Colin D. Ellis's Blog, page 20

50 Ways You Can Make 2019 Your Best Year Yet

Stand up for what you believe in

Say ‘no’ to things that drain your productive time

Create a plan to get the job that you’d like

Learn a new skill

Start some new projects by stopping some old ones

Manage your emotions more

Ask for more feedback

Become known for your behaviours, not your skills

Take time away from your screen(s)

Watch less TV and read more

Invest time in relationships

Stop talking negatively about other people

Do the things you don’t want to do as early as possible in your day

Follow people whose ideas, words and actions inspire you

Don’t be a product of your environment, be an example for others to follow

Talk positively about the challenges that you face

Listen more, speak less

Learn how to be more empathetic

Practice communicating in different ways

Choose to be kind when it’s least expected

Be tough on poor performance

Get up and move every hour

Change a process or habit that’s holding you back

Learn how to have difficult conversations

Give your mind a break

Exercise more

Make 90 minutes a day for your job

Master the 20-minute meeting

Drink more water

List the things that you’re grateful for

Say nice things behind people’s backs

Take an interest in the interests of others

Be more social with your team

Share a story that’s inspired you

Put more effort into planning

Give up your time for charity

Be more organised

Celebrate the small things

Give something away without wanting anything in return

Fail things that aren’t working

Don’t walk past poor behaviour

Make the complex simple

Say please and thank you

Make time for new ideas and thinking

Make someone smile every day

Change the ‘shoulds’ and ‘can’ts’ and ‘musts’ and ‘cans’

Be a good teammate

Practice being empathetically honest

Pick three things to work on and have the discipline to see them through

Don’t wait to start the change process

Thank you all for your feedback and support throughout 2018 and the blog will be back in your inbox on Tuesday 22nd January 2019!

Leadership Is A Choice, Not A Training Course

Last week I read an article on the National Health Service (NHS) by the UK Health and Social Care Secretary, Matt Hancock. The title of the article piqued my interest, ‘Good NHS leadership starts with culture change’.

It's one of those bland headlines with a hint of propaganda to it that I would normally ignore and, yet, he's partially right so I took the (click) bait and read on.

I’m normally wary of anything spoken or written by politicians, because, well, politicians. Watching and listening to them is an often dispiriting exercise and a demonstration of how detached they are from reality. There’s too much ego and not enough honesty; they are the antithesis of the role models we desperately need in our society right now.

If you disagree, go ahead and name 10 global political leaders that you admire.

OK, name seven…

Jacinda Ardern, Moon Jae-In, Angela Merkel, err, Emmanuel Macron (although his approval rating is only 26%, so maybe not?), Justin Trudeau (if you ignore the oil pipeline thing and the way he’s disregarded indigenous rights), err… #tumbleweeds

Anyway, back to the article in question. It started well.

‘There’s no organisation on earth on the scale of the NHS that deals with life and death decisions every single day, often in highly pressurised and challenging conditions. But that doesn’t mean we should be complacent or that we can’t learn from others – particularly when it comes to leadership.’

Yes! Finally, a minister that gets it. Someone who understands that there’s something for every organisation to learn from others around the world every day. Their successes, their failures, their ideas and the things they chose not to pursue. Who understands that humans are learning machines, wired to work with other humans to get things done.

He then compares the NHS to McDonalds, and frankly they are about as similar as chalk and cheese(burger), but he made a good point about accountability, decision-making and continuous improvement, so I let that pass.

He continued, ‘What the NHS does is so much more valuable, but can we honestly say that we place as much time, effort and importance on identifying, developing and supporting leaders? That we value it?’

Fabulous stuff, which – as a former public servant – I feel qualified to answer on behalf of every government department in the world. No. No, you don’t. You’re all smiles and promises when you get into office, but then good people are forced to overwork to deliver your whims to unrealistic timescales, for not enough money and at the expense of their mental health and personal development (because the budget for this always gets pulled).

And then, just as I was getting even more drawn in, he took the wind out of my optimism (which causes me to mix my metaphors) by reaching for the inevitable quick-fix solution: ‘We need to train more people to be leaders in the NHS.’

Oh Matt, it was going so well.

Now don’t get me wrong (or start typing your vitriolic reply just yet) because there is a lot of good that can come from a structured program that opens people up to become a more self-aware, better version of themselves. However, simply sending people on a course so they can ‘graduate’ or get a certificate doesn’t make them a leader.

