Article by Perry Timms

If HR is to make good on a 21st century working proposition it needs to act, look and feel more agile

In my 15 years in HR I’ve seen project after project and a constant stream of restructuring and reshuffling.

Prior to being in HR I spent years in IT-enabled business change projects. So I know project environments. In those scenarios I saw some good practices and some appallingly over-laboured methodologies.

IT (let’s call it digital) is a very different place now. I still see some underwhelming corporate IT support, but largely the titans of business are all digital. So what’s made these titans quite so dominant? I believe it’s two things. Firstly, data and how it is used to inform every product, change and upgrade. Secondly, pace and efficiency in how they work as a collection of human beings swarming around new ideas and system improvements.

Manufacturing set the tone with Kaizen, Lean and Six Sigma methodologies that sought to remove waste, lag and mistakes. Agile and Scrum took this to the digital world and gave it all sorts of other aspects: marketing’s personas and experience/journey methodology, R&D’s data and analytics, product build/prototyping and design thinking.

Agile has become the thing for all to aspire to beyond coding and digital. It’s also an oft-bandied around term with poor understanding and even poorer application of the principles.

Which is why, when I wrote my book Transformational HR in 2017, I deliberately zoomed in on Agile as a key methodology for HR to be more in tune with and utilise. I wasn’t the first or alone in this belief.

People like Natal Dank, director and founder of Southern Blue Consulting, have been on this trail for a long time. Some learning consultancies and practitioners use Agile in their design, especially if it’s a digital learning product. HR hasn’t been quite so compelled by Agile to grasp or even experiment with it. Until now.

Most of the work I’ve been doing this past 10 months has been in the area of Agile and particularly working in Squads or Scrum teams. Squads is often also called the ‘Spotify model’ and it’s this way of working that has captured a lot of attention. My work is with charities, healthcare organisations, recycling and energy, local government, retail, consulting and education.

The key element is the energy and alignment of self-directed teams who come together to build a product, with a clear owner and a smart set of stories about the users of the product.

It occurred to me that we probably can’t recall the last time we took a radical look at how we deploy our mental processing and kilojoules in the work HR is doing. Dismissing Agile or Squads as fads would be easy to do but I’d warn: not so fast.

Within this way of working lies a further stimulant: people getting excited about their work.

What I’m experiencing in helping shift to more Agile and Squad-related working is a mix of intrigue and positive energy. With most things where people feel a bit incompetent, there is also some frustration and anxiety about unpicking what’s been the norm for years.

You can search ‘Agile projects’ and ‘Spotify Squads’ and there’s a lot already out there. The trick is in recognising that you’re not Spotify. So it’s more learning, analysing, communicating, designing, experimenting, iterating, reviewing and applying that same cycle, but while creating your version of Squad working.

Are project teams dead? Not yet, but they are possibly being overwritten by agile, HR-constructed Squads. If HR is to make good on a 21st century working proposition it needs to act, look and feel like more of the success stories of this connected, digital age of work.

There appears to be a new transformational energy building across enlightened HR practitioners in various sectors.

So we could be seeing HR shift from the pushers of policy-led processing to this new breed of Squad-oriented, super-dynamic HR swashbucklers all aboard the good ship Agile.

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Article by Christian Rangen

1. Declining Profits

With profits steadily on the decline, and limited opportunities to turn that around, being locked in a declining core business model is a recipe for disaster. You may be locked in the newspaper business, or oil and gas, or maybe an outdated software business. If your declining profits can’t be solved, the need for transformation is imminent. If it’s not already too late, and you end up in a “shock” type of scenario.

2. Structural Industry Change

Deep, structural changes to how an industry operates and how value is created and captured. These structural changes may take decades to play out, but you can’t fight against them. It is like the surf and the tide, you can try to compete it, swim against it, but deep structural changes will play out, no matter how you position your business. An example of this would be the gradual shift from oil & gas to renewables. Most executives today would say that, “over a timeline long enough, we will transition. It is just a question of when,”.

3. Rapid Technology Shifts

Swift and rapid technology shifts are similar to structural industry change, but happens at a much faster pace. They’re much more dynamic and much quicker. Expect to see a significant number of startups, scale ups and investors operate in this space.

You can already see examples of this playing out in the mobility space with ride-sharing, micro-mobility, scooters, and in tourism with the sharing economy like Airbnb.

4. Financially Under performing

Companies financially underperforming on the stock market will often be pushed to transform – even against their own will. Activist investors, PE fund and other investors may acquire enough leverage to force through a radically new direction. 

Example of this abound, but are often less known from the outside. Starboard’s transformation of Darden Restaurants is a great example how an active investor came in, sacked the board, changed management and led a transformation. While Blockbuster is another example where an activist investor actually blocked a transformation into streaming (you can learn more about this in the online program).

5. Strategic Preemptive

Often led by an internal strategy review or a new CEO, the strategic preemptive route is often driven by foresight, some level of anxiety about a shifting landscape and a desire to transform before it is required.

Often, a new CEO will have the momentum and opportunity to lead this reinvention easier than an established, internal CEO will. 

6. Markets Fallen Off a Cliff

In times of economic shocks and crisis, markets may vanish virtually overnight. The oil and gas crisis back in 2014, the financial crisis back in 2008, 2009, and today in 2020, the economy fallout thanks to COVID-19. These economic shocks happen, and when they do, companies go through three phases – they start with “shock”, they cut, and for those that make it, they transform. From hospitality to oil & gas crisis, these moments will push many firms into bankruptcy, while others are able to use the crisis to generate a compelling case for swift transformation. Very challenging. 

So those are the top six reasons that we find. Again, these are just based on our own findings. I would love your insights and would be very happy to discuss this further with you.

