire others not only have a “significant positive impact on their followers,” but also on social systems (Cakir, & Adiguzel, 2020).

In order to inspire others, however, a leader must himself be inspired. Effective leaders make it a habit to seek out sources of inspiration rather than expecting it to find them. This starts by knowing yourself, recognizing areas for growth, and determining how to share oneself with others in a meaningful way. Part of knowing yourself is “questioning [your] character, which is defined by the sense of purpose, values, aspirations, and personal resilience” (Shet, 2020). To grow as a leader and a person who inspires others, leaders must begin by creating discomfort. Staying in your comfort zone may be understandable and even logical, but to grow, we must try something new (Resto, 2021). For those who desire to inspire as they lead, this must involve looking for new sources of inspiration.

Inspiration from outside your comfort zoneOne of the most-overlooked places for inspiration are people outside your regular work sphere. There are people in different industries who possess amazing abilities, characteristics, and ooze inspiration that you can absorb or emulate. Circumstances that aren’t precisely parallel with those of your own industry are no reason to ignore the wisdom and motivation that can be offered outside one’s circles of influence.

Seeking inspiration from those in our own field can often be hampered by a sense of competition. In a competitive mode we can then become self-critical, which can undermine confidence. By looking for inspiration outside one’s industry, you can learn from others you admire with self-compassion and without unhelpful comparison. You are more readily able to remain in observation mode when interacting with others. “Learning from others depends on people’s ability to integrate their own and others’ experiences” and then understanding what can be learned, adopted or discarded (Moskaliuk, Bokhorst, & Cress, 2016). We may unintentionally be discarding experiences from outside our usual spheres and missing inspiring moments in the process.

Good leaders must shift from this automatic mode and instead observe, note, and adopt, even from unexpected sources. Reflecting on interactions or journaling about encounters with those who inspire us helps us take notice of our surroundings and drive learning.

Furthermore, inspirational leaders set challenging objectives, use symbols to get ideas across, provide meaning for suggested action, envision an attractive and attainable future, and appeal to feelings (Bass, & Riggio, 2006). Leaders must challenge themselves to look at others outside their industry and learn from them and apply their perspectives and approaches to their own work. When leaders show individual consideration or are motivated by others intellectually, they replenish their well of inspiration to draw from to stir up others (Bakker, Hetland, Olsen, & Espevik, 2022).

Consider the examples below of three individuals from different walks of life, then expand this exercise to think of people who inspire from outside your normal day-to-day work and social life.

Profile A. Incarcerated Person serving sentence in prisonIn my work with a prison ministry, I have been continuously inspired by a particular Incarcerated Person who exhibits a high level of gratitude. Gratitude is defined as “a generalized tendency to recognize and respond with grateful emotion to the roles of other people’s benevolence in the positive experiences and outcomes that one obtains (Li, Wu, Brown, & Dong, 2022).” Observing how this person speaks and interacts with others and noticing the ways his gratitude inspires the same in those around him is challenging and instructive. Leaders can learn from his example how to cultivate gratitude that is contagious—even in challenging circumstances.

Profile B. School Nurse providing daily day-to-day care in a school systemA School Nurse was concerned that her colleagues were no longer seeing the best in their students and appeared to be exhibiting compassion burnout. Compassion doesn’t follow a give-and-take approach, and the school nurse had experienced this first-hand. Her response to her colleagues’ attitudes toward their students was to “ask questions that allow them to interrogate their approach and teach them to spot their own assumptions” by simply asking why (Davey, 2023). This was sometimes as simple as asking teachers why a student needed to seek medical attention when no medical issue existed or giving feedback to the teacher about the student that humanized the pupil, thus helping the teacher to see the child beyond any preconceived notions, refreshing an incomplete perception of the student, and reestablishing a compassionate connection between the student and teacher.

Profile C. Public Relations and Marketing Manager in the tourism industryA Marketing Manager works hard within her team to improve the team dynamics. She facilitates discussion on a project to improve employee engagement, helps diminish team members’ frustration, and examines ways that offering the option to work either remotely or in-person can be fulfilling and engaging. Her desire to see the team perform well together and her compassionate, creative, and flexible approach to their well-being influences her employees’ performance and contributes to the success of the organization (Swanson, Kim, Lee, Yang, & Lee, 2020).

Profile D. Yoga InstructorHealth and peace are closely linked. A Yoga Instructor inspires by focusing on developing health and by teaching her pupils to cultivate and increase their self-awareness, body-awareness, emotional regulation, and attention regulation through relaxation, diet, exercise, and challenging the status quo of Western medicine (Fogel, 2020). Her teachings promote confidence in their sense of self that allows them to engage with intentionality and to respond to challenges in a way that is experienced as authentic by both the leader and those they are leading (Fonow, Cook, Goldsand, & Burke-Miller, 2017).

ConclusionAs Shivam Agarwal muses, often, “we surround ourselves with people we are most comfortable with and forget about the world which exists in the parallel” (Agarwal, 2019). Effective leaders seek inspiration from individuals who are “enthusiastic about their job, their life, or their family, and who convey their enthusiasm and good energy” to others (Economy, 2016). However, it may feel fresher or more distinct when it’s outside the industry that you are embedded within. The attitudes of people who are passionate about what they do are infectious, and these people exist in many unexpected places if you are willing to take the time to observe.

Experienced leaders know that “what works in one situation will not necessarily work every time” (McKinsey and Company, 2022). Therefore, diverse experiences and exposure to events, situations, and people will help develop a vast repertoire of skills, which will not only catalyze your personal growth, but will also increase the likelihood of being successful in different situations.

Self-assessment and reflection are key to finding inspiration and inspiring others.

The next time you interact with a colleague or someone outside your organization, try writing down as many things as possible that inspire you about that person. Note why it inspires you and consider your current ability on the traits you listed to discern how their example might help you grow as a leader.

In the words of leadership expert Jeff Moore: “It may seem that inspiration is what leads to action but this is not always true; the truth is that action is what leads to inspiration” (Moore, 2022).

Editor’s Note: This Article originally appeared on NY Weekly and is featured here with author permission.

View Details

In a chat with a colleague, I confessed that there is one position I try to go to in case I have any doubt about my leadership abilities. I would rather be considered a humble learner than a know-it-all. Learning brings two things out — first, we create space for other’s opinions, and second, listen with an open mind.

Again, taking such a position is a luxury for most of us. Being the visionary and the lead player in the business, it might be on us to be at the front, making it difficult to become a student. If we were to stop and let the other go to the front, we could see how the organization would look without us at the helm. The first challenge of leading from the front is the ability to see the way ahead, at least till the path turns a corner. If somebody else could peek further down the road and give their views, we would have another pair of eyes seeing the same path ahead and concluding.

This leads to two questions: Would we accept a diverse view than us? Would we let somebody else lead, at least for a moment? It is hard to let go, especially if there is a disparity in intellectual levels, or the ability to envisage. Most people can’t handle abstract layers and therefore are uncomfortable taking the lead. Some may shun the spotlight because they would rather express but not explain and defend, others might just be uncomfortable with the abstract.

However, I have observed that three factors make a good student out of a leader.

First, curiosity — unbridled curiosity to learn from the smarter people around; Second, humility — the attribute that makes one willing to accept another’s excellence; third, gratitude — a sense of thankfulness that makes you acknowledge other’s contributions.

Let us examine these three closely. Before that, I would like to set the context of why I consider myself a student.

A Journey as a Student into Leadership:As I transitioned from my corporate job into a self-employed phase, I embarked on projects that suited me. I was a natural in many subjects — content writing, website building, building sales funnels and teams, setting up operations for a foreign company, and business consulting. The list could go on. I was faced with a problem of plenty. I expanded my team to address a few projects, but I was mostly the face of my work, and I started feeling the stress of running sales, marketing, delivery, payment, and collection. I came to a point where I needed to start a different journey, albeit being successful as a solopreneur. If I could become part of a team, it would make me focus on my strengths, and let others bring their skills and experience that could complement mine.

My partners brought complementary strengths in finance and investment banking, while I added my strengths in strategy and organization building. We had a meeting of minds, chemistry, and zest to drive the business. It took some time for me to realize that I had learned a lot on the job, but more from my partners. I could take pride in being excellent academically, but it was more than that. It was an unsatiated curiosity to learn as we built our business. To achieve this, I listened to my partners, and their years of experience added to the collective wisdom that made our decisions more enduring.

My biggest learning was to be part of a team. It did not matter how smart I was, what mattered was the loyalty to the team. Even if I was doing the gruntwork of 80%, the balance of 20% could only be achieved with the team. If 100% of any desired result, the 80% would fall short without the 20%. So the 20% became more important than the 80% that I contributed. It brought me to the point of accepting that I was part of something, rather than being the only thing of nothing. A beautiful part of this journey was the acceptance of the interdependence. I felt humbler and grateful, and I was vindicated. During my bad days and poor patches, the team stood up for me and took things forward.

To distill the experience, I could say that I became a student, learning lessons about life, partnership, and teams. From an unequivocal leader in a corporate setup, I became part of a leadership team that balanced various aspects — skills, situations, decisions, and backing each other up. It turned out that being a student put me in places that I would not have been otherwise, but the results were amazing — easier conflict resolution, better decision-making, and faster execution.

This transformation has held me in good stead when I have worked with new teams. The new teams have relative newcomers, but they are specialists and experts in their own right. Here, I become the student as it enables me not only to understand their thoughts but also to listen to their perspectives. It is a ringside view of how ideas come to life.

Let us now examine the three important qualities of a studious leader.

a) Curiosity

Einstein describes curiosity as persistent interest and patience to chase a problem to its solution. For a startup founder or a leader, curiosity is the guiding force to propel forward. Whether it is about the vision or a smaller task, curiosity becomes the beacon of studentship. Curiosity brings genuine interest. But there is a caveat — a filter about understanding the relevance of any input that directly lies in the path of the subject in question. Many have considered curiosity as a serious, single-track attribute, but the fact is that curiosity is built on persistence, focus, and patience.

I have seen more curious people. Their learning methods are deeper — taking notes, asking for clarifications, tagging open points, admitting a lack of understanding, requesting examples, etc., It is inspiring to build conversations about the subject, in the process of sharing, we learn. Such learnings make good building blocks for business.

b) Humility

Humility is the other side of the coin called curiosity. A student who is curious to learn should be willing to be humble.

“A great man is always willing to be little.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson**

No teacher ever reveals the true wisdom to a haughty disciple — for the shedding of the ego is the first step in the path of wisdom. If we apply the same logic of curiosity, which makes us students and our fellow founders teachers, we need to be ready to listen. Listening comes with genuine empathetic focus and that comes with being humble.

I have found humility as the biggest challenge to handle — not because it is difficult, but because we forget that we are the students. If we are curious but not humble, we become intellectual show-offs(and I know this, because people use the word genius around me). Humility is the first lesson for a curious student.

c) Gratitude

We are curious. We are humble. Now, we have studied our lessons. The third quality — gratitude is the last piece of the tripod of leadership. Gratitude is the basic but the most genuine form of respect. Gratitude is also about seeing the goodness in others — we can be grateful that even thorns have roses ( or feel cursed that roses have thorns.)

A simple acknowledgment that the others have been our teachers is enough. When gratitude is the bond that binds the team, it makes the space for everybody to contribute better, as they are acknowledged and their inputs more meaningful. Gratitude is fundamental to the formation of tribes. African tribes have expressive ways of thanking their fellow tribespeople. In a team, if the stakeholders acknowledge each other’s contributions, it brings them together as a bonded force to achieve the milestones.

If we assume that these qualities could be cultivated, then we could consider a structured approach to becoming a studious leader.

The Feynmann approach to learning as a leader:Being a student is beyond listening — it requires a lot of reading (and watching videos these days) and thinking. The deeper one understands a subject, the better one can contribute to decision-making. Of course, there is the basic intellectual quotient. I would follow Feynmann’s technique (which is counter-intuitive for me).

a) Select a subject to learn: The subject in question is about understanding incubators and academic institutions. It is important to crystallize the thoughts about them, mostly in context. The five Ws and H’s approach helps to construct the basic understanding of cultivating entrepreneurship culture and supporting startups from these academic institutions to commercial success. The first step is to understand the lay of the land.
b) Simplify the subject: The deeper the understanding evolves, the more complex the learning becomes. But to transmit the learnings to other stakeholders, the same has to be distilled into simpler words. The simplicity comes in articulating the understanding in simple, succinct words. Using tables, bullets, and pictures — workflows, block diagrams, and mind maps, such understanding can be simplified. In the above example, understanding the gap and mapping the possible solutions could be constructed as a table.

c) Review and Refine: Capturing the essence in various documents, tables, and diagrams will allow the stakeholders to consume, comment, and convince ( or get convinced) about the idea. The revisions and refinements are to distill the idea to further simplicity. Simplicity is the ultimate goal — clarity of thoughts expressed shortly and succinctly to the finest possible understanding between the stakeholders, and finally to the external world.

d) Organize and Review: The idea is to unify opinions and address them — normally such decisions from the learnings above lead to unanimity in the way forward. When the decisions are at the topmost level, it is important to get stakeholder buy-in and track disagreements in a manner that does not impede the progress of business.

By applying a structured approach and adopting the qualities of curiosity, humility, and gratitude, one can become a studious leader.

In Summary

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry**

If a person feels the thirst of curiosity to achieve the vision and they see in their tribe the same hunger, the yearning to chase the dream becomes the unifying factor, acknowledging the contributions of his tribe. In a sense, they become a leader in their own right.

View Details

I feel that saying our workplace is just like our family might have been appropriate in the 20th century but not anymore. Back when family models were more stronger, positive and universal, the association might have sounded appealing, even inspiring. And in an era when employees felt more loyalty to their employers and employers expected more as well, a family-like organisation might have been productive.

Speaking as both an employee and a line manager, one of the most common approaches I’ve seen is the myth that one’s team should be a family. While this idea may sound appealing on the surface as part of the employee engagement campaign, it can have detrimental consequences for both the employees and the company as a whole.

In this age, trying to run an organization just like a family — or even merely saying that one does — will hold them back, and may even backfire.

Precisely, our companies are not like our families because:

We Don’t Let Go Our Family Member?First and foremost, equating a workplace to a family dynamic doesn’t align with the reality of professional life. In a family setting, we don’t typically decide to let go of our least productive family members. In contrast, businesses often need to make tough decisions to ensure their survival and success, which may involve letting go of underperforming or morally challenged employees.

By blurring the lines between family and work, it can lead to unrealistic expectations, causing confusion when such decisions are made, and morale can suffer as a result. There will inevitably come a time when, whether through firing or layoffs, we have to terminate some employees’ employment. If we tell people they’re our family and then we let them go, they will consider us hypocrites — and they’ll be right.

Suggested Watch: Why good leaders make you feel safe?

An Overdone Loyalty Doesn’t WorkWhen any of our own family members is in need or requires significant commitment on our part, we rarely have to think twice. At least, that’s the perception among intra-family relationships. Placed into a work setting,loyaltycan get misinterpreted and expectations will go above and beyond to do anything to get the job done. According to Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones’ book, The Character of a Corporation, in family cultures, employees are willing to step in to assist others when the need arises, or even volunteer to “help before they’re asked” in the most selfless manner.

But here is the flip side. Numerous examples and research show that overly loyal people are more likely to act asslavesand sometimes they participate inunethical actsto keep their jobs and are also more likely tobe exploitedby their employers. These could manifest as being asked to work unreasonable hours or on projects or assignments unrelated to their roles, orkeeping things under wrapsbecause it is in the company’s best interest. We’re all in this together, so we’ve to play our part.

Personal & Professional Lines Shouldn’t BlurWe must understand that “family” means different things to different people. Not everyone wants to connect with their coworkers on a deeper and personal level, let alone create a dependency to the organization. In a professional context, an employee will want to reserve private details of their personal lives outside of work. But when we try and make our workplace as a “family,” these types of conversations can be fair game, as the goal of the organisation is to encourage socialisation for the benefit of the whole.

On the other hand, according to a research, when an organisation uses the family metaphor in businesses, it creates a positive, motivating and morale-boosting culture, where colleagues are not seen as colleagues any more, but as brothers or sisters, moms and dads, uncles and aunts. While it can reduce conflicts and disagreements within the organisation, a fear of causing a strain in the relationship with their superiors (who are now seen as fathers or mothers) could leave employees feeling like they must share any information that is being asked of them, which, in principle, intrudes our private domain.

Wrap Up — What Companies Need to Do Instead?When fostering a healthy, supportive culture, let’s avoid promoting a “family” mentality and focus on putting in place actions and structures that bring value to and support our employees. E.g. think of our organization as a sports team or a tribe instead. In doing so, you retain a culture of empathy, collectiveness, belonging, and shared values and goals, while outlining a performance-driven culture that respects the transactional nature of this relationship. To promote a more balanced culture:

1. Define Expectations At The Outset

Let’s be upfront and clarify expectations. Employees are paid and are expected to do a good job. However, the sense of comfort, humility and empathy must always stay there. When building teams and onboarding new employees, make sure to disassociate the jargon of “family” from conversations around high performance and purpose. Let your employees know what is expected of them to succeed at work and that there is a clear line between work and their personal lives.

Researchsuggestsdefining purpose can lead to a heightened sense of loyalty and stronger employee engagement, especially when the company’s overlaps with the employee’s purpose. Clearly define and communicate the purpose: What are you trying to achieve? What is your employee’s role in helping you get there? A shared purpose can get everyone rowing in the same direction.

Set Clear Boundaries

The grayer the policy, the more opportunities for misunderstanding. Make sure employees understand what’s expected of them when it comes to work hours and what lies beyond standard work hours. Support your employee’s endeavors and let them know that vacation is not only encouraged but expected. Share team calendars where everyone lists out their paid time off (PTO) and ideas for new vacations.

If employees start to feel overwhelmed and can no longer manage performance expectations, make it clear what options are available to find support and get back on track. Can they take time off? Can team members pitch in to make their workload more manageable? Can priorities be reshuffled?

Mutually Acceptance of Work Relationship

We have to be realistic about the relationships employees build with their employers and remember that it is transactional. Most people won’t stay in the same company for their entire career and that’s completely okay. As organisations grow, so do the roles and every organisation can be outgrown by its employees if there aren’t enough opportunities for the employee to grow or if the organisation doesn’t need the employees’ skills or experiences anymore.

Be candid about setting this expectation as early as the onboarding. If an employee has decided to leave, don’t take offence about them not wanting to work at our orgs any longer. Acknowledge their contribution and help them exit respectfully. If we don’t need their skill’s anymore, ask how we can help them find a more suitable position within or outside the company.

View Details

How can you effectively support people at work and in your community, especially when they’re different from you? Inclusion strategist Amber Cabral shares three steps you can take to build connection — emphasizing that even small, everyday actions can make a big difference to those around you.

View Details

We are experiencing a lot of buffeting in these times…buffeting which can disturb our inner equilibrium which in turn can affect how we show up in the world….our Presence.

Maintaining an inner and higher point of focus can help us guard against this buffeting as we dis-identify from the outer effects (things breaking, technology playing up, communication feeling challenged) and see a bigger picture, a higher unfolding, a larger landscape. Buffeting is inevitable in any change and no more so than in global human transformation.

If we can find that point of dis-identification, we can more easily accept that the challenges are simultaneously personal and impersonal, meaning we can both enquire into what they are asking of us and strive to see the deeper patterns that are unfolding within the changes. As we see those deeper patterns we can develop greater understanding and insight enabling us to play our own role in the world even more effectively.

Standing in a place of dis-identification enables us to move in the world with more compassion, more understanding and more grace all of which we might describe as being in presence, a quality which is sorely needed if we are to support the transformations needed for the greater good.

View Details

In a world obsessed with hustle culture and #winning, the pressure to achieve perfection is omnipresent. We push ourselves to the limit, fueled by the belief that anything less than perfect is a failure. But what if this relentless pursuit of flawlessness is actually holding us back? What if, in our quest for the unattainable 100%, we’re sacrificing the perfectly good 80% that could be more than enough?

Consider the CostThe truth is, that striving for perfection comes at a steep price. It leads to:

Burnout and exhaustion: The constant pressure to be perfect takes a toll on our mental and physical health. We become stressed, anxious, and sleep-deprived, ultimately hindering our ability to perform at our best.
Paralysis by analysis: The fear of making mistakes can lead to overthinking and inaction. We get bogged down in details, unable to make decisions or move forward with projects.
Unrealistic expectations: When we hold ourselves to impossible standards, we set ourselves up for disappointment and frustration. This can damage our self-esteem and negatively impact our relationships.
Missed opportunities: Perfectionism can make us hesitant to take risks or put ourselves out there. We might miss out on valuable learning experiences and opportunities for growth because we’re too afraid of not being perfect.

So, if perfection is such a burden, why do we cling to it so tightly? Often, it’s driven by:

Fear of failure: We associate imperfection with failure, and the fear of being judged or rejected can be paralyzing.
Need for control: In a world that feels increasingly uncertain, striving for perfection can offer a sense of control and order.
External pressures: Societal expectations, competition, and even well-meaning encouragement from others can contribute to the pressure to be perfect.

But it’s time to challenge these narratives. Here’s why embracing “good enough” might be the key to unlocking your true potential:

Focus on progress, not perfection: Aiming for continuous improvement, rather than an unattainable ideal, allows you to celebrate small wins and stay motivated.
Prioritize efficiency and effectiveness: Striving for 80% doesn’t mean doing shoddy work. It means identifying what truly matters and focusing your energy there.
Embrace the power of “done”: Sometimes, the best outcome is simply getting something finished and out there. Don’t let the pursuit of perfection prevent you from sharing your work with the world.
Learn from mistakes: Mistakes are inevitable, but they’re also valuable learning opportunities. Embrace them as stepping stones on your path to growth.
Make space for self-compassion: Be kind to yourself. Recognize that you are human, and that imperfection is part of the journey.

This doesn’t mean we should abandon all standards or settle for mediocrity. It’s about striking a balance, recognizing that striving for excellence is different from chasing an impossible ideal. Here are some tips for finding that sweet spot:

Define your “good enough”: What level of quality is acceptable for you, given the context and purpose of the task?
Set realistic goals: Break down large projects into smaller, achievable steps. Celebrate milestones along the way.
Practice saying “no”: Don’t overload yourself by taking on too much. Learn to prioritize and delegate when necessary.
Embrace imperfection: Allow yourself to make mistakes and learn from them. Don’t let the fear of imperfection hold you back.
Focus on progress, not perfection: Track your progress over time and celebrate how far you’ve come.

Remember, perfectionism is a thief. It steals our time, energy, and joy. By letting go of the need to be perfect, we free ourselves to be more productive, creative, and fulfilled. So, take a deep breath, embrace the 80%, and watch your potential soar.

The world needs your unique contributions, not a never-ending quest for an unattainable ideal.

Perfectionism. It’s a double-edged sword.On one side, it fuels ambition, drives excellence, and pushes us to be the best versions of ourselves. On the other, it morphs into a relentless inner critic, whispering that “good” isn’t good enough, and “almost” is a four-letter word. But the true cost of perfectionism goes far beyond just bruised egos and missed deadlines. It can chip away at our happiness, relationships, and even our mental and physical health.

The Paradox of Perfection: Perfection is, by definition, unattainable. It’s an ever-receding mirage that keeps us chasing a shimmering illusion. The pursuit itself becomes the prize, leaving us perpetually dissatisfied with anything less than flawless. This constant state of striving creates a breeding ground for anxiety, depression, and burnout.

The Collateral Damage: The casualties of perfectionism extend beyond the individual. It can warp our perception of others, fostering unhealthy comparisons and creating a pressure cooker of judgment. In relationships, it manifests as emotional withdrawal, difficulty accepting vulnerability, and an inability to truly connect.

The High Price Tag: The cost of chasing perfection is steep. It steals our joy, stifles creativity, and hinders growth. It whispers that mistakes are failures, and failures define us. This fear of imperfection paralyzes us, preventing us from taking risks, trying new things, and ultimately, living our fullest lives.

Breaking Free: So, how do we escape this gilded cage? The first step is awareness. Recognizing the signs of perfectionism in ourselves and its impact on our lives is crucial. Next, we can challenge the distorted beliefs that fuel it. Are our standards realistic? Whose approval are we seeking? What are the consequences of holding ourselves to impossible standards?

Embracing Imperfection: The key to unlocking ourselves from the prison of perfection lies in embracing imperfection. It’s about accepting that mistakes are inevitable, and even valuable growth opportunities. It’s about celebrating authenticity, vulnerability, and the beauty of being “human.”

Remember, the pursuit of excellence is noble, but the pursuit of perfection is crippling. Let go of the need to be flawless. Embrace the messy, magnificent reality of being perfectly imperfect. It’s there, in the cracks and flaws, that the true beauty and resilience of the human spirit shines through.

View Details

EPISODE SUMMARYIf it’s too much to manage either throttle back for a bit or manage for just 1 day.

EPISODE NOTESHello to you listening in Antioch, California! Coming to you from Whidbey Island, Washington this is Stories From Women Who Walk with 60 Seconds for Motivate Your Monday and your host, Diane Wyzga.

Maybe you’ve heard someone caution you by saying, “You’ve bitten off more than you can chew” meaning that you might choke. Perhaps we’re being ambitious with good reason; or, maybe we’ve taken on more commitments than we can fulfill.

Right now I’m juggling this daily podcast, my robust Quarter Moon Story Arts consulting practice, Every Now & Again NewsAudioLetter, volunteer opportunities, converting Story Prompt Fridays to a book, re-learning Italian, as well as losing the Whidbey 15 that crept on during our cold, dark winter months.

It’s all good work; but you get the picture.

Maybe like me, you lie awake in the wee small hours of the morning and wonder, “How will I ever manage?”

Practical Tip: I know this to be true: I can manage for 1 day what appears to be daunting for a lifetime! Think back on all that you have overcome, achieved, accomplished, and created. If you still feel the fear of what you are facing you may choose to throttle back a bit; or, allow yourself the chance to manage for just 1 day. And then 1 more day. You will benefit. Guaranteed!

You’re always invited: “Come for the stories – stay for the magic!” Speaking of magic, would you subscribe, share a 5-star rating + nice review on your social media or podcast channel of choice, and join us next time!

Meanwhile, stop by my Quarter Moon Story Arts website to:

✓ Check out What I Offer,

✓ Arrange your free no obligation Story Start-up Session,

✓ Opt In to my NewsAudioLetter for bonus gift, valuable tips & techniques to enhance your story work, and

✓ Stay current with Diane on LinkedIn.

Stories From Women Who Walk Production Team

Podcaster: Diane F Wyzga & Quarter Moon Story Arts

Music: Mer’s Waltz from Crossing the Waters by Steve Schuch & Night Heron Music

View Details

ABOUT THIS EPISODEThis week’s theme: Thought & Heart Leadership

Thought and heart leadership embodies leading with empathy and genuine care, prioritizing service, and recognizing that success in business stems from solving people’s problems, ultimately aiming to make a remarkable profit while positively impacting lives. Embracing the ethos that the essence of business lies in addressing acute challenges for extraordinary individuals defines a purpose-driven approach, fostering success through meaningful problem-solving and benefiting both customers and the enterprise.

View Details

We are living in a world, with less stability, certainty, simplicity, and predictability, where regional conflicts, societal divisions, and civil unrest have increased globally. Simultaneously, technological-induced disruptive innovations and the climate crisis are impacting every aspect of our daily lives. This means that we are living in an age of overwhelm and in a world of unknowns, requiring us all to know how to uncover and eliminate our blind spots, to adapt, innovate, and grow, think and act differently, to survive and thrive within it.

This a moment in time that also calls for leaders to boldly and courageously, step up, shift out of their myopic, reactive, cost, and short-term focus, and develop their leadership consciousness, to enable them to think and act differently. By taking personal responsibility, and being accountable for owning and shifting their interior state or inner being, to eliminate their flaws, maximise their strengths, and build their confidence, capacity, and competence to adapt, innovate, and grow through disruption.

They could then refocus on developing future-fit systemic and innovative solutions, that add real value in ways that serve people, profit, and the planet, differently.

Leadership is in crisisWe are experiencing a global leadership crisis.

Where the majority of leaders, corporate, national, or international have become increasingly reactive, in ways that are passively or aggressively defensive, largely egoic, and often self-serving. By vacillating between political correctness through denial, justification, and avoidance, and between attacking, shaming, and blaming groups, individuals, and nations for the current state of social unrest, political chaos, cultural division, and regional and religious conflicts.

Hitting a pause button

The missing key element is the leadership consciousness required in taking the time to pause, retreat, reflect, and explore the systemic deep causes, current implications, and nature of challenging and complex problems.

Leaders are obliged to step out of their habitual comfort zones and boost their ability to bravely make sense of what is going on – and develop the foresight skills to risk mitigate and identify the most intelligent actions to deliver high-value and high-impact outcomes that serve people, profits, and the planet.

To uncover the repetitive mindsets and behaviours that keep on producing results that no one wants, by bravely exposing and eliminating their leadership blind spots.

Leadership blind spotsWe know that most of the innovative solutions to the complex challenges we face already exist. To unleash these desirable, value-adding, potentially systemic, and innovative solutions, we need to empower, enable, and equip leaders to bravely and safely expose and eliminate their largely, unconscious and unknown leadership blind spots. These exist in our individual and collective leadership, and also in our everyday team and social interactions.

Because most leaders are smart and know what to do, and how to do it, and identifying and eliminating any leadership blind spots will enable them to do it better. Yet, despite, in many cases, years of leadership training they are at risk of being perpetually reactive, unfocussed, overcome with “busyness” and addicted to the tasks involved in “getting stuff” (usually the urgent “small stuff”, and not always the “important stuff”) the done.

As defined by Dr. Karen Blakeley in “Leadership Blind Spots and What to Do about Them,” a blind spot is “a regular tendency to repress, distort, dismiss or fail to notice information, views or ideas in a particular area that results in an individual failing to learn, change or grow in response to changes in that area.”

Source of leadership blind spots

The majority of leaders are mostly blind to the Source from which they operate, which is also the source of their leadership blind spots. This is because many do not have the self-awareness and emotional intelligence to manage and self-regulate any largely unconscious unresourceful emotional states, mindsets, and behaviours.

Leadership Consciousness –

“An ordered distinction between self and environment, simple wakefulness, one’s sense of selfhood or soul explored by “looking within”; being a metaphorical “stream” of contents, or being a mental state, mental event or mental process of the brain”.

Igniting the brain

Leadership blind spots are typically contained in our neurology and can be exposed and eliminated by paying attention to their three core neurological levels, and by being intentional in cultivating their leadership consciousness.

When engaged in a coaching partnership, a leader can learn how to shift, self-regulate, and self-manage at all three levels to effectively eliminate their flaws, and learn how to think and act differently in delivering successful transformation and change initiatives.

Power of a Coaching InterventionA coach is an external disruptor who seeks to bring out the best in a leader, tap into and maximise their potential, and adds value by facilitating deep, insight-based learning processes, that shifts mindsets and result in behaviour change. Coaching helps smart people be and think beyond who they are being and beyond what they are thinking now. In ways that can empower, enable, and equip leaders to adapt, innovate, and grow, cultivate their imagination and creativity, to think and act differently in an unstable world. This enables them to develop and implement systemic and innovative solutions in a timely way and at scale.

Noticing, disrupting, disputing, and deviating

Coaches partner with leaders to enable them to notice, disrupt, dispute, and deviate by accessing and harnessing resourceful emotional states, and mindsets by safely exploring the “boxes” or the “stories” a leader may have been unconsciously living within, and constricted by. Because we can’t solve the problem with the same thinking that created it in the first instance. Especially in a 21st-century world where developing leadership consciousness enables us to adapt, innovate, and grow by:

Reducing our brain’s ability to hijack us when doing its best to constantly keep us safe from danger,
Letting go of old pervasive Industrial Age mental models and perspectives, especially around cost and efficiency,
Relearning new future-fit ways of being, thinking, and acting differently.

And increases our ability to be agile, centred, and focussed in thinking faster in the Disruption Age, where technology is accelerating faster than our human brains are.

Upskilling our brains!A coaching partnership will create a safe and collective holding space to help leaders deep dive into the unknown develop strategies and develop their leadership consciousness in ways that:

Opens their minds, ignites their imagination, curiosity, and creativity, shifts their perspective, makes sense of things develops a whole systems perspective, and think differently,
Opens their hearts to become connected with self, others, systems, and with Source, and be empathic and compassionate,
Opens their will to let go of the need for control, and allows them to deal with paradox and the new to emerge, which can be designed, iterated, and pivoted, in ways that enable them to act differently, in designing and implementing systemic and innovative solutions.