Neither does the length of tenure, size of a team or the fact that the word leader is used in their job title or position description. Hierarchical position also doesn’t make an individual a leader. This is being played out quite publicly at the minute in Australia as part of the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry, where a string of CEOs have shown quite clearly that they’re anything but.

This is because what sets leaders apart from managers is the choices they make to do things differently.

Sure, they may attend a program, but what behaviour will they change? What skill will they learn? What personal biases will they address? What feedback will they start asking for? What bureaucratic process will they challenge? What new idea will they encourage others to pursue? What unethical action will they call out? What will they say ‘no’ to? How will they protect those that work with them? How will they work with others to build a culture that means that people are motivated to come to work and are able to be the best version of themselves there?

This is what leadership is. Leaders embrace others as equals and show them how to lead. They say nice things behind people’s backs. They know their stuff and work hard to learn new stuff. We watch and listen to what they do and try to emulate it. We wonder where they get the time to do everything and how they manage to be the calmest person in the office at the same time. And we miss them (we do!) when they’re away.

Whilst you can talk about this as part of a development program – and I frequently do – you can’t force people to do it. They have to want to do it, feel inspired to do so and then hold themselves accountable for taking action.

Of course, this process takes time. You have to lose people along the way who don’t want to do it and that will take courage from other leaders. This, in turn, sends a message to staff about what’s expected and eventually people take one step up.

And this is reinforced by Matt in his article when he says, ‘...leaders create the culture, and so many of the problems of the NHS can be solved by a just culture.’ That’s right, a just culture co-created by people who understand what choices have to be made to do things differently this time.

Less hierarchy, fewer roadblocks, a reduction in bureaucracy and psychologically safe environments where staff are encouraged to build relationships and challenge poor practices, performance and behaviour are all achievable, but not tomorrow and definitely not straight after everyone has been on a course.

So when Matt says in his article ‘We need more clinicians to become CEOs’, I’d change it and say, ‘We need more people who understand what it takes to lead and to deliver to their potential.’ Too often we put a label on leadership and think that’s where it sits. It doesn’t.

Leadership lives in us all and it’s our choices, not a training course, that determines whether others will ever see it.

As a footnote to this blog, I wanted to say that I very much enjoyed Matt’s piece, even though it may not seem like I did! It’s rare that politicians write about leadership and culture and it’s heartening to see someone have a go. The fact that he’s stretching his own thinking and putting his thoughts out there eloquently serves as an example to others, which I hope they take up.

Also, once I’d written this blog I also found out that Suzie Bailey, Director of Leadership and Development of The King’s Fund, also wrote a reply to this article in the Health Service Journal, which you can read here.

Coming up next time, Cricket Australia… #dontgetmestarted

Change Management Is Not Just About Training and Comms

Change and transformation are topics that organisations talk a lot about but, in general, aren’t very good at. A recent SAP survey found that of the 84% of organisations that had started transformation initiatives in the last year, only 3% had actually successfully completed any.

One of the reasons for this is that senior managers get all excited when they’re pulling their business plans together about smarter, faster ways to do things, whilst at the same time forgetting that in order to achieve this, they have to stop doing some things and redefine the way they get things done.

Cultural evolution is frequently cited as the biggest enabler of successful change; yet very few organisations ever take it on, choosing instead quick-fix training solutions, restructures or funky office fit-outs.

However, every project undertaken – regardless of the method used to deliver it – provides an opportunity to move from one cultural state to another. You could be opening a new office, implementing a new policy or upgrading a technology system, whatever it is, there’ll be something new or different to use at the end and people have to be ready for it.

To successfully prepare your people for change you need to get a few things in place:

A sound business case for change
This will answer the ‘Why this? Why now?’ questions and provide a foundation on which the activity required to deliver the change can be built

Public accountability
An senior executive within the business who is prepared to throw their reputation and effort behind the activity and to ensure it delivers what was promised in the case for change

A strong team
Built at the start of the project, it works collaboratively to deliver value (as outlined in the case for change) as quickly as is possible to satisfy the customer need

A strong vision and definition of the future state
To motivate and inspire the team and ensure that those using the outputs from the initiative understand what’s required of them

Clear unambiguous communication
Not just about the activities required to complete the initiative, but also on the personal change required to achieve success.

Underpinning all of these human activities is the need for high emotional intelligence and a growth mindset and for too long we’ve downplayed the importance of these. In our continued rush to do more, the requirements of and impacts on people continue to be underestimated or simply not considered at all. 