One of the many conversations we had in our early findings was this question:

“is it only just the one reason, or can it be multiple?”

So we did a little bit of research, and what we found was that very often, there are several reasons that come together at the same time. For example, a company could be seeing declining profits over time, experiencing structural industry change, and also on top of that, going through some more rapid technology shifts. Of course, if you are going through all of these, it is a very challenging environment to manage a transformation in.

Another example, one that is more crisis-driven, would be a company (like many today in the wake of COVID-19) facing markets that have fallen off a cliff, and rapidly declining profits.

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Article by Sally Foley-Lewis

When you get startled or a crisis kicks in do you hold your breath, gasp, or gulp in some air? I know I gasp. It’s reactionary and challenging to change such a habit.

Since 2020 change has been all consuming: lock downs, work from home (WFH) and drastic work arounds in workplaces were being worked out and implemented on the go, it’d be fair to say many people would be in a state of amygdala hijack. In simplest terms, a lot of gasping! Or, more specifically, immediate, overwhelming emotions in response to the situation. A simple way to see it is: Emotion high = Logic low.

Very few people could say they’ve not had an ‘emotion high and logic low moment’.

Prolonged periods of being in stress leads to depleted energy, increasing decision fatigue, costly mistakes, low staff morale and high turnover.

When facing change in combination with uncertainty of how long a complex situation will last, it’s critical for leaders to find ways to sustain their mental, emotional and physical health. While a leader cannot interfere with an employee’s personal life, every leader can facilitate a dialogue and activities that, as a team, can ensure the team are also mentally, emotionally, and physically healthy to sustain themselves through good times and the bad.

Looking at William Bridge’s Transition Model, this applies to how people move through change. Amidst uncertainty in the world correlates to the neutral zone. This zone is characterized by feelings, such as:

• Unsure
• Excited
• Curious
• Worried
• Interested
• Acceptance

It’s the neutral phase it’s about letting go of the past (or wishing things didn’t change) to accepting the opportunities that change is presenting. As indicated in the model, the neutral zone can span some time (time on the model is the x axis along the bottom.)

Five ways to support yourself and others through sustained uncertainty:

1. LINK:

Self: Reach out to people and check in on them. who could you make a connection or link with to strengthen your relationships and networks?

We created a private Facebook group for our street and we check in on each other regularly.

Team: Ask your team members what they are doing to stay connected with their most important people?

2. LEND:

Self: Do something for someone. Lend a hand. When we can focus on others or on a purpose we tend to ‘get out of our own heads’ and feel good about ourselves. Who can you lend a hand to. Even do something as small as making someone a cup of tea!

In our street’s private Facebook group we shout out when we’re going to Costco, farmers markets, etc., asking if anyone needs anything.

Team: Ask the team what team activity they could do to lend a hand to those in need.

3. LIMBER:

Self: Find ways to maintain your physical wellbeing.

You may know I’m planning to climb Mt Kilimanjaro in January 2021, I’m still training as if I’m going.

Team: Ask your team members to share their favourite sport and activity.

4. LOOK:

Self: Take time (even just a few minutes) to pay attention to the world around you. Aside from the news of the day, what’s happening in your local area, can you hear birds singing, neighbourhood noises. Be a little more observant to the environment.

I’ve loved watching the kids in our street write letters to each other: riding their bikes up and down the street popping notes into letter boxes!

Team: Create a treasure hunt with the team and have some fun taking time to observe and notice what’s around you every day but may take for granted.

5. LEARN:

Self: Leaders are learners! Keep learning. Now, more than ever, there will be skills worth learning to prepare you for how the world of work will look in our future. The World Economic Forum puts: complex problem solving, critical thinking and people management amongst the top 10 skills for 2020 and beyond.

I run an online book club for professional development and our current situation has made this program even more valuable for me to focus on learning.

Team: Ask your team what they would like to learn about that would make their work easier. Hand the opportunity to your team to set up and run a lunchtime book club.

While these five ways are very practical and helpful to sustain yourself and others through change, uncertainty and ambiguity, these apply any time and would go a long way to support yourself and your team to boost productivity, focus and future ready.

This article is copyrighted and authorized by: Sally Foley-Lewis

For more information about Sally Foley-Lewis “hyperlink for his page”

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Article by Warren Knight

What makes a strong leader in today’s digital business world? Successful business leadership used to be all about high performance in strategy and execution. Then business leadership became about building high performing teams, developing emotional intelligence in yourself and others, and growing business communities through trust, effective conflict management and innovation.

All of the above, and other attributes and skills, still hold strong. But now, added to those skills sets are expectations of high level skills in another area: digital leadership.

Until a few years ago, you might have been forgiven for dismissing that as ‘something for the IT department’. But in today’s business context, digital leadership is not just related to technology. We’re talking about the whole business ecosystem, and how technology creates and drives value across the whole range of business functions.

So successful digital leaders need to fully understand the business in the digital age, how digital technology creates opportunity by acting as a disruptor, and the impact that this must have on organisational culture.

As organisations transform to become increasingly dependent on digital technologies, skilled digital leaders will be in high demand – and effective leadership will be essential to future sustainability and success. I met Nick Skytland from NASA recently and he agreed to my sharing with you some of NASA’s insights from recent research on the future of work, which you can read here.

What are the attributes and skills you need, and the steps you may need to take to stay ahead of the curve?

1.Strong business skills

The fundamentals of business have not changed in the digital age, and you’ll still need a good grounding and experience in all of them: profit and loss, cost control, cash flow, customer service and retention, people and stakeholder management, commercial management.

But whilst, in the past, business leaders may have been able to rely on their IT or marketing heads for this, in order to Think Digital First you’ll also need to become technologically savvy enough to identify the opportunities and drive through digital transformation programmes.