Closing leadership blind spots to adapt, innovate and growA coach empowers, enables, and equips a leader’s capacity, confidence, and competence, to identify and close their leadership blind spots, be in charge of their minds, and think and act differently, to adapt, innovate, and grow. To convincingly work with, and flow with both their peoples overwhelm, and with the constraints in the external environment by:

Developing an awareness of their neurological RIGIDITY which exists within their emotional, cognitive, and visceral states, in turn, impacts their ability to mobilise, focus, and engage their efforts.

When a leader has a blind spot in this area, they may demonstrate rigidity, or functional fixedness, causing their inability to mobilise, be withdrawn, be reactive, and become passive or aggressive. Because they are unconsciously at the effect of the “mental blocks” resulting from unacknowledged fears and anxiety.

Developing their neurological PLASTICITY and flexibility to be able to attend to, regulate, and focus their thoughts, and feelings, and be grounded, mindful, present, and intentional in taking intelligent actions.

When a leader has a blind spot in this area, they will not access their brain’s ability to change, reorganize, or grow new neural networks, learn, adapt, and become resilient. They will not develop the agility required to shift mindsets or behaviours, or even learn the new skills that will equip them to be future-fit and deliver the results they seek.

Generating the critical and creative thinking, problem sensing, and solving skills required to improve their leadership consciousness and GENERATE their crucial elastic thinking and human skills required to see, think differently in solving complex and wicked problems, be future-fit, and lead others to thrive.

When a leader has a blind spot in this area, they will take a conventional and linear approach to decision-making problem-solving, and team development. They will fail to be, think and act differently, and revert to safely stay stuck in what they know, even though it may not have worked previously.

Adding value to the quality of peoples’ livesIf we keep on trying to solve the problem with the same thinking (and neurological state) that created it, we will continue to reproduce the results no one wants. We will not be able to shift beyond what we think now, nor will we connect, export, and, discover the crucial new horizons we need to emerge to develop and implement the systemic and innovative solutions, in a timely way and at scale, that the world needs right now!

Imagine if leaders truly and deeply committed to cultivating their leadership consciousness, and make the time and space to eliminate their blind spots, how peaceful and harmonious the world could become! If leaders could learn how to think and act differently, focus on adding value to the quality of people’s lives in ways they appreciate and cherish, and contribute to the common good, to serve all of humanity, how people, profit, and the planet could flourish.

View Details

The job market landscape is becoming increasingly turbulent in the face of continuing economic recession and rapid technological advancement. Formerly confident in their positions, professionals today are now finding themselves in an unstable position with the possibility of being obsolete or being replaced by those with a ‘recent’ education and a more ‘modern’ skillset. However, this is not a narrative of doom and gloom. Instead, it is a call to action: an opportunity for professionals to seize control of their career trajectories through upskilling and reskilling, ensuring their relevance in the dynamic job market.

Let’s now break down the entire concept and address the real work to do:

What is upskilling?

Upskilling is the strategic enhancement of an employee’s skill set, aimed at boosting their proficiency and adaptability in their current roles. Typically, as employees gain more experience within their current field of expertise, their capabilities and mastery of their role will also expand. Upskilling is usually an intentional learning process where employees gain exposure to deeper knowledge through content-based coursework and experiential learning opportunities.

Upskilling can include developing employees’ mastery of both technical and soft skills. Oftentimes, one of the main goals of any upskilling initiative is to help employees gain the competencies needed to take on a more advanced role within their respective organizations.

When to upskill?

Ultimately, upskilling will never be a one-and-done process. As the speed of digital innovation accelerates and the half-life of learned knowledge shrinks, employees will now need to continue honing new competencies to keep up with the pace. Since the World Economic Forum predicts that nearly a quarter of all jobs will change within the next five years and 69 million new jobs will be created, employees must keep developing their skills so they’re qualified to take on these shifting responsibilities.

The most successful learners are always striving to acquire new skills, and leaders and managers are no exception. While reaching a management position requires a certain level of expertise, both functional and behavioural. The process of learning and development should not end there, especially in today’s digital age, where new innovations are constantly emerging and changing the skills required for all roles.

Who gets reskilled and when?

By now, I assume that readers know that upskilling and reskilling will be essential in the new world of an efficient workplace. However, there’s still a lot of uncertainty about the best approach to skill-building. Should all of our employees be included in upskilling and reskilling? Or is it better to save it for the high performers and the high potentials?

The best career pathing tools take it one step further by presenting users with an immediate solution to start turning their career goals into tangible realities. AI-driven tools can identify the skill gaps that employees need to bridge to reach their desired roles and show them learning and development resources to get them up to speed.

How Upskilling And Reskilling Differ?

We are not alone if we think upskilling and reskilling are analogous. However, their objectives are different, and they pursue different outcomes.

Upskilling means providing education and training so someone usually, employees can improve their existing job skills and learn newer skills that help them do their job better or more efficiently. For example, HR Managers who use Microsoft Excel might need to learn a new process to integrate HR software with an employee self-help portal to reduce physical interaction.
Reskilling means providing training to help an employee move into a different job or pursue a different career path. For example, a market research analyst who wants to transition to a data science career probably has the required basic research skills but will need training in other areas.
Why these skills are more critical than ever?

Skill-building has always been important, but recent events are raising the stakes. We’re now in what’s often called “the Fourth Industrial Revolution”, a time in which advances in AI and automation is revolutionising the way we work. Since the pace of change is accelerating and the half-life of skills is shrinking, developing new competencies can no longer be an afterthought.

Instead, research points to upskilling and reskilling as prerequisites for success. The World Economic Forum predicts that half of all employees will need reskilling by 2025, as the adoption of technology increases. While the rise in automation and AI isn’t going to push employees out of the job market as some people once feared, The World Economic Forum predicts that it will create as many as 69 million new roles. And although that’s good news, these jobs are going to come with new sets of required knowledge, which is where the increased need for upskilling and reskilling comes into play.

Bottomline

AsEleanor Roosevelt rightly said: The future belongs to those willing to learn, adapt, and grow.Ina rapidly changing job market, staying stagnant is not an option. Professionals must continuously learn and adapt to stay relevant. By embracing upskilling and reskilling, we can ensure that we remain a valuable contributor in our respective fields, no matter how much those fields may change. Leaders must find opportunities to cut costs and invest in those who can help keep them moving in the right direction.

Lastly, Upskilling undoubtedly benefits employees, but it also brings numerous advantages to organizations. Companies that invest in their employees’ development through upskilling initiatives experience improved employee retention, enhanced performance, and a boost in job satisfaction. When employees feel supported in their professional growth, they are likelier to stay longer in the organization and contribute positively to its success.

View Details

Every challenge presents an opportunity to inject meaning into my life.

— Shirzad Chamine

If you are interested in personal growth, self-improvement, and mental fitness, you might have heard about the Positive Intelligence program by Shirzad Chamine already. You might have even taken the program. As a Positive Intelligence Coach, I see its – as one of them recently said – life-altering impacts on many of my clients with much awe and admiration.

But if you are unfamiliar with it, here’s a little introduction. This operating system focuses on strengthening the Sage muscles of your brain through mental fitness exercises called PQ reps. Additionally, it introduces you to multiple ways of taking control of the Judge – the belittling, harsh, and unforgiving negative voice – we all have in our minds.

It is an exciting journey. And this impactful program comes with many practices that help you move from the overpowered Saboteurs toward the calm, laser-focused, and empowering Sage mindset, my favorite being the “Yes… And …” game.

And because innovation requires patience, acceptance, and a positive attitude, I find this method useful for anyone and any organization that understands the importance of promoting creativity. When you want to be in the innovation mode and lead your team to create and innovate, a great way of doing that is by playing the “Yes… And …” game.

If I were to summarize in one sentence the single most important principle I have learned in the field of interpersonal relations, it would be this: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. This principle is the key to effective interpersonal communication.

— Stephen M. R. Covey

How Does The Game Work?Imagine that you are sitting around a table with your team and having an innovation session. And you will play the “Yes… And …” game. Here’s how it goes;

First, each team member generates as many ideas as possible without concentrating on the quality or feasibility of the ideas.
Only after the idea generation phase is over do the team members start evaluating each idea individually.
The evaluation process does not begin until the generation step is fully complete as initiating it kills creativity when practiced earlier than it should.
The primary goal is to consider each idea at least 10% right.
And to refrain from focusing on the 90% that we might see as unuseful.
Then, building upon the acceptable part of the idea by adding on until it reaches a collectively appreciated 100%.

Team members take the best part of an idea and start speaking on it by saying, “What I like about that idea is…” and mention the 10% that they liked about it. Say, “And… ” then add another idea triggered by that previous one.

What Are The Benefits?Successfully conducting this process requires deep listening to each other rather than trying to come up with the most brilliant idea, which stops the collaboration and brings in judgment and competition.

When you know that even if you come up with a non-practical idea, your contribution will still be appreciated. And at least some of your input will help the team move toward another great idea. You become more creative, fearless, bold, and confident.

You don’t keep to yourself any idea and think you might look or sound illogical. Instead, you feel empowered and liberated as a team member, knowing that anything you come up with might turn into a brilliant idea with the add-ons from other team members.

Remember, in every conflict, both parties are at least 10% right.

So, why not be curious about finding the right part of other people’s creations? Not only at work but everywhere in life.

When you intentionally remove all the emotions attached to your thoughts and replace them with CURIOSITY, the door to a whole new world opens up for you.

– Ipek Williamson

View Details

Most organizations don’t just want to succeed; they want to create an environment where people truly thrive. It goes beyond free snacks and cool office spaces. It’s about creating an environment where everyone feels comfortable, safe, and supported. It’s called psychological safety and it’s the secret ingredient that fuels innovation, collaboration, and overall employee well-being. Research shows that psychologically safe teams perform at their best. When employees feel safe, they are not afraid to think outside the box, share innovative ideas, or question the status quo.

Psychological safety refers to the shared belief that one can express ideas, share feedback, take risks, and be vulnerable without fearing negative consequences, humiliation, or rejection. As Amy Edmondson puts it, “It’s felt permission for candor.”

Edmondson first landed on the concept in 1999 while studying the rate of mistakes made by medical teams. Edmondson found that the teams that made more mistakes performed better than teams that made fewer mistakes — or at least, that’s how it seemed at first. Upon a deeper dive into the data, Edmondson found that it was the teams that had a culture of openly admitting to making mistakes that had better outcomes. The other teams were making mistakes, too; they just hid them.

Over the last 20 years or so, Edmondson has found that psychological safety seems to matter more in work environments where work isn’t prescribed, but rather where employees need to use their discretion. The relationship between psychological safety and performance is stronger in work environments that require creativity, collaboration and innovation.

Leaders beware: Ignore psychological safety at your peril. It’s always safer to hold back and avoid conflict. But as Edmondson says, “In today’s work environment, that can prove anywhere between catastrophic and just counterproductive. That’s created a greater need for psychological safety as things are more uncertain and more fast-moving. We are more dependent on each other, and yet, we may be at risk of not hearing from each other.”

Psychological safety doesn’t guarantee that things won’t go wrong. Things will go wrong on creative, innovative teams. That’s the nature of the beast. But psychological safety ensures that when things go wrong, people won’t be humiliated, penalized, or punished for speaking up about them.

Psychological safety doesn’t just impact employee engagement and satisfaction. The human brain has evolved to be a well-calibrated danger detector. When we lack safety in any context – physical or psychological – the limbic system notifies the survival brain (amygdala) of the danger and pauses activity in the thinking brain (prefrontal cortex) to allocate all neural resources to deal with the threat. Instead of focusing on our work, the brain stays focused on the danger until it’s gone.

But here’s the catch – creating and nurturing psychological safety is a long-term, ongoing process. It requires commitment from everyone, from the leadership team down to the newest recruit. So, let’s explore a few essential keys to fostering this transformative workplace culture.

Lead by example. It starts with leadership setting the tone. Encourage open communication, actively listen to your employees, and acknowledge the value of their contributions. When leaders embrace vulnerability, it creates a ripple effect throughout the organization.
Promote a blame-free culture. Mistakes happen; it’s a part of growth. Encourage a blame-free environment, where failures are seen as learning opportunities. This empowers individuals to share their experiences and learn from each other.
Encourage active listening and open dialogue. Remember, ideas can come from anyone, regardless of title or seniority. Foster an environment where everyone’s voices are not only heard but genuinely considered. This cultivates trust and encourages collaboration.
Provide regular feedback and recognition. Feedback, both positive and constructive, is essential for growth. Recognize and celebrate individual and team achievements, showing appreciation for their efforts. This inspires confidence and motivates individuals to keep pushing their boundaries.

Psychological safety isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s a must-have for a vibrant and healthy company culture and peak performance. Remember, it’s not just about creating a “smile and nod” culture. Often misunderstood as “harmonious and free of conflict,” organizations with high levels of psychological safety create an environment where challenge, conflict, and mistakes are valued, and learning is a team sport. Hallmarks of a psychologically safe environment are seen when individuals can take risks, experiment, and fail — without fear of repercussions.

It’s about empowering individuals to be contributing members of the team – both teaching and learning to build collective intelligence that fuels employee engagement and organizational success.

View Details

"Arrogance is actually having excessive pride over one’s or a particular group’s accomplishment to an extent wherein we believe that our abilities are superior compared to others and that success would have come sooner if we had done it alone." ...

View Details

"Success happens when both parties take responsibility for making it work. Success happens when best practices are in place and so on and so forth." ...

View Details

"Bosses who exhibit bad people skills or who fail at problem-solving do not deserve the title of “leader”. They might be the owner, founder, or boss, but Leader? No way." ...

View Details

Everyone will have heard of the “great resignation”, i.e. the tendency to voluntarily abandon jobs, even well-paid ones, opting for one where work is more on a human scale.

Resignations can have very different reasons: work methods more on a human scale, a greater balance between the private sphere and the working sphere, ethical motivations, environmental situations, etc. are at the basis of the decision to leave the job. It is the desire, increasingly widespread in the new generations, to “re-appropriate” one’s life by reshaping the relationship with work.

Unfortunately, not always with a radical change of life as an epilogue.

So, we can say that today’s cultural challenge is to rediscover the human dimension of work as an element of citizenship, participation, and inclusion, without forgetting the search for sustainability.

This vision starts from the assumption that work does not only serve as an element of income and, indeed, the new generations in particular are aware that not only what can be measured through a price has value.

Work must be experienced as a collective commitment to social cohesion and inclusion. It must be a path of relationship between people, of personal growth, an instrument of autonomy and emancipation, the continuation of creation for believers, and a collective effort where everyone can make choices that determine their own future and that of society.

The world of work must include young people who are the best wealth that a country possesses, if only because they have the necessary initiative to blaze new trails.

It must include women to enhance the work with their sensitivity and organizational aptitude. Must find effective solutions for the inclusion of those who have been forced out of work during a crisis, promote a healthy balance between people from various backgrounds and cultures, recognizing, without prejudice but promoting their valorisation, the differences between employees (age, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, education or nationality).

As a further matter, the great challenge, at the beginning of the era of man-machine interaction, is precisely the enhancement of the person, for an increasingly human work, based on knowledge and protection of the environment.

The world of work has always been the best promoter of development, well-being, equality, and emancipation for all, helping to create a development that has been able to combine wealth and solidarity, although it is not always easy to achieve these purposes everywhere.

In the future, the challenge of putting the person at the center will be even more demanding: young people, the elderly, women, agile work that does not mean “working remotely” and that’s it but, rather, combining remote work with office work, reorganizing work based on the concept of responsibility and not of time, having adequate tools to facilitate collaboration, redesigning physical spaces, imagining different ways of using services by citizens, etc.

And then (better now!) addressing the major issues of inclusion and sustainability, not only from an ethical point of view but simply because we are realizing that it is convenient for everyone.

In fact, I do not believe that ethical motivations alone can solve every problem in this sector, then also have a positive impact on the economy.

We must be firmly aware that an inclusive approach is not only good for those who, for the most varied reasons, experience a condition of diversity with respect to the context in which they find themselves, but it represents an advantage for all people, for companies, for society in general.

The same goes for sustainability, the ability of companies to commit their efforts not only to safeguarding the environment but also to operate taking into consideration other variables such as the social context in which the company operates and the people who work in the business (but I would like to talk more about sustainability).

View Details

According toRobert Bruce Shaw, author ofLeadership Blindspots,blind spots are unrecognized weaknesses or threats that can hinder a leader’s success. Weaknesses that we possess and that we know about aren’t likely to derail us from our goals. However, the weaknesses that we don’t know about are the dangerous ones.

Based on my experience as an organisational consultant, as well as what I’ve learned from the research of Shaw and Karen Blakeley (who is also an expert on the subject), I’ve found that one of the most common causes of leadership blind spots is pride bordering arrogance. This very ignorance generally manifests itself in the following ways:

Overconfidence: A Silent KillerNeedless to say, excess to anything in life isn’t normal. The same goes forconfidence. We, as professional leaders, must make a deliberate effort to normalize the talent and attributes associated with all the aspects of what we call ‘Talent’. The bell should start ringing when we see someone is committing an act or overdoing or overcommitting etc. As per Encyclopedia “Overconfidence is an overestimation of one’s abilities and need for expended effort and an underestimation of the situational demands that one will face”. In fact, Overconfidence bias can destroy the company.

Willful blind spots occur when people are overconfident. For instance, some leaders only want to hear what they want to hear or read reports and data that they want to read. This can be extremely dangerous for an organization, because leaders need to be able to comprehend issues from various viewpoints. Confidence typically grows with past success, and it can lead to overusing the formula that provided results, thus creating blind spots on alternative solutions for the same goal.

Masked Positivity: An Uncalled for ActBeing overly positive can also create blind spots. In such a “euphoric” stance about something, some leaders can’t rightly assess when and why other people disagree with their ideas. The common trap is that great leaders commonly champion and push ideas that go against the grain. I don’t believe we would recognize the names Ford, Gates, Jobs or Musk (no first names are required to know who we are speaking about) if they did not fight with a fierce commitment to their ideas and vision.

To me, positivity is essential to drive a vision and inspire and overcome problems. Still, we must also build checks into our processes and methods to identify elements that can present risks and other immediate threats.

Remember that a leader’s job is to ensure weaknesses and risks are taken care of long before they create problems.

Power CorruptsAlthough power is essential to taking charge and driving change, it makes leaders vulnerable to two traps that can not only erode their own effectiveness but also undermine their teams. Hubris — the excessive pride and self-confidence that comes with power — causes people to greatly overestimate their own abilities, while focus makes them less attentive to subordinates, diminishing their ability to lead successfully. A balanced relationship with power can seldom be developed overnight, but in time, leaders who follow this advice will boost their own effectiveness and facilitate exceptional performance from their teams.

Power or perceived power that is related to a position or title can create a level of over-confidence and, in many cases, a false perception that others expect the person with the title to solve unilaterally. That mistaken perception (itself a blind spot) will create other blind spots by shutting out different perspectives and potential solutions. Power-related blind spots can be exacerbated in times of crisis when immediate action is expected and required.

Indecisive Leadership StyleWorking with a few CEOs, I always wondered how they made it to that level with such poor decision-making ability. I’ve seen indecisive leadership sink more than a few ships. Our job as a leader is to make decisions that make things happen. That doesn’t mean we make decisions all by ourselves. The best leaders always involve a team in their decision-making. But we still need to make timely decisionthat what we are paid for. What makes decision-making hard at a senior leadership level is that someone’s neck is on the line.

Remember, delay leads to paralysis. And paralysis leads to stagnation and decline. Delayed decision-making demotivates the team. So make a decision, and create a process for making sure decisions get made regularly and quickly. Sure, every once in a while you need to take a long time to make a decision. But far too many leaders use that as an excuse.

Solo Decision MakersEvery problem has a flip side, and the flip side of being indecisive is being overdecisive. Some leaders make instant decisions based on their gut feeling, without any input from anyone else, and that is also frustrating to their teams. I think it’s a good practice for every senior leader to be a part of something they don’t lead. I’ve e worked with a couple of organizations where the top man calls the shorts on everything. It helps me realize how the team feels being left out in the key decision-making process.

Xerox’s Barry Randwas right on target when he warned his people saying that“if you have a yes-man working for you, one of you is redundant”.As leaders, we don’t need to surround ourselves with ‘puppets’ or ‘yes minsters’. Let’s help create a healthy, lively, and thinking work culture. Encourage teams to bring forward newer ideas, come up with logical debate, and have the courage to sayNO.

Wrap UpTrust is the invisible thread that weaves through the fabric of successful companies. It’s the catalyst for effective connection, communication, and collaboration. To effectively navigate the intricacies of today’s workplace, we need to be aware of the above key leadership blindspots that hinder trust, and then be intentional about overcoming them.

When we lead, we are certain about the incredible responsibility we have assumed toward the organisation and our teams. Always remember that leadership, by definition, is not a solo sport. We’re leading people, and how we do it ultimately determines how effectively we perform as leaders. It also means we need to become exceptionally self-aware of our weaknesses. If we think about it, the leaders we’ve probably liked the least have been the least self-aware.

Leadership Blindspots: How Successful Leaders Identify and Overcome the Weaknesses That Matter

View Details

Let us take four scenarios first.First Scenario- You meet with an over-talker. He takes over the discussions. You try to say something but then he jumps to say let me finish my point of view and continues. This person does not know that he made you feel irritated and angry.

Second Scenario- You meet with a person who is consistent in what he says and does. Soon, you feel relaxed talking to him.

Third Scenario- You meet with a person and you have no idea what his intentions are. You suspect this person to say sweet things to cover his real intentions. He makes you feel worried and undecided.

Fourth Scenario- You meet with a successful man who suddenly lost his zeal for life. He does not know why. You too have no idea what is wrong with him. You feel unknowing what to do. He feels the same. Could it be he is suffering from an unknown illness? Probably, either one of you have a clear idea. You both feel undecided.

Classification of BehaviorsThe preceding four scenarios lead to the following classification of human behaviors

Behaviors known to others and me (open area)
Behaviors unknown to others and me (unknowns area)
Behaviors known to me but not to others (hide area)
Behaviors known to others but not me (blind area)

Behaviors that I know and others know put both in the open area. I know my behaviors well and others’ behaviors. We both know we make each other feel relaxed. We have no doubt of each other’s intentions. We exchange information openly.

A great leader is one who creates an atmosphere of openness in his team because this is what maximizes cooperation and the exchange of information and skills. Leadership becomes simple and fun in this area.

The unknowns are the most complex area a leader faces in leading. He is dealing with unknowns such as the sudden emergence of competing technology. When in new competitor shows up is another example.

Leading in the darkness of unknowns is a challenge that leaders face in our VUCA world.

The hide area such as having a secret hiding from others or a skill that you hide from others is another challenge for leaders. This attitude stifles cooperation in teams.

Hiding real intentions from others brings doubt and doubt erodes trust. Transparent communication is a prerequisite to collaboration among teams. In an environment with overshadowing clouds of doubt, it only rains more doubt. A team leader must cater for this issue promptly.

The unfortunate reality is that many people think they know themselves and in fact, they do not. They hide from themselves. They think they are friendly when they are arrogant. They behave the same way without attempting to amend their behaviors. Aristotle was right to call for the need to know self.

The blind area is when people know about you what you do not know. Talkative people do not realize they are talkative but other people know. Feedback is necessary in these cases.

In today’s world with multicultural prevailing teams, a leader will have many new unknowns emerging. The transition period for reducing the areas other than the open area is decreasing.

Great leaders have a big task and that is to make what seems undoable to the majority doable. These leaders grasp the concept of The Johari Window.

View Details

In this episode, recorded at Ada Lake in Belgrade, Serbia, we talk about why being present with your team is essential to building trust and psychological safety, developing relationships, dealing with challenges before they become problems, and driving innovation and creativity.

View Details

The frame through which you look at the world may not be the one you picked up on your own. Sometimes people force the frame on you.

– Craig Groeschel

In his book, Winning The War In Your Mind, Craig Groeschel writes, “When we reframe what happened in our yesterdays, that changes our todays. We are able to experience life without the old, negative, cognitive bias and start seeing through the lens of God’s grace.” Sounds refreshing, doesn’t it?

The reframing process is essential in your life and in leadership. How you choose to frame the experiences you face in life and in leadership is what separates good leaders from the rest.

It reminds me of the story of the noted English architect Sir Christopher Wren. He was supervising the construction of a magnificent cathedral in London. A journalist thought it would be interesting to interview some of the workers, so he chose three and asked them this question: what are you doing?

The first replied, “I’m cutting stone for 10 shillings a day.” The next person answered, “I’m putting in 10 hours a day on this job.” But the third said, “I’m helping Sir Christopher Wren construct one of London’s greatest cathedrals.”

Each one of those workers saw their work through a particular framework. And the point is, we all do.

As a leader, how you see your work, the people that you lead, and your prospects for the future is important. This framework is a reflection of your belief system and is an indicator of the direction you are headed. From the three workers, let’s examine the frame of mind of each and the lesson we learn.

The wealth mindsetThe first worker saw his contribution solely from the frame of his daily pay. Beyond cutting stone, he seemed to not grasp the enormity of the project he was working on. While there’s no indication that he despised the work or the pay, the tragedy of this mindset runs deeper.

Could it be possible that he undervalued his contributions? If he understood the magnitude of his work and how it would impact the lives of thousands of people, then perhaps his approach to his work would have been different. Perhaps his work would have been more sacred.

Leadership Tip: While a strong work ethic is valuable, your people need to understand the why behind it and the value of their contributions.

The work mindsetThe second worker pronounced that he was putting in 10 hours a day. It would be safe to say that he was a hard and dedicated worker. He would be the type you’d want in your organization. His work ethic was one that likely caused him to stand out and catch the eye of the reporter.

While this work ethic is to be applauded, it would seem that he failed to see the big picture or scope of what he was doing. Yes, he was putting in 10 hours a day, but he was part of something greater than himself and it seems to be lost on him. How tragic.

Leadership Tip: Make sure your people know that the long hours they put in are moving the needle towards something great and greater than themselves.

The wisdom mindsetThe third worker seemed to have a greater understanding of what was taking place. He knew that he was helping build a great cathedral. I can just hear the excitement and passion in his voice as he spoke to the reporter.

In any organization, you have some who are there just for the paycheck. You have some who just want to come in, do their work, and go home with little to no regard for what they are doing or why. Those who will truly make a difference in your organization are those who understand why they are there, where they are going, and how great it’s going to be when they get there.

Leadership Tip: You must always keep the mission and vision before your people. You never want them to be at a loss for what it is that they are doing or why. This can only happen when leaders begin reframing with purpose and clarity.

How would reframing benefit you as a leader and your organization?

View Details

"For adults on the job, learning is synonymous with changed behavior." ...

View Details

"How could you be leading the world of work more joyfully?" ...

View Details

"A need to be authentic with our teams and create an environment of total transparency can lead to oversharing, but how do we know if we’ve gone too far in being authentic and transparent?" ...

View Details

"There is no leadership possible without care for people, without this underlying sensitivity that is necessary to govern complexity, to relate to individuals, even before employees, roles, and functions." ...

View Details

"In the world of work, values are too often considered in the background or not even taken into consideration." ...

View Details

"What if we were to raise good employees by being the kind of bosses that allow employees to grow into who they are supposed to be and then encourage them to be precisely that?" ...

View Details

"Have you ever felt excluded both personally and professionally? I am sure most of us have faced this uncomfortable feeling, whether as children or as adults." ...

View Details

Solving issues in group dynamics takes courage to lift the lid and start talking and sharing more deeply.

View Details

Finding a new employee to fill a recruitment gap is a notoriously stressful and expensive experience for those in business. That is why it makes much more sense to do everything you can to keep the high-grade employees that you’ve got. The good news is you can find out all about how to successfully retain […]

View Details

"A healthy and growing organization is one that its employees are always learning and growing." ...

View Details

"Almost half of the world’s potential entrepreneurs have been handicapped, and are still being held back from adding value to the quality of people’s lives and making the difference they want to, and can make in the world." ...

View Details

"You cannot effectively teach soft leadership skills in a vacuum; devoid of their associated hard skills." ...

View Details

"As a leader, you need the awareness of knowing if your organizational culture is out of alignment and what corrections are needed." ...

View Details

"It’s time to rethink and restructure the meaning of grief and the time you need to grieve." ...

View Details

“It's about people. There are no organizations without people. Simple as that.” ...

View Details

"Even if good leadership is based on defined skills, it is very important to remember that, in the day-to-day functioning of a company, the mere possession of these skills is not enough to help everyone move in the right direction." ...

View Details

"Our work and our titles can be ripped away from us in seconds. Who are we actually without any of them? What is the essence that can never be taken away from us?" ...

View Details

"Promoting someone to a new manager without sufficient training is a set-up for everyone involved but it doesn’t have to be." ...

View Details

"Ask, inquire, be curious, and don't stop at the surface. Many times whoever has the problem also has the solution: listening to what he says because will often it be a source of improvement, in solving the problem as well." ...

View Details

"With STAR and CARL, you're all set to compose a symphony of compelling stories, turning your interview into a stage where your experience and personality can shine." ...

View Details

"How do they never get defeated? Or when they do, where does that strength come from to get up, dust off, and move forward again?" ...

View Details

"If you are thinking of holding a meeting, your very first question should always be, do we really need a meeting? Ask yourself, can the topic be resolved through a phone call, email, or other method?" ...

View Details

"It takes courage to engage in a sometimes messy process of leading and motivating people to do hard things." ...

View Details

"By cultivating positive beliefs, challenging limitations, and adopting a growth mindset, we can elevate our career performance, achieve greater success, and unlock our full potential." ...

View Details

In today’s dynamic and demanding work environments, the significance of employee wellness programs has never been more pronounced. These programs, which aim to enhance the overall health of employees, can have a profound impact on job satisfaction and retention. But what do these programs entail, and what makes them so beneficial? Let’s explore. The Multifaceted […]

View Details

"By establishing clear goals and objectives, leaders can align their efforts and lead their organizations to greater heights." ...

View Details

It amazes me how nature law applies to organizations and people. One example is hypothermia. A human body that exposes to very low temperatures soon loses its body energy. This may affect the brain and its ability to make wise decisions.

The same applies to studying organizations. I share my friend’s story to explain.

My friend was in a bad mood. He had a good job and happily engaged in his work. A rich businessperson tempted him to work for him for a much better salary. He resigned and joined the rich man’s organization. The man initially treated my friend so well until he finished an important project. Suddenly, the man moved him to a tiny office. He ordered his staff not to talk to him. He moved him from hot water to a chilling one.

My friend felt that he started to fall off balance. The man hired him to complete an assignment but then he had no need for him. He suffered virtually from hypothermia. His brain stopped functioning. He resigned with a broken heart.

We hear terms such as the manager froze an employee. Those managers cause much harm to humanity. These managers do this for a variety of reasons. These include not favoring their suggestions, excelling and the fear a manager the employee would replace him and grudge against certain nationalities.

The same hypothermic effect applies to celebrities who suffered from poverty to richness of money.

Social media has served many unknown singers and actors to become very famous in no time. These unknown singers and actors move from the chilling waters of poverty in money and fame to become rich in both. These artists suffer from “Sudden Wealth Syndrome”. This syndrome coupled with hypothermia makes these people act in an unacceptable way.

The fear of losing fame and money and as fast as they earned them make them live in fear. Soon their minds lose the ability to make good decisions. They lose old friends; spend money to focus the light on them on showy things like buying the most expensive cars.

It is amazing how fast they can change their behavior because they started by changing their words. These sudden rich people remind me of the wisdom of Mahatma Gandhi:

View Details

Neurodiversity and innovation often go hand in hand, but does that mean visionary entrepreneurs get a free pass to say and do anything they want? Bonobos founder and mental health advocate Andy Dunn shares his experience navigating bipolar I in the midst of running a successful startup, offering lessons learned on his journey to wellness and steps to create a future where everyone is able to “dream crazy dreams” — while being held accountable.

View Details

Around the world, people who work hard are often seen as morally good — even if they produce little to no results. Social psychologist Azim Shariff analyzes the roots of this belief and suggests a shift towards a more meaningful way to think about effort, rather than admiring work for work’s sake.

View Details

Like millions of others globally, I watched with fascination, the sensational and striking spectacle of the ceremony, significant symbolism, spectacular artifacts, and rituals at the recent King of England’s majestic coronation. At the same time, I allowed my mind to wander and wondered how this visually stunning and unrivaled British ceremony would impact the nations and realms’ culture and leadership, today and in the future, wondering if, indeed, it is at a cultural tipping point.

Where it is believed, by some, that the coronation made “two statements of great importance for today’s world about the place of religion in public life and the importance and meaning of the nation”. Acknowledging that such a monumental and marvellous event is indicative of a cultural tipping point, not only for the people it embraces but also for organisations, nations, and realms as a whole, to search for what is meaningful and valued by its people.

