Colin D. Ellis's Blog, page 4

Three months

That’s how long new senior leaders like to take to assess what needs to change and that’s how long it usually takes for new employees to figure out the lies and half-truths they were told during the interview!

Yet, three months is also a good time to make a renewed impact, regardless of how long you’ve been with the organisation. Not just through the work you’ve been asked to do, but also the value that you can add by bringing outside thinking in and through your contribution as a good human being.

It’s an opportunity not to get dragged into the dysfunctional ways of doing things and to set a new benchmark for focus, discipline and behaviour.

Of course there’ll be dips - no-one is perfect! - but by demonstrating your commitment to the cause, your ability to challenge and your willingness to do something different, not only will you establish a great reputation, you will become a role model for others to follow.

For most employees, there are now four months between now and the end of the working year so you have the time and agency to get started. What are you waiting for?

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Know who you are, know what you do

Last month I was at the Los Angeles Lakers brand new training facility in El Segundo, California. Tim Harris, the organisation’s Senior Vice President of Business Operations, talking about the culture of the club said that it’s important to ‘know who you are, know what you do’. This, he said, provided a solid foundation to not only build a great team culture, but also a strong brand identity too.

I don’t disagree. It reminded me of a time pre-COVID, when the Netflix culture deck went viral on LinkedIn. Almost every senior leader I spoke to about culture change at that time wanted ‘a Netflix Culture'.

My pragmatic (yet very positive!) answer was always ‘you can’t have a Netflix culture'. That’s not to say that there weren’t learnings from the way that they worked that we could incorporate, there were and we did. However, it comes down to the fact that you need to understand who you are and what you do and build a culture to match that, rather than confusing everyone and trying to be something that you're not.

Many office-based employees will see this when the latest fad, method or technology becomes popular. Often there’s a rush not to get left behind whilst competitors adopt new ways of doing things.

There’s merit to that, but only if it’s assessed against ‘who you are and what you do’. Blindly following the herd can actually worsen your culture, rather than improving it, should thoughtful consideration not be given to how it will enhance how work gets done.

I saw a great example of this last week. Emirates is my airline of choice when I have to do long haul travel because the service they provide is excellent (which is a reflection of their culture) and is strongly aligned to who they are and what they do.

Many airlines now feature celebrities, singing and dancing in their safety videos, but not Emirates.

They allude to this in their safety video saying ‘...we don’t feature celebrities singing and dancing in our safety videos’. This works for other airlines such as Air New Zealand (also a favourite of mine) and is similarly a representation of their ‘safe, but fun' culture.

However, that’s not who Emirates are or what they do and I have a lot of respect for any organisation that leans into their brand and cultural identity.

Inspiration for creating a great place to work lies everywhere and as long as you’re intentional in experimenting then choosing only those ideas that are aligned to who you are and what you do, they will always be embraced by growth mindset employees looking to continuously improve the way work gets done.

If you try too hard to be something that you're not, then change aversion will be a slam dunk!

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Giving 100%

Research shows we have only 4-6 hours of true cognitive energy each day for heavy mental tasks, with an average of 4 hours for most office based people. Yet, the narrative still exists that we should be giving 100% of energy and focus all of the time. And that’s before you throw in the mental exhaustion caused by never-ending distractions!

Instead of trying to kill yourself reaching an unattainable target it’s better to focus on giving it your all when it’s required most and ensuring that your energy levels are sufficiently restored throughout your day to ensure that you can.

Since our cognitive capacity is finite, timing becomes critical. Schedule your most demanding or important work during natural energy peaks - typically late morning and late afternoon for most people - rather than fighting against your circadian rhythms (which orchestrate everything from body temperature and hormone release to alertness).

When you stop trying to give 100% all the time and focus on the moments that matter instead, not only do you get more done, but you’ll feel better about it too.

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Asking for help

I spoke to a manager recently who said, ‘Why don’t employees ask for help when they need it?’ In my experience there are two reasons:

1 - We’re afraid to ask - that is, the culture doesn’t feel ‘safe’ enough to do so. In her research on psychological safety, Amy Edmondson found that teams took the time to build relationships with each other and were intentional about their culture developed ‘a shared belief…that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking.’ This leads to an increase in the ability to ask for help and the development of a learning culture. 

There’s also an issue where hierarchy makes employees worry about perception - which leads me to the second point.