If people don’t believe in the change, aren’t involved in it, don’t feel part of it or simply don’t understand it, it will fail. Similarly, if people get in the way of change and there’s no consequence for doing so, it will fail. 

And here’s where great change managers add the most value. 

They understand that cultural evolution requires a different level of energy and actively lead the team building work at the beginning of the initiative to ensure it starts with the right intention.

They work closely with those accountable and responsible for delivery and ensure that messages are delivered in a way that stakeholders understand. 

They help people move away from the familiar to the often uncomfortable ‘new’ way of doing things. 

They coach, mentor and remind people of the cultural evolution that’s required. 

They hold them to the required behaviours and ensure the right path is followed for those trying to stand in the way. 

They are realistic optimists and help people to see the positives, rather than telling them to be positive.

They are empathetic, honest, trustworthy, disciplined, resilient and they build influence across an organisation. 

They are, to paraphrase Matt Church from his book Amplifiers, Change Makers not Change Managers.

Cultural evolution occurs every day and organisations can utilise their change management practice to help them do this positively. They can, and should, do a lot more than training and comms.

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Culture – How Do You Measure and Manage Yours?

Culture is the sum of everyone’s attitudes, beliefs and behaviours and the traditions of the organisation. These are the things that make cultures good and bad.

Culture exists everywhere, not just at an organisation level. It’s the living, breathing thing that – when done well – creates the foundation for strong departmental, team and project performance. Creating vibrant sub-cultures is critical for continued success and they are built on two key components: emotionally intelligent staff and engagement.

I frequently blog on the former, so this week I want to talk about the latter, because a person having engagement (or care and interest) for the job that they do, is just as important. And the way that we measure engagement these days is through an Engagement Survey.

The engagement survey has become a thing over the last 10 years. It’s popular to call it things like heartbeat, pulse, culture matters, people matters or something similar and to use weightings to come up with a score. Sometimes these scores use established tools like NPS (Net Promoter Score) so that organisations can ‘benchmark’ themselves against competitors and sometimes they are a percentage. These numbers help organisations measure how much the culture has evolved (or not) against last year.

Now I’m not against engagement surveys, per se.

What I am against is organisations sending out a complicated survey once a year and compiling the results into a 40-page PowerPoint presentation that they then proceed to do nothing with. I’m definitely against that. Not only does it make providing feedback hard, but it also discards the findings that have taken an age for people to provide and others to compile, just so they can get to a number they can talk about.

The irony of this is that it further erodes trust, confidence and the courage that people had in bringing to the fore things that are broken and the opportunities for improvement. They are swept under the carpet like yesterday’s Australian Prime Minister and the issues or opportunities go unmanaged, unexplored. Hope fades, the status quo returns and organisations comfort themselves with the knowledge that they at least asked for feedback and (maybe) commissioned some consultants to come up with some recommended actions.

Patty McCord, former Head of Talent at Netflix, talked about this in her book Powerful. She said, “Most companies are clinging to the established command-and-control system of top-down decision making but are trying to jazz it up by fostering ‘employee engagement’ and by ‘empowering’ people.”

The engagement survey has become a generic symbol of how much organisations value the views of their people and yet, if that were really the case, they’d be looking for the signs every day, not once a year through SurveyMonkey. Often these signs are hiding in plain sight.

So what are some signs that people aren’t engaged that can be seen without the need for a survey?                                                                                                                                                

Missed deadlines

Over-reliance on email to communicate

Poor quality outputs

Frequent ineffective meetings

Poor behaviour

Poor performance

Blind optimism

Burying the truth

Constant escalation of decisions

Too many projects

Projects that never end

Quiet office environments

Change aversion

Hero mentality/single points of failure

Frequent restructures

Lack of/no clear vision

Persistent reports about the behaviours of individuals.

If your organisation runs an engagement survey it’s important that you take the opportunity to provide feedback, then get involved in the activity that can help address what you’ve pointed out.

If you’ve commissioned a survey, then please create a full-year action plan to deal with the issues that have been highlighted and introduce new thinking and energy to demonstrate how much you care about the feedback people have provided.

Engagement surveys can be a great way to measure culture, however, looking for signs every day and acting on them immediately gives you a much better chance of maintaining the vibrancy you’ve created.

3 Signs You're Not Agile

Earlier this year, Ron Jeffries, an original signatory of the 2001 Agile Manifesto, called for software developers to abandon agile. He said, “Too commonly, the ‘Agile’ approach a team uses has been imposed. Larger-scale ‘Agile’ methods appear actually to recommend imposition of process. These ‘so-called’ methods are pitched to the enterprise, and the enterprise is expected to ‘install’ them, or ‘roll them out'.”