Making the connectionMy mind wandered and made some obvious connections between the core and common elements that embody both organisational, and national cultural realms – the values, beliefs, assumptions, and mindsets that drive key behaviours and deliver the common implicit messages. As well as the disciplined systems and processes that deliver the results, the rituals that are enacted, and finally, the artifacts whose symbols represent what the culture values.

Maintaining relevance and engagementLike the monarchy, what do organisations need to do to maintain relevance and engagement to thrive in unstable and uncertain times, especially when their existence and legacies are being questioned and evaluated by the people they serve?

At a pivotal time when new sets of global, societal, and organisational demands are being made, largely as a result of the fourth industrial revolution, encompassing the convergence of exponential technologies impacting all of us globally. At the same time, we are all still affected by the consequences of the global pandemic-induced lockdowns, impacting every fabric of our social and civic structures in our world today.

A case study for leveraging cultural tipping points differentlyThe coronation of King Charles III provides us with a great case study of an outstanding and remarkable display of English cultural attributes. This enables us to ask some serious questions about how national and organisational cultures and leadership in times of exponential change, like today, might thrive with uncertainty and co-create solutions to some of the most complex global challenges, by leveraging the range of cultural tipping points differently.

A range of cultural tipping pointsWe are in effect, experiencing globally a range of cultural tipping points:

At the macro level, according to a recent article here in Australia, where King Charles still resides as our head of state, the local SMH states that this realm is in a state of flux:

“The King is head of state in 15 countries. More than half of the so-called “realm states” are in the Caribbean and most of them are bailing out. Barbados two years ago, Jamaica probably next year. Belize, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines are planning their exit as well”.

At the micro level, according to Mc Kinsey & Co, in a recent article “New Leadership for a new era of thriving organisations” stated that organisations and leadership are also in a state of flux:

“Organizations such as Allianz, Haier, Microsoft, and Nucor are transforming their industries with a new organizational approach that seeks to be open, fluid, and adaptable; unleashes the collective energy, passion, and capabilities of its people; reimagines strategy; and focuses on delivering greater value to all stakeholders”.

“Their cultures support a more open, collaborative, and emergent way of working. And the shift to this new kind of model changes the way businesspeople must lead”.

Going back to culture and leadership fundamentalsBecause culture and leadership are, according to Edgar H. Schein “two sides of the same coin and cannot understand one without the other” we have to be in charge and focussed to intentionally, constructively, and creatively manage their interdependence. He also states that culture matters because it is a “powerful, tacit and often unconscious set of forces that determine both our individual and collective behaviours, ways of perceiving, thought patterns, and values”.

If we do not intentionally and strategically take charge, focus, and leverage these forces, we will simply always be at the effect of them, as they take us down the path of least resistance, remain implicit, and will not deliver the results we want and need in a disruptive world.

Making the coronation linksMy mind wandered and considered what might be the range of core values at play on the weekend and landed on a range of seldom-used words including – power, sovereignty, continuity, divinity, tradition, wealth, accession, diversity, responsibility, pride, and loyalty, supported by the key values of Christianity and a belief in divine right and the crucial role of righteousness.

The ceremony was jam-packed full of amazing seldom-seen rituals, including public prayer, polite bows, serious vows, anointment, and elaborate crowning, to name just a few.

The variety and assortment of symbols were mesmerising, including priceless golden carriages, bejewelled coronation swords, golden scepters, the solo glove and silver spoon, beautifully crafted and jewelled orbs and elaborate crowns. Plus a selection of artifacts included religious items and a variety of civic and military seriously gold braided red, black and white regalia.

Delivered by a set of carefully planned processes and an orchestrated set of scheduled events, including flybys, a range of powerful military processions and parades, serious police presence and awesome security all enacted with mighty precision.

Sharing the key messagesMy mind then wandered and considered what might be the key messages being communicated by this incredible series of marvellous events, and wondered how relevant and engaging they might be to people today:

A coronation signals the conferment of God’s grace upon a ruler,
A coronation appoints the king as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England,
A coronation is a joyous and celebratory event.

Back to the SMH “The people got what they wanted. The cheers in the Mall, the boulevard built for the adoration of royalty, were real, even if the masses were down on those for the Queen’s Jubilee.”

Impacting the futureIt remains to be seen if this powerful, majestic, memorable, and significant once-in-a-lifetime ceremonial event will ultimately help unify or divide the English realm. Which it seems, is facing its own range of unique challenges and a controversial cultural tipping point, ultimately and seriously impacting its future viability.

Back to the SMH “But Charles’s big show might be his last great day. The last dance of a wheeling, brilliant circus that has entertained and beguiled but which soon enough, in its distant realms, will stutter and shrink and reel no more.”

Why does this matter?This matters today because we are individually, and collectively at a range of social, civic, and organisational cultural tipping points. Where we organisation and leaders are also dancing many of our “last dances”, and “stutter and shrink and reel nor more” because, according to some, we are not strategically focussed on leveraging the culture and leadership basics:

Implicitly clarifying values that focus on delivering value that improves the quality of people’s lives that they appreciate and cherish and explicitly making them an active part of corporate life.
Ensuring that leaders role model and enact behaviours that demonstrate the values in action, where people are accountable and rewarded by rigorous systems and supportive disciplined, and agile processes.
Co-creating powerful sets of rituals, symbols, and artifacts, aligned to the values, that deliver the “new architectures” to create permission, safety, and trust that drive collaboration, experimentation, innovation, inclusion, and sustainability.
Communicating engaging and inclusive messages that resonate creativity, respect, and appreciation for people, profit, and the planet.

Shifting the cultural tipping pointsIt’s time to transform leadership to transform organisations, in ways that are self-aware and inspiring, meaningful and purposeful, equitable and sustainable, with increasing speed, resilience, and efficiency to guide organisational cultures and leadership that:

Helps people navigate and balance in-person and remote work, be mentally healthy and well, and make the way for both applied AI and human skills development.
Develops new rules for attracting and retaining people, close the capability chasm and walk the talent tightropes to better equip, empower and harness people’s harness collective intelligence to make both the organisation and the world better places.
Creates, invents, and innovates new ways of thinking, and acting that ultimately shift the range of cultural tipping points to meet new sets of global, societal, and organisational demands and challenges emerging in the 21st century, and lets go of what is no longer relevant to better serve humanity as a whole.

View Details

Can you sense the pull toward more and more group work? The word collaboration is used frequently in organisational life but isn’t well understood or practised in reality…and yet somewhere within us, we know that working across boundaries and overcoming the isolation of long-held silo thinking will be one of the keys to elevating the impact of our work in its many forms.

The silos sit at so many levels – roles, departments, directorates, companies, organisations, institutions, nations and so on. There’s push and pull of getting our own ‘part’ working well and protecting it alongside deep knowing that in fact, true success relies on a higher level of interplay between ‘us’ and ‘others’.

On the global level we are seeing the challenges and the pull of group working in so many aspects of the Pandemic as, in some cases, we seek to work out how we work as a single Humanity rather than with separatist tendencies. Simultaneously we can see the undercurrent and indeed stark evidence of ‘me first’ or ‘protectionist’ behaviour. So too in organisations we can see this play out as we become immersed in our own priorities and agendas – not necessarily fuelled by political or personal gain but because we find it too difficult to lift our heads up and look outward.

Thinking and acting as a ‘group’ demands that we set or can connect to a higher collective purpose or focus. It needs an emotional maturity from everyone as we act from generosity and a higher point of service to the purpose rather than our own egos. That said, we know that in organisations so many of the performance reward mechanisms are geared toward the individual rather than collective performance. This will need to change for us to really harness the power of group working.

A group mindset has within its core a deep sense of unity and oneness…a bringing together of the unique talents and gifts of each entity – person, function, nation – and harnessing these in service of something bigger and which cannot be achieved alone.

This is the future and opening ourselves more deeply to the potential of group working will reveal many new opportunities for making it live. The question is how long will this take us given how pressing the need is now in our world?

View Details

Episode SummaryTony Douglas has made a remarkable career out of dealing with complexity and creating inspired communities of people who are able to work together and deal with that complexity as a unit. From engineers to pilots, customer service people to administrators, all from around the globe, Tony’s brought the best out of diverse teams for some of the world’s most respected organizations. This week, we get his amazing perspective.

Episode NotesLeading Through Complexity, Creating a Community (ft. Tony Douglas). Tony Douglas on managing complexity in high-stakes environments

OPENING QUOTE:“It’s about people. There are no organizations without people. Simple as that.”

-Tony Douglas

GUEST BIO:Tony Douglas is CEO of Etihad Aviation Group with over 30 years of international leadership experience in aerospace, transportation, infrastructure, and government sectors. He joined Etihad in 2018, after being the CEO of the UK’s Ministry of Defense Procurement Arm, supplying all the services and equipment for the British Armed Forces valued at over $20 billion pounds a year. Tony has previously held senior leadership positions in the UAE, such as CEO of Abu Dhabi Ports, and in UK, his roles included the Managing Director of the Heathrow Terminal Five Construction Project, CEO of Heathrow Airport, and COO and Group Chief Executive Designate of Laing O’Rourke, a massive global construction company.

CORE TOPICS + DETAILS:[10:53] – We All Have a Part to Play

Junior, senior, everybody in-between

While managing production lines of 4,000 or more people, all heavily unionized, Tony quickly learned that engaging with their community would send productivity through the roof— and failing to engage would be catastrophic. “We’ve all got a part to play,” he says. “Some parts are bigger than others, but unless they all play together, you’ll never get the potential that is clearly there.”

[26:06] – Embracing Diversity from the Ground Up

The difference between success and failure

In his role at Etihad, Tony works with people of 112 different nationalities and an average age of just over 30. He’s learned that diversity must become something that you embrace without a second thought, or you and your teams will fail. Tony even speaks to finding joy in the complexity of navigating diversity, knowing that it ultimately leads to more diverse perspectives and greater success.

[37:47] – Clarity of Purpose in an Organization

Translate what’s required and deliver it

Tony speaks to the importance of clarity and purpose at an organization from the top down. When that clarity is present, everyone within the organization can interpret it and deliver results built around an organization’s purpose.

[48:36] – The Power of Ramesh

Being brand ambassadors— and recognizing great ambassadors for your brand

Tony shares a story of an Australian family who stops at the same hotel in Abu Dhabi every time they have a stopover there en route to the UK. Why? Their children have connected so much with an excellent hotel employee named Mr. Ramesh. But the hotel managers not only had no idea what an impact Mr. Ramesh has had for their brand, but didn’t even know who he was.

Imagine if management had realized the power that Ramesh was having for their brand and capitalized on it, instead of being unaware of his impact?

RESOURCES:* [0:47] About Etihad Aviation Group * [28:14] About Jack Jarvis

Follow Tony Douglas

Wikipedia

View Details

We often hear these terms – unconscious bias and implicit bias – as synonyms, but there is tremendous value in distinguishing between the two. In DEI work, I see companies using terms without having a common understanding of their meaning, leading both to the illusion of agreement and the illusion of disagreement based on slightly different understandings of the same word (think “Diversity”, “Equity”, “Inclusion” as obvious examples). I see this happen with unconscious and implicit bias frequently. Even though they are often used interchangeably, understanding the difference leads to better mitigation strategies and better organizational performance as a result.

Let’s unpack these two terms further.

What is Unconscious Bias?Unconscious bias is exclusively the realm of the brain. These biases are the default settings of your brain in order to reduce cognitive load and to make things easier–after all, your brain is working hard all the time. Unconscious biases are a byproduct of how our brains naturally process information. Unconscious cognitive biases are difficult, if not impossible, to stop before they happen, but the impact of these biases can be mitigated. There are more than 200 named cognitive biases, and while they do in fact help the brain function more easily, they can also lead to unintended mistakes and flaws in judgment.

What is Implicit Bias?Implicit bias includes all of the above and extends beyond your brain’s automatic decision-making, referring to biases that people hold unconsciously but can be revealed through their behavior or actions. (If you have not seen it before, take a look at this Implicit Bias Test). Implicit bias is baked into a behavior, a process, or an action, moving it a step beyond the unconscious realm of the mind. Implicit bias is used more often when speaking of the wide range of social constructs (race, gender, culture, age, orientation, religion, politics, media, etc). Because of this, implicit bias is typically more harmful because the bias impacts others and has widespread implications. The origin (unconscious bias) matters less than the impact (implicit bias) of the expression, action, or behavior. Furthermore, when these expressions, actions, and behaviors persist over time, bias becomes institutionalized and is “the way we do things here”. For a more detailed look at this cycle, see the bias ecosystem.

Mitigating Both Unconscious and Implicit BiasWe sit at the intersection of two truths: that cognitive biases are inevitable and that they lead to unintended mistakes and flaws in judgment. This paradox is a fundamental lesson for any leader who identifies as “inclusive” and seeks to realize the benefits of a diverse workplace. Mitigating both unconscious and implicit bias leads to a higher-functioning organization, greater productivity, and increased revenues.

When designing a bias mitigation plan, it is best to use language that will clearly identify what type of bias you are disrupting because the strategy will be different depending on the circumstances and the context. Sometimes actions are needed to change perceptions. Sometimes awareness can facilitate a different behavior. On other occasions, you may need to rewrite policies that will force a change in perception and behaviors. There are usually several layers to human interactions and the exchange of ideas. Both unconscious and implicit bias are likely baked into each layer. Businesses spend an inordinate amount of time on the who, what, where, when, and why. Bias mitigation is all about examining and reflecting on the how. When we neglect the how of a situation, we allow an environment where it would be easy for bias to impact behavior of all kinds and to limit performance.

Having an awareness that nearly every decision or action is impacted by unconscious bias can lead to a practice of reflection and questioning what we do and how we do it. It allows us to name what is happening, to surround ourselves with people who can make us aware of a bias that we are unable to see ourselves and to redefine processes to mitigate the negative impact of biases. Bias is universal. If you have a brain, you have bias® is the trademark that The Percipio Company builds upon. By framing bias as a by-product of how the brain functions, we eliminate the cycle of justifying, arguing, defending, and explaining (JADE), which can be an obstacle to organizational development and growth.

Understanding the difference between unconscious and implicit bias can help businesses establish a common understanding that everyone operates with unconscious bias and no one is more or less prone to it.

This commonality opens up deeper conversations around the implicit biases that show up in interactions, behaviors, or processes. A huge mistake is treating these conversations as transactional or one-time training events. Because bias mitigation is about examining, reflecting, and changing processes and behavior, it is continual, iterative, and ongoing. It requires generating awareness, process changes, and widespread behavioral adoption to truly impact the way companies operate. The work empowers organizations to create new ways of proceeding, ways that acknowledge bias mitigation as an integral part of the “way we do things here” and integrate it into their workplace culture.

View Details

We’d just returned to SeaTac airport from Tampa Florida, where we each led a keynote conversession at Encounter 360°. After exchanging heartfelt words of appreciation for each other’s conversession, we hugged, the kind of hug that shares the gratitude for being so glad to have met the other. And then Andy (Vargo) said this, “I want to thank you… for the first time in my life, I feel that I have the power to create my own belonging.”

The first thing that flashed through my head was, I’m so glad you got there! You see, in my perfect world, everybody would believe in their ability to belong, in self, and with others. The second thing, a few moments later, I realized my Encounter 360° conversession on reimagining belonging did give them a space of agency for themselves in self-belonging. It worked! Phew! It gave them a way past the popular, or conventional view of belonging that, unfortunately, limits one’s own agency to belong.

Our mental wellbeing in the workplace seems to be in a pretty rough place, and I think it’s because of messed up belonging. Burnout, anxiety, and depression appear to be at record levels, according to Forbes. A McKinsey study found that 51% don’t feel they belong. And what’s rather interesting, is a Deloitte study as belonging being reported as one of the most important human capital issues. So, there’s easily enough awareness. But not much change. Could it be our functional definition of belonging is the problem? Maybe it’s because we’ve made belonging a transactional receive-mode thing, instead of relational. And not only that, the framing the way that we think of it is that if I don’t get these four things, I don’t belong.

The Problem: our Popular Definition of BelongingBefore moving on to how we redefine belonging, let me introduce you to a neuroscientist, Kelly McGonigal. Kelly studied how the way we perceive stress can make it harmful, or, helpful to us. Harmful if we believe there’s nothing we can do about it, but helpful if we believe we can. And there’s also an interesting aspect that she uncovered that relates to oxytocin. She found that when you’re connected in a caring way (belonging) and you perceive the stress as a healthy challenge, you actually get a positive bump in your oxytocin levels. And, the stress that would’ve killed you, when combined with the oxytocin actually makes you stronger.

And, on a wellness aside, here’s what you physically get from that oxytocin, in addition to increased pro-social emotional abilities:

cardiovascular protection
an anti-inflammatory response
relaxed blood vessels
your heart rebuilds faster than it degrades under stressed performance

Sounds pretty healthy doesn’t it? Our bodies have a built-in mechanism for stress resilience. Our wiring for belonging is a self-regenerating relational neurochemical mechanism. McGonigal’s work gives us a clue as to why the current model of belonging might be undermining our current belonging efforts right from the start. We have no agency as we experience stress while in pursuit of belonging.

Here’s the popular definition of belonging from Cornell University.

Belonging is the feeling of security and support when there is a sense of (1) acceptance, (2) inclusion, and (3) identity for a member of a certain group. It is when an individual can bring their (4) authentic self to work.

This standard, or institutional understanding is a receive-mode-only model. If I get these four things… then I belong.

A sense of (1) acceptance, (2) inclusion, (3) identity, (4) being your authentic self to work (AIIA)

So, if you don’t get these four things, you don’t belong? This definition creates a box where the stress of being in a belonged state is unwinnable as it’s out of our agency, and thus the stress becomes harmful. From this frame, your state of belonging is a passively harmful place when you don’t fit in. Further, it creates an emotional barrier to doing the very reach outs that your own oxytocin is calling for. Because you believe it’s out of your ability to get it, this inhibits you further and limits your source of oxytocin and serotonin. We have to be in a positive human connection to generate oxytocin. Here’s a link to a list of seven belonging lead measures. You belong when you get these four things is a rather powerless frame that limits our neurobiology as we attempt to create our belonging. Yet it’s the dominant model. While it’s always brought up and referred to with good intent, it accidentally omits our agency in the definition.

The story we tell ourselves, and sometimes the story we’re given, that we tell ourselves, is the story we live.

Our words matter, and our story shifts with that omission. We’ve been promoting a story of what it takes to belong that disempowers us from creating it in our companies. And, it might even be making some people’s pursuit of belonging even a bit more harmful. (I gotta think more on this one.) The more you run into a brick wall, after running into a brick wall, the more damage you’re doing to yourself. Ironically, we’ve been given a model for belonging that sets us up to be powerless in affecting our own belonging.

It’s a one-way, passive receive mode, must-get affirmation transactional model
It leaves us with a self-narrative that says we only belong with someone who gives us these four things
Yet, those four things aren’t necessarily indicative of belonging
Ultimately leaves us chronically stressed on the bad side of a fit-in

For bullet 3, I want to offer this caveat. You can have all 4 of these things and not belong, a sense of (1) acceptance, (2) inclusion, (3) identity, and (4) being your authentic self to work. And, you can have the absence of those four things and still deeply belong. I can tell you, from my own personal experience, that I have not been (1) accepted, for being my (4) authentic self. Was warned about getting un- (2) included, and told to get back in the game here with us, or I’m out, my personal (3) identity in the tribe was about to be rejected. And I was implored to get back to rightness with the company tribe. I still belonged despite not getting affirmed in those four areas. And it would be my choice, whether I continued to belong.

The Shift: Define Belonging as You Feel, Own, and Care for Them, AND, They for YouAt Encounter 360°, I offered Belonging Reimagined. One that puts each of us in the driver’s seat of our own belonging. Shifting the power from just us receiving whether or not we belong, to choosing, creating, and inviting another to belong with us. From this re-defined version, our stress from when we don’t belong can be healthy instead of harmful, and help us to get into real belonging.

Try shifting your definition of belonging to this…

Belonging, it’s a state of being, in relationship with others:

When you feel, own, and care for them, in their successes, dreams, and failures. And, they feel, own, and care for you in yours. It’s a two-way relational street.

It’s a two-way street of feeling for yourself and them, owning your life and theirs, and, caring for yourself and them. And they do the same with you. If you prefer today’s typical business emotional intelligence language, it’s mutual-empathy (feeling), accountability (owning), and compassion (caring for).

Belonging requires all three – Feel, Own, and Care forThere’s a hollowness that we all know, that comes when any of the three: feel, own, or care for, aren’t genuine, or, are missing.

Without the Feel, (empathy) we question whether or not we’re really theirs, when they say, “You’re my friend… or my employee…” We question the “why” of their care for us.
Without Own, (accountability) we’re stuck with the nagging doubt of if their expressed feelings for us are true. We doubt if their care for us is actually for us.
Without Care for, (compassion) we disbelieve in the genuineness of their expressed feelings and their claim that we are each other’s.

But, when you have all three, look out, you get a company of resilient people that’ll find a way for each other. You know you belong, because first, YOU feel, own, and care for them, AND second, THEY also feel, own, and care for you. If it’s just them, you’re getting affirmation, and yeah, that feels good. If it’s just you, you’re probably just fitting in, or in codependency.

Notice the order.

The first qualifier is, “When you feel, own, and care for them…” (starts with you)
AND (not, so that)… I guess the “AND” could be seen as a third qualifier, it’s not transactional.
The second qualifier is they feel, own, and care for you in yours…”
Notice also, the context.

“In each other’s successes, dreams, and failures.” It’s in the good times, the aspirations, and the bad times. This is what falls in line with our tribal neurobiology. We’re designed to be indispensable to our tribe.

I love Angela Theisen’s take on belonging being as fundamental to how we organize ourselves.

“The sense of belonging is fundamental to the way humankind organizes itself. If it was unimportant, we would live solitary lives only coming together for procreation then quickly kicking the children out of our lives as soon as they could walk. We would have no families, communities or organized government.”

We cannot separate the importance of a sense of belonging from our physical and mental health. The social ties that accompany a sense of belonging are a protective factor helping manage stress and other behavioral issues. When we feel we have support and are not alone, we are more resilient, often coping more effectively with difficult times in our lives. Coping well with hardships decreases the physical and mental effects of these situations. (Mayo Clinic Health System)

It’s a relational model of bidirectional power that starts with you. Each one of us has agency. You get to shift into the driver’s seat of your own belonging. You’re not of the tablet victim to circumstance, nor are you an unfortunate victim.

When we define belonging this way, we get a frame for living out a new belief where our belonging is also in our power to create. So that even in the stress during the formation of belonging, we actually can get stronger.

Here’s a belonging practice to move your head in your heart into your own efficacy to create your own belonging.1. Remember a time when you: felt, owned, and cared for somebody in their successes dreams, and failures, who also feels, owns, and cares for you in yours.
(Do not tell of a time when you had a sense of acceptance, inclusion, and identity, and could be authentic. – Play along with me here) 2. Meet up with someone, in person or over Zoom, and share that story with them. 3. Afterward, take note of how you’re feeling inside. 4. Now, that person who you felt, owned, and cared for… Invite them out for coffee, or beer, or call them, or text them- and thank them for feeling, owning, and caring for you.

A quick summary of belonging wellness benefits:1. Less burnout, anxiety, and depression 2. Higher resilience 3. Oxytocin neural/emotional benefits * Empathy * Cooperation * Generosity * Interpersonal trust * Social motivation * Altruism * Emotional recognition * Gaze and focus & eyes face

Oxytocin physical benefits
Cardiovascular protection
An anti-inflammatory response
Relaxed blood vessels
Your heart rebuilds faster than it degrades under stressed performance
I wonder what would happen to the rates of anxiety, depression, suicide, heart attacks, strokes, autoimmune diseases, etc., if we had more belonging of the feel, own, and care for type?

Give this definition a try. Make the shift. I bet you’ll find your emotional and physical wellness moving upward with your belonging.

View Details

What if leadership at work wasn’t for a select few, but rather shared among many? Management consultant Gitte Frederiksen gives us the recipe for “distributed leadership” — dynamic, multidimensional networks of leaders that tap into everyone’s knowledge and creativity — and shows how it allows teams to do more and do it better.

View Details

On the plane about to take off, I’m sitting in the exit row, and the flight attendant asked us, “Are you ready, willing, and qualified to assist in case of an emergency landing?” Hmmm, I thought. Qualified? I have never had to reload an entire plane because of an emergency landing before. How could I be qualified? This made me think of new managers, those who are promoted or ones hired who have no experience leading people. Yet, we think they are “qualified”! Is that fair? Shouldn’t we do something to prepare them?

People often believe that if they don’t feel capable, influential, or experienced enough to be leaders then they aren’t “qualified” for the job. However, this couldn’t be farther from the truth! Leadership is not only about technical skills and knowledge; it’s also about confidence, flexibility, and resilience. An article from CCL says “A good leader should have integrity, self-awareness, courage, respect, empathy, and gratitude.” Despite our own doubts and insecurities about leading others, there is no set mold for what makes someone qualified–each person has their own unique traits that make them a great leader.

Leadership TrainingLeadership training can have a profoundly positive impact on your ability to lead your organization, team, or project forward. If you feel stuck and unable to develop strategies that bring together both short-term and long-term objectives and shape cultures of mutual respect within your organization, leadership training can help. It offers opportunities to develop the skills to reflect critically upon all the decisions you make, understand and accept different perspectives, delegate effectively, and motivate your colleagues. With all these tools at hand that help you foster meaningful relationships with colleagues while driving results through dynamic decision-making, you’ll be well on your way toward becoming an influential and momentous leader. Leadership training is the perfect stepping stone for you if you’ve been looking for ways to step up in the type of leader you want to be.

Mentoring or ShadowingMentoring or shadowing is a great way to gain knowledge, increase your skill set and make valuable connections. A mentor can help you develop an understanding of the profession you have chosen by providing practical advice and guidance. Shadowing someone in a role that interests you is equally beneficial, allowing you to put the skills learned through self-teaching into practice. With both of these strategies, gaining insight into different approaches can be invaluable for your learning. Don’t forget that mentoring or shadowing requires commitment and dedication, and it can often take hard work and perseverance to receive the maximum results. However, with any effort comes a reward so take the plunge and reap the rewards!

Peer ReviewsBecoming a qualified leader is an important skill, and peer reviews are a great way to help the process. Providing and receiving thoughtful feedback can bring an understanding of strengths and development opportunities to aid any aspiring leader. Careful consideration of feedback from someone in the same field can be invaluable, as it comes from experience that may not be available outside of your peers. Peer reviews provide a platform for growth and development for anyone looking to build their leadership capabilities, which ultimately promotes self-confidence in workplace decisions.

Acknowledging and Celebrating Other People’s SuccessesAs a qualified leader, I understand how important it is to recognize and celebrate other people’s successes. Showing gratitude for the hard work of others not only maintains our relationships, but it’s also a great way to boost confidence and soften competition. Each time someone excels, I feel privileged to be around them and acknowledge their success. Through noticing great accomplishments throughout my circles and offering congratulations with warmth, I hope that others can experience the same inspiration and motivation as I do when witnessing successes.

ReflectionDeveloping leadership skills requires dedication and thoughtfulness. Qualified leaders are aware of their own strengths and weaknesses and how to leverage them for the benefit of their goals or environment. They take initiative and recognize the potential in others, while not forgetting to establish structure and guide their teams. All the methods discussed – rigorous training, mentoring or shadowing, peer reviews, and celebrating successes – can help build strong leadership skills that qualify you as a leader. Take stock of what’s comfortable for you – do you prefer a classroom setting? Or one-on-one meetings? Is public speaking natural for you? Knowing what works best for you is key to nurturing your capabilities. And at the end of it all, it’s important to reflect: What makes YOU a qualified leader? With careful investments into honing your leadership craft, continue to equip yourself with the knowledge and humility necessary to become an effective leader who moves people and brings out the best in them.

View Details

Office politics, workplace politics, organizational politics – I call it high school. Nothing much has changed since the cliques of high school – although today’s clique categories are a bit different, they still include what you recall from your high school, just with different labels.

In high school, cliques are part of social development. In the office or your office, your job and your reputation can be at stake.

Yes, I know that many are now working their job from alternate spaces, however, this information is the same as if you were in an office. All workplaces are political because we are human beings who bring all our baggage, good and bad, into the workplace.

What does one do if you are either new to the game of large offices or still working in that environment?

Set clear boundaries.

Start by staying out of it. Whatever game you do not join, you do not have to play.

Be nice, at all times; be as nice as possible.

Be fair to all you speak to. When someone attempts to engage you in a Gossip Round, simple, non-committal replies are best.

Use lots of ‘Ohs?’ and ‘Ahs’! and ‘Unhuhs’. Really – no one will care and they will move on to the next person who will agree or disagree, therefore getting snagged into a revolt, big or small.

Don’t gossip about anyone in your office, building, or company. It may hurt you on the way up the ladder and send you spinning down quickly.

The best players have the same respect for the receptionists as they have for the CEO, VPs, and other C Suite categories. You never know who’s watching or listening or who is anxious to pass on your words to someone else. Don’t let anything you say bite you in the butt.

Establish your office ‘line in the sand’ and do not engage anyone who wants to play the game of gossip, bullying, or other not-so-nice means.

Be yourself at all times and enjoy yourself as much as possible while you contribute your skills – the ones they pay you for – to your company.

Just so you know, all this craziness can be shared using social media.

Be yourself, be kind, and stop playing games.

View Details

With all of the world’s layoffs, economic uncertainty, and technological innovation in artificial intelligence, it’s a complex business environment out there. How should you prepare for the jobs of the future? See more in the visual deep dive below:

View Details

Work that’s dictated by a fixed schedule, place, and job description doesn’t make sense anymore, says leadership expert Debbie Lovich. In light of the cultural shift towards remote work sparked by the pandemic, Lovich gives three essential tips to leaders so employees can keep their autonomy (while remaining productive), companies can let go of rigid bureaucracy and we can all reshape work to better fit our lives.

View Details

Dan, I am, and at times I wonder if Dr. Seuss started out as a software engineer at Microsoft. The picture of that fox looks awfully familiar.

Do you ever wonder where Whoville is? One Microsoft Way perhaps? Did Horton work there too? Dr. Seuss said himself, “Horton hears a Who.” And what’s up with the Easter eggs? Are they green? What if Dr. Seuss was laid off?

Oh, the thinks you can think Mr. Theodore, but I have to tell you, the times they are changing. You can think about Career Builder or Think about Monster. You can think about Jobot. You can think about Indeed. And, you can even roll the DICE. Oh, the things you can think.

You can think up how much you are worth and boy, that is like giving birth. And you don’t have to stop. You can think about the glamors of all the spammers. You can think about recruiters advocating for you, after all, they have families too.

While you think you thinks Mr. Geisel, you may want to try this for your reprisal. Think about questions, that by the end of your day, will let your head rest and easily lay. Great questions a many you’ll need as your tools for these remarkable employers are not fools.

For all your years of service Dr. Seuss, I give to you my wocket in my pocket. A prize if you will. 5 great questions that are sure to thrill. Take my advice and use them wisely or the outcomes may be a bit more than lively.

Question 1: Beyond the role I would play in your company, what characteristics would you be looking for in me to help me better stand out as a candidate for future roles?
Question 2: After reviewing my resume, what is one thing that’s not in the job description that would be a shareable asset to your team.
Question Red: If your company could change one thing that would positively impact employee quality of life, what would it be?
Question Blue: What characteristics of your company would inspire me to stay there long term?
Last Question For You: If I came to you and asked for help, what would you say to me?
The last one is a bit of a fright, but will be remarkably impactful if timed just right. It requires a bit of finesse while employing tactful genius. The goal here is to fail while trying not to bail.

Purposely fail your best on a question of the test. Ask for help openly and hope for the best. My last question for you will make sense and is surely to make more cents.

Candidate: “I would like to ask for help on this question.”
Employer: “So, you give up?”

Candidate: “No, I’m asking for help?”
Employer: “So, you give up then right?”

Candidate: “Can I google it?”Oh, the thinks you can think when you ask for help. Here’s to hoping you don’t find yourself swimming in an ocean of kelp.

View Details

The glass cliff: an experience of taking on a leadership role only to find that your chances of success have been limited before you’ve even begun. Equality activist Sophie Williams explores the research-backed reasons behind this workplace phenomenon and how it overwhelmingly affects underrepresented groups, despite a facade of progress and inclusion. Learn more about the biases and behaviors that set people up for failure — and what can be done to make the path to success in leadership better for everyone.