2.Technological and digital awareness (and knowing the difference)

Boards and senior executives need to become more engaged with technology. As a leader of a digital first business you’ll have to be comfortable not just talking about, but also using, technology; and be informed enough to promote its use and underline its importance.

If you’re currently a business leader who is a self-confessed technophobe, you need to address that, starting right now. A digital business requires every member of its senior team to be able to make meaningful contributions to discussions about technology and articulate its value. This doesn’t mean you need to have a deep understanding of how digital technologies work, but you need to understand what they are capable of, and how they could be applied in your organisation.

But Thinking Digital First is about a lot more than embracing technology, so being comfortable talking about technology matters is just a first step to becoming a successful digital leader.

Thinking Digital First is about transformation – creating new business models, products and services, generating new revenue streams, and creating a unique customer experience. Leaders who still believe that digital is just an IT project, or is just about improving their website or increasing their social media activity are not digitally aware.

Providing the leadership required for a successful digital transformation will require you to understand how digital drives the entire business. You can read more about a future leader’s role in digital transformation here.

As a future digital business leader, you’ll need to understand how key digital technologies work together to completely transform an organisation’s culture and the way it operates.

You’ll need to be aware of developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) that could transform how a business interacts with its customers, and how blockchain could impact the way you use data.

An aspiring future digital leader who shows little interest in digital products and services will struggle to maintain their credibility within their organisation, especially as Generation Z begins to join the workforce.

Your journey towards digital leadership may start with exploring digital offerings and experiences on a personal basis, but ultimately you will need to understand how digital products and services will generate value for the business – as well as the investment and resources needed to create and manage them.

3.Design thinking and agile methodology

Agile methodology and design need to be learned and understood at all levels in the organisation – beginning with high level leaders but spreading throughout the business and independent of function and role.

Good design encourages experimentation at a level which would otherwise be impractical. It allows digital leaders to draw on a whole team’s imagination, intuition and customer knowledge, and fosters a true culture of innovation. This shortened cycle increases the opportunity for innovation to add business value. Design thinking is a problem-solving approach which speeds up learning, and shortens the time needed to get an idea through development and into the market.

You can learn more about design thinking and agile methodology for digital leaders here.

4.Collaboration

Digital business relies on collaboration – across the different areas of the business, and, potentially, with third parties. Digital flows through an organisation, breaking down the traditional boundaries between business functions to create a seamless customer experience. Achieving this relies on leaders to be able to look at the business from a customer perspective, and spot opportunities to improve their experience and anticipate their needs. You’ll need to be capable of leading without boundaries, and enabling others to do likewise, to allow your teams to make the best use of new digital tools to provide innovative solutions.

Your approach to collaboration will also need to embrace virtual teams – both within and outside your organisation, in order to get the most value from the right people, and gain true advantage from the opportunities provided by digital technologies.

5.Actively seeking new ideas

Truly collaborative working practices come from a culture in which new ideas and innovative practices are actively encouraged, across the business. This means that the responsibility for new ideas belongs to everyone – staff in every area, partners, suppliers and customers.

As a successful digital leader, you will need to create the right environment and processes for ideas to be shared, debated and acted upon.

You’ll also need to take into account your workforce’s preferred ways of working. As generation Z enters the workplace, understanding how they (and remember that they are true digital natives) will expect their working lives to be. I’ve explored this in more detail in my blog on the subject of embracing Gen Z in the workplace.

6.Risk taking

You will need to be the kind of leader who is willing to take risks, and to support and encourage your workforce in doing so.

Digital markets are more dynamic than traditional markets, and disruptors can enter the market quickly. So to stay ahead of the competition, you will need to be able to respond quickly to changes, and ready to introduce new features, products and services.

This will require you to be a rapid decision-maker, sometimes on what may seem to be minimal information – encouraging your teams to try new things, test their ideas and learn fast.

I’m not necessarily talking about taking big risks; the most successful digital businesses regularly launch small initiatives to test new ideas, products and services. But you’ll be testing in the real world, with your customers, instead of carrying out lengthy ‘offline’ research.

7.Being prepared to fail

Inevitably, while some ideas will work, others won’t, and the business will need to be able to recognise this and move on, quickly. Your organisational culture needs to accept failure as part of innovation – as long as it is small, and fast. As a digital leader, you will need to be able to set realistic boundaries within which innovative ideas can be tested and assessed without the threat of repercussions if they prove unsuccessful.

If any of this sounds like a challenge to you, you have work to do in order to get ready for successful future digital leadership. The good news is that all of these capabilities can be learned or acquired, and if you already have a good grounding in more ‘traditional’ business leadership skills, that certainly won’t go to waste.

If you’re willing to learn all the time, and have the capability to learn, adapt and implement in every area required as you grow, it will give you a critical competitive advantage in the marketplace, and enable you to become a successful digital leader of the future.

This article is copyrighted and authorized by Warren Knight

For more information about Warren Knight “hyperlink for his page”

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Article by Dan Cockerell

Even in the magical world of Disney, there were days when I was asking myself “what’s the point” when my days sometimes looked like this…

• Trying to win the battle with my email inbox. Spoiler alert, you will never conquer THE inbox! In 26 years at Disney, my inbox was empty for five minutes one day in 2011.

• Back-to-back meetings on topics that were important, but somehow did not leave a sense of satisfaction with me or the participants

• Keeping up with reports, metrics, and trying to determine which ones were really the important ones

• Putting out fires every day and not always having the time to do a root cause analysis to avoid the fire in the future. Then having to put the same fire out the following month.