It’s a statement echoed by another signatory, Alistair Cockburn. At a conference in 2015 he was asked whether organisations should get rid of project managers and replace them with scrum masters, his response was, “If organisations think that agile is a way of getting rid of project managers, they’re wrong. We need good people more than ever.”

Even though it’s three years old, I love this quote as it’s the very essence of what agile is all about. It’s not about changing the name of something or someone, it’s about working together more effectively to deliver value more quickly to the customer. In the rush to implement the latest method (a culture shortcut which almost never works in isolation) organisations have lost sight of this.

The original manifesto (stick with me here...) called on organisations to “Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.” It also said that, “Agile Methodologists are really about ‘mushy stuff’—about delivering good products to customers by operating in an environment that does more than talk about ‘people as our most important asset’ but actually ‘acts’ as if people were the most important.”

‘Acts as if people were the most important.’

That means regularly displaying behaviours such as empathy, respect, trust, courage, generosity and honesty. It means keeping promises and making sure people are recognised for their efforts. It’s about having a working environment that is diverse and inclusive by design and where people know that they are empowered as soon as they walk through the door to be able to act without fear.

This is what it means to be agile and if you or your organisation is doing any of the following three things, then you are most definitely not there yet.

1. Too many/badly run meetings

When did filling days with meetings become an ok thing to do? Who decided one day that the very best way to be productive was to fill every hour of every day with structures designed to get in the way of getting things done? Now, before you start telling me that meetings can be effective, let me say that I agree, with the caveat ‘when they’re done well’. But how often does that happen? 

Meetings are an hour or 30 minutes because people can’t be bothered to change the default settings in Outlook. These meetings then collide with others starting at the same time meaning that most people are late (or that the meeting starts late) and, hey presto, productive time is lost. Stand up meetings that start late and run over time are just as bad. Organisations that truly embrace faster value delivery, realise that in order to do so, the number of meetings held has to be drastically reduced.

TIP: If you want to be more agile, then you need to free up more time for people to do work and then when you do meet, you need to be respectful of the time you have and get the decisions made so everyone can move on.

2. Poor performance and behaviours are tolerated

Let’s face it, there are some people who seem to make a career out of not doing their job. But it’s not these people that I question. It’s the people who are paid more money to motivate and inspire them to do good work. And when – despite their best efforts over an extended period – they’re not able to do so, to follow the (often onerous) process to make sure they understand that this simply isn’t good enough. 

Sending poor performers on a Scrum training course or making them part of a ‘New Ways of Working’ er, ‘Working Group’ (of NoWWG for short #notshort) won’t work. Neither will changing their KPIs to ensure that they’ll probably miss out on an annual bonus. As long as there is no consequence for their behaviour, then they will continue to underperform and hold the organisation back. The customer won’t receive value any more quickly and delivery of projects and services will be as inflexible as it always has been.

TIP: Get to the root cause of their issues by using empathy and active listening. In my experience, people often underperform because managers simply don’t know how to communicate or set expectation properly. Agree on a set of behaviours and a performance standard, then coach, mentor and track performance to these on a regular basis.

3. No time for innovation

In his book Agile Project Management, Jim Highsmith said, “Innovation cannot be guaranteed by some deterministic process – innovation is the result of an emergent process, one in which the interaction of individuals with creative ideas results in something new and different.”

An emergent process is one that requires time, a mindset that constantly asks the question, ‘Could I/we do this differently?’ and a culture that supports courageous action. This action exists at a personal level as well as an organisation one. If you’re not looking to stretch your own thinking outside the office, then it’s unlikely to happen in the office either. In fact, in the office, there are more excuses for not doing it, than there are outside.

Innovation is everybody’s job. It doesn’t belong in a hub to a special group of people, nor is it one person’s job because they happen to have it on their business cards. Everyone has the responsibility to grow and improve an organisation, from the CEO to a new member of staff, one hour into their new role.

TIP: Block time out of your calendar every week to spend thinking differently about an issue that you face or an idea that you’d like to explore. Change your environment, only use tech to add value and bring a different mindset to it. You might just change things for the better.

Of course, there are more than three signs that an organisation is not acting and behaving in an agile way. What have you seen and how can it be addressed?