View Details

This year’s Super Bowl gave us so many exciting moments and it was definitely a game for the ages. Patrick Mahomes played an incredible game on an injured ankle, Nick Bolton played out of his mind on defense, and Kadarius Toney broke the record for the longest punt return in Super Bowl history leading the Chiefs to their 2 championships in 3 years.

In the end, though, there was one play that stood out to me more than any other. With under two minutes to go, the Chiefs have the ball and they are inside the 10-yard line getting ready to score. Andy Reid draws up another masterful play and Mahomes passes to McKinnon, who could have easily scored yet another touchdown for the Chiefs but instead slides at the 1-yard line to keep the clock moving.

Why didn’t he score?Seems counterintuitive at the time, but because of McKinnon’s team-first mentality, he realized that keeping the ball and running out the clock was best for the team, and passed up the chance to score a touchdown in the super bowl which could have been the game-winning score and something he could have reminisced on for the rest of his life. However, McKinnon’s mindset was “WE before me” and because of that the Chiefs were able to run down the clock and Butker kicked the game-winning field goal.

There is an incredible lesson here for all of us regardless of age. A champion’s mindset thinks more about what’s best for the team and less about what’s best for the individual.

What a great lesson on humility and having the ability to think about yourself less and do what is best which leads not only to success but also happiness.

Jerick McKinnon- Thank you for being an example of what it means to be a great teammate and put others first.

A question I will start asking myself is “How can I be a better teammate like McKinnon in my personal and professional life”. I invite you to do the same and watch the magic happen…

View Details

Facing the possibility of a layoff, or dealing with one, can be a challenging and emotionally taxing experience. However, there are steps you can take to emotionally prepare yourself and minimize the impact of this event on your mental and emotional well-being.

Research has long shown layoffs have a detrimental effect on individuals and on corporate performance. Harvard BizReview 12-22. “What Companies Still Get Wrong About Layoffs” (hbr.org)

Layoffs, which began in mid-2022, have continued until there has become a steady stream of announcements in 2023.  This includes the following planned layoffs and those currently in process:

Wall Street Journal -1250 employees
Yahoo – more than half the ‘Yahoo for biz division’ – 1600
GitHub – owned by MSN – 10% – approximately 300 workers
Disney – 7K
The Google Alphabet (parent company) – plans to eliminate 12K in 2023
Amazon is organizing a layoff of 18k.
IBM announced it intended to layoff approximately 3900 from it’s Kyndryl
holdings.
Microsoft intends to lay off 10K.

Layoffs have always been an emotionally challenging situation for everyone – both those laid off and those who remain, not to mention the company itself. The affected employees may feel a range of emotions such as shock, anger, sadness, as well as fear about their future. Meanwhile, the remaining employees may feel guilty or anxious about their job security or may, psychologists say, experience survivor’s guilt.

Almost all who work experience a layoff, now and then, which presents some upheaval in their lives. Layoffs can, in fact, present anything from little worry over financial situations to significant negative financial consequences for affected employees who may have been living financially close to the edge; especially if they have no savings or backup plan. Furthermore, companies can find it cost prohibitive to hand out severance packages, as well as to recruit, train, and onboard new employees.

It can’t be overlooked – the negative impact on morale and productivity a potential or full blown layoff can also have on the remaining employees. It’s natural for them to feel demotivated or disengaged from their work as a result. It can also be challenging for managers to keep their team motivated and focused during a time of uncertainty and change. Those still working may have lost a coworker who had become a best friend and/or confidant; a lunch pal; work helpmate; someone they regularly played golf and socialized with outside the office. Not to mention their ride to work.

Furthermore, layoffs are difficult because they can have a range of emotional, financial, and practical implications for everyone involved.

During this time – it’s important to remember ‘YOU ARE NOT YOUR JOB’

Much has been written about self-identifying with a job. What it boils down to is the job becomes part of our identity since it’s something most spend the majority of our lives performing. It can shape our values and beliefs, provide us with purpose and structure, help us build relationships with colleagues. It can also provide us with a sense of accomplishment.

Although all of these things are true – the question remains – how do you disengage from the job once laid off? Why can’t you stop feeling emotionally out of sorts – if not depressed – when laid off? Psychologists tell us facing the possibility of a layoff, or living through one, can be an emotionally and financially taxing experience for a variety of reasons.

You’ve not only lost your job and the salary which comes with it – a two-fold loss – but are now cut off from co-workers you not only worked but no doubt socialized with.

You’ve likely developed relationships with their friends and families. The two of you, as well as others, may have lunched, had drinks, and headed off to sporting events as a group on a regular basis. As friends, you’ve likely shared your life and experiences with each other; consoled each other during difficult times; cheered each other on during good times. Perhaps become a backup for each other.

While you may continue to connect, for a brief time after the layoff, it usually won’t take long before many of those relationships begin fading, those friends drifting away. Lack of connection, to these individuals, then becomes another personal loss brought about by the layoff.

It’s important to remember, however, your job is not your entire identity – your worth as a person does not depend – solely – on your employment status.

Not to mention we can all learn to live without ‘extras’ we’ve come to include in our lives like Starbucks Frappuccino, for example.

Here are 7 tips to help guide you through this unique time:

1) It’s natural to feel a range of emotions, such as anxiety, fear, anger and sadness, when facing a layoff or living through one. It’s essential to recognize and acknowledge layoff-related feelings rather than suppressing them psychologists tell us.

2) Reach out to your support system. Talk to family, friends, network connections – a therapist, friends at church if necessary. They can provide emotional support and help you work through your feelings.

3) Focus on what you can control. While a layoff may be outside of your control, focus on things you can control – such as updating your resume, networking, searching for new job opportunities or volunteer activities.

4) Create a financial plan. Losing a job can be stressful but having a financial plan in place can help reduce some of that stress. Create a budget, cut back on unnecessary expenses; consider seeking financial advice if necessary.

5) Take care of yourself; prioritizing your physical and mental health. Exercise regularly, eat healthy foods, get enough sleep, and engage in activities that bring you joy. On occasion – have lunch with old co-workers and friends being careful to share some good rather than ruminating over all the bad that you believe has erupted from the layoff. Talk about your job plans, resume revamping, starting a business, and new volunteer activities you’ll be undertaking, for example.

6) Consider upgrading your skills and/or working on certifications. All of which can help you get hired for a job you want. Consider returning to college, starting business school or taking online classes, for example.

7) Stay positive. While it’s natural to feel down about a layoff, try to maintain a positive attitude. Be optimistic about better things coming your way and focus on the opportunities which may arise from this experience.

“Don’t be afraid of change – you may end up losing something good however it’s highly likely you will end up gaining something better.” Quotemaster.org

Remember:You are not alone; many have faced a layoff at some point in their career. It doesn’t define you as a person.

While losing a job can be a difficult experience, it can also be an opportunity to explore new avenues and potentially find a job that better aligns with your values and interests, plus upgrade your skills and/or education.

With time, patience, and perseverance, you can overcome this challenge and emerge stronger on the other side.

View Details

Leadership and followership are two sides of the same coin, but we are used to seeing and studying only one.Followership is not considered in managerial and organizational thinking. The cultural models in which we grew up clearly value the figure of the leader as much as they dismiss that of the follower.

Everyone considers themselves a leader or at least aspires to become one. In fact, with all the emphasis we place on developing leaders, we often forget the importance of followership and that effective leaders need effective followers to be successful.

Let me be clear, leadership matters a lot, but often in looking for the best leader figure we tend to lose sight of the people these leaders will lead (i.e. followership). And like leadership, followership also needs to be developed and taught.

After all, without collaborators or followers, the leader is just a man with big ambitions.

Among other things, in this “liquid” society no one is just a leader or just a follower, but one is both at the same time, and it happens to move from one position to another several times.

Followers are essential in the functioning of an organization. They are not passive followers, adepts without judgment. They are the collaborators, the employees of a company, endowed with a sense of responsibility and the ability to work as a team towards a goal. The success or failure of a project largely depends on them.

In different life situations, the same person is the leader and in others, he is the follower. And it also happens that a follower shows excellent skills to take on the function of a team leader. It is therefore advisable to be ready to play both roles.

Usually, the ability to be a good employee is considered only as the other side of being a great leader but they are two different things. Contrary to what the collective imagination thinks, followership does not coincide with mere execution but is expressed with a full, voluntary, and explicit organizational citizenship.

The leader himself creates value thanks to an adequate followership, and difficulty may surface without it.

We certainly do not deny that, if on the one hand, it is true that followers condition the success of a project, it is equally true that the leader influences the quality of the followers present in the team.

Leaders lacking confidence in themselves and in their own abilities will tend to create teams of conformist collaborators, i.e. who do not seek discussion and sharing of ideas, but will lead to the formation of teams basically made up of resigned followers.

An authoritative leader, on the other hand, needs to have effective followers alongside him, courageous people capable of thinking independently, questioning what they do not share, and providing valid alternatives on which to build continuous improvement.

A crucial aspect underlying the leader-follower relationship is reciprocity understood as complementarity: in reality, leadership and followership are conceivable only if they are related. Relationship within which the follower, grounding his knowledge and skills, is able to enrich and inspire the leader.

As followers we expect our leaders to provide motivation, direction, and influence. As leaders we expect our followers to get the job done and deliver results. It is a mutually beneficial relationship and it is impossible to have one without the other. So, the essence of followership does not lie in what followers do in general but in what they do in relation to the relationship they have with their leaders.

Specifically, it should be interesting to investigate how the followers take responsibility towards the leader, how they relate to the top positions, and how they deal with problems in relation to the existing leadership style in the company.

Ultimately, a very good follower, far from being a passive person, although in a non-equal relationship with the leader, shares with the same the common goal pursued by the company and operates, through a continuous proposition of ideas, independent evaluations, and constructive criticism, to ensure business success.

The leader creates good followership in the measure in which it has the possibility of choosing its employees associated with the ability to pull out the best from them. If the leader must be well versed in technical-relational skills, aimed at the management and development of his collaborators, the follower must also work on specific skills to increase his own relevance in the cooperation phase.

Some scholars who also dealt with the followers tried to define the collaborator that all leaders would like to have. Endowed with independent critical thinking, this kind of follower, without letting himself be conditioned by the role or hierarchical level, shows uniform behavior with everyone, evaluates the risks well, and manages to deal assertively with the conflicts that may arise.

He is able to manage the changes that the organization needs, share its goals, and knows how to express his opinions to anyone empathetically. He is aware of his role and acts on his own initiative, willingly placing his abilities at the service of the group.

This is the figure to aspire to in order to be considered an effective follower: people capable of thinking independently, who are actively committed to the success of a project in which they firmly believe.

What are its particular characteristics?Enthusiasm, versatility, reliability, credibility, independent and critical thinking, courage to challenge the leader, commitment to achieve high performance, initiative, assumption of responsibility, professionalism in one’s work, willingness to act actively for the company mission, effective communication, and interpersonal skills.

I rather believe that there isn’t an ideal profile but many profiles, if not all, are usable for changing business needs, identifiable in relation to the specific business situation and organizational identity. Awareness of the systemic relationship that is triggered between the environment and the type of follower, of how to intervene appropriately, and what results you want to achieve.

Have you been a follower, a leader, or both?

View Details

We all go through difficult times and situations. These include financial difficulties, health issues, hard problems to deal with, and working with a few hostile employees.

Do we approach all problems the same way? Do we need to tailor a solution for each situation?

One major difficulty that received much attention is dealing with difficult employees who come in different colors.

Avoidance Responsibility- employees who do not accept responsibility and push it to other employees.
Star Employees- who in reality are not. They report late to work and meetings because they are self-inflated. They do what they do well but see themselves above others.
Bad Attitudes- employees who are very negative to teammates or work. They spread negativity.
Encyclopedia Employees- who think they know everything and so they need not learn or collaborate with other employees.
The Sick Employee- to avoid taking responsibility these employees use sick days to abstain from work.
The Excuse Maker- refers to employees who are excellent at one thing and that is finding excuses for not doing their work.
The Displeased Employees- who show a constant pattern of complaining and criticizing work and workers.

The above shows some examples of difficulties we meet with some employees. How best to deal with them?

Any plausible solution for a problem, in general, is gaining the wisdom of understanding it. Assumptions only make the problem harder to solve.

A leader needs to understand the root causes of the problem.

Is it due to the work environment?
Is it because the employee works on a job that he has no ability and desire to engage?
Is it a health issue?
Is it the fear of experiencing what the employee experienced before?
Is it due to other undeclared reasons?

Understanding why is crucial. The where and when questions are less relevant because people tend to repeat what they do anywhere everywhere and whenever possible.

I recall my experience with a very difficult employee. He was very aggressive to his colleagues and even threatened them sometimes. He was very creative but agonizing to work with.

I called him to my office to understand why he was behaving the way he did. It turned out that it resulted from home. His parents gave much more attention to his elder brother and younger sister. He received little encouragement and had the feeling of isolation and abandonment.

I gave him assignments to expose himself. Examples included speaking at conferences and meetings. He shined. Gradually he changed his behavior and became an indispensable member of the teams he worked with. He needed some spotlight and that was enough to remove his negative feelings.

How do you deal with difficult people or situations? You are welcome to share your thoughts.

View Details

For all students, online learning is becoming increasingly popular as an effective way to acquire the skills and knowledge needed for success in today’s careers. It offers flexible, cost-effective options for those looking to invest in their professional development without taking time away from their daily lives. By enrolling in online courses, students can learn at their own pace and in their environment without compromising the quality of their education. With an array of courses covering various topics, online learning is a great way to gain expertise in areas relevant to current career paths.

Digital learning is particularly beneficial for women who may struggle to find the time and resources to pursue a full-time career while meeting family commitments. Women can gain essential and valuable skills by taking advantage of online courses.

What online courses and other knowledge should women consider?As technology continues to evolve, so do the skills and qualifications needed to land a job in the future. A college degree is still essential for many positions required by global corporations; however, employers are increasingly looking for candidates with unique skill sets beyond traditional degrees. For example, software development professionals may benefit from having coding certifications and being professional association members. Another option is considering a stackable degree to ensure learning is the most up-to-date skills and knowledge.

Digital learning women should consider cyber security, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Biotechnology, Nursing, Sustainability, Health Information Technology, Medical Technology, and Construction Management.

My latest book, written by experienced professors, offers plenty of advice on how to make the most of digital learning for the careers of tomorrow!

Amazon – Reimagining Higher-Ed Online Learning Focused on Student Success and the Careers of Tomorrow.

View Details

Probably everyone has heard the phrase “employee engagement”, but for many who have, unless they are in HR, few will know exactly what it is, why it’s important and that every leader needs to make it happen to so they, their team, and organisation more successful.

As a leader, it is your route to success. HR can support you but, in the end, it’s about what you do, no one else. In a wider context, all employers, and senior leaders in particular, need to pay more attention to organisational and team engagement. Each year if possible conduct employee engagement surveys to make sure employees are having a great employee experience. Because if they aren’t they won’t be performing well and may be thinking of leaving.

Engaging your people is how you maximise your potential to achieve real success for any organisation set against any important factors you care to mention, from customer experience to risk management and high performance to innovation.

This isn’t some soft fluffy idea about being nice to people this is a proven evidence-based organisational strategy for success and maximised return on investment.

Having an employee engagement strategy will enhance employee experience, boost employee satisfaction and thus build an engaged workforce. That is one of the best ways to minimise employee turnover, increase the quality of work and boost morale across the entire organization. But also a great way to grow positive core values and company culture which then enhances the organisation’s success long term.

Certainly, anyone in senior leadership roles needs to understand in detail what employee engagement is and how to optimise it within their area of responsibility.

At C suite employee engagement is not just a responsibility of HR, it’s the strategic responsibility of everybody at the senior level to role model it and to support it. In particular, the CFO, as will maximise the return on investment from human capital.

What is employee engagement?There are numerous technical definitions of employee engagement but to keep it simple and practical you can say that “engaged” employees are people who are genuinely giving their best at work. Thus when you see a figure for employee engagement in an employee engagement survey this is the percentage of employees in the organisation who are doing that. Employee engagement is the process by which organisations seek to get more of their employees engaged and thus giving their best.

It is worth mentioning “discretionary effort” here. This is effectively the amount of effort an individual can withhold but it is unlikely to be identified that they are doing so via performance management. In other words, they will be rated as performing satisfactorily but yet there could be up to 30% extra effort they could give if they were engaged. It is this the additional effort employee engagement is seeking to gain to maximise organisational performance.

Why do all leaders need to know about employee engagement?Just reflect on the potential impact of a significant proportion of an organisation’s employees giving 30% more effort. Better employee engagement will enable any organisation doing anything anywhere to be more effective and successful. But it is individual leaders above all who have to make it happen. Simply because the vast majority of factors that influence how engaged people are relate directly to the behaviour of their boss.

In the final analysis no matter what senior leaders are doing, no matter what HR is doing, if the employee’s own boss is not taking day-to-day action to engage them then it just won’t happen.

The Corporate Executive Board in a study of over 30,000 employees across the world found that of the top 20 drivers of employee effort 17 were actions that individuals’ bosses needed to take and the other three of which were not, in terms of importance, ranked less important than 15th. (Refer to page 13). This is why it is vital every leader understands employee engagement and how to make it happen.

Those actions which increase our engagement do so not because of the job that we do but because we are human. So, for example, my report for the King’s Fund on developing leadership in the NHS to enhance patient care submitted to the UK government enhancing employee engagement proposed the same core strategy and actions just as much as when I proposed them as a key element in enabling better financial performance at UBS and transformation at London Underground during restructuring. I’ve also helped deliver them in construction, not-for-profit, and other sectors. They work everywhere. They work not because of our job or the organisation but because we are human.

Why employee engagement? The return on investmentThere is a vast resource of data based on studies of all types from organisations, professional bodies, consultancies, academic institutions, and other sources which show that high employee engagement improves performance in many areas. This vast resource of data confirms that when employees are engaged, and therefore giving their best, the positive impacts are not restricted to their own performance but apply to everything from customer service to cost efficiency and operational risk management.

Simple day-to-day employee engagement actions by their boss can significantly boost the effort that individuals give. For example, if your boss does these things versus a boss who can’t be bothered then this is the potential extra effort uplift from individuals:

When you multiply up the impact of all leaders taking these actions at a strategic level it has a significant effect. The UK Government Report, Engage for Success, for which I was part of the Expert Panel, has many examples and evidence of return on investment from employee engagement. One of the most important is that if every leader in the organisation starts to engage their people effectively you could potentially get 30% more effort, the discretionary effort, from 60% of people.

Depending on business model, margins and other factors that could deliver up to 10% on the bottom line for free. In anybody’s book, in particular a CFOs book, that’s not a bad return on investment.

Here are a few others:

Companies with high engagement are 71% more likely to outperform their peers in the sector.
Can produce Earnings per share 2.6 times higher than competitors with low engagement (Gallup)
Could increase revenue by up to 43% (Hay)
Bank branches with high employee engagement achieved 16% high-profit margin growth than those with lower scores (Standard Chartered)
Engagement can halve days lost through sickness (CBI)

Once, after I spoke on this to a group of CEOs and CFOs on why they need to significantly increase their efforts on employee engagement, the CFO of a major telecoms company came to me and said “Chris why has nobody told me about this before? This is a no brainer! It’s a license to print money if we get it right!”. It is indeed !

How are we doing on employee engagement?Could be much better. The latest data from Gallup would suggest that most European countries have employee engagement rates on average lower than 25%. In addition potentially with employees who are “not engaged” around 50 to 55% with another approximately 20% “disengaged”. The UK data is even worse. Low employee engagement is simply a long-term block to future success.

The fact that these figures are to some degree so dismal should make every leader reading this ask why, given how simple it is to improve employee engagement, are we languishing at these levels? But the flip side is that it’s a great opportunity for you to take action and get some great easy wins. Clearly, these are country or region-wide figures and lack the accuracy of survey results from an in-house employee survey which is run on a regular basis but they are a useful indicator.

View Details

Organizations “in play” are adaptable, inclusive, innovative, engaged, and productive. Want to know what organizations fear? That when we are “in play” we are not “working”. We are afraid that play means silly, and unproductive, and makes us feel unprofessional and uncomfortable. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Play is that thing you do that you enjoy so much you get lost in. When you are doing it you don’t know where the time went. Play is personal. What do you do at work that you really love to do? Why do you go back to work every day? In there lies “the play”. And it is voluntary…no one can make you do it. If the ping pong tables and cupcake socials are not your play, then they are doing nothing to increase your productivity or potential.

However, When we are “in play” we are utilizing our whole self, revealing our potential, physically, cognitively, socially, and emotionally. It is scientifically proven that the brain “in play” drives motivation, and imagination, and is most open to new ideas and concepts. Play is where we are most capable of and open to creative and dynamic thinking — it is also when we are most open to considering multiple perspectives and new ideas and we are most inclusive

Work and play are not separate-when you do the work you love, and you were meant to do, the two constructs are seamless. You won’t know where one starts and the other begins. “In play” are creative solutions for innovation, inclusion, productivity, and profit.

View Details

There is pain before progress. Pain is inevitable. It is a part of our human condition~ just like our longing to belong. Knowing this, we might as well equip ourselves with a new, a more INclusive P.O.W.E.R, to deal with the pain that we are either currently grappling with or will someday face.

You are not alone.

Just know, there are plenty of people in this world who will accept you ~ the real you. Your empowered journey to belonging starts with a single step. The journey starts when you take steps to Address your emotional Pain, Stay Open and Be Willing to renew the Energy within you and to celebrate the Real You.

My 2nd TEDx talk is finally released. I hope my message reaches whoever needs to hear it. Let’s collectively turn our own pain into our power and build our bridges back to true selves and deepen our bonds with those who value our sacred energy.

View Details

In 2008 — nearly 15 years ago — Joseph Epstein published an article called, “The Kindergarchy”. It begins like this:

In America, we are currently living in a Kindergarchy, under rule by children. People who are raising, or have recently raised, or have even been around children a fair amount in recent years will, I think, immediately sense what I have in mind. Children have gone from background to foreground figures in domestic life, with more and more attention centered on them, their upbringing, their small accomplishments, their right relationship with parents and grandparents. For the past 30 years at least, we have been lavishing vast expense and anxiety on our children in ways that are unprecedented in America and in perhaps any other national life. Such has been the weight of all this concern about children that it has exercised a subtle but pervasive tyranny of its own. This is what I call Kindergarchy.

It was easy enough then to call Epstein’s view extreme. It might even be easy enough now. But if we determine that Epstein wasn’t at all extreme, we may discover he was, in fact, prescient. And it would make it far more predictable that, in 2023, four folks from Gartner would publish this article in Harvard Business Review (HBR), “9 Trends That Will Shape Work in 2023 and Beyond.” The summary of the article says this:

Last year was another tumultuous year in the workplace, with continued high employee turnover rates, evolving return-to-office policies, inflation, and more. In 2023, amid a looming economic downturn, organizations will continue to face significant challenges — and how they respond could determine whether they are an employer of choice.

Employer of choice? Hold on thar, Baba Louie. We might need to do a little research, followed by a little math. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:

The number of job openings increased to 11.0 million on the last business day of December … Over the month, the number of hires and total separations changed little at 6.2 million and 5.9 million, respectively. Within separations, quits (4.1 million) and layoffs and discharges (1.5 million) changed little.

Okay. Let’s see:

6,200,000 hires – 5,900,000 separations = 300 people employed
11,000,000 jobs – 300 people employed = 10,999,700 remaining jobs

And that doesn’t take into account the myriad folks who aren’t looking for employment, including everyone from career Pajama Boys to older folks who’ve been aged out and have given up, as well as those who’ve been paid quite handsomely by the government to stay home and do nothing, thank you very much. So, if you’re an employer — one needle in a haystack of 10,999,970 — you’ll spend more time trying to be the employer of choice than you will doing whatever it is your company does.

The Secret Decoder RingIn any case, logic notwithstanding, the nine trends our Gartner friends list in HBR are these:

Employers will “quiet hire” in-demand talent. [Translation: Employers will promote from within or find the guts to settle for nothing less than the qualifications they want and the performance they deserve.]
Hybrid flexibility will reach the front lines. [Translation: Employers will require those who’ve been slacking to take some pressure off those who’ve been taking up the slack.]
Managers will find themselves sandwiched between leader and employee expectations. [Translation: Business as usual.]
Pursuit of nontraditional candidates will expand talent pipelines. [Translation: Employers will look for people who actually want to work for a living.]
Healing pandemic trauma will open paths to sustainable performance. [Translation: In addition to participation trophies, employers will also start awarding cookies.]
Organizations will drive DEI forward amid growing pushback. [Translation: Employers will be forced to check boxes, even though they know meritocracy is the only way to succeed.]
Getting personal with employee support will create new data risks. [Translation: Employers will acquire cybersecurity protection, or they’ll be sued out of business.]
Concerns around AI bias will lead to more transparency in recruiting tech. [Translation: HR departments will disappear, and hiring will be mechanical and homogenized.]
Organizations must address workforce-wide erosion of social skills. [Translation: As surrogate parents, employers will pick up where public schools left off.]

There may be a whole bunch of things you’d like to be these days, but an employer shouldn’t be one of them unless, of course, you need an outlet for your masochistic tendencies, you have an innate and unquenchable desire to be a babysitter, or your altruism compels you to give some folks a place to spend a few hours of their days and take your money without doing too much to earn it.

The Moral of the StoryWith the death of empiricism and common sense, I’m coming to conclude we can analyze things to the point at which our ability to distinguish between cause and effect is eroding unto obliteration at the same time that our ability to read bell curves is suffering the same fate.

As the bell curve above illustrates, the majority of employees don’t need to be fretted over, to be objects of pampering, to have special circumstances created for them, to receive counseling for pandemic trauma, or to get naptimes and cookies. Their epidermis is sufficiently durable. They just need to be treated with fairness and respect, to be allowed to contribute to the best of their abilities, to be recognized and rewarded for their contributions, and to derive a sense of fulfillment for the work they do.

Because that’s true, employers need to get a grip of their knickers, to recognize their prerogatives to impose conditions and to have reasonable performance expectations, to expect a degree of self-discipline and to impose the discipline that’s lacking, to exchange a day’s wages for a day’s work, and to have the respect they give be returned in kind.

If the coronavirus pandemic taught us anything it’s that we’re tougher, more resilient, and more resourceful than we may have realized. When it comes to mental health, I minimize nothing. But please. If we’re going to infantilize people or, at best, treat them like adolescents, let’s not expect them to behave like responsible adults, okay?

We all want to live in Utopia. But we don’t. We live and work in reality.

View Details

Matthew Piszczek, Wayne State University and Kristie McAlpine, Rutgers University

For most American workers who commute, the trip to and from the office takes nearly one full hour a day – 26 minutes each way on average, with 7.7% of workers spending two hours or more on the road.

Many people think of commuting as a chore and a waste of time. However, during the remote work surge resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, several journalists curiously noted that people were – could it be? – missing their commutes. One woman told The Washington Post that even though she was working from home, she regularly sat in her car in the driveway at the end of the workday in an attempt to carve out some personal time and mark the transition from work to nonwork roles.

As management scholars who study the interface between people’s work and personal lives, we sought to understand what it was that people missed when their commutes suddenly disappeared. In our recently published conceptual study, we argue that commutes are a source of “liminal space” – a time free of both home and work roles that provides an opportunity to recover from work and mentally switch gears to home.

During the shift to remote work, many people lost this built-in support for these important daily processes. Without the ability to mentally shift gears, people experience role blurring, which can lead to stress. Without mentally disengaging from work, people can experience burnout.

We believe the loss of this space helps explain why many people missed their commutes.

Commutes and liminal spaceIn our study, we wanted to learn whether the commute provides that time and space, and what the effects are when it becomes unavailable. We reviewed research on commuting, role transitions and work recovery to develop a model of a typical American worker’s commute liminal space. We focused our research on two cognitive processes: psychological detachment from the work role – mentally disengaging from the demands of work – and psychological recovery from work – rebuilding stores of mental energy used up during work. Based on our review, we developed a model which shows that the liminal space created in the commute created opportunities for detachment and recovery.

However, we also found that day-to-day variations may affect whether this liminal space is accessible for detachment and recovery. For instance, train commuters must devote attention to selecting their route, monitoring arrivals or departures and ensuring they get off at the right stop, whereas car commuters must devote consistent attention to driving.

We found that, on the one hand, more attention to the act of commuting means less attention that could otherwise be put toward relaxing recovery activities like listening to music and podcasts. On the other hand, longer commutes might give people more time to detach and recover.

In an unpublished follow-up study we conducted ourselves, we examined a week of commutes of 80 university employees to test our conceptual model. The employees completed morning and evening surveys asking about the characteristics of their commutes, whether they “shut off” from work and relaxed during the commute and whether they felt emotionally exhausted when they got home.

Most of the workers in this study reported using the commute’s liminal space to both mentally transition from work to home roles and to start psychologically recovering from the demands of the workday. Our study also confirms that day-to-day variations in commutes predict the ability to do so.

We found that on days with longer-than-average commutes, people reported higher levels of psychological detachment from work and were more relaxed during the commute. However, on days when commutes were more stressful than usual, they reported less psychological detachment from work and less relaxation during the commute.

Creating liminal spaceOur findings suggest that remote workers may benefit from creating their own form of commute to provide liminal space for recovery and transition – such as a 15-minute walk to mark the beginning and end of the workday.

Our preliminary findings align with related research suggesting that those who have returned to the workplace might benefit from seeking to use their commute to relax as much as possible.

To help enhance work detachment and relaxation during the commute, commuters could try to avoid ruminating about the workday and instead focus on personally fulfilling uses of the commute time, such as listening to music or podcasts, or calling a friend. Other forms of commuting such as public transit or carpooling may also provide opportunities to socialize.

Our data shows that commute stress detracts from detachment and relaxation during the commute more than a shorter or longer commute. So some people may find it worth their time to take the “scenic route” home in order to avoid tense driving situations.

Matthew Piszczek, Assistant Professor of Management, Wayne State University and Kristie McAlpine, Assistant Professor of Management, Rutgers University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

View Details

For much of our lives, we are focused on fulfilling our potential as individuals. We are taught to express our physical and intellectual talents especially. If we are lucky, we may be supported to express and fulfil our desires, our love and our ideals. Over time, we hopefully come to a place where we have a good level of self-esteem and contentment. Along that road, we will have interacted with many people. We may have been part of sports teams or professional work groups and teams and yet the chances are that we have never really considered the higher value or potential of those groups.

As we reflect on teams and groups, collaboration is a word that resounds loudly in many organisations these days. It’s as though there is a growing awareness and consciousness that moving beyond the individual self has a higher value even if true value-added collaboration is still proving pretty tricky to achieve. However, if we stop and consider the deep interconnectedness that is a fundamental design principle within all aspects of life, we can start to appreciate why communities, tribes, families, teams, and groups have such a place in our lives.

What is worth reflecting on now is the growing importance of group work and why and how this needs to move to a new level. A level where we go beyond the identification with the self and truly see the potential that sits within a highly performing team or group.

The why of this on a certain level is pretty straightforward. We live in an age of complexity, ‘wicked’ problems, and deep uncertainty, all of which demand better use of the diverse talent and capability that exists as well as opening up new pathways for that potential to be accessed. We cannot solve most of the challenges without cooperation – across teams, across organisations, across societies and nations.

As it happens, we are being helped in this endeavour by astrological forces (yes, I know that won’t feel very scientific to some people). Nevertheless, astrologically we have entered into the Age of Aquarius which some may also recall as the title of a hippie song from the 1970s. The Aquarian Age, a period that will last around 2000 years, is, amongst other things, a time when we will see far more focus on groups. From paying attention to others in our communities to active collaboration and cooperation – in some cases with quite a high level of impact.

So what are we being called upon to do differently? Well, here we come to the need to move beyond individual and self-focused interest to a higher point of focus. That which serves the collective (however that may be defined for your endeavour) and which puts us into relationship with others in group formation. In high-performing team work, we often see the analogy of the geese used and how they fly in formation, taking turns to lead, share the load and so on. What underpins that though is a higher level of communication. A willingness to sense, be aware of and act on the information coming from the other members of the group as we move together toward the achievement of a shared purpose.

In the coming years, groups will be asked to go even further still. To establish such a deep level of trust and openness that the communication flow is seamless and that our consciousness and behaviours elevate to thinking ‘group’ first. Not in a self-sacrificial sense, but in a way that truly honours the importance and impact generated by high-functioning teams and groups. On a more existential level, it also honours and collaborates with that core truth of interdependence as well.

Letting go of the ‘ego’ in favour of the collective comes easily to some but is often a tough call for seasoned leaders…leaders who have had to battle and assert their individuality to be taken seriously. Now though we must prepare for the age of groups…

View Details

How do we end up saying yes to everything and then never having enough time to get it all done? This is a common experience in most corporations these days with shrinking budgets and fewer staff to meet all the expectations required for growth. We often say yes to things that don’t make sense to do rather than saying no to solidify our ‘high performer’ identity.