Finally, I accepted that those activities were always going to be part of my job. Accept them, make incremental improvements to them where I could, and challenge myself to find a larger meaning every day. That’s where legacy comes in. During these “what’s the point” activities, I was always looking for a way to create meaning, have a learning moment, manufacture some fun, share a quote, or offer a kind word. And that is how we create a legacy.

“THE PURPOSE OF LIFE IS NOT TO BE HAPPY.

IT IS TO BE USEFUL, TO BE HONORABLE, TO BE COMPASSIONATE, TO HAVE IT MAKE SOME DIFFERENCE THAT YOU HAVE LIVED AND LIVED WELL.” – RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Building a legacy is kind of like saving for retirement. You have to start today and make contributions every day if you want to have something to show for it 40 years from now.

I have experienced some powerful role models during my career who left a legacy with me. Sometimes they were one-time examples that stuck with me, and sometimes they were role models who were consistent in their attitude and approach who inspired me.

One sole act that has stuck with me throughout my career was from Disneyland Paris in 1992. I had been with Disney for just under a year, and I was in my second role as a management trainee in the parking lot.

We had very little interaction with the park team and never had the duty manager or an executive show up. There was too much action in the park and it was quite a long walk to the parking area.

One afternoon, I received a call from the duty manager of the park, who on that particular day was Steve Lewelling, the park vice president. I was at the toll plaza and took the radio call. He let me know that he observed the van we used to transport our cast members had a bunch of paper and general clutter on the dashboard. “Dan, can you take care of it and make sure the van stays tidy in the future?” he asked. “It does not look professional and lacks show-quality for our guests.” I responded that I was

on it. I remember being impressed that he had chosen to make the long hike out to the parking lot, and more impressed that he had noticed such a relatively small detail, at least in my mind.

I let my peer group know that afternoon about the visit and that we needed to make sure we kept our workspaces tidy, especially the ones visible to our guests.

One week later, I received a call again from the duty manager, Steve Lewelling, when I was at the toll plaza. Uh oh, what did he want? He let me know that he was at the van and thanked me for taking care of the clutter.

Now, that blew my mind. He made the long march again to “inspect what he expected” and reinforced the importance of this detailed request with a call to me with a very appreciated thank you.

So I ask you, what do you want your legacy to be and how do you bring it to life every day?

1. Dare to be positive and lead.

2. Understand your impact on others.

Never forget that your title and position carries weight. Use that for good!

3. Make a difference today, not tomorrow.

4. Seize small opportunities to coach, be kind, offer a kind word. They may not be small for the receiver!

5. Do not take the ones who are closest to you for granted. They are the most important ones in your life.

6. Bring your best self to work and to your family.

7. Think service not success. Success is a lagging indicator. It is simply a result of the hard work, discipline, and effort that you put into your life.

8. Take your personal and professional responsibilities extremely seriously, but not yourself.

9. No matter how little you have, you have way more than many other people. What are you willing to share?

GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR ONE-ON-ONES.

When was the last time you had a high quality one-on-one meeting with your boss or one of your direct reports? We all have different intentions and expectations of these meetings. And at times, we have no expectations except to show up and see how it goes. We have an opportunity to make these moments much more valuable and meaningful with less work!

Recently, I was facilitating a leadership workshop for a group of high-performing managers and directors from an online university. We got on the topic of one-on-ones and how to set clear expectations for those meetings. Before I got started, I asked the group about their approach. Only one hand went up, fairly quickly, and I instantly knew how glad I was that I had asked the question. In fact, I did not have to teach anything. This guy reviewed his processes and approach 10 times better than I could. We all learned!

He explained that he has general touch-base meetings with his team members as needed, which is generally every other week. Once, twice, or three times a month there are “quick hits” to discuss how the team member is progressing on their goals or new projects, or how the team is doing. Once a month, he schedules a deep dive one-on-one. This meeting is set on a particular topic and the expectation is that his direct report will come fully prepared to speak on the topic at hand. He starts each of these meetings by asking the question, “What is the most important thing we should talk about in the next hour?”

Some examples of what is discussed in those meetings are:

• Deep dive into a process that is not working well

• Key work project that has hit a roadblock

• Trouble collaborating with another team

• Not meeting one of their goals, and what can they do about it

• Career aspirations

• Developmental strengths and how they are using them

 He decided that he would hone in on one topic for an hour and not discuss any other subjects. His feedback was that he is able to get more meaning and quality of conversation than any other meeting during the month.

Often we’re broad and shallow with discussions, and in this case, he chooses to go narrow and deep. The resulting conversations are powerful, satisfying, and motivating. Team members leave these conversations with a clear understanding of the issue and knowing exactly what they need to do next. He adds that he gives 100 percent attention during these meetings, which means mobile devices are put out of sight: no checking emails or answering calls. The team member has his full attention for the next hour. Team members love this uninterrupted focus and find it incredibly motivating. What a wonderful gift of uninterrupted and undistracted attention to meaningful topics.

I challenge all of us to have these types of interactions and moments, not only at work, but with our friends and family. You just may have a breakthrough that will change the way you all think about things.

This article is copyrighted and authorized by: Dan Cockerell

For more information Dan Cockerell “hyperlink for his page”

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Article by David Burkus

The world runs on teams.
 
The invention of the organization—getting different humans together to collaborate on a project—is probably the greatest invention in the history of mankind. Through organizations, we’ve been able to build and create more value than any individual laborer would likely have ever been able to imagine alone. And organizations are built on teams.

Hence, the world runs on teams.

So it’s worth asking: what do great teams have in common? What do the teams that create consistent amounts of value all share? What do teams that overperform expectations have that underperforming teams lack? When we look at the research there are three things that great teams have in common:

• Intellectual diversity
• Psychological safety
• A purpose worth fighting for.