Making Common Sense More Common

Last year I got trolled on LinkedIn. Well, when I say trolled, I actually felt like it was a compliment, but I’m sure the person didn’t mean it that way. In reference to a video I posted, the person wrote, ‘I don’t know why people like this guy, all he does is talk common sense.’

See what I mean? When did it become a bad thing to reiterate some things that people should already know? But, it did cause me to self-reflect. Perhaps some of the things that I talk about – to paraphrase Mark Twain – aren’t that common, and my assumption that people know them, is incorrect.

So I thought I’d address that and publish a Common Sense Manifesto. A document that can be used by individuals and teams alike, wherever they are in the world, as a reminder of the things they should all be doing, all day, every day.

No ambiguity, no context required, just simple actions, using simple words. And let’s face it, simplicity is often hard to come by in the business world. There are people out there whose sole purpose seems to be to make things more complicated.

It’s time to take a stand against that. To call it out and make it easier to get things done, not harder. This is not a generational requirement, it’s a human one. It’s not about using technology either, as this can both help and hinder. It’s about making simple choices to be the best, most productive version of yourself and to help others do likewise.

These things will require courage, resilience, communication, challenge and, for some, a completely different mindset. It might mean that you have to assume the best of yourself and others whilst also questioning some of the things you tell yourself.

It’s a manifesto that you can apply to personal lives as well as professional ones. And if you want to ignore this completely, then of course that’s your choice too! Or perhaps you want to create your own common sense checklist – I hope you do! 

So here we go with my 'Seven Point Common Sense Manifesto', which is also available as a .pdf download. The super simple seven point version and a more detailed version.

1. Be a good human

Don’t do or say anything that another human would find offensive or upsetting

Don’t say something behind someone’s back that you wouldn’t say to their face

Recognise your emotions and keep them in check

Make an effort to understand how others are feeling

Challenge inappropriate behaviour and poor performance

2. Accept that you don’t know everything

Be open-minded to other ideas and opinions

Ask positive questions

See change as an opportunity to grow and develop

Understand and challenge your biases

Get into the habit of asking yourself ‘is there a better way to do this?’

3. Keep your promises

Do the work by the date you said you would

Return calls

Reply to emails

Get to meetings on time

Make time for friends and family

4. Listen when you want to talk

Give others a chance to speak

Don’t show frustration or annoyance

Look people in the eyes when they’re talking

Take notes to capture your reseponses

Ask others for their thoughts, insights and experience

5. Use your time productively

Decline meetings that are of no value to you

Stop projects that aren’t going to deliver value

Learn how to say ‘no’ positively

Make time every day to do the work you’ve promised to do

Use downtime to increase your knowledge (see 6)

6. Never stop learning

Read books, blogs or watch videos that stretch your thinking

Make time to explore new ideas

Don’t use age or time as an excuse not to learn something new

Ask others to share their knowledge with you or set up a community to do so

Get the most from the technology that you use

7. Take a break

Take time away from your desk during your day

Find a good balance between your work and home lives but commit to both in equal measure

Take a holiday or a long weekend

Exercise regularly

Limit your screen time.

The great thing about common sense is that it transcends role, rank, responsibility – it’s something we can all do, right now. So, please share this manifesto, print it out, talk about it, add to it or pick one thing to do every week. It’s time to make common sense common!

Why Hiding Bad News is Bad For Culture

I remember my first secret project. Four months before Christmas it was announced for senior management ears only that we were likely to overspend our budget and, consequently, we had some ‘hard decisions to make, cost-wise’. We were given a target and asked to look at our staffing numbers and likely costs for the rest of the financial year and make recommendations for savings.

I was aware that this kind of thing went on – how else were redundancies decided? – but this was the first time that I’d been involved in such activity. I felt uneasy with the secrecy of it all because, firstly, we were dealing with the lives of other humans and, secondly, past experience had taught me that others found it hard to ‘keep mum’ and as a result the news would inevitably leak.

Which it did.

News spread like wildfire and caused anxiety, stress and anger. Productivity went down – secrecy was maintained – and when the announcements came, Christmases and lives (in the short-term at least) were ruined.

I reflected on my role in this as a fledgeling manager and resolved to handle things differently the next time it happened. And, whether we like it or not, this kind of activity will always happen.

Consistently reviewing the cost base is a natural function of business and, from time-to-time, it’s necessary to reduce headcount in order to meet the needs of stakeholders or public service budget cuts.