We can choose to operate differently by embracing A Culture of AND.

We achieve this by adding the word AND to saying YES and NO to others. This empowers us to:

give our best,
ensure that our colleagues and leaders have what they actually need vs. what they think they want,
get what we need to make good on that YES, or
let others know WHY we are saying no in ways that help them to move forward anyway

Let’s break each of these down –

Giving our Best:What keeps us from giving our best? Often it is a lack of clarity in our role or a misunderstanding about what we are trying to achieve in the first place. Many times, it comes from not having the information required, or the time to digest that information prior to engaging in brainstorming or decision-making with others.

Other times it is the idea that we have to work 80 hours each week just to keep up with the pace of doing 2 full-time jobs while we wait for the new positions to be filled.

When we place getting the job done ahead of our health and wellness, it’s very difficult to give our best. During these times, it’s important to be OK with our best being different at different times. Raising children, supporting parents, dealing with health issues, and learning new skills, all impact what ‘our best’ is in each situation. When we use the power of AND to acknowledge what our best is in each moment and accept that is exactly what is needed, we are free to give what we have to give while managing expectations with others.

Saying YES + AND may sound like this:

‘YES – I’d love to help you get clarity on that. I have been out with a sick child for a week and am booked solid for the next two weeks AND I realize that I’m the best person to help you with this. I could give you a couple of hours next week if you could replace me at the all-day set-up meeting. That would give me the time to help you before the presentation’.

Saying NO + AND may sound like this:

‘NO. I won’t be able to help you with that as I’m off that day with my family AND I have two potential colleagues who may be able to step in on my behalf. I’d like to introduce them to you once I know who is available.

Ensuring that our colleagues and leaders get what they actually need

Too many times our colleagues or leaders ask us for information or assistance that doesn’t make sense to us. We can see that what they are asking for is not going to help them, yet we do it anyway, not wanting to question their authority or ‘higher wisdom’. Many of us learned this as small children when asking ‘why’ we had to do something, and the answer was ‘because I said so’. This taught many of us that others know better and that it’s not our place to question what they ask of us.

Unfortunately, those around us can’t always see the perspective we hold – even if they used to do the same job in the past. If we are going to add our highest value, it’s up to us to ensure the requester actually gets what they need to move forward in their world.

Sometimes the information we are asked for doesn’t make sense given what they are trying to decide or accomplish. When this happens, we can use YES + AND:

‘YES – I understand that you/they are looking for the ‘xyz’ information AND if I can better understand how it’s going to be used, I can get you what you need in a format you can use right away.’

(then) ‘Given what you are trying to communicate, the information you are asking for won’t really help. A quick 15-minute conversation together will give me chance to get us both on the same page to get you what they need so you can effectively make the case. When can we do that?’

Sometimes a request doesn’t make sense because we are not the person that has the answers or owns that body of work. When that happens, we can use NO + AND to steer the conversation in a productive direction. It may sound like this:

‘NO – I’m actually not the one who has that information – AND I don’t want you to have to run around to get what you need. Here is my understanding of who would have that and the best way/timing/approach to get it quickly from them’.

Getting what we need to make good on that YES

Often we ARE the right person and we DO have the information, insights, or content that our colleagues or supervisors need. At the same time, requests that come in with low clarity and a fast-turnaround time can disrupt our progress on existing efforts and priorities. How do we say yes then? When we are asked to focus on something that will take us away from what we are doing, it’s up to us to manage that expectation. It might sound like this:

‘YES – I can get you that information for your meeting tomorrow AND for me to do that, I’ll be skipping the team meeting this afternoon to get you a draft by COB. I will need a response on the draft from you by 9 am tomorrow to make any other adjustments, so you have it for noon.’

If you are not sure what is OK to let go of or delay, you may need to engage your supervisor to help decide what the priority is. It might sound like this:

YES – I understand what you need and why, AND for me to get that to you by COB today, I’ll need your guidance on what to stop working on or delay for now as this will take me the rest of the afternoon. I have two internal stakeholder meetings scheduled and the event calendar is due today. Can you help me run interference on those?

Letting others know WHY you are saying no in ways that help them to move forward anyway

As an organization shifts and grows, roles and responsibilities and lines of the work shift and grow as well. While we may know who does what within our own unit, others that engage and rely on us may not.

Sometimes we end up with requests that are not appropriate for us, even though the requester would feel better if we did it. While this situation may be hiding a deeper problem, it is not up to us to fix it for others. Instead, we can use NO + AND to guide the requester back to those that are accountable for the work. It might sound like this:

NO – while I used to do some of that work, it’s now being done by this group AND it is important that they are the ones to advise you so everything stays integrated. While I understand you would prefer to engage with me, they are working hard to build the skills and responsiveness that you are looking for, and every time they have a chance to respond they get better at it. Let me suggest you contact (this person) and help them understand your overall intention and timeline and that will help them give you a firm date to access the content you are looking for.

How can you cultivate a culture of AND today?

View Details

Building a solid foundation of good employees helps your business stand firm. For saving money alone, you must ensure you have the right people for the job. Here are some tips.

Take Your Time When HiringUse a mix of questions, tests, and checking references to get a full picture of a candidate. This helps you make sure that the people you hire have the right skills, experience, and personality for your business. As an example, if you are starting up an eco-friendly business, give young people with good ideas a chance by giving them entry level environmental jobs that you can use. But before you bring people in, you should do a qualification and experience pre-screen.

Attract Good Staff with an Appealing CultureFind out the values and principles that guide your business and make sure that possible employees understand them. This helps you find people who believe in your goals and share your ideas. When workers fit in with your company’s culture, they are more likely to feel engaged and committed to their work. This can make people more productive, happier at work, and less likely to leave their jobs. All of these things will help you build a great business.

Build a Foundation of Good Employees with DevelopmentIn a recent poll, 60% of workers said they don’t think their boss appreciates them. But you can avoid this by giving your workers chances to learn new skills and take on new challenges. It’s really up to you to show your workers that you value what they bring to the table and care about their professional growth. This makes them feel respected and interested in their work, which can make them happier at work, more motivated, and more likely to stay with the company.

Reward Good Work as a Means of RetentionYou can also save money on starting costs and overall costs if you go out of your way to make sure your employees don’t leave. One easy way to do this is to offer perks and rewards that help keep your best employees. This can include bonuses, open work schedules, and chances to move up in the company. When you invest in your workers, you show that you care about them and build a healthy culture that cares about their success and supports them at work.

Make Staff Want to Come to WorkNo one wants to work somewhere they think is bad for their mental health and doesn’t give them much or anything in return. It helps to make the workplace a place where people feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and feedback. You should also encourage people to talk to each other openly, give them feedback that helps them improve, and recognize and reward good performance. One way to get good workers is to make your business a good place to be.

SummaryYour business will thrive if you strive to build a solid foundation of good employees. So, be careful when hiring, offer development opportunities, and foster a positive work environment.

View Details

The opportunityOver $750 billion a year is spent by organisations globally on advertising trying to boost their brands, products, and services. Marketing and branding functions spend vast amounts of time and money working with agencies on trying to find the best way to resonate both with their current customers and attract potential customers.

Employee brand ambassadors will support this objective and can have a significant positive impact whilst costing very little. However, in my view, the use of employee brand ambassadors rarely reaches the potential it truly has. This would seem to be a “no-brainer” but for some reason, it just doesn’t seem to be on the strategic agenda and, even if it is, it’s not done effectively, often because of a misunderstanding of what has to be put in place to make it work.

To identify and appoint a number of employees as brand ambassadors to work both inside and outside the organisation does have benefits but I believe there is much more that could be done quickly, simply, and relatively easily. Not by just these few employees promoting the organisation, especially if it is part of their job in either sales marketing or associated teams, but that every single employee in the organisation proactively inside and outside work promotes the brand of the organisation to their family, their networks, on social media in their blog posts and to people they meet.

From a branding and marketing perspective, you might say this cannot possibly have the reach that, for example, a television advertising campaign might have, that might be so, but every employee who expresses their genuine belief in what their organisation does is likely to have much more resonance with other people than a TV advert or corporate social media post. A corporate social media presence is not the same as speaking to someone, or seeing a post on their own social media. Also, you are more likely to mention such an interaction to other people. That’s because it’s real people and that’s the potential power of an employee brand ambassador program – the power of real people in support of the organisations brand.

Great organisations realise the power of employee brand ambassadors and leverage it but overall few are leveraging the power of their people effectively.

What is really interesting is that turning everyone into a proactive employee brand ambassador through an employee ambassador program not only has a positive impact on the presentation of the brand but also has a significant impact on the corporate culture, creating a common purpose and boosting the performance of the organisation which then further strengthens brand value and ensures the delivery of brand promises to customers more effectively.

It truly unleashes the power of employees. They become the embodiment of your brand, showing your business in a positive light, using word of mouth to say positive things from their unique perspective and real-life personal experience which can reach a wider audience of consumers and others.

The challengeIt’s fair to say that in most organisations, other than those in branding and marketing or C suite, the vast majority of employees have no clue what the brand promises are that the organisation presents to customers. In fact, most of them are also pretty unclear on vision, values, purpose and the wider big picture into which they fit. This not only causes problems around understanding what the brand is about it also has a significant impact on employee engagement, ie employees giving their best. In addition, this lack of understanding also reduces the ability of employees to ensure that operational activity is aligned with strategic objectives. Even if they don’t know the brand promises at least aligning their work to strategic objectives has them heading in the right direction.

All the data on employee engagement shows that employees can potentially withhold significant effort, called discretionary effort, and still meet satisfactory performance standards. In other words, if the environment isn’t right they will withhold this effort but it will not be possible to tell that they are doing so, or indeed who is and who isn’t. This additional effort which is being withheld could amount to an extra 30% of effort from up to 60% of people within the organisation. Imagine how much impact getting that extra effort could make, and how it could be applied to brand ambassadorship.

Worryingly there are indications that post-COVID this figure could now have risen to somewhere in the region of 70 to 80% of people withholding effort due to higher expectations that employees have of their leaders and organisations not being met post-pandemic.

This is the crux of the challenge of how to start the journey to create brand ambassadors – how to create an environment where no one, or as few people as possible, are withholding effort. That’s quite simply because if they were holding effort they certainly won’t be a brand ambassador Why? Because if they’re withholding effort they just don’t care.

This challenge might seem complex and something which has to be done at strategic level. Certainly if planned and coordinated at that level it will have maximum impact and benefit but there is no reason why individual leaders should not encourage their team members to all be brand ambassadors even if the rest of the organisation isn’t. The impact on team engagement and performance is going to be just as beneficial. Any leader can achieve this through the simple steps set out here, as can the whole organisation if C suite sets an example and supports.

Does it work?In a word yes. I’ve seen a significant positive impact in a number of organisations when implementing employee ambassador programs. From personal involvement during the creation of UBS, the global bank, effectively the result of 6 mergers and acquisitions over a short period of time brand ambassadorship delivered significant impact.

This is now a Harvard Case study “Towards the Integrated Firm”. As Global Head of Leadership, it was clear that creating belief in the new organisation was a key element to successfully bring together the constituent parts to operate as one, as we clearly promoted it “One UBS”. That One UBS had to have one brand identity. This started with the executive team acting in an authentic way to set an example to build a strong company culture and show the essential role that the banks values played in what it did everyday, reflected in the brand promises.

During the early stages of this transformation bringing together the people, processes, and brands into a single entity it became clear to us that alignment on the new brand was key for the optimization of sustainable profitability. But also what was critical was that the brand had to be all-encompassing – equally valid internally with employees as well as externally with customers and the market.

Why both? Because many of us had seen the negative impact of an organisations internal brand being different from the external brand, a perception that customers were treated well but employees not so much. We had the potential to create over 70,000 proactive brand ambassadors across the world, something that could have a significant impact both internally and externally.

It worked because of a clear business case set out by the CEO, picked up by senior leaders, cascaded, and led by example down through the whole organisation. In addition this was reinforced working with the external agency to develop the new a brand line. The result was short and simple “UBS you and Us”, which would apply equally to customers, employees, and indeed other stakeholders.

The application of this was highly flexible and effective and was maintained as the key message both internally and externally for over 6 years. Its external impact was widely credited with contributing to the rapid growth of the bank at that time but what is less widely appreciated is the significant role it played internally in creating willing brand ambassadors at all levels of the organisation, enabled by a culture where everyone gave their best because they cared about the success of themselves, their colleagues and UBS .

This employee advocacy built momentum internally, growing from early adopters inspiring others to join and take it to the next level. The result? 51% increase in brand value and becoming a top global brand in 3 just years, together with higher than peer profitability, and numerous people and business awards.

But the world moves onThe success of this creation of employee brand ambassadors was clear from so many measures. But the world moves on, and encouraging and enabling employee brand ambassadors has to be an ongoing effort, to make it work it never ends, either at strategic or team level. It needs constant momentum building and adaptation. This initial success at UBS was before the financial crisis and that event significantly changed the business environment and employee attitudes. As a result to recover the power of brand ambassadorship UBS had to proactively re-engage at all levels to be successful again, through another concerted campaign.

What is interesting is that to follow on from “UBS – You and Us” which engaged both customers and employees the new line was “For some of life’s questions, you’re not alone. Together we can find an answer.” – again which engaged both customers and employees and subsequently UBS again won a number of preferred employer awards. Note the focus on “working together” in both with common purpose, a theme shared by great brand building and great leadership.

Building the brand inside outMy conversations with marketing and branding professionals about this often reveal that they have not realised the full potential of employee brand ambassadors and their strategic impact. To some degree that’s not unreasonable as it is their brief to focus on the external customer. But I have seen marketing and branding departments frantically trying to create a positive quality brand for the organisation’s customers whilst the perception of employees within the organisation is that it’s not high quality internally due to less than great culture and leadership. I would take the view that employees are the organisations first customers and therefore you need to build the brand inside out.

Any fundamental disconnect between the external brand and the internal brand just isn’t sustainable. Disengaged and unhappy employees will not perform well, will not want to be brand ambassadors and this will, without doubt, eventually feed through reducing the quality of customer service and so damaging the external brand. They just won’t care.

Building the brand inside out is not just about the strategic level brand, it’s also about the organisations operational level brand as reflected by employees’ individual leaders. Thus every leader is a brand ambassador to their people and their example and action can either inspire or destroy the likelihood of employees being proactive brand ambassadors, irrespective of how great the strategic level brand is.

But with the right mindset and a simple action plan, there is a significant opportunity here if marketing and branding professionals work with all leaders and HR to create an environment where a great internal brand provides the opportunity to grow brand ambassadors and which, if done effectively, will be willingly taken up by every employee. Essentially by just spreading best practices to build brand awareness within an environment where people care because simply they have a great boss.

View Details

We have known for some time that language is a very powerful vehicle with which values, thoughts, and messages are transmitted. We also know that language often carries stereotypes and prejudices which inevitably influence our behavior in daily life and our professional and personal interactions in the workplace.

Communication, therefore, plays a central role in everyday life, as it activates our thoughts and cognitive processes. Language exerts a regulatory and stimulating function on the mental mechanisms that govern the birth of thought and its development which, out of necessity and convenience, often have to be fast and immediate.

This is where the power and transversality of inclusion comes into play, which is also able to positively influence our language, making it able to embrace diversity and break down the unconscious prejudices that often guide our vision of the world, reasoning, and what we express.

Inclusive language adheres to new visions regarding disabilities, vulnerabilities, conditions of difficulty, and diversity as a whole, helping us to overcome obsolete methods and unfortunately conveying stigmatizing and distorted images, capable of bordering on offense at times.

Using inclusive language is therefore not only a more faithful way of representing reality, but also allows you to influence it positively and to cultivate the perception of inclusion experienced by people.

If it is true that the words we choose to use have an impact on our ability to relate to others, collaboration, dialogue, and empathy are all characteristics that inclusive language stimulates and makes its own.

The debate on inclusive language and, consequently, on inclusive writing, is now increasingly present: perhaps the topic is reserved for some “niche” environments, but it is expanding more and more.

The need to use inclusive linguistic forms is emerging from many quarters.

The first example concerns non-binary people, i.e. those who do not identify exclusively with either the male or female gender.

Another example, much more debated, refers to the case of roles and professions, for which the masculine is used even when it is known that this person is of the female gender.

The trend seems to show that, in the languages where the debate is alive, a new inclusive linguistic form is emerging or will emerge. However, this depends not only on socio-cultural circumstances, but also on purely linguistic factors: in some languages (Spanish, Swedish, Esperanto) there are solutions that work quite well phonetically and morphologically, while in others (French, Italian) the search is still in its infancy. The use will decide.

Some areas of activity are still far from finding a balance between intention and language: and unfortunately, it is enough to cast an eye on the communication and advertising sector.

Ad hoc work on leadership in terms of inclusive language is equally important since, the more inclusive leadership is at 360 degrees, the more it encourages and fosters trust and collaboration in teams.

Inclusive language is also an engine for creating a greater sense of belonging towards the organization and within the teams themselves, among people. Inclusive language and cultural intelligence are in fact closely linked: a leader is not inclusive if he does not adapt his communication to the diversity he is faced with and to which he is addressing.

Society changes, and with it language and writing; It is inevitable. The language, then, changes above all for the habits in its use.

Let’s at least make it change for the better.

In a world where individuals are starting to be considered as such, and personalities assert themselves and are determined by their uniqueness, it will be increasingly difficult to find a language so inclusive as to include each of us.

The important thing will undoubtedly be to start from an inclusive attitude, in everyday life, in thoughts and actions. From there, little by little, we will find a way to sensibly integrate it into our language.

Are you using inclusive language?

View Details

I was watching a documentary about Spelling Bee winners, where the winners’ parents could be heard saying “we expect them to win, we expect it. They put in their hard work and are excited and expect it.” This made me believe the parents began setting expectations early on in their child’s life to gain the skills to succeed. Growing up with these intentions has helped these children understand they CAN do it. Parents are just like leaders in guiding those around you to become a better you. As a leader in the workplace, we can set these expectations to achieve hard work and gain appreciation from others and ourselves.

Make it RealisticOne huge piece of advice, make sure the expectations are realistic. You wouldn’t want to feel overwhelmed or discouraged if you have a slight feeling that you are not able to accomplish a goal. For instance, you may want to set a goal that YOU can expect out of yourself but others might not be able to expect that. Set goals for your team that are challenging but also obtainable, to help build and shape their growth, development, and confidence. Try to imagine having a leader who expected you to do something you weren’t capable of. How does that make you feel? Anxious? Upset? I would feel this way also. You don’t want to set the bar too low and risk not motivating your team, but if you set it too high then you’ll end up with people who are not satisfied with what they’ve accomplished. Making expectations realistic allows for higher achievement in the long run.

Workplace supportConsider the same concept of the Spelling Bee winners, in the workplace. As a leader, would you want your team to feel excited and confident about their work? Of course! Choosing to provide support and ground rules gives employees motivation and feelings of success. Meeting these expectations in the workplace gains trust throughout the organization. The more connection and guidance they have, the more trust they build. The more trust you build, the more they’ll become their whole selves and show up with greater innovation.

ReflectionAs always, communication is key to success. Being able to communicate with your team can make them feel comfortable and want to grow as a person. If someone was to talk down upon you with little to no communication, would you feel inspired to do your best? If you gave support without boundaries, would they be successful? How about the opposite… boundaries with no support? The trick is to find a balance between setting realistic expectations for yourself and your team and being overly optimistic about what you want to achieve.

View Details

SummaryThere’s a lot of talk about why organizations need to have a purpose beyond a mere marketing tagline: why they do what they do on behalf of those they seek to serve. What’s equally challenging to get at is how an organization defines its why, how they get staff buy-in — or better yet, staff input — and then has the discipline to choose activities that work towards fulfilling it.

I’m never saying that the lack of a real purpose is the only problem that causes organizational dysfunction. But it is one of the most foundational ones because people are looking to contribute with their roles.

— Brooke Erol

My guestMy guest to help walk us through this topic is Brooke Erol. Brooke is a corporate dropout who pursued her dream of having more meaningful work for herself and others where we are not only seeking money but also contributing to a bigger cause. All her life is spent on writing, speaking, coaching, and consulting on this topic of having a life of fulfilling and purposeful work. She works both with individuals- YourBestLife and organizations – Purposeful Business, Inc.

Takeaways√ Many businesses focus on profits over purpose instead of figuring out how to do both.

√ An organization’s pain point is not necessarily an expressed lack of purpose, but lack of purpose is often the driver below the surface.

√ Leaders at the highest point of an organization — founder, and CEO — must have a deep consciousness to understand the imperative of having and living a purpose fully.

√ Companies often face a litmus test as to whether they are going to honor their purpose in their decision-making,

√ Customers and job seekers should monitor a company over time to see if it adheres to its purpose.

√ The number one reason for the purpose to stick is the 100% commitment of the CEO or the founder.

√ Instead of trying to save the whole world, find one area where you can have an impact, and let that be your purpose.

View Details

Last time, we discussed opportunities for weaving intentional gratitude into our professional environments, and we looked at the possibility of adding gratitude to your formal organizational values, encouraging gratitude as a daily practice, and making that gratitude easily and abundantly visible to the people who make up your company.

ENJOY ALL PRIOR PARTS BELOW︎

Gratitude at Work – Tapping into The Power of Appreciation in Your Organization

Today we’re going to focus on ways you can incorporate gratitude into your external-facing spaces. Prospective new employees are checking out your culture, as much as can be seen from outside your organization anyway. To attract top talent, make it easy for them to get a sense of who you are and what matters from a culture perspective. Also, helping your current and future customers and vendors see that gratitude is important to your company can help build stronger relationships, leading to more positive outcomes with them, too. Here are two ideas for making gratitude part of your external-facing landscape.

Recommendation #4: Make intentional gratitude visible externally. Leaning into the intentional practice of gratitude can help your organization differentiate and amplify your company culture as a way to attract top talent. When I’ve worked with companies both in my research and as a consultant, employees frequently share that they appreciate working for an organization where gratitude is already seen being practiced by senior leadership and colleagues. And it doesn’t take long to find complaints on sites like GlassDoor, from everyone from job applicants to long-time employees to former staff when appreciation is simply not there. Even if this is a new addition to your organization’s strategic cultural initiatives, emphasizing your efforts can help reframe your company in a more positive light, no matter where you are starting in that journey.

Leadership may want to consider adding a section to the company website focused on the commitment to gratitude as an organizational driver, to enhance the company’s existing mission and vision statements. Regular blog entries or social media content showcasing recent gratitude messages are also excellent ways to showcase how gratitude is interwoven into your culture. These could be employee testimonials, press releases announcing quarterly gratitude award winners, or simply sentiments shared by your employees that continuously reinforce how gratitude is expressed. One client I worked with had video screens in customer waiting lounges, and they streamed comments like “Sumetra D says, “Thanks to my team for covering my shift while I was out taking care of my mom. It really makes me feel like I matter!” What a great way to elevate that message!

Recommendation #5: Encourage clients to engage in intentional gratitude. Studies show a positive impact from receiving expressions of gratitude from customers and clients, including an increase in both job satisfaction on confidence not only in that assignment but when considering upcoming or potential assignments. Account managers and client-facing employees may want to consider encouraging active gratitude as part of the regular interactions with clients, and certainly as part of any final project documentation. Again, consider including these appreciative comments as part of your portfolio of testimonials to further enhance your brand image to current and prospective clients.

As we’ve mentioned previously, gratitude is simply not a common practice in most workplaces, so for your employees and your clients to feel comfortable expressing and receiving appreciation, intentional, strategic opportunities for gratitude to be part of the conversation are important for employees and clients alike to experience the benefits.

Encourage or even incentivize positive feedback from your clients. We all know people don’t hesitate to complain – so encourage them to tell you when things are going WELL, too. For example, a hotel chain we used to frequent made it known that they actually gave a cash bonus to staff when they received a positive comment that identified that person by name. Given what we know about gratitude in the workplace, expressing gratitude intentionally may not be a routine part of the professional experience for your clients or vendors, either, so make it easy for them, and they’re more likely to share their positive feedback with you. Talk about a win-win!

Conclusion

There is no indication that one form of gratitude is superior to another. Individuals have different communication and learning styles, and cultural and generational differences may make one style more comfortable than the other. Further, individual preferences as to which form of gratitude is more beneficial for them may change depending on the circumstances in which the individual finds themselves, the mood they are in, and so on. Fundamentally, I believe (and the research so far backs me up) that any gratitude practice is better than none, as long as we’re doing so in authentic, meaningful ways.

Are you interested in making gratitude part of your organization’s cultural landscape? I’d love to hear about what you’re doing currently, or the challenges and barriers you’ve faced trying to build more gratefulness into your working hours. And sincerely, thank you for taking the time to consider gratitude as an intentional professional practice. Even normalizing the possibility helps bring this topic into more people’s awareness, and I am deeply grateful for your contribution to changing the professional paradigm.

View Details

Suppose we saw the term “people pleaser” as no more than a label others use when describing our behaviour. (Not who we really are note, just some of our actions.)

And suppose we mischievously asked some searching questions of that label – what it assumes people pleasing is caused by, for instance, and precisely what behaviours is it describing.

Should such a label be somewhat problematic, might such questioning make it less so?

Let’s find out.
____________________

Insecurity, low self-esteem, perfectionism, and the fear of rejection cause people pleasers to do what they do apparently.

Mmmm – who’s never felt insecure? Doesn’t insecurity describe all of us?

As a young man and boy I would people please to minimise the chances of being beaten up. Apart from one occasion it worked. I think of it more of a survival strategy than an affliction.

Low self-esteem, again, I bet you everyone has had times when this has affected them. But that was then, it isn’t now, is it?

I had a dad who expressed his love by continually pointing out what I hadn’t achieved, not what I had. It left me thinking I could never please him because I’m just not good enough. But that was then, it only comes alive for me now through memories, which I have some agency over whether I pay attention to them or not.

Perfectionism – okay, okay, I know this can lead to chronic procrastination, but doesn’t it have an upside too?

Wanting to get things right, perfect even, so others can benefit from our work tells me someone cares. It’s only problematic when things never get done because of…

..The fear of rejection, which makes taking the doing-nothing-is-better-than-being-rejected option attractive. But need it be?

This is a big one for me. I was born with a club foot, a black eye (forceps) and was unable to sleep for months, which brought pressure on my parents’ marriage. Not what you’d call a little bundle of joy.

Family rifts over homosexuality, two divorces, a 24-year estrangement from my two daughters, and the suicides of friends and family can all trigger rejection memories. For large parts of my life, these led to bouts of depression.

As I’ve gotten older though, these have dwindled to a trickle, and only happen for short bursts of a few hours say, nothing like the months on an end as before.

Why?

I put it down to understanding that I am separate from the thoughts and memories that arise in my head, which were at the root of my low moods. When I realise I’m not my thoughts, the opportunity to interrupt them or not taken them too seriously arises, which simply could not have done when I was unaware of this.

Sure I still feel the fear from time to time, I just don’t dwell on the memories that create it and my tendency to catastrophise about the future which only makes it worse!

That’s why I’m writing this right here, right now. Several years ago the fear of rejection that might come from sharing this with you, would have left me in that chronic procrastination loop.

Having subjected the causes of people pleasing to a bit of scrutiny, let’s see how we might counter six specific behaviours it produces.

You agree even when you disagree

What if you flipped this and disagreed with yourself on an issue you felt strongly about?

Take some really contentious issues – the existence of God, the legalisation of abortion, or capital punishment, for instance. See if you can put the case to yourself of those who take the opposite view to you.

Seeing the reasoned cases of both sides in a dispute or conflict helps you interrupt the automaticity of always agreeing with someone to get validation, say, or lower the fear of rejection, or any of the other causes mentioned above.

You apologise too much

Would you rather be someone who never apologises or one who can do so readily when it’s called for?

Saying sorry can be a strength, so I encourage you to not be too hard on yourself here. Focus on what does and doesn’t need an apology and why. It’s this more-precise reasoning that will help you interrupt your automatic tendency to say sorry.

You always have someone double-check your work

What if you reduced the number of times you asked for this to be done gradually – by 10% a week, say?

If you try this I encourage you to notice how more self-reliant you feel once your dependence on someone else reduces. They might appreciate having more time too.

You are constantly burdened by other people’s feelings

Could understanding the idea of projection help you?

Before I delve into that, let me say I totally ‘get’ this burdensome feeling. When you’re concerned about another, especially a loved one, it’s very easy to feel the weight of that.

In psychology, there’s something called “projection.” It happens when we find a troubling emotion too difficult to handle, so we project it onto others via blame or simply sharing it. It’s a bit like passing a hot potato, we don’t want to get burnt so quickly pass it on.

Self-talk rooted in some of the causes above – insecurity, low self-esteem etc. – can innocently and understandably make you a great catcher of those projections! Realising that is sometimes all you need to bat the hot potatoes back or shield yourself from a few of them, or just not catch them at all!

It seems to me that ultimately, we’re each responsible for our own feelings. The best gift we have is to help others live peacefully with theirs.

You rarely accept credit or praise

What if you treated yourself every Friday to small gifts?

Treats mark the progress you’re making in not taking the unhelpful thoughts, feelings and sensations, which arise automatically in you, so seriously. Progress such as speaking your own mind and not just responding in ways designed to please others.

Treats are a form of self-praise that, perhaps, haven’t occurred to you before, because, quite understandably, in order to survive and thrive, you’ve paid more attention to what others think of you. What’s it to be – chocolate? A long walk? An hour in silence? What else?

You take the blame when it’s not yours

What if you didn’t blame yourself for taking the blame on others’ behalf?

Taking the blame can have sound reasoning behind it that serves you well now or in times gone by. Maybe it was a survival strategy where the calculation was – take the wrap for this so as to avoid bigger consequences if you didn’t. Taking the blame can also be motivated by wanting others to feel sorry for us, so that we earn their leniency, forgiveness, or favour.

If you’re a blame taker, even when it’s not yours to take, explore what happens when stop blaming yourself for it! Breaking this behaviour pattern begins by being kind to yourself. Zoom in on how blame-taking helped you once, before wondering whether it still does today in every situation you face.

Finally, let me share another way of looking at people pleasing in a workplace context.

For some years now I’ve been reflecting on what delivers real internal contentment to teams. It seems to me being of help to others is key to that. I don’t mean this in a customer’s-always-right kinda way, more that when we help teams listen to understand the wants and needs of those who depend on their work, and see what those they serve would ideally like, don’t get currently, new opportunities to help arise.

Providing what’s missing and being appreciated for it is another way of looking at pleasing people. One I find immensely satisfying personally, and when shared by my team, has a bit of a contagion effect. We all feel good together about the difference we’ve made.

To discover more please visit https://www.rogermartin.me/home

View Details

How do you arrive at a ‘meeting’?(Could be any meeting, work, home, family, colleagues, friends, face to face or virtual)

Flustered, in a rush, unprepared, anxious?

Still thinking about the last meeting?

The argument you had this morning and know that it is playing on your mind?

The meeting you must attend at the end of the day is troubling you?

Need to get this meeting finished quickly as you have too many other matters to resolve?

You get the picture…rest assured you are not alone. Most of us arrive at meetings this way. And virtual meetings have made it more so, turn one off, and log in to the next. Off you go. Sometimes, even finishing late, ending it poorly, and arriving late to the next one, apologetic and embarrassed.

Imagine if everyone attending this meeting has any of all of the above going on for them?

What are the chances that the meeting will go well, effective, productive?

I am not saying that we can’t have anything going on in our lives, far from it. Rather, are there some things we can do to navigate these situations, and manage them better?

One simple exercise is to start each meeting with one minute of silence. Each participant notices that they are sitting in their chair, back touching, feet on the floor. Then to take a few deep breaths into the belly, holding and then breathing out and holding again, maybe to a count of 4 in, 4 hold, 4 out, 4 hold, etc.

At the end of the minute, ask everyone, in turn, to share how they are arriving. Far from wasting time, this gives everyone a moment to be vulnerable, if they wish, and to be honest as to how they are arriving, feeling, and thinking. In doing so, it builds connection, it enables empathy and appreciation.

In one group, (where all participants had only just met each other), the first person shared that they were overwhelmed with anxiety about what they would be doing over the next few days together. In doing so, they gave permission for others to be vulnerable themselves. (We reassured them what was going to happen, and they were able to relax).

Had we not asked, this person may not have shared so soon, and we, and the rest of the group, may have wondered if this person was okay. Usually, we display less than attentive signs when we are mentally and/or emotionally distracted.

In a one-to-one conversation with a work colleague, it can play out something like this…

Me: Hi there, how are you doing?