2 - We worry how we’ll look - In her work, Edmondson also references the work of Fiona Lee whose research reinforces the second reason we are bad at asking for help. Lee’s research found that proactively seeking help involves social costs because the help seeker appears incompetent, dependent, and inferior. In my experience, this is often the more prevalent reason that we don’t ask for help. Instead we soldier on in the hope of being able to resolve an issue ourselves when we could shortcut the process by seeking assistance

Of course, telling someone to simply ‘ask for help if they need it’ is no guarantee that they will! Instead managers can go out of their way to ensure that safety and approachability is built into the team culture and they demonstrate vulnerability to demonstrate how it’s done.

This can be as simple as saying, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t fully understand, can you explain that again for me?’, elevating the expertise of others ‘[person name] understands this far better than me’ or by simply asking for help themselves!

The irony is that the managers who want employees to ask for help are the same ones that would never dream of doing it themselves!

Everybody needs help sometimes, we just need to be better at creating cultures where it’s safe to ask for it.

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Fakeocracy

Meritocracy is an approach by which advancement is based on individual ability or achievement. It is often used by organisations as a promise during hiring or  development conversations.

Meritocracy is seen by employees as the panacea when it comes to their performance. ‘If I perform well and am a great human in the way that I go about my work’, the narrative goes, ‘I will be rewarded’. It is seen as fair and equitable and a rejection of the old-fashioned ‘it’s who you know’ approach.

How many times have you heard something similar?

If you keep this up, the sky’s the limit for you

You just need to keep going and the chances will come your way

With a bit of extra effort and focus, you’ll be next in line for a promotion and so on…

Theoretically, meritocracy should produce many tangible benefits:

Enhanced Productivity and Performance - where employees believe their contributions will be recognised and rewarded fairly, motivation and productivity increase

Talent Optimisation - An optimal allocation of people should enhance organisational performance, creativity and innovation

Reduced Turnover - Employees perceive advancement opportunities as fair and based on performance reducing costly turnover and knowledge loss

Attraction of High Performers - Merit-based advancement may attract people who seek jobs where their contributions will be recognised and rewarded.

Bridgewater Associates (Ray Dalio's hedge fund) is perhaps the most documented attempt at creating a meritocracy. Their system includes: radical transparency where all meetings are recorded; ‘Dot ratings’ where employees rate each other on performance; algorithmic decision-making to reduce bias; and open challenge of ideas regardless of hierarchy.

However, a report suggested this created a "cauldron of fear and intimidation" rather than true meritocracy. The same goes for Netflix’s Keeper Test as well as similar approaches at the likes of McKinsey and Google.

Research from the last 5 years into whether meritocracy is actually practiced is almost non-existent. There’s so little evidence, that it’s been labelled the ‘Meritocracy Paradox' by MIT. Or as I have labelled it ‘Fakeocracy’ i.e. fake meritocracy.

Studies continue to find that organisations claiming to operate meritocratically often exhibit greater bias. This indicates that the belief in meritocracy can actually worsen discrimination, as managers become less vigilant about bias when they believe their systems are already fair.

You can see it for yourself. Your organisation may talk about equity of opportunity, yet it’s the same people who get promoted. They may talk about greater gender representation, yet, it’s still 6 middle-aged men on the executive team and one female Head of People and Culture. They may talk about a commitment to flexible work, yet still require you to be in the office 9-5 Tuesday to Thursday.

There are other telltale signs that meritocracy is largely performative rather than genuine:

Inconsistent hiring criteria or shifting goalposts. When promotion requirements seem to shift depending on who's being evaluated, or when previously successful approaches suddenly don't count, it suggests the system serves other purposes. You'll notice different standards applied to different people for the same role

The ‘culture fit’ smokescreen. When organisations consistently hire and promote people who look, sound, and think remarkably similar whilst claiming merit-based decisions, ‘cultural fit’ has likely become code for homogeneity. True meritocracy would produce more diverse outcomes

Lack of transparency around decision-making. This is another giveaway. If promotion processes are opaque, feedback is vague (‘you need to be more assertive’ ‘you need to be more visible to the executive etc.’), or there's no clear path between performance and advancement, merit probably isn't the primary factor.