Of course, there are many things that organisations can stop doing to avoid this situation in the first place. Things such as:

Being more ethical and reducing wasteful activity

Not doing more projects or work than you have people for

Killing some of the projects that don’t add measurable value

Getting the promised value from projects once they’ve been implemented

Staying on top of market trends

Managing risk.

Note that I didn’t say ‘cut out personal development budgets for staff’ and yet, this is one of the very first things to go when money is tight, despite its impact on productivity, employee engagement and succession planning.

 

Of course, we’ve also seen cases of bad news being released at opportune times, in order to ‘bury’ its impact or to conceal its intent. There are a number of high-profile examples of this.

After hours on Friday, April 29, 1994, computing company Commodore declared bankruptcy, keeping even its most senior executives in the dark. They found out via the news or press releases pinned to office doors.

On September 11, 2001, whilst the world was watching a terrible tragedy unfold at World Trade Plaza in New York, Jo Moore, who worked as an advisor to UK Minister Stephen Byers, the then Transport, Local Government and Regions Secretary, sent an email saying ‘Now is a very good day to get out anything we want to bury. Councillors expenses?’.  The email was leaked to the press and Moore was swiftly sacked. 

Still in the UK, back in December 2006, Tony Blair became the first sitting Prime Minister to be interviewed by police as part of a criminal inquiry. He chose to do so on the day that the report into Princess Diana’s death was released and was widely criticised as a result.

Regardless of the motivation for bad news, it should always be delivered openly, honestly and quickly. This is something that those in the medical profession and emergency services are taught as part of their induction into public service.

In a paper called Communicating Bad News by Miranda and Brody, the authors state that ‘The physician's goal… is to fully inform the patient and family so that they are able to comprehend the clinical situation and make sound decisions consistent with their beliefs and ideals’.

It’s no different in the business world.

In order to preserve the culture of the organisation and the trust of its employees (general public and shareholders), senior managers have a responsibility to be honest about their position and to outline the work required in order to ensure that the future of the company is secure.

Sugar coating the news, giving the activity an abstract name (‘Project Refocus’) or being liberal with the truth creates fear and distrust.

This is something that former Netflix executive Patty McCord talks about in her book, Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility. She said, “We didn’t want anyone, at any level, keeping vital insights and concerns to themselves. The executive team modelled this: We made ourselves accessible, and we encouraged questions. We engaged in open, intense debate and made sure all of our managers knew we wanted them to do the same.”

Jason Fried, in his book Rework, also said, ‘'People will respect you more if you are open, honest, public and responsive during a crisis. Don't hide behind spin or try to keep your bad news on a down low.”

Organisations whose leaders limit impending bad news to a few people and who encourage a culture of secrecy and selective confidentiality are not to be trusted. They have made the decision to treat their fellow humans in a way that is disrespectful and that, once released, will erode confidence and trust in their ability to lead the organisation to a more successful future.

Conversely, organisations that communicate early, that are honest about their position and what it might mean, who take the time to clearly articulate the process and involve others in it and who treat staff with empathy and understanding increase engagement, trust and confidence (by as much as 12% according to one survey).

Any kind of news that affects the livelihood of staff is never easy to deliver, but senior managers can make it a lot easier to bear and protect the culture of the organisation, if they’re honest from the start.

How To Deal With Negative People

Nobody wants to be the worst, most negative employee ever. Honestly, they don't, despite what you may think.

No one gets up in the morning and says to themselves in the mirror, 'Today I'm going to really suck at my job, get on people's nerves and be the most negative influence I can be.'

However, that's exactly how some people behave from time to time. They get pulled down by their life, their work or the people around them.

When they are being the least emotionally intelligent version of themselves not only are they less productive than they normally would be, but there's also a danger that they'll pull those around them down too. At that point, you have a stagnant or combatant culture, which we generally describe as 'toxic'. Too much time here and good staff are lost, sick leave increases along with stress and anxiety, team safety and productivity are affected and people feel 'stuck in a rut'.

But what to do to avoid getting to that point?

Telling someone to be positive won't work, neither will telling them to show you a smile. Talking about them behind their back might feel like you're getting your frustrations off your chest, but it will ultimately make you feel bad and you don't want that to happen because then you'll slide down with them.

Imagining some kind of violent outburst towards them ('I'd love to tell them to...') isn't helpful nor is trying to telepathically project what you want them to do (yes, you know you've tried it).

It's a conundrum that lots of people face on a daily basis and small steps need to be taken in order to understand the root cause of why your toxic team member feels the way they do. Empathy and persistence are required in order to help them recognise the emotion they are feeling and to become more positive about their work. It won't happen overnight, but it can happen over time.