Fine thanks. (Me: They don’t look fine, they don’t seem right…was it something I said, or should have done? So best that I start to ‘armour up’ a little, just in case.). How about you?

Me: I am great thanks. (Said whilst thinking the above).

Are you sure? (They have picked up something and in turn start to ‘armour up’ too.)

Me: Yes, of course, why? (I knew it, I was right, it was something I have done or said.)

Err. (Goodness, there is something not right with them, maybe it is something I have said or done. Need to put more armour on).

You see what can happen.

Even a simple, “Hi, how are you?” can put distance between two people, rapidly.

Have you noticed this happening recently, maybe with your partner?

With my current partner, we used to spend half the week in our own place and the other half together. She lives about 42 miles away and a journey across London can be between 90 minutes and 140 minutes. On one occasion, it was the latter, and when I physically arrived at her front door, I was most certainly not mentally or emotionally. Let’s just say the next hour was not pleasant.

Later that evening, once we had both calmed down, we talked through what had happened and what to do moving forward. We agreed that each time I arrive, we would have a hug, and we would sit down together. We would grab a beverage of choice and sit at the kitchen table.

With no distractions, no judgements, and giving each other our fullest of attention, she would talk about whatever she wanted to talk about for ten minutes. I would give my fullest attention (and in doing so, I noticed I would be calming down, settling, stilling myself, and the journey from hell was receding), look at her eyes, really listen to what she was saying and re-connect with this lovely person.

If she stopped talking before her time was up, I would remain silent and continue to be present for her. I may ask, “And what more”, or the fuller version, “And what more would you like to think or feel or want to say?” And when her time was up, we would swap over and I would be able to share my thoughts and feelings, whilst she listened.

Once we had both had our ten minutes, we would offer a word or phrase of appreciation. Note, that appreciation, (who you are being), is not traditional feedback, (what you are doing), and is therefore always positive. “(use their name), one thing I appreciate about you is your warmth and openness that I felt whilst I was speaking.” The receiver sits with the appreciation, really feels it, and says, “Thank you”.

I know that this is successful and can be used in any setting. People appreciate and value the opportunity to share their thinking and feelings, as well as other times, hopes, fears, aspirations, etc. We all love to feel heard, valued, validated and to know that we matter.

“Listen first, listen all ways, always.”

How are you going to arrive, next time?

View Details

It should come as no surprise according to the recently released 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer “A lack of faith in societal institutions triggered by economic anxiety, disinformation, mass-class divide and a failure of leadership has brought us to where we are today – deeply and dangerously polarized.” That said it’s more important than ever for leaders to establish themselves as trustworthy entities.

A trustworthy leader establishes strong relationships with their followers and team members. It’s no secret trust encourages collaboration and inspires commitment to shared goals. Not to mention working in an environment which creates trust develops a positive environment where people feel valued, respected, and supported – are less likely to quietly quit.

Trust paves the way for the creation of stronger relationships, better communication, increased productivity, and better decision-making. Not to mention reduces stress.

That said, it’s so easy to lose confidence in a leader who fails to show us they are reliable, and possess integrity and honesty. A trustworthy leader encourages others to be vulnerable enough to place their confidence (faith) in another’s ability to act in their best interest – without the need for constant monitoring or control.

Building trust is important for a variety of other reasons as well:

Aside from developing solid relationships: It allows for open and honest communication; something we are in desperate need of now. When you trust someone, you’re more likely to speak openly and honestly with them without fear of being judged, criticized or laid off. This can lead to better understanding and stronger relationships – when ‘buy-in’ is required of a team to effectively complete the job.

Increased productivity: Trust can increase productivity in the workplace. When employees trust supervisors and managers, they’re more likely to be engaged, motivated, and committed to their work. This can lead to increased productivity and better performance.

Better decision-making: Trust can also lead to better decision-making. When you trust someone, you’re more likely to seek their input and take their advice into consideration when making decisions. This can lead to better outcomes and a more effective decision-making process plus reduced stress – something we’re sorely in need of in today’s changed world.

6 Leadership Skills Which Build Trust:1. Open Communication: Transparent leaders communicate in a way which shows they are open to feedback – sharing their vision, goals and challenges with the team and actively listening to and discussing input received. 2. Empathy: Being empathetic and understanding regarding the needs and concerns of team members is critical to building trust. 3. Accountability: Leaders who hold themselves accountable and take responsibility for their actions build trust with their team – including admitting mistakes, commitment follow through; holding others accountable. 4. Consistency: Leaders who consistently demonstrate their values and principles build trust. Consistency in communication, decision-making and behavior establishes a sense of predictability and reliability essential for building trust. 5. Competence: Leaders who are knowledgeable and skilled in their field build trust. Demonstrating expertise, providing guidance, and solving problems competently shows the leader is credible and capable. 6. Integrity: Leaders who are honest, ethical, and uphold their values build trust. Their actions match their words and they prioritize doing what is right over personal gain.

Leaders who communicate openly, show empathy, hold themselves accountable, demonstrate consistency, exhibit competence, and operate with integrity can build trust with their team members.

Bottom line – Trust can take different forms and built over time through consistent actions and behaviors that demonstrate reliability and honesty. Conversely, it can be broken or lost through actions or behaviors which violate expectations or standards of honesty, reliability, or integrity.

View Details

Only a handful of people actually do what they know to do. Take the best seller Think and Grow Rich. Since 2011 70 million copies of the classic have been sold worldwide. The book synthesizes what successful people do that the unsuccessful people do not … and have done for 200+ generations.

Hill was a reporter who kept up with some 500 citizens that were healthy, happy and wealthy, to find out their secrets. It was Andrew Carnegie that offered the 20-year ‘job’ to Hill.

Today’s most successful people use this plan, whether they have read the book or not. Men have much of this knowledge inherently — that is it is in their DNA. You only need to watch a man step up to the plate on inner confidence and desire, even though he knows he is not qualified. Women don’t do this.

If then, more than 70m copies have been sold and it contains the most concrete plan for expedient success, you must ask yourself this question:

Why aren’t there 70 million millionaires? Every person that can read can be a millionaire or a billionaire.

Because we “don’t do what we already know to do!” And we continue to add more and more information to what we do know — still not applying what we know.

It’s not having knowledge that is power. It is the consistent application of the knowledge over time until it becomes habilitualized. That is the POWER.

Take a quick inventory of your books and programs in which you have invested financially and never used. You are not alone. We are invigorated with new information, yet acting on it isn’t as invigorating — it actually takes something.

The difference between knowing and doing is often called the performance gap.

Why don’t we do what we already know to do?We have a slew of beliefs, paradigms, or clusters of ‘ways of being’ that are automatic. We’ve believed them as true for so long they’ve taken hold and we don’t even notice them.

The beliefs are based primarily on the beliefs of others … those we love and admire and whom we want to please. Unfortunately, most beliefs of others are of lack and limitation rather than abundance and opportunity. These beliefs have been ‘engineered’ by default in our subconscious mind or what the Ancient Greeks referred to as our ‘heart of hearts.’ I will cover how to ‘engineer a belief’ later.

As children when we ‘stubbed our toe’ we became more and more careful where we put our toes. It didn’t take long to learn that by noon the sand at the beach is so hot you must run to give your feet a chance to cool between strides. We run faster or we wear shoes to protect our tender feet.

Likewise, when we are embarrassed or ashamed as children as a result of our behavior, we tend to shy away from repeating that behavior. It’s a protection of sorts … when we are children.

Perhaps your first time in front of the class in early elementary school, sharing a report you wrote, you misunderstood the instructions, reported on the wrong book, and classmates began to laugh and chide you. Fighting back the tears, we plant this truth to protect ourselves, “I’ll never get up in front of a group of people to speak again.” Maybe that’s why some people say that public speaking is a fate worse than death for most!

This protection works well as a child, yet those habits and inner dialogue are ‘still running your life.’ And as adults, this does not serve us very well. We allow ourselves to be stopped from acting on ideas that light us up … mostly because we don’t know how. And the fear of crossing the gap of performance is greater than our desire to have what we want. And we have a host of beliefs that say “it’s selfish to want more,” or “there simply isn’t enough money to go around.”

These beliefs keep us playing small and taking no risk. The level of our reward is always the perfect reflection of how much risk we are willing to take.

The process of developing the beliefs of others follows us into adulthood, adding more opinions of others, including television and news reporters. Negativity sells, so by default, we are ‘filled with’ the negative points of view of others. When you harness the “power of pause” as you step from ‘knowing to doing,’ you will see that you always have a minimum of two perspectives or answers to every question.

So it makes perfect sense that when we go to ‘step’ from knowing to doing, there is a great Fear of the unknown between the two. You want it and you start out, yet when things get dark and you can’t see how you can do it, you step back to safety.

Not only are you hearing your own inner dialogue such as “I’ve tried before and I’ve failed,” or “I’m not smart enough or deserving,” or “Someone else is better at this than I am,” if you share this with others you will also hear “are you crazy, you’ve never done that before,” or “who do you think you are,” or “go get a regular job” (one of my favorites).

It’s a battle for the one conscious thought over which you have control over. Why wouldn’t you back down if your inner self doesn’t believe you can do it and others don’t either?

These beliefs are held by both men and women, and for women it is critical that we overcome them. While men automatically step up to the plate in business, women do not. It doesn’t matter initially if the man is not competent … he’s first at bat. It’s not too long before you realize that just because they ‘stepped up’ does not mean ‘they’ will necessarily navigate the gap.

After 45 years in corporate America, my experience is that I more often than not — and my female counterparts — ended up more often than not ‘finishing up’ what they had started!

Why? Because we have been finishing up and cleaning up after our families for more than 200 generations! We’re good at it, yet we don’t have time to finish up after others and still grow our own businesses.

Here’s an example. Ready to start, a dozen thoroughbreds are at the starting gate ready for the first race of the season. Behind the row of gates, one woman is in charge to get all the horses down the track and cross the finish line.

Three, two, one, and the starting gun is fired. As the horses leave the gates, the woman is behind them. Watch her running sideways behind the horses slapping each one as she runs by, saying, “come on boy, you can do it!” Back and forth she runs, egging all the horses on, and finally, they all cross the finish line at the same time. We bring everyone across the finish line but no clear star or winner.

Now put a man behind the gates. Three, two, one, and the starting gun is fired. As the horses leave the gate, the man is behind them. See him pick out the middle horse and run behind only him, slapping and chiding him to go faster. Finally, that one horse crosses the line first and wins the race. He is the star.

Women must learn to practice laser focus on one idea … and bring it home, to the exclusion of all else. Men already do this naturally. It’s not our way. We are the nurturers and peacemakers. Women make sure everyone is a winner. That doesn’t work in business.

Navigating the performance gapWhen we must step into the gap to apply knowledge and move toward what we want, it is a given that we are afraid. Afraid because we do not know HOW we’ll get across. Our experiences have us automatically stop short. If we do not cross the gap we are destined to going to the edge on one idea, shrinking back; going to the edge on another, and shrinking back again.

To solve this problem, I wedged a large coin with a thick edge in the gap. Now you may cross the divide on the edge of the coin.

What value does ‘crossing above the gap’ provide?1. You are physically higher than you were before so you have vast vision of both sides of the gap. You see all sides of your obstacle or issue. You see why you shouldn’t cross over and why you should cross it, and the best way to do it. You get to make an objective and responsive decision. 2. You have a high level of awareness of your current potential. You can see once you have chosen to proceed the precise steps to the ‘doing’ side. 3. Even if you ‘slip’ the edge is wide enough for you to pull yourself back up. Your ‘muscle of Faith’ is developed enough so that it ‘lifts you’ back to the coin’s edge for a clear view. 4. Decisions that take you from knowing to doing as quickly as possible allow you to grow your business with consistency, momentum and results. 5. Once you are practiced at hopping across whenever you have something new to tackle, you become the Champion for other women who have not found their own ‘sea legs’ and are inspired by what you are doing and the results you are getting. 6. You can use this image whenever you know what you want to do and need to do to forward your business yet are afraid. Every time you lift yourself to the coin’s edge, your intellect grows, and soon it becomes a habit.

The Champion has developed Faith … Faith in herself and Faith in our Universe and how it works.

She lives by the following values from which she avidly seeks their wisdom. These values and laws operate all the time, whether we are aware of them and how they work, or not. Take for example the physical law of gravity. The result of taking a jump off a cliff is well-known to all of us. Down we go with an impact that matches the depth of fall and our physical condition. So you don’t jump off cliffs.

What if all the principles below also worked all the time and you not only were aware of them, you also studied and applied them in growing your business. You would have an extraordinary advantage and step into the realm of ‘the few’ who are not only wealthy — they are healthy and happy. These principles in action spike business growth and momentum and keep it consistent when applied over time. The idea is to have these values become part of you — automatic, or habitualized.

View Details

Staying focused and productive can be a challenge when everything seems to be tugging for your attention. My clients often tell me that they are overwhelmed with so much to do and want to know how they can be more productive.

Here are 15 of my best tips.

Plan your day before it starts

You are in control of your day and your calendar. Deciding what you plan to achieve sets the tone of your day. It keeps your mind focused. And a focused mind can achieve a lot.

Read and write down your goals every day

This daily reminder will mentally put you in a positive state to accomplish those goals in the best way possible.

Use a default diary

Set up a default diary and make sure that you have time scheduled to complete important projects and tasks.

Prioritize your work for the day

While reviewing your plans for the day, identify the most important things you need to do. Focus on the most critical work first before doing everything else.

Analyze your activities to identify and minimize time wasters

If you want to free up some serious time, start with doing a skill/fun box exercise to determine what you need to do and what you should delegate. My clients have reported to me that they hear my voice in their head asking: “can’t someone else do that?”

Learn how to delegate well

Delegation is not abdication – nor is it micromanaging. Delegation is a skill that you can learn – this will help: How to become a master of delegation.

Reduce inefficient communications

Develop a regular team meeting rhythm including a daily huddle for managing employees. When it comes to communicating with clients or vendors, sometimes a phone call is faster and more effective than an email.

Break large tasks into smaller tasks

Have you ever looked at something on your to-do list and thought to yourself: “I don’t even know where to start”? The best way to start is by breaking that large task into smaller tasks.

Take a break when you need one

When you begin to feel overwhelmed and stressed with work, take a break. Breaks are necessary to recharge your brain cells to be more focused when you eventually resume.

Manage interruptions

Interruptions will break your flow and significantly impact your productivity. If you need to do some focused work turn off your phone notifications, close your office door and make yourself unavailable.

Concentrate on one thing at a time

Once you have identified a key task, stay on it until it’s 100% complete.

Work every day towards achieving a long-term outcome

One of the best ways to achieve your long-term visions is to be more productive in your short-term goals. Work towards your long-term goals by actively accomplishing the daily goals you set for yourself.

Simplify your work process

Sometimes we fall into habits of doing things the same way every time without stopping to look for a better way. Can you get the same thing accomplished in 5 steps instead of 7?

Learn how to terminate unproductive discussions

Find a way to politely extract yourself from casual chitchat. If you have completed everything on the agenda, end the meeting early and claim back some time.

Set communication rules for your peers or subordinates who bring you questions or problems

Ask people to do these 3 things before they come to you:

Write down the problem. Reduce it to a single sentence.
What are the three best solutions or suggestions for the problem? Write them down.
What do you recommend?

Being more productive is an intentional decision to make. When you are clear about what you need to do, the above tips can really help you make the most out of each day.

Sometimes “increased productivity” isn’t the answer

If you are uncertain about your goals and your most important priorities or if you know you need to make significant changes to how you are doing business and aren’t clear about what those changes need to be it might be time to consider working with a business coach.

View Details

Unlike a lot of employee engagement initiatives (incidentally on which companies are spending billions each year, with no real improvement in engagement scores or turnover), gratitude is FREE. However, to really capture the benefits offered by having more gratitude in our professional worlds, it’s not quite as simple as encouraging your people to say thanks to each other, although that’s certainly not a bad idea, either.

ENJOY ALL PRIOR PARTS HERE︎

Gratitude at Work – The Results are In… Spoiler, it’s REAL GOOD!

In the next two installments, we’ll look at five different ways your company could incorporate gratitude as a regular business practice. Depending on your sphere of influence or control and the current vibe in your company when it comes to unconventional culture innovations, see if any of these sound like good starting points for your organization. And if you love the concept but would like to kick around ways to actually get it off the ground, let me know. I’m happy to brainstorm or help you build the business case!

Recommendation #1: Frame gratitude as a formal company value. Maybe informal gratitude is already tacitly part of how some of your people interact with each other, so your employees already recognize that leadership currently endorses gratitude to some degree. If this sounds like your current culture, consider making intentional gratitude practices part of your formal way of working. Many organizations dip their toe into the gratitude pool by kicking off a gratitude challenge as part of their employee well-being portfolio (or around Thanksgiving… pet peeve of mine!). Or maybe gratitude is a completely novel opportunity. Wherever you are on the journey, I encourage you to frame gratitude as a company value rather than a well-being initiative.

Employees need to have the psychological safety and trust to engage in well-being initiatives, and even if you’ve already got strong levels of both those, when schedules are already full it can be difficult to try to incorporate a new practice or make time for gratitude.

Some companies do encourage employees to make time for well-being initiatives such as mindfulness programs or other initiatives, so you may feel like the opportunities are already there for people. However, many people, whether they’re already approaching burn-out or are just experiencing normal levels of competing priorities feel frustrated trying to balance self-care opportunities alongside intense workloads.

And when you’re trying to shift mindsets, executive sponsorship of culture initiatives is crucial for success. Have your leadership team really spend some time with the concept of gratitude in the workplace and how it can positively impact both the employee experience and the resulting organizational outcomes that are impacted when your employees are more engaged and more excited to be part of your teams. Get your most recent employee engagement and turnover data and keep that front of mind as you focus on this opportunity to make meaningful improvements.

Just a reminder of some of the value propositions for gratitude we discussed earlier in this series:

70% of employees would feel better about themselves if their boss was more grateful
81% would work harder if their boss was more grateful
95% of employees agree that a grateful boss is more likely to be successful.
Employees who experience more gratitude at work report fewer depressive symptoms and stress. Lack of gratitude is a major factor in driving job dissatisfaction, turnover, absenteeism, and burnout.
In recent surveys, half of the people said they regularly said thank you to their family members, but only 15% say thank you at work, and 35% of people say their managers NEVER thank them.
In research cited by the Wall Street Journal, the workplace ranked last of places where people express gratitude, with just 10% of people saying thank you to their colleagues and only 7% saying thank you to their supervisor.

Recommendation #2: Encourage gratitude as a daily practice for everyone. Reframe gratitude as a valued daily practice and incentivize participation. Many of the people I worked with in my study already valued gratitude as a personal practice, it may not be as common of a belief in general for individuals to practice in their professional environments. Some may suggest that it is not necessary to say thank you. Given the depressing statistics about how rare gratitude is in most workplaces, you may have to help your people (and yourself) unlearn some bad habits around gratitude in the workplace, especially if you or they spent any of your life in environments that actively – and destructively – dismissed gratitude as frivolous, unnecessary, or even unprofessional.

Encourage employees to add time for gratitude to meeting agendas and to their daily schedule.

To combat this mindset, employees may need more than permission to actively engage in gratitude, especially outside of the usual timeframe of October/November, when gratitude gets more attention due to the Thanksgiving holiday. To do this, have your people leaders lean into gratitude by modeling it as a daily practice. Providing the business case for more gratitude in the workplace may help shift employee perspective from a place where gratitude is seen as a soft skill and reshape it as a business differentiator. Encourage employees to add time for gratitude to meeting agendas and to their daily schedule. Offer suggestions for different ways people might engage with the practice to accommodate a diverse set of personal preferences, information processing styles, and schedules. Positive psychologist Shawn Achor talks about his daily practice of sending thank-you emails to people who have positively impacted his life. I’ve had clients flip this around and pencil in 10 minutes at the end of their shift to wrap the day on a high note by sending a thank you note or email before signing off, so they end their day on a positive note. Leaders might start meetings with a positive reflection founded in gratitude or share kudos with their team.

In addition, if you are lucky enough to work for an organization that has formal supervisor or manager training programs, consider including a module on the business implications of gratitude as well as training on how to actively express gratitude authentically. Many of the people I’ve worked with specifically referenced how being thanked by their supervisors made them feel more valued, acknowledged, and appreciated for the work they do. Several also said they specifically felt it improved the quality of their relationship with their supervisor and their team, and that it had a direct, positive impact on their job satisfaction. Good relationships are a key performance indicator, especially if you’re trying to avoid or reverse significant retention issues, or if you are trying to go from good to great.

Recommendation #3: Make intentional gratitude visible to your employees. While the COVID-19 pandemic forced many organizations to take their work fully remote, and it may be preferable to maintain at least a hybrid environment for employees for the foreseeable future, it is still possible to provide opportunities for employees to see gratitude in practice. Some companies use software such as Harkn, described as, “an employee listening and wellbeing platform”, to allow employees to express their thoughts anonymously while creating a social media-like feed accessible to all employees as well as providing real-time analytics on the general emotional landscape of the organization.

If your team works in the same physical location, consider a “Kudos Wall” or gratitude jar where people can share their positive experiences. Another option would be a virtual gratitude wall included on the company’s intranet, perhaps as a channel on Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Google Spaces for either the whole organization or for individual working groups. A couple of my clients run the text from their team’s dedicated gratitude channel through a word cloud generator each month and include that in the monthly newsletter as an opportunity to remind individuals that gratitude is important and valued on the team.

The organization might also encourage participation by creating a traveling award or conducting a drawing for gift cards or other prizes for those who are recognized through public gratitude channels. In a world where gratitude is not the norm, these approaches keep intentional gratitude visible to all employees and reinforce the practice as one that leadership sees as having value to the organization.

Stay tuned for our final article in this series where we offer ways you can highlight a focus on gratitude for your teams and build stronger connections while improving performance!

View Details

In the late 1990s, with several decades working full-time in corporate America under my belt, I was introduced to my new boss at a small scientific company in Research Triangle Park, NC. Serving as desktop publisher (from secretary to technical information specialist) I managed the company’s proposal production department. If you were a secretary in the ’60s and stayed in the field through century end, you had to go through all iterations of word processing, magnetic card readers, MTST a huge machine with a tape on both sides, and more. Without display with the MTST (magnetic tape Selectric typewriter), you would transfer a document from the right tape to the left one having to ‘catch’ where the changes had to be made in between, on the keyboard. All the way through to the TRS 80 (Tandy Radio Shack) … the computer that stored information on an 8″ floppy disk, smaller floppy discs, floppy discs that were no longer floppy, and more. They got small and weren’t flexible. You by this time had to be a master of the craft of being a ‘secretary.’ I say craft as I also learned to write DOS batch files, teach computer-aided drafting systems (CADD) to architects, and more.

About five feet three inches tall and dressed in a well-fitted pantsuit, my new boss smiled and extended her hand which I took and shook. We talked freely and in a very short time, I recognized something very familiar about her. Her conversation included certain words that were ‘coined’ by a transformational technology — one which I had studied in great depth over time. When I asked if she had done ‘the work,’ she said yes, and that “the technology changed her life.” The best part was that since we spoke the same language, I could always be straight with her and not worry about being judged or evaluated on a personal level. We both had done Landmark Education programs.

Over the next few months, I marveled as I watched her fit right in with all the male directors and c-level executives sans one woman director in statistics. She seemed relaxed and confident no matter what she was doing.

One day as we caught up on activities and I sat across from her in her office, I had been itching to ask her something and because of our relationship at this point, I did. “How do you get along with all the men managers so well?” Her answer changed my entire perspective on women in business and became an important milestone in my career. She said with a smile, “I do what they do.”

She was right … she did. I watched her closely from then on and she seemed to interact as they did. They all had short bullet-point dialogues with one another. They shook hands coming and going and they all stood rather still while they talked. I never saw them socializing like their direct reports. They were short, cordial, and to the point. And she ‘fit in’ like a glove.

When I first learned the cold, hard statistics about the gender wage gap — how much more men earn than women for doing the same job, and by when the gap would close — I was in shock.

I began to think of my granddaughters and great-granddaughters to be, waiting to be paid what they deserve while being integral in the financial responsibility of their families. I realized there was not only something I could do to crush that gap … I was fired up about it! I have just the right training, experience, and skills to start teaching women what to do to begin crushing and squeezing the life out of the gender wage gap right now.

And if I didn’t, then who would? Our mothers and grandmothers … and theirs … took their risks on our behalf, stepped out in the face of adversity, and made a difference one woman at a time. It has to be done that way to make steady inroads in more promotions and better pay for women. That is precisely how we crush the gap early and turn the tables in our favor in short order — stepping out, taking action, and taking a stand! Being a Champion for others.

As you read further, see if any of the behavioral business skills mentioned could be affecting your own opportunities for growth in business. Few women have mastered them all, however. It’s about learning, mastering, then habitualizing one skill at a time, at your own pace, which ultimately keeps you inspired and engaged, bringing you one step closer to success. You may feel the laughter of recognition swelling in your smile as things begin to get very clear for you … and you know what to do next.

After 45 years in corporate and 20 years in professional development, it was very clear to me that most women are invisible — not seen or heard by business leaders, both men and women. Being invisible yields lack of credibility. And not being seen or heard gives us almost no opportunity for advancement.

When I held the position of document production supervisor for a company in the healthcare industry, I noticed two small things over the 5 years I worked there.

While our department was the last pair of eyes on huge proposals (thousands of pages) that had to arrive picture-perfect by a certain time or date (or would end up in the trash), and I ran it effectively, there was no ‘step up’ for me in the organization — no place for me to ‘go.’ No path to director or executive level. I was stuck there or I could choose to leave.
Small yet telling … after securing an 8 figure contract, the company did ample expansion with window offices around the whole floor. Every single person that had direct reports was assigned a window office, except … you guessed it … me. I had 4 direct reports and was not even considered. When I brought this up to my supervisor, I did get the window office. The point here for me was that it wasn’t even a ‘thought’ in anyone’s mind. That’s invisibility.

During the dot.com era while working for a small tech startup, a coup ensued (not atypical then) during a Board meeting which I attended by phone. When an attendee in the meeting asked about my position, the board member in charge told them all “her services are no longer needed.” For about 10 seconds my blood began to boil and then something magical happened. I did a 180 in my thinking and said to myself, “I don’t want to be where I am not wanted. I have excellent skills and I want to be working with people who appreciate what I bring to the table.”

Figure 1 Whether small business or corporate, women are invisible.Women are invisible in business, therefore not credible, and passed over for deserved opportunities for advancement.

Isn’t it time for you to be visible, credible, and enjoy opportunities for advancement? I say YES, it is time!

Were you at all surprised that women are earning far less than men? No? I didn’t think so.

It has been this way since I can remember when my mother’s part-time job for ‘pin’ or ‘mad’ money in the late ’50s and early ’60s, turned into a full-time job in the ’70s, and by the ’80s, all her wages were required to support the household. Earning less is frustrating for you — today’s working woman. You are challenged to make ends meet, you may well be ‘doing it all’ on your own, and you live longer, paying more for insurance.

Business success today has its own personality .. and you likely guessed that — it is male. It made perfect sense to me when I realized for the past 200 generations or so since we began recording history, that history was recorded and read by men, and then the virtues and timeless principles recorded were practiced by men in business, consistently and repeatedly over time, until their way of doing things effectively, simply set the landscape for success in business. It became automatic — a habit.

During that same 200 generations of course women were developing their own unique skills including leadership, collaboration, and peacemaking.

If we had had the luxury of declaring ‘in 5 years we’ll go into business,’ between now and then, we could learn the skills required to be as successful as our male counterparts before we even started! No. We’re already in the thick of it. And most of us are like fish out of water in business

I suspect men becoming ‘house husbands’ while their wives work, experience the same fish-out-of-water experience, as their inherent skills are not very useful in successful home management.

Figure 2 Men have set the context for business success through the ages.Men are unaware of the source of their own influence in business as they are a collection of inherent and hidden habits.

View Details

Have you ever come to a solution right after you stopped thinking about it? Walked out of a planning meeting where no one seemed to have the answer and BOOM.. you are on the elevator and it comes to you? That is because the mind works best without the weight of external pressure. Many times the answer is there, but can’t be revealed until we stop, and play.

I believe we can build and rebuild our strengths in play at any age, but we need to start by removing the stigma of play as unproductive or frivolous.

Play is a place where we conquer our fears and open ourselves up to our full potential. Play can change our social interactions, our physical and mental health, our innovative and creative potential, and our drive to take risks, fall, and get up again.

Play answers the question, “What do we do when no one has the answer?”

The creative confidence to develop solutions to insurmountable issues comes from confidence, motivation, trust, and innovation. Watch children turn trees into tree houses, and puddles into oceans, jump from rock to rock, miss a step, and get back up.

Now consider what you experience when someone loves the work they do. What do you feel like in their space? What do you see, hear, and say after encountering people who love and are good at what they do? They are “in play” physically, cognitively, and emotionally; they are invested. What if we could build or rebuild the place where we are most open to learning, least self-conscious, and our most authentic self?

We are only brushing the surface of some of our most difficult societal challenges because we try to overcome them without exploring our full potential. Play gives us perspective and experience. However, play is hard work for many people, as they have to climb over a mountain of guilt, judgment, shame, and long-held beliefs about productivity and the seriousness of work to even imagine it as a driver for change. What if we changed the way we think about play.

What if we said that play is the catalyst to igniting and developing the “soft skills” that drive innovation, productivity, and passion, and focused on developing and growing them?

Play can be the catalyst for conversations that might never have happened, revealing others’ strengths, fears, abilities, and concerns that might never have been discovered otherwise. Play allows us to unravel prejudice, bias, expectation, judgment, and self-consciousness. It creates a reduced physiological stress response and an openness to authentic conversation. But it cannot do that without the foundations of trust, respect, connection, and belonging; that’s where rebuilding happens.

Play disrupts our standardized way of looking at the world — it invites us to change without shaming.

View Details

The myth of emotional detachment has been debunked by modern neurosciences, which demonstrates how emotions are one of the most powerful forms of communication, especially in the context of decision-making processes and human capital management.

Being a leader means mastering the art of persuasion, an element in which emotions play a leading role.

The emotional well-being and effectiveness of a working group depend on the ability to provide constructive feedback, capable of highlighting and welcoming critical issues and directing attention to the crucial aspects that need to be improved.

As all know, the task of a leader is, mainly, to be able to inspire and guide a specific group of people, in such a way as to best channel everyone’s skills in favor of their business.

Someone said that the leader is like a man alone in command, an expression that can probably represent the working situation of many people: entrepreneurs, managers, women, and men who have the responsibility of leading a group but who often have to act independently.

And also we are well aware that in recent decades numerous studies have highlighted the key role that emotions play, in the workplace, not only in terms of psychophysical well-being but also in terms of effectiveness and productivity.

As with every evolutionary leap, made by human civilization, religious, social, political, economic, and technological innovations appear, in the same way, new organizational models also appear. And the more time seems to depersonalize and commodify relationships, the more it is necessary to create emotionally intelligent environments, capable of hosting sincere relationships, made up of emotions and feelings.

In particular, it has been considered that even “the man or woman alone in command” experience emotions and feelings: they get angry, they rejoice, they feel envious, they worry, they are afraid, and so on.

Furthermore, the best leaders are precisely those who have been able to find effective methods to understand and develop their way of managing emotions, their own and those of others. Not only that, but the successful leader is aware that the mood of the team is largely influenced by their own emotions, because “everyone’s eyes are on the boss”.

In fact, every emotion, from the most negative to the most positive, if correctly interpreted and understood, can turn into an opportunity for growth for everyone, from the leader to colleagues who work in the same team.

In summary, a good leader must be able to manage all situations with “high emotional potential”. He must be able to direct emotions in the right direction, otherwise, everything he has undertaken up to that moment, whether it is fine strategies or brilliant monetary investments, will inevitably be affected.

Ultimately, we can agree that the leader’s emotions affect the group and that, therefore, it becomes essential for those who hold leadership roles to reserve part of their energies also for improving their own capacity for emotional self-regulation.

I believe that this can happen starting from an awareness, from a change of mentality that requires commitment and willingness to get involved as individuals, rather than as professionals. Also because the leader is the person who, more than anyone else, has an influence on individuals and their ability to give their best: the perception that people have of the corporate climate depends above all on the leader.

And precisely because many responsibilities weigh on leaders that can distract them from focusing on this aspect, it is necessary to be aware that their emotional state and, consequently, their actions have a weight on their collaborators and influence their performance.