The persistence of mediocrity at management levels. This signals systemic issues within the culture. When incompetent leaders remain whilst talented individuals stagnate, networks, bias and politics clearly trump performance. You’ll often hear about this when high performers leave

Tokenism masquerading as fairness. This appears when organisations promote a few individuals from underrepresented groups to visible positions whilst the broader pattern remains unchanged. It creates the appearance of meritocracy without addressing underlying bias

Performance reviews that don't correlate with outcomes. This is often the most obvious one. When consistently high performers receive average ratings (‘I can only give so many people a 4 or a 5’) or when ratings seem predetermined regardless of actual contributions, the system isn't measuring merit, it’s performative

There’s no doubt that true meritocracy can create a huge amount of emotional capital with employees and as a result, value for an organisation. After all, if I work hard and I’m rewarded for it, not only will it be a great motivation for me to keep doing so, it’ll inspire others to do likewise.

However, it’s disingenuous for organisations to preach meritocracy and deliver fakeocracy instead. People aren’t stupid, they’ll see through the smokescreen soon enough and the organisational culture will eventually stagnate along with recruitment, reputation and results.

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Culture Speak - Part Two (video)

In the second episode of my new 7-part series on the importance of developing a common language around culture I discuss the importance of emotional intelligence and engagement in work culture and highlight the detrimental effects of stagnant cultures, where individuals prioritise personal interests over teamwork.

It is available as a video series on YouTube (below) or as a podcast at the following links:

Spotify Podcasts: Click here

Apple Podcasts: Click here

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The karma police are coming

Last week my wife and I visited the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford to see the Thom Yorke/Stanley Donwood exhibition. If you’re not familiar with the names, Yorke is the lead singer of British Indie band Radiohead who have sold over 10m records worldwide and who Rolling Stone named as one of the 100 greatest bands of all time.

Donwood is an artist and Yorke’s long time collaborator on artwork for Radiohead and The Smile. The exhibition brings together the art from the last 30 years of collaborating.

One particular piece of artwork stood out to me and it was this one:

[image copyright: Stanley Donwood/Thom Yorke]

This is taken from the Radiohead song Paranoid Android from their classic album OK Computer in 1997. However, my favourite song from the album is Karma Police. According to Yorke, the song is to “everyone who works for a big firm. It’s a song against the bosses.”

The metaphor of ‘karma police’ resonates deeply in today's workplace landscape. Yorke's vision of accountability catching up with those who abuse their power feels particularly relevant as we continue to witness high-profile reckonings across industries - from tech giants to entertainment companies to retail organisations - where toxic leadership has finally faced consequences.

What's fascinating about workplace karma isn't its mystical nature, but its practical inevitability. Toxic leaders often succeed initially because they exploit short-term gains: driving results through fear, hoarding information for control, or taking credit whilst deflecting blame. Yet this approach contains the seeds of its own destruction.

When skilled employees vote with their feet and walk away from toxicity, they don't just leave, they become ambassadors for competitors, sharing insider knowledge and warning networks about their former employers. The ‘karma police’ here aren't supernatural forces, but market dynamics and human networks.

The most potent form of workplace karma emerges through reputation. In our hyper-connected world, toxic behaviours spread beyond offices, warehouses and sports fields through platforms like Glassdoor, LinkedIn, and industry networks. Leaders who build their success on others' misery find their reputations preceding them, making future opportunities increasingly scarce.

Yet karma isn't merely punitive, it can be restorative too. Organisations that address toxic cultures early, support affected employees, and demonstrate genuine change often emerge stronger. They attract talented people seeking psychologically safe cultures and benefit from the creativity that flourishes when people aren't consumed by workplace politics.

For those currently enduring toxic environments: your experience matters, your wellbeing is valid, and change, whether through organisational transformation or your own strategic moves, is possible. Document incidents, build alliances, and remember that today's toxic leader may well become tomorrow's cautionary tale.

The karma police are real. They're called accountability, and they're already on their way.

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As good as

Every day we have a choice to be the kind of person who can be a positive influence on those around us and the world at large. These choices often dictate whether we’ll have a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ day.

But what exactly are these daily choices that shape our influence? They're deceptively simple moments that we encounter repeatedly, decisions that seem small in isolation but compound into the foundation of who we are as colleagues, leaders, and team members.

Therefore, we’re only ever as good as:

The empathy we demonstrate towards others

Our listening to talking ratio (aim for 50:50!)