In this article, we’ll look at each three elements of great teams in turn. But before we do, it’s worth mentioning that these things apply no matter what type of team you are on. We live in an age where face-to-face teams are not the only type of teams that are being built. Some teams are geographically dispersed and entirely remote. But whether you collaborate in the board room, or whether you collaborate in a Zoom meeting, or a Skype call, or a Webex, you need these three elements to become that great team.

Intellectual Diversity

The first thing that great teams have in common is intellectual diversity. This term is actually used most often on college campus political debates about whether or not there are enough conservative voices, or liberal voices, captured in any given college or department. But that’s not the full spectrum that intellectual diversity encompasses. It goes a lot wider than that and includes all aspects of a person’s or group’s opinions, experiences, and perspectives. And often in corporate America or in a specific organization, the term “diversity” is used mostly to refer to racial or gender diversity. And again, the full spectrum of intellectual diversity is a lot wider.

Racial and gender diversity are two very important aspects of diversity, but they are a proxy for this broader goal of intellectual diversity. Intellectual diversity is the reason we are seeking out greater diversity. Because people who come from different backgrounds or who have different life experiences, end up with different perspectives and together they are better able to solve problems than people who think alike most of the time.

And ultimately, the job of a team is to solve problems. Creativity is a team sport, but if everybody comes from the same background, or is educated in same system, or if everybody comes from the same racial experience or gender experience, then the ideas that they will generate will be really similar. But when all of those elements vary widely in the team, the range of possible ideas they generate will be much wider, and finding the right idea becomes much more likely.

One recent study showed simply and clearly how gender diversity creates more intellectual diversity and hence more value. The researchers looked at lots of different teams and found that the more women that are present on the team, the better decisions that that team made. That goes the same for almost any other measure of diversity so long as it provides that intellectual diversity underneath.

Intellectual diversity is a core piece of the recipe of what makes great teams. But it’s not the only piece.

Psychological Safety

The next piece of the recipe is psychological safety. And this is important for a similar reason as the idea of intellectual diversity. Most organizations recognize they need to pursue intellectual diversity, but the struggle that many teams are dealing is that their diversity of ideas is not accompanied by all members feeling free to share those ideas. They’re there, but they don’t feel like they can fully contribute.

And this is where psychological safety comes in. Psychological safety is quite simply the measure of how free people on the team are to share their ideas, their experiences, and to share their whole selves with their team. And it applies not just on the diversity side, but also whether or not people feel willing to take risks and to admit those mistakes. Psychological safety helps team members be more willing to submit crazy ideas that might lead the team in a different direction, but that direction ultimately leads to genius.

The foundational study of psychological safety was led by Amy Edmondson. Edmondson examined the leadership of charge nurses on different floors of a hospital and very quickly noticed something odd. The charge nurses who were judged by their teams as being better leaders often had higher rates of documented errors than charge nurses who were judged to be worse leaders. But as she began investigating further, she quickly discovered an explanation. It wasn’t about the mistakes; it was about the documentation. The better leaders created psychological safety, so that the nurses on that ward felt free to admit to their mistakes, receive correction, and then everybody could benefit from the learning that happened after the mistake. Whereas poor leaders didn’t create enough psychological safety, so the individual nurses felt like they had to hide their mistakes. Beyond the ethical issues, hiding mistakes also meant those teams were deprived of that learning.

It’s only when we have psychological safety—it’s only when we have this feeling that we can contribute our whole selves—that we can take risks and that we can admit mistakes. And that in turns leads a team to actually benefit from intellectual diversity.

So intellectual diversity and psychological safety go together to make teams great. But they’re not the only thing that great teams have in common, there’s one more.

A Purpose Worth Fighting For

The third and final element that great teams have in common is a purpose worth fighting for. We’ve known for 20+ years the importance of shared vision, shared mission, and shared purpose on team performance. But in practice, company mission statements or organizational statements of purpose after often too vague for specific teams to internalize and apply to their day-to-day work.

And they don’t introduce one of the key aspects for getting a group to bond and work together towards what is often called a superordinate goal. That thing is some level of adversity or some level of stakes. It’s not enough to say what you’re working for; great teams find an answer to the question “what are you fighting for?” In studies of what causes people to join armed revolutions, insurgencies, or even terrorist organizations, research group Artis International found that when a purpose is elevated from something we’re working for to a future we’re fighting for, two things happen that bond and motivate the team and its members.

The first is that you elevate core values to what they call sacred values. When something is so important that it is worth fighting for, it’s also seen as related to a value the group doesn’t just find important—they find it sacred. And their work is then seen as either defending those sacred values or spreading them further.

The second is that when purpose rises to something worth fighting for, you create a sense of group identity that isn’t otherwise formed by just a shared vision. The fight defines the fighters and bonds them to each other. They’re as much working for each other as they are working for the mission.

Purpose, mission, vision, are all hugely important. But when you look at great teams—the teams that consistently create value or the teams that change the world—they would say their purpose was worth fighting for.

So there you have it. Great teams have intellectual diversity, psychological safety, and a purpose, or a cause, worth fighting for. And to take it a step further, all three of these aspects require the act of transformational leadership. They require leadership, whether that’s an individual or whether it’s a group of people who lead together, to know when greater intellectual diversity is needed. They require someone to build up psychological safety amongst the team. And they require someone to take the organizational mission and elevate it to a cause worth fighting for.

Great teams have intellectual diversity, psychological safety, and a purpose worth fighting for.

And all of that comes through great leadership.

This article is copyrighted and authorized by: David Burkus

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Article by Warren Knight

Innovation is at the core of business development – whatever stage of the business. With rapid developments in digital technology come more opportunities to adopt technology that will help organisations to experiment with innovation and explore different development frameworks.