The ability to manage one’s own mood and that of others is not a private matter, but becomes an indispensable soft skill for being good leaders. It is one of the capabilities that have an influence on profits and can therefore lead the company to success. Simply because everyone focuses their eyes on the boss, who, precisely because of the role he plays, has a greater influence on those around him. The leader has a great role in determining the emotional standard of the group: it is known that propagating positive moods has direct implications on professional results, while negative emotions constitute a factor of disturbance on a personal and professional level, since they hijack the attention away from work and, consequently, decrease productivity.

Incidentally, it should be remembered that within a group it is also possible that not only the “role” leaders are at the center of attention, but there may be inside the team, emotional “potential” leaders, able to handle the situation, above all if the role leader has little credibility.

Apart from this, there is no doubt that a leader who aspires to govern his team of collaborators effectively must acquire self-awareness and rethink his role also from an emotional point of view. Being able, in this way, even more easily to get closer to the emotions of the team members.

All of the above is what is commonly referred to as emotional intelligence.

However, being endowed with emotional intelligence does not mean showing off one’s feelings without any kind of filter, exposing them in a crude way and guided by the momentum, but rather it means controlling them, so as to express them appropriately and constructively, thus allowing a serene and effective collaboration.

We can therefore understand that emotional intelligence is a skill that is acquired and that improves as we gain experience in the social field, thus acquiring the necessary awareness, the ability to recognize one’s emotions, to understand how these could affect others and use this knowledge to guide one’s decision-making processes, as well as social skills, i.e. being able to better “read” the different scenarios and the different social situations in which one is immersed, managing to interact constructively with team members, persuade them, avoid disputes and guide them towards common goals.

View Details

If you sit in an executive seat whether CEO, owner or manager, are YOU bubble-wrapped? What is a bubble -wrapped leader?For starters, they are not very good leaders. Bubble-wrapping insulates from all the things going on around us. I’ve seen key executives isolate themselves by layers of policy, procedure, and occasionally people.

There is one company I’ve worked with that is so traditional in their hierarchy that various levels are not encouraged to talk more than one level up without being accompanied by someone from the level in between. In an age of fast-moving decisions demanding such a structure creates huge roadblocks and inefficiency.

However, there are more subtle ways we find ourselves bubble wrapped as leaders. Here are a few to think about.

The IntentionalFirst, the very intentional. Like the antiquated hierarchy I mentioned above, some leaders consciously choose to build walls to keep others away. If you’re in sales you know about the “gatekeepers” who defend the castle around the big boss/decision-maker. While this kind of defense might make sense from outside the company, why should you allow it inside?

The CerebralNext, there are the more cerebral ways to get bubble wrapped.

Tangling yourself in technical jargon and complexity can bubblewrap you and isolate you from others. I’ve worked with some pretty smart people in my day. Being truly the smartest guy in the room can have the effect of separating you from others around you.

The PolicyThen there is the leader who immerses him or herself in dogmatic policy, practice or tradition. As soon as someone brings an idea that runs counter to the main way of thinking, the leader quickly rejects the person and the idea. I see this often with companies that have long-standing legacies. If the company is more than 20 years old, likely you will find practices and traditions that insulate the leader’s thinking. In companies like this, I frequently hear emerging managers complain that their chief instruction when taking on new duties was “don’t screw it up.”

The FixHave you created any of the above situations that insulate and isolate your thinking, like bubble wrap protects delicate packages?

Leaders need fresh ideas to compete and stay relevant in changing markets. In addition, changing trends in workforce management require constant vigil for workable new ideas.

The best way to avoid isolation is to actively encourage discussion within your team. Surrounding yourself with talented people is great, but you need to be sure the right things are being discussed. Walking around the floor, shop, or workroom helps too. Engaging with employees at all levels keeps your sensitivity to the real truth of what is going on sharp and tuned in.

Lastly, you might want to check your attitude. One of the biggest hurdles the average entrepreneur faces is pride. If your little idea takes flight and becomes something successful you might deserve to feel good about it.

There is, however, a big difference between a healthy appreciation for what you have and a huge ego.

I’ve seen far too many owners get themselves in big trouble by living behind their ego.

View Details

Formal coursework is just one of many methods for developing leaders. One-to-one mentoring, experiential learning, on-the-job training, online workshops, and stretch projects with coaching can also be ways for effective leadership development among the conceptual, people-focused skills needed in leaders. The best model combines all of these elements in a systematic and positive way.

Companies and organizations are built to do what they do and aren’t really designed to be flexible and take advantage of the learning their leaders are being given.

Unfortunately, this seldom happens and when it does, it still fails over the long haul. Deborah Rowland (Why Leadership Development Isn’t Developing Leaders, 2016) cites the weakness of leadership development programs as curriculum-based programs that bear little resemblance to the workplace reality. “Participants,” She said, “are taken out of their day-to-day workplaces to be inspired by expert faculty, work on case studies, receive personal feedback, and take away the latest leadership thinking (and badges for their resumes)” but what aspiring leaders learn in the workshops doesn’t match what is needed in the workplace. Authors, Beer, Finnstrom, and Schrader in “Why Leadership Training Fails–and What to Do About It (2016) noted, “American companies spend enormous amounts of money on employee training and education—$160 billion in the United States and close to $356 billion globally in 2015 alone—but they are not getting a good return on their investment.” Why? Their article offers several reasons why that seems to boil down to built-in challenges and inertia. Companies and organizations are built to do what they do and aren’t really designed to be flexible and take advantage of the learning their leaders are being given.

My personal favorite is action-based learning. Sometimes, simply diving in and “failing forward” as John Maxwell puts it is the best way to figure out one’s own leadership style and developing success skills. It’s the old story of learning how to swim, which actually happened to me. My dad, who had been a lifeguard and on his high school swim team, decided when it came time to teach his son how to swim, took me out to the swim platform in the middle of an upstate New York campground and threw me off. I remember quite clearly struggling to reach the surface while a wavy image of my Dad looking down at me shimmered just out of reach. After I finally clawed my way up and was gasping for air, Dad said calmly, now paddle like a dog. And just like that I was moving forward in the water.

Of course, I didn’t do this to my own boys (although I thought about it, but my wife nixed the idea). To this day, I tend to prefer to simply jump in and let things sort themselves out.

What do you think is the most effective method of developing leadership skills?

View Details

In Parts 1 & 2 (below), we looked at why organizations should consider ensuring gratitude is a part of their normal business practices, and some of the immediate results when one company did just that. In today’s segment, we’re going to dive a little deeper into some of the feedback from people who experienced gratitude as an active, intentional practice.

Gratitude at Work – One Company’s Story

Connections and team culture. Study participants repeatedly emphasized the impact of gratitude on the quality of their connections with their supervisors, colleagues, clients, and their relationship with their employer. They also pointed to an increase in trust, alignment, and psychological safety in their working teams. These are all strong drivers for performance as well as reducing turnover. Recruiting top talent is positively impacted by healthy workplace culture, and people want to stay when they feel good about their experience as a team member.

Study participants who were in supervisory roles also indicated that gratitude as a formal leadership practice improved their sense of connection with their direct report and felt a positive impact on the overall culture of the team as a result of the shift in tone resulting in gratitude being a regular part of the workplace experience. One participant shared the impact for newer employees who were not part of the study, noting, “I would literally have the new consultants say, Is this normal? Is this normal to appreciate and recognize people?”, and further commented that it felt validating to be able to say that this was something the company actively endorsed.

Job satisfaction. The literature highlights job satisfaction as a key driver of employee engagement. In this study, all participants noted that gratitude had a positive impact on their job satisfaction, and several participants reiterated multiple times that experiencing gratitude from the people around them, including supervisors, coworkers, and clients, had an immediate impact on their job satisfaction. However, it is crucial that gratitude be experienced as an authentic expression and not a forced group activity. Inauthentic expressions of gratitude have the potential to damage the employee experience. If you decide to make gratitude a more regular player in your workplace culture, leadership will want to be very intentional in framing gratitude as a positive practice that must be founded on genuine appreciation for a specific activity or experience to realize the benefits.

Role confidence. Gratitude was highlighted as a contributing factor in role confidence for both experienced employees and those newer to their roles. Participants who were in supervisory roles at the time of this study noted that gratitude allowed them to connect with their direct reports in a positive way, improving those relationships and strengthening the team dynamics, improving their confidence not only in their own work but in the ability of their team to meet business objectives. Supervisors also noted that they had previously believed that gratitude was an important piece of their personal leadership style, and that their participation in this trial validated that belief.

From the individual contributors who participated in this study, several noted that the company culture was a key reason they had joined the company, and their experience as study participants reinforced for them that the company actually takes positive culture seriously, which helped them feel more secure in their role.

Further, participants highlighted the challenges inherent in often being on a smaller working group or the only consultant working on a project and felt that gratitude positively impacted their confidence in those situations. This was noted both in terms of current projects, as it provided positive informal feedback that they were meeting expectations. This also resulted in an increased sense of capability for the individual, which translated to greater confidence when looking forward to upcoming projects to which they already had some visibility as well as a more generalized sense of confidence. As one participant stated, “I feel like I’m walking into this new project with the confidence I didn’t have prior.”

Workplace stress and well-being. The strong response from study participants relating to the impact of their gratitude activities and its influence on their wellbeing and stress as not initially part of the study design, but this theme very prominently and quickly emerged from the data. Participants noted that they felt supported by the company by being allowed to pause periodically to engage in gratitude, and that it reinforced their decision to be part of the organization. They also reflected on how it gave them an opportunity to connect with others, both within and outside of the organization, and that the daily practice created a positive impact on the rest of their workday. Several also commented that they found the practice spilling into their relationships with friends and family members as well, helping bolster those connections.

While this study focused on the workplace, it would be remiss to suggest that stress can be compartmentalized into specific parts of one’s day. Several participants also mentioned that taking time to focus on gratitude for even a few minutes each day provided balance, and an opportunity to reframe their experience as being more positive than they might have been feeling previously. This has strong implications for considering how this practice might be embedded in other well-being initiatives sponsored by the organization or individual employee resource groups.

So how can organizations tap into intentional gratitude to improve outcomes for their teams? We’ll explore some recommendations in the next installment in this series on Gratitude as a lever for improving the employee experience and organizational outcomes.

View Details

As Valentine’s Day approaches, love is in the air. And while this whole topic is highly charged in today’s workplace, there’s a brand of ‘love’ that’s not only appropriate but also necessary in our contemporary business environment—one that can drive engagement, job satisfaction, and bottom-line results.

Leaders who want to make a positive impact on their employees and their organizations will benefit from showing their love through these four strategies.

Loop others in. Information is the lifeblood of productivity and achievement. And connections with others nourish employees, contributing to qualitative outcomes like happiness and quantitative outcomes like loyalty, retention and even customer satisfaction. So, find ways to loop others into what’s happening and facilitate relationships that deepen connections and commitment.

Offer the resources and support required for success. There is little that’s more demoralizing than trying to do good work and being thwarted by not having what’s necessary to make it happen. Ensure that people have the equipment and materials they need to succeed. Make training available so they have the necessary skills and knowledge. Remove roadblocks—systems, processes, rules, and limitations—that undermine employees’ ability to do their best work. Offer what’s necessary and then step back and see results follow.

Vary responsibilities. Variety is the spice of life… at work too. When possible and desirable on the part of employees, mix things up a bit. Allow people to explore different tasks, learn different skills, play in different sandboxes. The expanded perspective that becomes available as a result of these opportunities enriches one’s current role, opens doors to possible new roles, and keeps everyone fresh, engaged and growing.

Earn respect. Employees crave inspirational leadership. In research I conducted last year, people indicated that one of the things they want most at work is a supervisor who they can trust and respect. Be the leader your people need and want. Earn trust and respect through your day-to-day behavior, interactions, and decisions.

Want to capture the hearts and minds of those who work for you? Ditch the chocolates and offer this kind of authentic, genuine attention that individuals crave and need to perform optimally. Want to drive remarkable results? All you need is this kind of LOVE.

View Details

I speak a lot on the Art of Caring Leadership, but not everyone’s leadership style is the same. Although kindness and empathy should be at the forefront of whichever leadership style suits you best, each role you have throughout your career may look a little different and require you to switch up your approach. Some leaders are more oriented with coaching and developing an organization and some may be more focused on team building and providing solutions as a team. Whatever your leadership style is, it’s important to not only remember that there is always room for growth and improvement, but be open to the fact that your leadership style may change over time.

The CoachIf any of you have children, you likely already know the importance of what having a good coach as a leader does for your child as they develop their skills. If they enjoy their coach, they enjoy the sport, which makes them want to be loyal, work hard, value teamwork and achieve the best they can. Much like that, leaders who favor this type of leadership approach work to encourage and support each team member’s strengths so that employees can develop to their full potential. A coaching leadership style also focuses on developing overall team performance. Just putting your time and effort into one individual won’t drive the results you seek. It’s important to learn about your team’s strengths and weaknesses as individuals and apply those assets where you see fit. And again, just like sports, you may have one or two people on the team who are excellent athletes (or excellent employees) but the final results depend on team performance, not just one individual. A focus on communication is also an important part of this leadership approach, as coaching people involves guiding them and offering constructive feedback to help them improve.

The EngagerWhen people feel heard, valued, and understood by their leaders, their engagement typically increases as a result. Recognizing not only your team as a whole but each employee individually plays a huge part in showing how much you truly value them and what they bring to the table. I personally feel this leadership style should always coincide and encompass another as engagement drives loyalty. Engaged leaders prioritize connecting with their employees on both a professional level and a personal level to understand what’s important to each individual. When your people know that you care about their overall wellbeing, the lines of communication remain open and transparent and their efforts will show.

The AuthoritiveAn authoritative leader has total control and power over the team, and serves as the sole decision-maker, which means not allowing your team to have any input on said decision making process or what tasks they’re assigned. This is often also referred to as “top-down leadership” or “command and control leadership.” While authoritative leaders may have productive teams that benefit from clear instructions, quick decision-making and not needing to worry about coming up with improvements, many organizations consider this type of top-down leadership to be “old school.” And in my opinion, it certainly is. This type of leadership style can become problematic as it fails to harness the best ideas of the group as a whole, which can limit innovation and decrease your employee retention.

The CollaboratorContrary to the above, collaborative leaders want to involve and engage their team members in the decision making process. If you are usually very transparent with your people and you have a goal to ensure that everyone not only has a seat at the table, but a voice that’s heard and encouraged in every meeting – you likely hold this type of leadership style. This approach is also commonly accompanied alongside another and proves that you value your people’s opinions. The benefits to this type of leadership is when you do collaborate with your team, ideas and solutions are usually brought about that may not have been produced in a one man show.

The ObserverLeaders who have a high level of emotional intelligence may make strong, observant leaders. They help others identify their own talents and are able to foster building strong relationships with both individuals on their team as well as others within leadership. By building these relationships, it provides you with a better insight on your people as this leadership approach requires you to be able to look beyond the surface and recognize the unsaid. Observing your people’s moods and body language will help you learn to recognize when things or individuals in the workplace feel ‘off.’

ReflectionMany of these leadership approaches often accompany one another and/or compliment each other. Which one relates the most to you?

While styles of authoritativeness may succeed in the short term, encompassing caring leadership and the many qualities that brings, creates long-term success.

By building a positive and uplifting culture, your leadership can showcase your employees’ well-being and teamwork while increasing engagement and playing into a successful overall organizational performance.

View Details

Most people do not regularly experience gratitude at work, either as recipients or as an active intentional practice of their own. And yet we know that just generally, when we feel appreciated, we feel and do better. What would happen if we purposefully made gratitude a regular part of the “ways of working”? This question had been nagging me since I first started down the path of focusing on employee experience, and now I had the great fortune to partner with an organization that had already dabbled in a gratitude challenge for their employees, and they were interested in seeing what impact a more robust trial might have.

ENJOY PART 1 BELOW ▼

Hey, Thanks! or, the Power of Gratitude in the Workplace

It was unknown how gratitude practices would influence job satisfaction or role confidence for the company I was working with. Their leadership was keenly interested in employee engagement and understanding the levers and mechanisms which drive this core metric. Further, with an eye to considering future opportunities for product offerings, the client organization wanted to gain an understanding of how gratitude might be positioned as part of a product offering in an employee wellness portfolio of services, specifically with an understanding of the return on energy investment for the individuals in an organization.

Current engagement scores have averaged in the 57-65% range over the last three years, with their 2020 survey reporting an average engagement of 70%. Although this represents some improvement, leadership was aiming for engagement scores in the 80-85% range. This desired engagement level was targeted in terms of both creating a culture that is attractive for prospective new talent—a key consideration in innovation companies—as well as retaining talent in an industry where success relies on technical competence, and turnover was a significant risk to both.

The desired outcome of this study was to gain insight into the potential for gratitude to favorably impact individual employee job satisfaction and role confidence and to identify any appreciable differences in that impact on engagement scores that might be observed when comparing the result of internal and external gratitude practices to allow further longitudinal research on the impact of gratitude on employee engagement when practiced over long periods of time or by a larger percentage of employees at all levels of the organization. In short, the organization wanted to learn if gratitude could create a competitive advantage, and this study was the first step in the process.

For my research-happy peeps, for this work, I opted for a qualitative case study design to explore how intentional gratitude practices could impact job satisfaction and how those practices could be improved to allow the partner organization to realize greater performance outcomes. There isn’t an easy way to quantify gratitude (or job satisfaction, actually…. I wish somebody would discover a cheek swab that was reliable for this stuff!) This study also aimed to fill a gap in existing research by extending knowledge on the impact of intentional gratitude practices in the workplace.

The conceptual framework for this study was built upon the theory that employee engagement is seen as an intersection of two forces: employee assessment of personal job satisfaction, and organizational artifacts which support well-being. Job satisfaction tends to increase when employees believe that the work they do has specific value or the results are seen as being worthwhile in some aspect, and when they have high-quality relationships with the people with whom they work. You may have recently seen an influx of articles about belongingness or the importance of relationships at work, which are based on the same foundational work.

Gratitude in personal practices has been shown to improve life satisfaction and to strengthen relationships. Would it have a similar impact at work?

That’s what we were hoping to learn, through the lens of two research questions:

RQ1: How do intentional gratitude practices influence job satisfaction?

RQ2: How can intentional gratitude practices be improved to increase job satisfaction?

The first question explored how intentional gratitude practices impacted job satisfaction for employees, and we identified several ways in which gratitude, both intrinsic and extrinsic, had a positive impact on not only job satisfaction but also employee confidence, well-being, and stress. Study participants in both groups noted that gratitude had a wide variety of positive impacts on their relationships with clients, supervisors, colleagues, and their perception of the organization.

Participants noted the increase in trust and team alignment, including with group members they knew were not part of this study. Several participants also commented that they noticed a “ripple effect” with gratitude, where one person would express gratitude for a specific action or experience, and the recipient would often reciprocate with an expression of gratitude themselves, creating a positive feedback loop that improved team morale and culture. This was also credited with having a mitigating effect on workplace stress, both in terms of work-related stress as well as more generalized stress based on current global and societal issues, such as working remote due to the COVID-19 pandemic and other political and economic issues.

Another prevalent theme was that having the anchor of a daily gratitude practice helped both focus attention on what was going well, but also over time they noted themes emerging, which reinforced existing positive perspectives or mitigated stressful situations such as complex project challenges or the complications caused by working in a remote environment.

The second question explored ways that intentional gratitude practices could be improved to allow for the organization to continue to realize these benefits or even increase the impact of these practices for employees and the organization as a whole. All participants noted, sometimes multiple times, that it was helpful to have organizational support for taking time to pause and experience gratitude intentionally, noting that it can be difficult to prioritize non-billable activities such as self-care or gratitude, and they appreciated the company’s overt support for this activity.

Another common theme was the belief that gratitude should be considered a core leadership value not only at the executive level but also cascading through the tiers of the organization. Two participants mentioned that they felt it could be a positive addition to leadership development for newer people leaders within the organization, with multiple references to how receiving gratitude from one’s supervisor had an immediate and lasting positive impact for the recipient both in terms of job satisfaction and confidence.

Additional findings were that participants in supervisory roles noted the belief that gratitude as an intentional workplace practice could have a positive impact on employee turnover rates, as well being a beneficial opportunity to connect with and reinforce the supervisor-direct report relationship. This included the supervisor’s own observations and experiences, as well as having the opportunity to share positive client feedback with team members. This reinforces individual contributor sentiments that positive client feedback was beneficial, especially for those working on very small teams with limited interaction with others.

Table 1

Key Findings for Research Questions

(Source, Ratekin, S.A, “Gratitude as an Organizational Performance Lever”, Proquest, 2021)Next time we’ll look at some feedback from the people who actively experienced gratitude in their workplace during this study. How about you? Have you expressed or received gratitude at work lately? How did that impact you? I’d love to hear about your experiences!

View Details

At its core, gratitude is an excellent antidote for the isolation which has become such a problem for so many of us. While the COVID-19 pandemic put a painfully bright spotlight on the problems that are caused by isolation, the truth is most of us are more functionally isolated than our predecessors in both our personal and professional lives, and this has been a growing concern for decades.

When I talk about gratitude, I’m speaking about a feeling of appreciation to someone or something that has benefitted you. It can be large, small, life-changing… and it can be direct OR indirect. For example, who are my coffee drinkers in the house? Do you KNOW the farmers who grow the beans that make that delicious elixre of life? I know a handful of coffee roasters, but I don’t personally know any coffee farmers. Despite that, I am sincerely grateful to the folks who work hard to allow me the luxury of enjoying my daily java (and so are the people who have to spend time with me).

When we experience gratitude, whether we are conscious of this or not, our brain is not only experiencing a positive outcome from whatever it is that we’re grateful about, but we’re also reminded that we’re connected to something or someone outside of ourselves.

Gratitude is fundamentally about connections.

Before we dive into the professional implications of gratitude let’s prime our brains for this conversation by giving ourselves a little pick-me-up of serotonin and dopamine as we practice some real-time gratitude. How many of you have heard the expression “Look for the silver lining”? I appreciate the sentiment in those words, and yet sometimes life is really messy, and asking people to pretend it’s not can be more hurtful than helpful. So when I got to a place in my life where things were just RUGGED, I started looking for SILVER THREADS… tiny bits of positive experience, and there are zillions of these throughout even the most rugged days.

I remember when my kids were small and somebody brought a stomach bug home, and one day, I gratefully realized OH MY GOODNESS – NOBODY got sick last night! For the caregivers out there, you know that’s actually a pretty BIG relief… but it’s not something we would normally think of when we’re looking for things to be grateful for, and that’s a shame, because collecting small moments of gratitude periodically throughout our days and weeks is actually an incredibly powerful way to balance out our experiences.

So to kick this off, we’re going hunting for bright, shiny silver threads. Our brains process about 34 gigabytes of information every single day, so scientifically there have to be at least a handful of those moments where you felt good, grateful or positive, at least for a second or two. Don’t overthink this – and don’t reach for the obvious responses. Give yourself permission to mentally stretch JUST a moment and think about ONE THING for which you are FRESHLY grateful. It could be something that you experienced this morning, or maybe even something you’re looking forward to in the next week or so.

Give yourself a few minutes to really think about this moment in time. If it’s something that already happened, re-play it in your mind and let all those positive emotions percolate through your mind again. If it’s something that hasn’t happened yet, imagine what it might be like, in as much detail a you can muster, and enjoy the positive anticipation! Then, jot that thought down on a sticky note or index card, add the hashtag #silverthreads and then grab your phone, take a picture, and, share your snapshot with your people, maybe on Instagram, LinkedIn or Tiktok, or send it as a text if it’s about somebody you know – let them experience some happiness, too!

OK – Now that we’ve done a little self-care, it’s time to make this professional. Odds are if you’re a regular reader of my work you already care about your people. I also recognize that in today’s world, it takes more than that to change hearts, minds, and business practices. So let’s start with some basic (and startling) stats. Employee engagement is a costly and complicated challenge that organizations of all industries have tried to address for decades with little improvement in average engagement scores overall. Gallup’s 2022 global survey found that only 22% of employees globally are engaged at work. If you’re responsible for paying salaries, that number should freak you out. The cost of that disengagement? 7-8 TRILLION dollars, annually.

Meanwhile, 70% of employees would feel better about themselves if their boss were more grateful, and 81% would work harder. 95% of employees agree that a grateful boss is more likely to be successful. Employees who experience more gratitude at work report fewer depressive symptoms and stress. Lack of gratitude is a major factor in driving job dissatisfaction, turnover, absenteeism, and burnout. In recent surveys, half of the people said they regularly said thank you to their family members, but only 15% say thank you at work, and 35% of people say their managers NEVER thank them.

In research cited by the Wall Street Journal, the workplace ranked last of places where people express gratitude, with just 10% of people saying thank you to their colleagues and only 7% saying thank you to their supervisor.

And yet, some people actively discourage gratitude at work. There’s actually an employee-motivation consultant in San Diego, as saying, “We thank people around here: It’s called a paycheck.” Yikes. I think I’ve worked at companies he’s tainted!

And while we’re on this subject, I want to mention that while for SOME things (like laughter) you CAN fake it ‘til you make it… Gratitude is NOT one of those things. Inauthentic gratitude or just “going through the motions” will damage your credibility, decrease trust, create friction on your teams, and generally contribute to an unhealthy workplace culture. People can smell insincere gratitude a mile away.

Here’s one final statistic for you. Regular gratitude journaling has been shown to result in 5% to 15% increases in optimism and 25% increased sleep quality, and the health and behavioral benefits from those two alone are massive. What might it do for organizational performance? That was the question I wanted to answer when I was designing my doctoral research project.

I partnered with a consulting firm whose engagement scores had, much like employee engagement around the globe, remained lower than desired by management. Two questions framed my initial research. How do intentional gratitude practices influence job satisfaction, and how can intentional gratitude practices be improved to increase job satisfaction? A sample of the employee population was surveyed to assess current state job satisfaction and role confidence, then assigned to one of two groups. For four consecutive weeks, one group kept a daily gratitude journal, while the other reached out daily (yes, at least once a day!) to professional connections to express gratitude directly. Employees from each group were then interviewed to determine if there was a change in their job satisfaction, role confidence, or perception of gratitude in the workplace.

In this series, we’ll explore what we discovered, and along with those findings, I’ll share recommendations which I’ve been able to use to help companies create healthier working environments with more engaged teams. In 2023, I’m looking for opportunities to repeat this research with organizations across a wide array of industries, so if this is something that has sparked your curiosity, let’s talk!

View Details

Many C-suites and business commentators seem to believe that the Great Resignation is a short-term, post-Covid blip which will fizzle out as the global recession hits consumers. However, this superficial analysis ignores the underlying drivers behind the Great Resignation, as well as sweeping changes globally in people’s attitudes towards what they want from their jobs and work-life balance together with the developing demographics of the global workforce.

We’re at an inflection point when it comes to how organisations move forward. The Great Resignation offers a window into why companies are failing as well as opportunities for those who learn its lessons to change, develop and improve performance. Those that deal in denial will almost certainly waste these opportunities.

Organisations were put to the test by COVID, given its speed and depth of impact. Chronic pre-existing problems related to leadership, culture, empowerment, agility, and effective decision-making were highlighted and exacerbated. These were long-standing issues which should have been properly addressed but never were It also highlighted new possibilities to improve performance and wellbeing.

Hybrid working, for example, had never been fully utilised despite it having been a very real possibility for many organisations for years.

Only by acknowledging the truth that our experiences shape our views, which subsequently influence our behaviour in response to various circumstances can we hope to understand and learn from what we have been through.

Keeping this in mind helps us make sense of what we are seeing now and what we need to do next.

The COVID LessonsEveryone’s experience of COVID varied widely, depending at least in part on their proximity to the risk of infection. Based on this, McKinsey divided the working population into four distinct groups:

20% – continued to work – low risk roles, e.g. outdoor & construction
30% – furloughed / unemployed – e.g. hospitality and retail
30% – remote work – e.g., office-based staff
20% – essential workers – high risk but continued to work, e.g., healthcare and transport

How different groups experienced COVIDImpact varied across different groups too.The most affected were women, minority groups, younger adults and lower-paid workers. Those industries that essentially closed down during the pandemic had higher proportions of employees in these groups.

In terms of organisations there was a significant difference between different individual organisations and sectors. Some failed, some thrived. Few leaders are aware of the vast differences in events and outcomes. That’s because business leaders only know what happened where they were and do not have clear insights into what happened elsewhere.

The reality was that organisations which survived well if not thrived had a positive culture, trust, empowerment, and where leadership adapted more successfully. Their teams were able to work together more effectively and were more agile in reacting to the rapidly changing circumstances created by the pandemic.

COVID required executives to create the right environment for their organisation’s continued success set against unprecedented demands. They needed to step up their game, but many did not. Speaking to many of these executives post-COVID about their experiences, I was struck by one consistent theme: “COVID showed us who the leaders really were in our organisation.”

Remote WorkingThere is often an assumption that almost everybody has ended up working remotely. But, in practice, remote working is not consistently applicable.

Overall, only 30% of workers were able to do so. Only 5% of those earning under £20k pa were able to remote compared to 95% of those earning £50k pa. Furthermore, 55% of jobs in London were “remotable”, whereas in northeast England, the figure was only 35%.

Is working from home here to stay?The experiences from pandemic-induced remote working teaches us valuable lessons about how to make hybrid working effective in the future. What were they? Simply that, if set up and implemented correctly, remote working works well. It delivers improvements in work performance over office-based work, especially in individual activities that require creativity or focused work. It also enhanced wellbeing even during the pandemic, which itself negatively impacted wellbeing globally. Within this, the overall experience of remote working gives us an excellent roadmap to make hybrid working highly successful, if we learn the lessons. One of those lessons is that, in cases where remote working was not set up effectively, the cause could be traced to insufficient support from leadership. Here’s how this impacted the results:

30% found difficulty adjusting to the remote environment.
30% felt lonely and disconnected from their organisation.
15% felt their mental health suffered.

These are leadership problems rather than technology issues.

Key issues in remote working

View Details

Although the term ‘Mindfulness’ often invokes an image of a monk sitting on a mountain chanting “OM,” neuroscience is proving this ancient practice is worthy of exploring today. Your true power lies in this moment. If you understand who you are and your emotional processes, you live not only an authentic life but also an empowered one. This can lead you to the health, relationships, and success you desire.

Mindfulness means to pay attention on purpose in a particular way and to do so without passing judgement. This could be awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and sensations and still be at peace in that moment. It could be things as simple as noticing the warm sun on your face, the smell of freshly baked cookies, or anything that you notice in the present moment and allow it to be what it is. Other names for mindfulness are attention training, consciousness, awareness, observation among others.

Some of the core practices of a more formal mindfulness practice include mindful breathing, open awareness, mindful listening, loving kindness, mindful eating, mindful walking, journaling, gratitude, affect labelling/mindful emotions, and a body scan.

Pause for a moment. Feel the sensation of air through your nostrils. Is it warm or cool? Notice the rise and fall of your chest. Is there resistance or ease? Bring your awareness to expansion and contraction of your abdomen. Sense your clothing against your skin. Notice thoughts, notice sensations, notice sounds, notice emotions, notice whatever arises.

Now, choose one of these areas either below your nose, at your chest, or your abdomen and practice paying attention to your breath for 2 minutes.

Whenever your mind wanders bring it back to your breath. We all have thoughts. The goal is not to control the mind but rather not allow it to control you. Make note of how you feel. You have just practiced mindful breathing by paying attention to your breath on purpose. You are always breathing so you can always practice.

You can “practice the pause” for one breath, take the two-minute challenge, or practice for as long as you like. Try it during a transition period such as before you check your phone in the morning, before you eat, in between work and home, and certainly before you send an angry text or frustrated email. Imagine the difference in the response?

In 1979 Jon Kabat-Zinn (PhD, scientist, writer, professor, Founder of MBSR and often referred to as the Godfather of Mindfulness) put mindfulness on the map in the western world when he founded the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program at the University of Massachusetts. The program was developed for chronically ill patients that were not responding well to traditional methods and have been highly successful.

Essentially Jon Kabat-Zinn took the Buddhism and Voodoo Woo-doo out of Mindfulness Meditation when he created the program. He said: “I bent over backwards to structure it and find ways to speak about it that avoided as much as possible the risk of it being seen as Buddhist, new age, eastern mysticism, or just plain flakey. “

Since that time neuroscience has shown us compelling evidence suggesting a regular Mindfulness Meditation practice leads to chemical and structural changes in the brain that allow for you to experience the benefits. Neurons that fire together wire together.

Mindfulness-based practices deactivate the part of your brain responsible for stress (amygdala) which in turn allows you access to the part of your brain responsible for all higher levels of thinking (pre-frontal cortex).

There are nine aspects of wellbeing that are developed through mindfulness-based practices that deactivate the amygdala and engage the pre-frontal cortex including: bodily regulation, insight, attuned communication, empathy, emotional regulation, fear modulation, response flexibility, intuition, and morality. (Gratitude may make this list soon). If you seek to be a visionary this is the part of the brain you want to train.