I've worked with a few of these seemingly perennially ‘glass half empty’ people in my time and, of course, I’ve been one myself. We all have. In my experience, the way to approach it is to lead with empathy and active listening, asking questions like:

You haven't been yourself of late and I'd like to understand what I can do to help?Are you clear on your priorities? What's important and what's urgent?Are you waiting on anything that is stopping you from getting the job done?What's one thing I can do to help you right now?Is there anything you're worried about that you'd like to share?

Don't ever make the questions or conversation about what you need or interrupt while they're talking. Make notes if you don't have a great memory (particularly as this may be one of many conversations) and focus on helping them achieve what they need to do.

Involve them in conversations and never put them on the spot. Give them opportunities to be creative and check in on them during the week (but be careful not to micro-manage).

Poor behaviour and performance, of course, is a completely different matter and whilst it needs to be handled empathetically and fairly, it also needs to be handled firmly too. One bad apple can destroy a team culture, so you can't let that happen.

You need to set expectations really well, ensure that they’ve been understood, request updates on progress and ensure that they hit their goals. If they don't respond then you need to keep a record of the things you've done and once you've given them three or so opportunities to meet the expectations set and had the tough conversation with them, then HR needs to get involved.

Hoping that the issue will resolve itself or that the person will eventually change are ways of avoiding confrontation and you can't let that happen. If you do this, you send the message to the team that poor performance and behaviour is tolerated and we're back to our toxic culture again.

Throughout all of this, you have to be the best, most emotionally intelligent version of yourself. You have to role model the things you want them to do, otherwise, you're 'talking a good game' or 'not walking the talk'. You will need vision, energy, patience, time and a willingness to compromise.

Never underestimate the effect that this work can have on you, but the sense of pride you get in helping another human being out of their funk and into a happier, safer and more productive space should motivate and inspire you to do so.

Nobody wants to be the worst, most negative employee ever. Keep that in mind when someone is having a bad day and think about what you can do to help.

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A Vision Should Be Lived Not Laminated

At the heart of great cultures is an aspirational statement that ignites energy, motivation and passion. It’s a (very) short sentence of what the future looks like that – importantly – feels just a little bit out of reach.

It doesn’t describe outcomes, responsibilities or talk about taking over the world. It’s pragmatic, practical and personal and doesn’t need to be printed out and stuck up on a wall.

Vision statements should be easy to remember and exist at every level of an organisation, project, team, department and organisation. There should be conformance between them all, so that staff can draw a straight line between the work that they’re doing on a day-to-day basis and how it contributes to the success of the organisation.

If the vision is too aspirational (‘Best project in the world!’) then it could act as a demotivator. If it’s too wordy then it could confuse and disengage. Jason Fox said in his book The Game Changer  that ‘...you should be able to put your vision on a t-shirt’. Nothing memorable contains over 15 words. 

My personal favourite vision statement used to be Disney’s. It was ‘Make People Happy’. Aspirational given the multiple interactions that they have and yet, just a little bit out of reach because you can’t please everyone! I say ‘used to be my favourite’ because they changed it a couple of years back to this, ‘To be one of the world’s leading producers and providers of entertainment and information’. Which one resonates more with you?

One of the biggest mistakes organisations make is to bring in consultants or design agencies to work with their senior managers (only) on crafting a vision statement. This kind of activity sends a message to the rest of the staff that senior management own the vision and everyone else has to live it. An email is sent to everyone telling them what it is, often with some slick marketing materials, and they’re encouraged to print it off as a reminder. When this happens, it makes it very easy for the staff to think or say ‘I haven’t been involved in this, so it means nothing to me’.

Making this a senior-management only activity is an old-fashioned quick-fix approach to culture in the same way that going open plan is and often the people involved in its creation do little to prove that it actually means anything to them. It then becomes seen as an activity that the organisation undertook because they thought they should or because someone told them they should. Rather than being a critical annual exercise that’s required to continually refresh the aspirations of the organisation and move it forward.

Cultures are the sum of everybody, not just senior management, therefore (representatives of) everyone need to be involved in the creation of the vision. It’s a process I teach as part of my culture programs and takes 45-60 minutes to complete. Once you know how to do it, you never forget it. You also understand the importance of the vision and how to ‘use’ it every day.

The vision should inform every decision, with managers continually asking themselves ‘does this activity align to our vision?’. If not, then the activity should be stopped. If it does, then its importance should be assessed alongside existing initiatives before deciding how to proceed.