Many of these opportunities stem particularly from developments in information and communication technologies and the growth of service-based economies.

With the vast range of options out there, though, comes the challenge of decided where to invest. I’ve heard from many business leaders who have fallen into the trap of investing resources and money into new technologies without having first assessed the strategic area that they will impact.

In this article, I’m going to look at the key areas of business innovation you need to be considering when you’re deciding on the priority areas for investment in new technology.

But first things first. Any organisation considering investing in digital technology to drive the business forward needs to ensure that their employees have the skills sets to match.

Increasing Your Organisation’s Digital IQ

The most important element of any digital transformation programme is not the technology, but the people. A great team can lead to high performance, but just one individual can cause a project to fail. The need for digital skills in organisations is gaining traction – becoming front and centre as business technology use increases and customers become more reliant on digital interaction.

Poor digital skills hamper digital transformation programmes, damage the confidence of your staff and harm your organisation’s competitive advantage.

Although businesses are increasingly making investment in technology, in many cases this investment isn’t matched by investment in digital skills development in their people.

According to the European Commission in 2019, 88% of organisations have taken no measures to improve the digital skills among their employees.

As part of your planning for building a more innovative culture, consider whether your workforce needs to be upskilled first, and be aware of the realities of the investment needed to make that happen.

The 9 key innovation areas:

1. Strategy

Your business strategy is the foundation of its future growth and sustainability. Many organisations are still basing their future on traditional, or even outdated, growth strategies.

New and emerging technologies support innovative growth and competitive positioning strategies, potentially offering you the opportunity to completely change your game plan, and become a real disrupter in your sector.

2. Business Models

Similarly, could new technologies enable your business to innovate in the way that it generates income?

Could you adopt new forms of pricing (eg subscription services or retainer programmes)?

Are there new technologies which will enable you to implement more effective management control methods and models? Information management, knowledge protection and management are areas in which digital technologies (such as blockchain, for example) can streamline and improve business processes.

Access to improved technology presents the potential to share information as well as protect it, opening up opportunities for new strategic partnerships and alliances.

3. People Roles

People in any organisation can put up resistance to change. It moves them out of their comfort zone, and may radically alter the way they work. Successful leaders of organisations aiming to escape the status quo have often used promoters (or champions) internally to support and shape the innovation process in order to bring people on board.

Top management needs to be fully on board in order to exert influence through power and persuasion.

But the larger and more complex the organisation, the more necessary it is to establish a project steering group as having a clear project owner. The group will encompass executive representatives of all the key areas of the business – such as production, finance, marketing and sales as well as IT. As well as guiding the project owner as to the impact of technical decisions, the steering group will have a promotional role across the business, helping to engage people at all levels.

4. Organisational Culture

Innovation encompasses behaviours as well as systems and processes. Generating a new organisational culture can influence the way that people think, behave and work, and open up more opportunities for innovative thinking; improving levels of teamwork. Opening up new channels for creativity and employee participation promotes change and can improve levels of motivation.

I can’t overstate the impact and importance of culture. An organisation’s digital transformation programme can success or fail based on it. Look at Apple, as a prime example. Its flexible, collaborative and creative culture was responsible for early success, but with this success came a shift towards more control, resulting in Steve Jobs being ousted from the company. 

Whilst this shift in culture was, to a certain extent, necessary, and resulted in a hugely efficient, marketing-savvy corporation, it reduced the company’s ability to innovate through rapid cycles, and it began to lose relevance.

It wasn’t until Jobs returned in 1997 that Apple got its creative mojo back.

The lesson for you as a digital leader is this: your processes and control may be important, and the level to which they matter may well depend on the sector you operate in. But to innovated, you need to enable creativity and collaboration. In this digital world, organisations depending on outmoded systems and processes which stifle creativity are likely to fail

5. Process

Process innovation tends to be operationally focussed, looking at improving efficiency and effectiveness at all levels.

Digital technologies are able to impact process management systems and drive quality improvements. They can support innovations in process management systems and drive more agile approaches.

6. Products and Services

When considering new product or service design, be aware of the distinction between ‘push’ and ‘pull’ possibilities.

Access to improved customer data through adopting information management technologies gives organisations the potential to identify and customer needs more rapidly, and innovate in order to meet them. Whether creating new products or services, or extending or augmenting existing lines, meeting a known customer demand

7. Marketing

Traditional business models see marketing as a cost centre rather than a centre for innovation. Yet marketing teams are often already familiar with the need for creativity and speed that the whole business needs to adopt, and could be well placed to drive customer-focussed innovation across the organisation.

Putting the customer up front, and making customer need the driving force behind decisions can be a good way to bring leadership together and reduce organisational conflict when it comes to questions of ownership or budget allocation.

Ensure that the company is brand-led, with a purpose that is true to itself and the customer. Allowing a clear set of values to drive marketing and customer experience strategies across the organisation creates a more innovative and customer-focused culture.

This culture makes it easier to recognise opportunities to exploit new market segments, marketing channels and approaches to customer service.

8. Sales

Developments in technologies that can drive sales (such as Artificial Intelligence – chatbots, for example) can be hugely effective in building relationships with customers, or a huge turnoff. The secret lies in maintaining a human touch.

The sales supply chain from producer to end-customer is becoming more streamlined, with technology offering the ability to link all transactions and logistics in one transparent network.

Information gathering and management technologies allow organisations to collect vastly more information about their customers, markets and competitors, enabling them to plan better. Capturing comprehensive customer data from every touchpoint, illuminating customer behaviour, purchasing preferences and profiles will provide a completely holistic sales view.

9. Technology Innovation

You might have expected me to deal with this one first, but first I wanted to demonstrate how, even when focussing on digital technologies, digital leaders need to consider all areas of the organisation. Innovation in business doesn’t happen in isolation.