The expectations that we set

The time we waste

The calculated risks we take

The way we communicate

The kindness that we show

The thing we choose to focus on

The feedback that we provide

The behaviour we choose to walk past

The investment we make into our own development

The humility that we show

The feedback we act upon

The unconditional help that we give to others

Every one of these things is a daily choice and becomes the way that others see us. However, these aren't just personal virtues, they're also micro-experiences that affect the day-to-day culture. When we’re conscious of how our choices impact others, we don't just improve ourselves; we create ripple effects that transform the experience and performance of the team around us too.

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Hand-me-downs

When we were kids Mum would happily take clothes from other parents in the neighbourhood in order to reduce the cost of clothing her three growing sons. They were known as hand-me-downs. Our style became the style that others had grown out of, until we did likewise, at which point the cycle would continue with others in the neighbourhood.

Some clothes wouldn’t fit, some styles we didn’t like, some colours were outright rejected (👋anything with the colour red in it!). However, it gave me an appreciation of kindness, providence and (of course) style which I’ve maintained to this day.

In my early employment days I applied the same logic (unconsciously) to my own development and it’s still something that I recommend people do today.

When we start work, most of the skills we learn are hand-me-downs and just like the clothes, we have to discern which ones are for us and which ones aren’t. Specifically I’m talking about the behaviours that others demonstrate to get their work done.

You will often hear people saying things like ‘if you want to get anything done around here you have to raise your voice’ or ‘make sure you copy everyone into that email’ and so on.

I was on the receiving end of similarly bad advice at various stages of my career (not just when I started) and kept numerous notebooks where I captured the behaviours and skills that I chose to copy and those that I rejected.

The lists were of equal length and were a great reminder of how to get work done in a way that was motivational, yet different to the way others were working.

I remember one instance as a senior director being told that I would ‘...only get one if you play politics. Sometimes you have to stand on people to get higher.’ No thanks.

Just as not all advice is good advice, not all hand-me-downs are for you. Choose wisely and you’ll build a ‘wardrobe’ of skills that you’ll be forever proud of.

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5 Employee Experience Principles

The concept of creating an experience for employees was born out of the design thinking movement in the mid-2010s* which focused on how users interacted with products. Forward-thinking people leaders embraced these principles and - recognising the shift towards culture becoming a hiring advantage - applied the same approach to employees.

Designing and implementing an Employee Value Proposition (or EVP) has now become an organisation-wide priority, rather than an HR ‘nice to have’. For larger organisations it’s someone's job to maintain and evolve this.

As a culture constant, helping organisations to be deliberate about creating this employee experience is one of my key focus areas. We want to ensure that we intentionally build a safe culture that people want to be part of, but also to ensure that it continues to positively evolve to meet the challenges and needs of today, not a one-off, tick-box ‘we’ve done culture’ activity.

When I do this I employ five principles, which are as follows:

Design deliberately. You get the culture that you choose to build. Therefore, employee experience isn't something that just happens to you whilst you're busy making other plans. Nor can you throw disparate activities together in the hope that they’re cohesive in practice. It requires intentional design, much like crafting a customer journey. The CEO should care about this as much as they do about other measurable activity

Make work easy, not complicated. If your employees spend more time wrestling with systems, confused by priorities or distracted by technology than actually working, you've already lost. Create platforms, processes and priorities that are simple to follow and use. This is especially important if you plan to leverage AI to increase the value that you offer

Listen constantly, not annually. Most annual surveys are about as useful as a chocolate teapot. By the time you’ve asked for the feedback the moment to implement change has gone. Not only that, but reports containing endless comments don’t inspire change, they prevent it. Use pulse surveys instead, to capture the micro-frustrations before they become macro-disasters

Bust the silos. Employee experience isn't HR's problem to solve, it's everyone's opportunity to leverage. Educate leaders and managers to ensure that they have the skills and language to work seamlessly together, because silos create terrible experiences. This should also take into account different working environments, locations and the fact that different people are employed in different roles.

Create personas that reflect reality. Building on the point above your workforce isn't homogeneous, so stop treating them like they are. There are more than four personas, there may well be as many as 50. Take the time to understand your people and recognise that a software engineer's needs differ vastly from those on the front line

When these five principles work in harmony, employee experience transforms from a cost centre into a competitive advantage in the ever growing war for talent. Organisations that master this intentionally design cultures where people don't just show up; they lean in and contribute to improving the experience for everyone.

*For a history of employee experience as a concept I highly recommend this blog from Josh Bersin.

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