Walking the talk
The sure-fire way to make your company values meaningless is to demonstrate that you are unwilling – or unable – to practice them yourself. We’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve heard this line “leaders don’t walk the talk” when it comes to the company values. For a leader to fail to embody the values visible and productively is to fall at the very first hurdle when it comes to culture change. If you don’t do it then not... [Read More...]
You are engaged!
Sometimes we can fool ourselves into thinking that we’re listening to what our people have to say when in fact, we’re still in ‘broadcast’ mode. People know when they’re being listened to and when they aren’t. One strong sign is when something they contributed makes a difference. Of course, you can’t action everything everyone says – but don’t ask people to engage if you’re not prepared to listen and change what you plan to do... [Read More...]
Us and Them
A problem with ‘Us and Them’ thinking is that it creates conflict between groups of people. We are always right; they are always wrong. And if something needs to change, it’s invariably them who need to change, not us. When everyone thinks that way, you’re trapped in a web of stuckness. And yet ‘us and them’ is also at the very core our economy. After all, isn’t business all about how our business performs against the competition? ... [Read More...]
Too many agendas
Since each of us has a different point of view about what’s important in our organisation and why, its no surprise to find that teams – at all levels – are awash with personal agendas. They are, after all, what make us who we are and what gives us our unique approach to the roles we play in the organisation…aren’t they? Having an agenda isn’t the problem but being unconscious about it is – especially at Board level. The hardest work... [Read More...]
The inflated ego
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Playing the board game: without space to think nothing moves
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The keys to engagement
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Why don’t people tell me when there’s a problem?
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A relentless focus on efficiency
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Leadership, change and the “Comfort Zone”
These four images explore different examples of the ‘comfort zone’ – a place that often keeps us from leading change. The first shows our tendency to put on armour and let our egos slug it out when we feel threatened, and how this gets in the way of service. The second shows the way we can collude to de-risk the language of change. The third shows how hard it can be to see things differently when our thinking keeps us “getting... [Read More...]
Working with contradictions
I noticed this paradox watching TV news recently, it is such a big issue I often feel powerless at the impossibility of resolving it. How do you feel about it? It feels difficult sometimes to work out what is the right thing to do. Holding the tension between conflicting interests and courses of action, having the courage to take a risk and do what feels right in the service of others are leadership skills I admire. If we don’t take risks... [Read More...]
The defensive cycle
This picture represents a collection of comments that we heard in one organisation that was pushing through budget cuts. Employees felt their jobs were under threat, so were unwilling to speak up about the pressure they were coming under. Unable to prioritise or say no, they become less productive, inviting further pressure, and so the cycle continued. When everyone’s feeling under threat our natural defensive inclination is to hide our... [Read More...]
Back to the office …
This montage of experiences was captured from conversation with a client who had just spent several days at a leadership development programme. They felt totally reenergized and refreshed, “a new and more authentic me!” Yet they were dreading going back into a “toxic culture” that would destroy their new found confidence and force them to don the armour of pretence and resume their “office persona”. Tweet This Post Read More →
Marvin Weisbord – Quality and Equality lecture
These two pictures were inspired by an excellent Quality and Equality lecture I attended a few weeks ago. Marvin Weisbord, an elder statesman in the Organisational Development field, gave a fascinating talk about its history over more than a century. Building on the contributions of Taylor, Bion and Lewin, he took us through the stages of self-managed teams, systems thinking, group dynamics and lean working, up to his current focus on participative... [Read More...]
A lack of engagement
I recently heard an HR director talk about her struggle to get the board to understand that the HR strategy – and engagement in particular – are the keys to driving performance, and that the ‘people agenda’ should fit coherently with the business strategy. Her view was that HR is not taken seriously enough, being seen instead as “pink and fluffy”; the ‘soft stuff’. That’s something we hear a lot in our work. Clients often... [Read More...]
CIPD Employee Engagement Conference – Jan 2010
The question on everyone’s lips at the CIPD Conference – “What does a successful employee engagement strategy look like?” I was at a conference last month, organised by CIPD on Employee Engagement. In a discussion around some of the Kingston Consortium research findings I heard someone say “What is the key to unlocking potential?” So what does a successful employee engagement strategy look like? What’s... [Read More...]