Adopting new technology in your organisation could be incremental – automating a particular process, for example – or transformative.

Digital transformation of a business can increase connectivity across the organisation and with markets, find new ways to meet customers’ needs, and enable new partnerships.

But the adoption of new technology needs to be aligned with the overarching business strategy, not just tech for tech’s sake. People need to be trained, and motivated to engage with change for it to succeed.

This article is copyrighted and authorized by: Warren Knight

For more information about X “hyperlink for his page”

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Article by Chester Elton and Adrian Gostick

After interviews with thousands of leaders and employees over the last 20 years, here’s an aha: Most leaders strongly believe that their people are motivated in pretty much the same ways they are. For instance, if a manager is purpose-oriented, then he’ll most likely believe only hedonistic jerks are motivated by money. If she’s driven by ideas like pressure and competition, then only the lazy would clock out every day at five o’clock. If he’s all about friendship and teamwork, then only loners and malcontents would want to work alone.

Many leaders carry these biases around like so much lumpy baggage. And in teams where these prejudices are allowed to thrive, those who fit in become “teacher’s pets,” while those who don’t fit feel alienated and unappreciated. Ever worked at that place?

The truth is, it takes a diverse team of people with differing motivators to truly succeed in business. To accomplish more and fully engage their people, the best leaders we studied learn to speak their teammates work language—whatever it is.

In our research, we identified five clusters of commonly related motivators that we called “identities.” It’s important to stress that we’re not saying that any given individual is purely one of these following types, just as almost no one could be described as purely an idealist (with no realist tendencies at all) or a one-hundred-percent introvert. These are archetypes, and each of us will inevitably tend to have stronger associations with some of these types over the others.

We found these identities are most helpful in identifying the driving motivators of those we work with or who work for us. With a nod to Gary Chapman (author of The 5 Love Languages) for borrowing his organizing structure for just this article, The 5 Work Languages (or identities) are as follows. Please note these are short descriptions of complex subjects, abbreviated here:

The Achievers: If this is your work language, you feel most engaged when you are given tight deadlines, are challenged to tackle ambitious goals, and get to work to solve problems. Achievers usually like to be put in charge of others or projects, and at the very least want to be in control of their own destinies.

The Builders: When this is your work language, you are more purpose-driven, hardwired to develop others and serve those around you. Builders cultivate loyal friendships and thrive in strong team environments. They also typically believe it’s important to speak out on significant issues.

The Caregivers: Those with this language are often more tuned in to others’ emotions. They are more motivated when they have regular fun at work, and believe balancing time at work and time with their family time is important.

The Reward-Driven: Those who speak this work language are typically more extrinsically motivated, driven to compete and win prizes—whether money or applause or the admiration of others. Many of the Reward-Driven believe that the cocktail-party question, “What do you do?” is extremely important.

The Thinkers: This language is for those who are more creative, who love to learn, enjoy a varied routine, and like to feel an adrenaline rush now and then. Most Thinkers get frustrated with red tape and bureaucracy, and want their work to make an impact on the world around them.

So how is this information useful in diagnosing what changes we should make in our work, or what changes a leader could make for his people?

Take just one case, that of a professional woman who took our assessment and discovered her number one identity was Thinker. Specifically, she was driven by ideas such as creativity, autonomy, variety, impact, and learning. Near the bottom of her list of motivators were pressure, teamwork, and money. It might seem natural, then, to find she worked as a creative director at an advertising agency. Case closed, right? After all, wouldn’t that job allow her to exercise her creativity every day, in a place that gave her a fair amount of autonomy and variety crafting pitches and developing campaigns? You’d think so, but she spoke with us because she was increasingly discontent with her work.

It seemed the job was high pressure, which was demotivating to her, and she did her work almost exclusively for one big client, which gave her little variety or the learning opportunities she craved. She was loyal to the agency, and wanted to stay, but she was, in her words, feeling “straight-jacketed.” Over the course of a few months she worked with her manager to sculpt her job. Together they identified a need that was unfulfilled in the firm. She was able to form a major deal group, which pitches to win new clients. Today it’s her job to do just enough to win a deal, and then she turns that new client over to one of the fulltime creative teams. In a given year she’ll now work on dozens of pitches, meeting with potential clients to learn about their product strengths, their competitors, their consumers, and then delivering a creative pitch that shows how the agency’s strategy aligns with the customer’s specific goals. She jokes that she’s become a hired gun; and you know what, she loves it.

Obviously this type of complete job sculpting may not be possible for most of us, but the good news is many of the people we’ve spoken with over the past few years writing our new book What Motivates Me were able to make relatively minor tweaks to their current jobs and see upticks in fulfillment levels. Many fulfilled people didn’t find their bliss down a new path; they made course corrections on the path they were already on.

This article is copyrighted and authorized by: Chester Elton and Adrian Gostick

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Article by Dan Cockerell

Every morning, thousands of cast members report to work at Walt Disney World before the sun comes up to perform their opening checklists. Food and beverage areas check their inventories and supplies; merchandise areas confirm the shelves are stocked and full of product; the list goes on and on. One of the most important processes for the day is the opening procedures for attractions—the stars of the show.

These highly entertaining creations are incredibly complex and require verification every day to make sure they are operating as planned, delivering the show in a safe and efficient way. Engineering does all of their checks, the attractions are cycled at least once with nobody riding to be sure they are in good working order, and then the final check is the ride through.

A cast member or multiple cast members ride the attraction to check that the animatronics, show effects, special effects, and lighting are all functioning as designed. This process is known as “riding the ride path,” and has been performed since the early years at Disneyland. The underlying philosophy is to ensure that the guest experience is going to be exactly like we planned it to be. Not making any assumptions or hoping that it’s right, but rather checking with our own eyes.