You can begin to see where the aspects of wellbeing developed could lead to things such as increased confidence, greater compassion and empathy, improved health, more fulfilling relationships, higher creativity, effective communication, higher success rates, and happier daily living.

Some of the traits developed being a mindful leader include being able to relate and connect with people for purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives as well as resilient, pro-active, adaptable, curious, validating, conscious, giving, kind, and exhibit self-control and can communicate with more than words. These create profound beneficial impacts in any industry.

Some of these benefits are related to the level of self-awareness one has. “Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.” (Jon Kabat-Zinn, Search Inside Yourself) and “Self-awareness is a neutral mode that maintains self-reflectiveness even in the midst of turbulent emotions.” (Daniel Goleman, Search Inside Yourself). Mindfulness and self-awareness are essentially the same thing.

One domain of emotional intelligence is self-awareness. You can’t accurately know yourself if you do not know and understand your emotional processes. Emotional Intelligence may be defined as the ability to recognize, understand and manage our own emotions and recognize, understand, and influence the emotions of others. This can be a very powerful place to be. You don’t adjust to the energy of a room, you shift it.

When you ‘practice the pause’ you can pause as you did with breathing and make a more conscious choice. With continued practice you will develop higher levels of emotional intelligence so that you will begin to intuitively respond to people and situations as opposed to reacting emotionally. Imagine how many arguments you will save and how much less regret and guilt you will feel? Remember neurons that fire together wire together and you are training your brain.

This is truly a space of self-empowerment where you have the opportunity to think, speak, and act in line with your values. This is where you have the ability to create change, be authentic, and live intentionally.

The beginning of emotional intelligence begins with naming what you are feeling and then being able to feel it in your body and then being able to ask compassionate questions that help move you through. What you resist persists so if you don’t tend to your emotional wellbeing, it will wreak havoc on your wellbeing, your success, and your relationships.

There are countless ways to begin to develop emotional intelligence including formal mindfulness meditation-based practices, as well as self-assessments, journaling, and even gratitude.

Mindfulness and self-awareness lead to the following benefits in business:

*Trust and psychological safety which have become hot topics in recent years.

*Boosts career advancement

*Greater competitive advantage and market value

*More sales, save more money, make more money

*Sense if belonging and purpose (again essential in business in recent years)

*Loyalty and referral increase

*Effective collaboration and engagement

*Improves culture

*Elevates customer experience

The problem that often arises is difficulty in sticking to a practice, so it is necessary to make it a priority – schedule it, get help, get an accountability partner, and be kind to yourself on the journey. Cultivate compassion and curiosity for yourself and the experience. The journey and experience are the focus, not the end result.

Enjoy the journey. Remember your power is in this moment.

View Details

When it comes to business, nothing is more important than productivity. If your employees are not productive, your company will falter. That’s why it’s so important to equip them with the tools they need to be as efficient as possible. This blog post will discuss some of the best ways to do just that and cover everything from workplace organization tips to helpful software programs that can increase productivity. By equipping your employees with the right tools, you can ensure that your business runs like a well-oiled machine!

1) Create a clutter-free workplaceThe most important step for any business owner or manager when it comes to equipping their staff for optimal productivity is creating a clutter-free working environment. This means ensuring that workstations are well organized, with all necessary materials and equipment in easy reach. Clear away excess junk, paperwork and debris so employees can have space to focus on their tasks without distractions. Make sure they also have comfortable chairs, desks, and other furniture to help them stay comfortable during the day.

2) Supply the right toolsIn order to ensure your employees are able to perform their functions efficiently, you must supply them with the proper tools for the job. Whether it’s a commercial GPS or software programs targeted at specific jobs, make sure each employee has access to the tools they need for optimal productivity. Additionally, you should regularly review the technology used in your office to ensure that it is up-to-date and still serves the needs of your staff.

3) Promote teamworkIt’s important to promote collaboration among your staff so they can better tackle their tasks together and take on bigger challenges as a team. Encourage open dialogue among employees, so they can learn from one another and benefit from each other’s skillset. This will help create a sense of camaraderie within the workplace, which will in turn motivate employees and make them more productive overall.

4) Provide ongoing training and development opportunitiesToday’s businesses have to keep up with the ever-changing world of technology and industry trends. To keep your employees at the top of their game you should offer ongoing training and development opportunities so they can stay ahead of the competition. This helps ensure that everyone is up to date on new techniques or technologies, as well as staying motivated and inspired.

5) Embrace flexible working hoursAllowing employees some degree of flexibility when it comes to work hours can have a huge impact on productivity levels. When people are able to work according to their own schedules, it often leads to better output than those who stick strictly to set times. Studies have shown that those who are given greater freedom in terms of scheduling tend to be more productive overall than those who are expected to stick to a rigid timeline.

By following these simple tips you can equip your employees for optimal productivity and efficiency in the workplace. By creating a clutter-free environment, supplying the right tools, promoting teamwork, providing ongoing training and development opportunities as well as embracing flexible working hours, you will be able to get the most out of your workforce and maximize their potential. All of this combined should lead to greater success in meeting business goals and objectives. With the right support system in place, there’s no limit to what your team is capable of achieving!

View Details

If you’re a business owner, then you know that one of the most important things to consider is how to reduce your costs. One area where businesses can save money is by reducing their staffing costs. In this blog post, we’ll discuss some ways to reduce your business’s staffing costs. By following the tips below, you can save your business money while still providing quality service to your customers.

The importance of reducing your business’s staffing costsAs the cost of living continues to rise, and the costs of running a business increase, it’s more important than ever to find ways to reduce your business’s staffing costs.

In order to stay competitive in today’s market, businesses need to be able to offer products and services at a lower cost than their competitors. One way to do this is by reducing labor costs.

Ways to reduce your business’s staffing costsReducing hours

One way to reduce your business’s staffing costs is by cutting back on employee hours. You can do this by reducing employees’ hours worked per week, or by eliminating overtime pay. For example, if you have employees who typically work 40 hours per week, you could reduce their hours to 37.5 per week. This would save you money on wages and benefits, while still allowing your employees to maintain a good work-life balance.

Another way to reduce employee hours is to offer flex time or a compressed workweek. This means that employees can choose to work fewer hours over a longer period of time (for example, four 10-hour days instead of five 8-hour days), or the same number of hours in fewer days. Flex time can be beneficial for both employers and employees, as it can lead to increased productivity and satisfaction.

Hiring part-time or seasonal employees

Another way to reduce your business’s staffing costs is by hiring part-time or seasonal employees. Part-time employees typically work fewer hours than full-time employees, and may not be eligible for certain benefits. You might be able to reduce your need for full-time staff by using automation and software like QuickBooks for some tasks too.

Seasonal employees are only employed during specific times of the year, and are often let go once their services are no longer needed. Hiring part-time or seasonal employees can help you save money on wages and benefits, while still meeting your staffing needs.

Offering voluntary buyouts or early retirement packages

Another way to reduce your business’s staffing costs is by offering voluntary buyouts or early retirement packages. A voluntary buyout is an offer made by an employer to an employee, where the employee agrees to leave the company in exchange for a financial payout. An early retirement package is similar, but typically includes additional benefits for the employee.

Reducing or eliminating employee perks and benefits

Another way to reduce your business’s staffing costs is by reducing or eliminating employee perks and benefits. Perks and benefits can include things like health insurance, paid vacation days, and free meals/parking/gym memberships. While these perks can be costly for employers, they can also help attract and retain talented workers.

View Details

The positive state of mind that brings a deep feeling of appreciation for everyday living.Through gratitude, we cultivate the ability to look at life through the lenses of abundance, seeing the positives instead of defaulting to negativity.

“Grateful thinking” is a powerful practice that opens the door to a more joyful and fulfilling life.

Decades of scientific research and, more recently, findings in the field of social science, show that the practice and embodiment of an attitude for gratitude can be life-changing. Being grateful, and sharing gratitude, is proven to positively support greater health, as it heightens the feeling of connection, trust, and awareness.

Gratitude increases happiness, strengthens the immune system, regulates sleeping patterns, enhances social relationships, and boosts performance at work.

The practice of gratitude is a worthwhile pursuit with many long-term happy returns. Gratitude is amongst the many gifts that mindfulness practice can offer. As we tune in and quieten the mind, we consciously move the focus on the sensations that arise as we recall images of things and people that enrich our lives in many ways and at different levels.

Whatever our individual troubles and challenges may be, it’s important to pause every now and then to appreciate all that we have, on every level.

–Shakti Gawain

Robert Emmons, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of California, and one of the world’s leading experts on the science of gratitude, writes that “…gratitude is one of the most neglected emotions and one of the most underestimated of virtues…”(The Psychology of Gratitude)

How does the state of gratefulness awareness support well-being? Through a mental process known as “Positive Recall“, that strengthens the regions of the brain associated with reward, trust, and pleasure which accentuate feelings of happiness, optimism, and positive emotion. When we express gratitude, the brain releases dopamine and serotonin, two hormones that make us feel lighter and happier.

You will agree that there is more to Gratitude than meets the eye.

Here’s to how to start tuning into gratitude, every day. Whether you are at home or at work, make time for a Gratitude Ritual.

𝑯𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒃𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒌: 5 𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒖𝒕𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝑮𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒕𝒖𝒅𝒆.

Carve five minutes out of your busy daily schedule.

Find a comfortable place where you can sit away from distractions.

Start by grounding yourself in the moment through conscious breathing.

Then, think of 10 things you are grateful for today. Keep a journal for them. Revisit the notes to strengthen the practice as you continue offering gratitude to yourself and those around you.

Creating and reinforcing the habit of gratitude within your Team is a key dimension of a culture of recognition where effort, at the individual and collective levels, is rewarded each step of the people journey, resulting in long-term company growth and sustainability.

Share the practice with your people. You may want to start your weekly meetings by opening with twenty minutes dedicated to celebrating and acknowledging the positives, inviting each person in the Team to contribute, by verbalising three things they are grateful for. The space you intentionally make for this exploration, will not only enhance the feelings of connection, but will also enable people to maintain a positive outlook that is receptive of new ideas, which can strengthen collaborative decision-making as the meeting wraps up with everyone being offered the opportunity to take an active part in it.

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others.” ~Cicero

If you are interested in exploring more, you will find some useful resources in the links that follow:

Mindful: The Science of Gratitude

HBR: Use Gratitude to Counter Stress and Uncertainty

Infographic credit: VirtuesforLife

View Details

Work has always meant fatigue. And there is no doubt that work is tiring, it requires sacrifice, effort, and pain: physical, mental, and sensory fatigue.

There is an element that has made work rise from the simple description of a physical or psychological effort to a higher dimension, linked to the goal that is pursued: it is dignity, individual fulfillment, and satisfaction of needs.

We can understand, in any case, that associating the verb “to love” with the verb “to work” may seem like a possibility reserved only for the lucky few, the privileged, perhaps deluded.

Yet, the concept of love plays a fundamental role in the life of each of us, and affects all spheres of our life, including work. You can cultivate love for a person, for a value, for an idea, for an activity, for a goal, and so on.

Love for work, in particular, gives us strength and self-esteem, and for this reason, we hope that everyone will be able to love their job, or find a job to love because, regardless of the type of work we do, our skills, our age, etc., when we can bring together the verb to work with the verb to love, our whole life benefits from it in terms of energy, creativity, reliability, quality, and ability to face the inevitable difficulties that every job entails.

Unfortunately, some studies and surveys seem to attest that the percentage of people who believe they love their job is low in all countries, with an average of around 12% of the total employed. All the others are divided between those who hate the job they do and those who experience a neutral feeling of indifference.

And instead, when you do a job you love, the probability of being able to work well producing “well-being” for yourself and for others is also higher, or at least you get this result by paying lower personal costs than those who must do more effort to try himself to work well even if he hates or tolerates his job.

One can love your job whatever you do. We must not fall into the trap of thinking that only those who do prestigious, noble, well-paid, perhaps artistic, or otherwise notorious jobs can love their work. Establishing a loving relationship with one’s work depends more on the person’s aptitude, will, passion, interest and, I would say, conscientiousness than on external factors. Therefore every job can be the object of love: from the simplest or humblest ones, to the most complex and coveted ones; and every person can be capable of loving their job, regardless of age, skills, qualification, role, etc.

People who love their work can be seen with the naked eye, we realize it by how they move, by what they say, by the gestures they make, by the decisions they make, by the way, they deal with difficulties. And, even if they are rare as mentioned above, we all know very well how to distinguish a person who loves his job from one who tolerates or hates it: the former, in fact, will show more attention, more interest, more kindness, more professionalism and it will most likely give us a feeling of sincerity, energy, and passion.

People who love their work are more resilient, more self-confident, generous, creative, sociable, energetic, innovative, and oriented towards continuous improvement.

Loving your job certainly gives you an edge and helps you to better face all the challenges and difficulties that every type of work inevitably poses. Because the love for one’s work gives more strength and courage, nourishes self-esteem, and makes us want to improve ourselves and take care of ourselves and of others.

Those who love their work essentially recognize that the work they are doing has a strong sense, a profound meaning: that is, they have managed to grasp that their work makes a useful contribution to something greater and more important, for themselves and for others, and this thought makes them proud and satisfied with what they are doing.

There is a little story that sums this up well: A traveler met three stonecutters and asked all three what they were doing. The first replied, with a certain hatred “I’m breaking stones”, the second replied, with a certain serenity “I break stones to support my family”, the third replied, with great pride, “I am building a cathedral”.

Moral: A person who thinks that work is a way of expressing one’s identity and worth, and not just an effort or a duty or a sentence, is more likely to be able to love one’s job.

In fact, a basic ingredient for being able to love one’s job is just the idea that work, whatever it is, can give us the opportunity to express our uniqueness, our values, our desire to contribute positively to the life of the society we live.

There are so many different ways to be able to do the job one loves. It takes patience and tenacity and it also takes an attitude of curiosity and sincere openness. You need to know yourself, understand your strengths and weaknesses, the humility to understand that we also need others to complete us. It takes the willingness to get involved, to experiment, to make concrete gestures, to make mistakes and to admit one’s mistakes. It takes constant commitment and the deep conviction that we really need and want to put together the verb to work with the verb to love. And, what’s very important, one can learn to love the job you do even if it’s not the one you dream of. One of the most outstanding skills of happy people, or those who have a more serene approach to life, is to be able to appreciate what they have. To succeed in many cases they adopt one or more of these tricks: they manage to keep the positive aspects distinct from the negative ones, and show sincere gratitude for the positive ones; they cultivate alliances with positive people; they try, even gradually, to modify some negative aspect or to strengthen some positive aspect; they try not to be prejudiced against the work they do, or the context in which they do it, and not to take anything personally; they don’t put themselves in a victim position.

Many people find themselves doing a job they didn’t choose (because they had no other choice) or this job can be a long way from their dream job (assuming one has a clear idea about what own dream job is). But even in this case, deciding to be passive or active, interested or unmotivated, victim or perpetrator is, however, up to us. Just as we choose, in our lives, to feel affection and to take care of people or things that we have not chosen and that are far from our ideals. Moreover, very often, true love is born and proves itself precisely when we are capable of loving the imperfect and the unexpected. Why not apply all of this to work as well?

Of course, loving your job doesn’t mean it’s always all rosy.

No love is linear, there are ups and downs, there are crises and rebirths, there are illusions and disappointments, and there are perfect moments and moments to erase. Usually, however, what love gives us is precisely the strength to overcome the most difficult moments, not to avoid them. As with any other type of love, there are loves that are more serene, others more turbulent, others even more contradictory, and so on. Of course, the important thing is not to make comparisons between one’s own story and those of others. Everyone has the opportunity to find their own personal way of loving their work.

Loving your work means taking care of it every day without taking anything for granted, nurturing it constantly, giving yourself time to think about what you can do new, different, and better, always setting new goals, and new opportunities, and always being present and attentive without leaving our work in the hands of autopilot, routine, “it’s always done like this”.

People who love their work are more likely to do well, to be appreciated and recognized by others, and become indispensable.

The art of working is also the art of learning to love your job or finding a job to love!

View Details

It is something of a white whale experience to fill your business with amazing employees. And it’s even harder to keep them. But it’s not impossible. With some simple changes to how you operate, you can make the most of candidates and existing staff. Here are a few tips.

Don’t Gloss Over RecruitmentThe recruitment phase can be somewhat challenging. You have to look over resumés, meet with candidates and assess feedback. This is costly to a business and takes a lot of time. However, it is crucial to find the right people. Therefore, it is recommended that you don’t just hire the first person that comes along. Especially for sensitive work like law or medicine. In these instances, the legal profession or medical staffing solutions are an excellent source of employees.

Provide Feedback ProperlyYour team can get better with feedback because they can see where they need to improve. So, you should give them a place to ask honest questions about their performance without worrying about getting bad feedback. It’s hard to manage, but performance appraisal is the most important thing. A simple way to do this is to talk about their strong points and what you liked about them, tell them what they could do better, and then end with another confidence booster.

Keep Amazing Employees by Communicating WellCommunication is a crucial aspect of keeping skilled employees. Being open, honest, and easy to talk to lets you build good relationships with staff, boost the confidence of your team, and change the workplace to meet the needs of your employees. But finding a good way to talk to each other is very important. You could hold regular meetings to talk about problems, use social media for dialogue, or just keep your office door open, both literally and figuratively.

Reward the Efforts of Your StaffYour employees simply want to feel appreciated when at work. A good manager gives all interactions a personal touch without trying to become everyone’s friend. While it’s better not to get too close to employees, you shouldn’t be unapproachable either. It’s important to be friendly. And one of the most effective methods is to praise team members when they deserve it and give them the right rewards. For example, you could get new clients or finish your work early.

Learn to Manage EmployeesGiving employees stability is one of the most appreciative things you can do. No one likes being told at the last minute that their schedule is changing, their shifts are being cut, or they have more work to do. As a boss, it’s your job to make sure everyone knows what their jobs are. It’s helpful to set up a working system that employees can use. Maybe use an online system that employees can access from home. This lets them plan their personal life around work.

SummaryIf you want to fill your business with amazing employees and keep them, you need to work at it. You can use recruitment agencies, encourage an open office, and manage employees well.

View Details

Belonging encompasses the feeling that you have value in a home or a place in which you are fully accepted. When it comes to the workplace and inclusive leadership, creating a culture of belonging means more now than it ever has, especially in the wake of the Great Resignation. Seeking to understand your people goes beyond who they are once they walk through the door. It’s a deeper level of recognizing their intricacies that extend beyond the workplace. Everything they go through plays a huge part in who they show up as each and every day. Welcoming your employees’ voices and input helps them feel safe and cared for.

A Deeper UnderstandingYou know the saying, “walk a mile in their shoes?” One of the biggest mistakes leaders continually display is making assumptions about people.

Assumptions lead to microaggressions, misunderstandings, and otherwise harmful behaviors.

Start to understand your employees better by practicing active listening and including everyone’s voices in the conversation. The deeper your understanding of your people goes, the better suited you will be to find the perfect fit for them within your organization.

It’s equally as important to foster relationships among your team as a whole. When you introduce a new team member, make it personal. Keep the dialog flowing and always make an effort to ask questions about how they are and truly listen to what they have to say. Make it a habit to check back in with them, especially if they have shared a hardship with you. Listening is one of the biggest skills you can hone in on within leadership, and this is a great time for it to stand out.

Learning to TrustSeek out your teams’ strengths and let them shine. Always get their input and make sure to include everyone on your team when it comes to meetings, gathering opinions, and be sure to always genuinely value their feedback. Ask them where they think they do best and where their biggest area for improvement is. Ask them which part of their job is their favorite; we tend to enjoy doing what we’re good at! If you have already spent time connecting with and getting to know your team better, it won’t be too challenging to discover their unique talents.

On the flip side, learn to let go and not micromanage. Delegating tasks from your to-do list shows that you trust your team to get the job done and can foster collaboration. Accompany these new behaviors with recognition and positive feedback, even if the result is a failure. Commend your employees for trying and testing their limits and show respect by fully engaging in whatever your people have to say.

InclusionYou can begin this process of inclusion by sharing your own stories first and leading by example to show how powerful the desire to belong really is. Ironically, one of the biggest steps to creating a sense of belonging is, in fact, inclusion. You will only feel that you truly belong somewhere if you are welcomed to the table. Trust is the foundation for any safe space to be possible, but there needs to be an explicit and implicit invitation to your employees to speak openly and honestly. Give them your full attention by making eye contact and eliminating distractions. Let them know by your physical actions that when they speak, you are ready to listen.

ReflectionMentorship and professional relationships can make or break a career. You can take small steps to improve your inclusive leadership and help someone by sharing your own journey and listening to theirs. You’ll get a chance to share your successes and failures and you’ll hear another person’s diversity of experience. When it comes to creating belonging at work, it isn’t just about creating psychological safety, though of course that is extremely important. But you’re building and optimizing the connection of your community and your people. Embrace a culture of belonging, and you will see your people grow and collaborate even more, which will produce all the positive business results for which you are aiming to achieve.

View Details

I was reflecting on the ritual of the inauguration of the 46th President of the USA and whilst the inauguration ceremony wasn’t what we have seen before it retained key anchor points of ritual and ceremony. The presence of former Presidents, the swearing-in on the ‘family’ bible, the singing of the National Anthem by a national treasure, and the inclusion of a poem by a celebrated poet. It contained all of those along with row upon row of flags symbolising the public unable to attend because of the COVID lockdown and previous unrest at the Capitol.

In our lives, we have many ceremonies and rituals – birth, marriage, death, key milestones, sporting achievement, academic achievement and so much more. Ceremony and ritual matter because they offer an opportunity to come together to witness and reinforce key values and truths.

Whether it be the hope of a better democracy, or the joy of new life, or the potential embodied in a loving union…in every significant ritual, we can see the underpinning of hope, truth, love, freedom, justice, joy…the fundamentals of life.

When we look at our organisations it’s equally important that we have in place, and value, our own rituals and ceremonies and consider their meaning and the messages we are seeking to convey. Whether it be the annual conference or the way we mark success, the way we say thank you or showcase loyalty. Each of these can seem like things we just need to tick off – we must have a long service award programme, we must have a sales bonus and reward programme and so on – but what attention do we pay to their impact and messaging of values and truths about the organisation? A local handing over of a letter and a trinket for 25 years of service can feel somewhat ‘underwhelming’?

And what about the transfer of the baton between senior leaders such as when a new CEO starts or there is a reorganisation. Opportunities exist for us to apply a little more thought to the ritual and ceremony surrounding these events. I’m not suggesting a huge pomp and circumstance affair, but I am suggesting that we shouldn’t treat them as ‘shadowy’, under-the-radar events either. These events have an impact on people and their sense of connection and motivation – or at least they should if they’ve been done for good reason, and they deserve more than just an all-points bulletin.

Transferring the baton is an opportunity to recognise and reinforce the core values underpinning an organisation and its community. It’s an opportunity for celebration and hope as a community. It’s an opportunity for broader messaging that feels credible and connected – weaving together the fundamentals that guide an organisation beyond any one individual.

Ritual and ceremony help us connect to that deeper part of ourselves where we touch into belief – the belief in something bigger, something more fundamental – love, hope, truth, connection, goodness, oneness…let’s ensure we afford them due respect.

View Details

From the Great Resignation to the trending topic of quiet quitting, the exodus of employees, whether physically or emotionally, continues. No matter how strong your organizational culture is employee resignations will happen.

The words “I quit!” will always strike fear in the hearts of managers everywhere.

Resignations represent one of the most emotional, stressful, and challenging situations leaders face. They undermine confidence in ourselves, our leadership, and our organizations. They threaten the status quo. And they have the potential to compromise team dynamics and business results.

Continuum of ResponsesNo wonder many managers demonstrate reflexive—and not always constructive—responses to these two emotionally charged words. In fact, leadership responses to resignations frequently fall toward one end of the following continuum or the other.

Many managers panic and immediately begin a scramble to turn back the clock, show exiting employees some love, and throw goodies their way to induce them to stay. Others, perhaps as a result of organizational policy or personal offense, bring swift closure to the conversation and people’s employment by helping them pack up their belongings, turn in their keys and exit the building.

Depending upon the circumstances, either might be the appropriate response. But given today’s employment market, leaders can no longer afford to engage in these emotional reactions to resignations. We must apply greater mindfulness to these critical opportunities and challenges.

A More Mindful ResponseRather than gravitating toward either end of the continuum upon hearing of a resignation, leaders must pause and ask themselves a fundamental question: “Should I make an effort to prevent this employee from leaving the organization?”

There are many factors that feed into the answer to this seemingly simple question. Factors like workload, bench strength, skill sets, availability of replacement talent, and the like define how critical it is to invest the time required to work through what—if anything—can be done to change the employee’s mind.

But keep in mind the reality that for many people, once they’ve made up their minds to move in a particular direction, their hearts are committed and will eventually follow. (Remember that time you got back together with that boy- or girlfriend you’d broken up with? How long did it last? You likely had one foot out the door from the beginning of “chapter 2”.)

So, it’s important to be mindful that you may be able to avert imminent disaster by isolating and responding to the employee’s needs and/or wants; but it may be just a short-term fix.

Destructive DeparturesAdditionally, the continuing worldwide talent shortages facing many sectors and industries require leaders to rethink how they navigate a resignation and the possible effects on the individual and the organization’s employment brand. Burning bridges is no longer an option. The pervasiveness of social media and sites like Glassdoor draw negative attention to leaders and/or organizations that treat exiting employees badly. But beyond reputation, old-school responses remain fundamentally unnecessary and unproductive.

Take for instance the practice of ceasing employment immediately upon resignation. We’ve all seen it play out. HR or security escorts the soon-to-be-former employee to his/her desk and scrutinizes what’s put in the box before the “perp walk” out the door.

Does anyone really believe that the employee hasn’t already taken home the materials and information that he/she wants? This approach to mitigating risk does little to protect the company, but it does have a chilling effect on the workforce as well as a bad (and lasting) impression of the former employee.

A Friendlier HandshakeAdditionally, given the investment made in employee development, many leaders are beginning to rethink how they help people exit. A warmer departure, friendlier handshake, and positive post-exit contact build a better employment brand. But it also leaves the door open for good talent to return. (And with millennials projected to have 20+ jobs over the course of their work lives, the ability to re-recruit alumni may become a powerful talent strategy and differentiator.)

Attrition is a fact of organizational life. It’s not a matter of if but when it will happen. And when it does, effective leaders are prepared to mindfully assess the situation and thoughtfully form a productive response.

And, when it’s really time to say “goodbye,” they know how to do it with grace, dignity, and an eye toward an abundant and opportunity-filled future.

View Details

"Build your culture with intention; otherwise, it will build itself when you're not paying attention." ...

View Details

If you look around, you’ll see there are many safety concerns at your business. And you probably already know most of them. Still, here are a few you might need to look into. Interior and Exterior Flooring Slips and trips in the workplace are the most common injuries. They mainly arise from wet floors. However, […]

View Details

"Many of the factors that support the creation of a high-performance culture are more challenging to achieve and require more focus in a virtual setting." ...

View Details

"Purposes are often mixed and the process is unclear. In the worst cases, meetings blow up or people retreat into an uncommunicative shell or both." ...

View Details

As a business owner, it is always going to be in your best interest to take control of anything and everything that might help you in developing a successful business. Fortunately, there are plenty of potential tips and tools available which you might find helpful in running your business. This article aims to highlight some […]

View Details

"When you show off your team, your customer gets a better feel for what the shopping experience will be like and helps make it more personal." ...

View Details

"Our personal relationship with conflict is one difference, but depending on culture, people also share different norms for which level of disagreement can or can’t be hashed out in public." ...

View Details

As the rate of workplace fatalities continues to rise, it’s important to know what steps you can take to create a safer work environment for everyone. This is especially true for small business owners and any other managers who are responsible for day-to-day operations. Even if your employees aren’t directly involved in any dangerous situations, […]

View Details

"The single most significant strategic strength that an organisation can have is not a good strategic plan but a commitment to strategic listening on the part of every member of the organisation." ...

View Details

"The reality is that when the chips are down most people will do what they deem to be in their own best interest with what may be good for the team being in a not-so-close second place." ...

View Details

"Maybe it's time we revisited the bottom line. If that line crushes any part of our emotional and spiritual well-being, we need to generate a different work." ...

View Details

Have you ever wondered why some teams just seem to gel while others don’t? There’s no magic formula for team synergy, but there are definitely some key factors that contribute to it. In this blog post, we’ll explore five of those factors and how they can help your team work together more effectively. A Shared […]

View Details

"Listening to the needs of your employees and appreciating those who are assets to your organization will make handling conflict management and resolution in a respectful and positive way that much easier." ...

View Details

"One way we can elicit a more flexible cognitive mindset is through the restructuring of a situation to make sense of it, rather than being fixated on one possible outcome, we can be curious and think about it differently." ...

View Details

"We seem to keep applying the same old traditional approaches hoping that they will work and make a difference. " ...

View Details

"Transforming your world involves co-creating a deeper sense of belonging and a more optimistic outlook, to enhance our collective intelligence towards discovering and navigating new ways of thriving, flourishing, and flowing in the face of ongoing disruption." ...

View Details

"Psychologically unsafe workplaces that are not friendly to mental health contribute to the gap between the need for support and help-seeking behavior." ...

View Details

"Employees are more inspired when they believe they have significant ownership and investment in the company they work for." ...

View Details

"Throughout the world, the pandemic exposed new and unforeseen challenges for employees in the workplace. Although some employees found the challenges exciting, most others experienced the pandemic as exhausting, and anxiety-provoking, and it affected their ability to work effectively." ...

View Details

"Striving to address gaps in educational training, including workplace training on unconscious bias." ...

View Details

"There is no comfort in the growth zone, and no growth in the comfort zone." ...

View Details

"Mental wellness, feeling safe, being healthy, and having an inclusive and innovative workplace, integrity, honesty, and values that were lip service in the past have now become very important measurements in our commitment to a company." ...

View Details

"Might the fact that so many current thought leaders are making such a big deal over something that’s been recognized within leadership circles for many decades already amplify another issue?" ...

View Details

"This shift happened as a result of many factors; what matters now is millions of people are questioning these work norms and demanding better conditions." ...

View Details

"Employees have begun considering their workplaces – workplace culture, how they want (prefer) to spend their time and – beyond that – what is most important to them." ...

View Details

"While “quiet quitting” appears to be this month’s clickbait, it’s not a new idea. Nor is it some outgrowth of the pandemic." ...

View Details

"Authoritativeness is a very important concept in companies, many cite it but many also do not have clear ideas about what it is in practice." ...

View Details

"The world does not exist merely to satisfy our own desires; it is a world in which we can find pleasure and meaning, once we understand that others too have a right to these goods." ...

View Details

"How many times have you heard organisations say, “our people are our biggest asset,” and then behave in ways that demonstrate this isn’t the case?" ...

View Details

"Is play a way to improve communication, employee engagement, and foster inclusion? What does play mean? How does it work? Is play a better way?" ...

View Details

"Every professional and every business executive will regularly confront situations in which they’ll need to sort it out. Which is more important? " ...

View Details

"Being a leader is not necessarily about controlling everything. It’s also about delegating and assigning control, autonomy, or authority to others." ...

View Details

"Whatever your business strategy, or where your workforce is based, a fully integrated communication system can streamline projects and increase productivity in both offices and when working remotely." ...

View Details

"What do they expect of their workplace culture, and what do they want in their roles individually? How can your organization meet their unique needs?" ...

View Details

"When one person begins to make positive changes in their habits and relationships, the health of their relationships increases up to 40% ...Put yourself in Henry and Sandy’s shoes. Where would you start?" ...

View Details

"What feelings will you have if your wife becomes your boss? Jealousy, envy, or pride that she accomplished what you did not?" ...

View Details

"Most people hold an idealistic view of entrepreneurship that will enable you to work how you desire. Sadly, it’s a naïve perspective, and the realization quickly hits... "

View Details

"It sounds so simple to introduce humane treatment —if we get these basic ingredients in place, we create the recipe for success. Yet simple doesn’t mean commonplace." ...

View Details

"Henry sees himself as a good person, trying to do his best, yet is not doing well. His mental health is taking a hit, and so is his self-care." ...

View Details

"It is commonly said that to do your best in a work environment, you need to have the right character." ...

@HR | Workforce – BIZCATALYST 360°: Recent Episodes

BIZCATALYST 360

Whakapapa (Maori for, “you belong here”) points a finger at us and tells us, You will not be judged by your money or celebrity or sense of self pride . . . you will be judged by what you did for our tribe. When the sun is shining on us, we must be guardians of our tribe and of each other.