The Project Management Institute’s Pulse of the Profession report in 2018 found that almost a third of projects were considered to have failed as a result of a poor vision statement.

Refreshing the vision (and the culture) is especially important if the organisation is moving towards more flexible ways of delivering or new ways of working. McKinsey identified this in its paper How to create an agile organisation in 2017. Being clear on the vision is one of the three principles for a successful transition.

Similarly Bain noted in its paper Orchestrating Successful Digital Transformation that these initiatives not only need a vision of their own but that ‘everyone remains committed to it’.

An inspirational vision statement is also a great hiring tool. People often join organisations and teams as a result of their aspirations and it’s a great way to check that potential employees share the same dreams and understand what it will take to get there.

A vision statement is central to building and evolving a great culture and when you have one it’s essential that everyone lives it and doesn’t just laminate it.

Team Building, The Skill That Everyone Needs

Q: What do collaboration, culture, agility and transformation all have in common other than being overused business buzzwords?

A: They all require staff who have the ability to build teams and ensure that they remain vibrant, regardless of the situation. 

Every organisation needs teams where the members know what it means to be the best version of themselves. Teams who feel connected to a vision or purpose that is achievable, that have agreed how to work together to solve a problem, exploit an opportunity, or deliver a product/service and who feel supported in everything that they do. It doesn’t matter whether there are 5 or 5000 staff. Whether they are building software or selling underwear. Whether they are based in India or Indiana. Teams are culture and culture is made of teams.

Despite this, most executives ignore the obvious development need and invest in perceived quick-fix solutions instead. Things like:

Accreditation coursesOff-site MeetingsToolsRestructuresProcess redesignOpen plan offices.

Don’t get me wrong, these things can all be effective (apart from that last one - that definitely doesn’t work). However, if you don’t have people who understand how to build and maintain great teams then these things are all worthless. And unfortunately, most organisations don’t have enough people who know how to build great teams.

Instead, they assume that everyone in a position of responsibility (sometimes appointed without asking the question ‘How do you build a great team?’) has these skills. They don’t. When I talk to managers about this in meetings or at conferences, they’ll say things like ‘It’s not a priority for us right now’ or similar excuses, when in reality it should be the biggest priority. 

Of course, it’s entirely possible that someone is appointed who knows what they’re doing and makes an immediate difference. Someone who is high in emotional intelligence and puts themselves in service of others to co-create something that’s high-performing in application, not in aspiration. Someone who has learned from others they’ve worked with. Who’s read books, blogs and studied other teams to see how they tick and how they remain focused when there is a problem.

For everyone else, there just isn’t currently the investment - or forward-thinking leadership - to provide people with these skills, even though it could fundamentally change the dynamic between people and give the company  the results they’re looking for.

When was the last time you encouraged a group of people to get together and agree on a vision for whatever it is they’re working towards? Encouraged them to take the time to collectively agree ‘how’ you’ll work together to achieve it? A week ago? A month, a year…never?

If you don’t believe your people have the skills to do it, then you need to upskill them, quickly.

The statistics show us how important these skills are.

In Salesforce’s ‘Is poor collaboration killing your company?’ survey, 86% of respondents cited poor collaboration or ineffective communication as the reason for workplace failure.

Last year’s AI - The Future of Teamwork survey from Atlassian found that:

Increases in productivity are the lowest in 30 years59% say that communication is the biggest obstacle to success78% don't fully trust their teammates86% don't fully trust their teammates to adapt to changing situations

Gartner found that culture and people are the biggest barriers to digital transformation.

In the Deloitte Human Capital Trends survey earlier this year, 94% say that 'agility and collaboration' are critical to their organisation's success, yet only 6% say that they are 'highly agile today'. Indeed the number one human capital trend identified for 2018 was the ability to redesign an organization ‘to be more digital and responsive’ (with 59% of companies rating it as “urgent”).

Building teams is a skill that everyone needs. Even if there are some people who aren’t intent on building a team of their own, they need to know how to be a good team member and be empathetic towards those taking the lead.

As we become more geographically dispersed and people embrace the gig economy, it’s more important now than ever that everyone understands how to build connection in a way that is purpose-driven, productive and personable.

Team building skills will never go out of fashion as, despite the rise of AI, human beings are still best suited to spurring on people or leading change. If investing in team building skills isn’t a priority for you or your organisation, then you need to show some courage and insist that it is.