This concept easily applies to many other activities in our work and personal lives. I could write a whole book on the value of riding the ride path and the risks of not riding it. I would often conduct tours of the Magic Kingdom with VIPs, senior Disney executives, board members, and celebrities. I would make it a point to get to the park early and walk the path we were going to follow that day. I would go through the park, and depending on the tour, into backstage areas, through tunnels, and down narrow walkways.

I would have the opportunity to plan what I was going to say, think about logistics (i.e. can the whole group fit into one elevator?), decide where to offer a cool drink, etc. Sometimes I would come across an area that had construction going on and we would change our route. Much better to change it before the tour than during the tour.

Another aha moment I had was in preparation for the 25th anniversary of Disney’s Hollywood Studios. I arrived at the park early one day to do a run through of the speech I was set to give that morning. We had constructed a stage in the middle of the park, where all the weekend’s festivities would be conducted. I took the stage at 7 a.m. before the park opened and read my script on the reflective plexiglass teleprompter. 

The run through went like clockwork and we wrapped the rehearsal. Fast forward three hours

later, and the park was packed with many cast members and guests who had come out to celebrate the anniversary. I was introduced as the vice president of the park and took the stage.

I looked up at the teleprompter and saw the bright sun shining right through it —I could not read a word!

I learned in that moment that it is not only important to ride the ride path, but it’s also important to think about what time of day you will be riding it.

Fortunately, I had been trained years earlier to always have a backup plan and a healthy doubt about technology. I was able to reach into my suit pocket and pull out my speech on good old-fashioned paper. Crisis averted and Murphy’s Law proven once again that what can go wrong, will go wrong!

So, in summary, a good process to add to your management to-do list is ride the ride path. It may be parking where your customers park, discovering the paths your employees took to get to their jobs, or calling your company’s call center to experience what your customers experience. Do your best to control the things you can control because life will throw you plenty of surprises whether you want them or not!

This article is copyrighted and authorized by: Dan Cockerell

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Article By David Burkus

The steady march towards working from home and remote teams was sped up drastically by the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, a survey conducted by IBM recently found that more than half of employees want remote work to be their primary method of working, and 75 percent said they’d like the option to continue working remotely at least some of the time. And many companies are responding in kind.

So, it seems like a fair prediction that, as a leader, you will likely be asked to lead a remote team at some point in the future—if you’re not already. Whether that team is fully remote or “free range” meaning they come into the office every once in a while, geographically dispersed teams present a unique set of opportunities and challenges. In this article, we will consider three elements of remote team leadership that will help you manage the risks and see more rewards from remote work: shared expectations, shared empathy, and shared vision.

Shared Expectations

The first thing you’re going to need as a leader of a remote team is to make sure the team develops shared expectations. There are new rules to remote work, and everyone is finding out what works for them, what their communications preferences are, and how they’ll balance work and life. There’s no water cooler for chit chat and no one is checking their cubicle to see what time they clocked in and out. So, it’s even more important for team members to know what to expect from each other.

Don’t assume that 9:00 to 5:00 at the office means 9:00 to 5:00 working from home or working remotely. People need to fit other areas of their life into their work, but you are going to want to find periods of overlap so you can have a few times you know work for calling a meeting. And you, as the leader of the team, need to lead that conversation.

Shared Empathy

While you’re leading the conversation about shared expectations, you’ll also need to seek shared empathy between team members. We’re in a new style of working, and people have been experimenting with how they can fit their work in life better together, which means we need increasing amounts of empathy and understanding that not everybody works the way you prefer to work. Maybe people are working out of a dedicated home office or maybe they’re working from the same kitchen table that their children are trying to learn on and that their spouse or partner is also trying to work on.

When someone on the team is nonresponsive, it may not be because they’re angry or lazy. And it may not be because they don’t understand what you asked of them. It just might be that their life and work balance looks a little bit different than yours. And as the leader, it’s your job to develop that empathy and understanding.

One way to create shared empathy and understanding is to provide some “check-in” times where team members get a glimpse of each other beyond the work. For example, you absolutely should start virtual meetings on time, but you should actually start them about 10 minutes early. That way people can have the chit-chat, the socialization, and have the discussions about other areas of their life that actually help lead to shared empathy and shared understanding over time.

Shared Vision

The last element you need to develop, and then reinforce on a regular basis is a shared vision. Shared vision means that people know what they’re working for. They know why they’re working, and how that work helps the world. In organizational psychology, the concept of task significance has a huge influence on human motivation. One question for a lot of work situations is “how salient, or obvious, is the significance of the tasks we’re asking people to complete?”

In a remote team environment, where it’s hard to even see your team members let alone see how your work contributes to their ability to do there, the salience of task significance can plummet unless leaders create regular reminders for their people.

If you’re familiar with my work, you know that I believe one of the primary jobs of a leader is to give his or her people a clear and concise answer to the question, “What are we fighting for?” Not, “Who are we fighting?” That’s a question about competitors. But rather “What is the good in the world that we are working towards?” or “What are the values in the world that we are seeking to defend by our work?”

If you don’t want to use a fight rhetoric, you could try this: Ask your people during the next meeting a simple question:

“If our team ceased to exist, who would be most negatively affected by that?”

Their answers not only point to who you serve and how their work helps them. The answer itself serves as a method to bring task significance back to the minds of your team.

If you’re leading a remote team, either because they just became remote or because you just became the leader, then developing shared expectations, shared empathy, and shared vision should be your primary focus—not just in the beginning but on a regular basis as well.

Reminding your team of these three key elements will help them stay the course, no matter where the course takes them in the world.

This article is copyrighted and authorized by: David Burkus

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