The year is flying by, isn’t it? Someone stole January, February disappeared in a cloud of smoke and next week will see the start of April. Organisations like yours are juggling a busy workload with all the fun and games of adapting to new ways of working, mainly where we all work post-pandemic. Hybrid working trials have taken place and now we’re trying to bed in longer-term patterns.

This isn’t working out as well as everyone hoped.  It is really difficult to keep all of us happy on the subject of location. Some were and still are champing at the bit to get back in to a shared working space. Others are less keen, preferring working remotely. Business needs must be met but no one wants an unhappy team.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again.  We are great proponents of remote working.  And we should know – we’ve done it for 3 plus decades.  You get more done in less time without hours and money spent getting to and fro. When it is combined with the kind of job that involves some out and about activity and no lockdowns, it’s a recipe for a happy work and life. And it is how we are positioning the out and about element we may be getting wrong right now.

We keep talking about location – where that should be, keep the office, lose the office, convert to a shared work space.  Two days a week in, weekly ratios of 3:2, everyone in on Wednesdays, no more than two teams in at the same time and so on. It’s an emotive discussion and understandably, hard to get people to agree.

So, let’s change the narrative and start talking about why - not where we want to meet up. We want to meet up for connection. We don’t need to be together to plug in and sit silently side by side doing our individual work.  We can do that anywhere that has the necessary resources.

We do want to be together for connection. This might include any or all of the following:

When you look at it like that, it’s less about rules and more about reasons.  We aren’t “coming into the office”, we’re meeting to discuss, relate, learn and get better. And whilst that may involve an office or agreed meeting place, we’re doing it because it makes sense, not because the policy says you have to be in X days a week.

We are meeting to do what is better done in person. Over the last two years, that was stolen from us and whilst we all coped admirably, there was a cost.  Not to work output but to – and here’s the word again – connection.

So, the key message here is – stop talking location and start talking connection. It will help you work out when it makes good sense to bring people to a shared space and when it doesn’t. Involve others in that conversation because you aren’t talking about the where, you’re talking about the why. People always react better when they feel listened to and are encouraged to input to something that makes sense to them. This makes sense. And with any luck, cooperation will follow.

As we emerge into 2022, bleary-eyed, hoping this will finally be the year of steady state (trying to avoid "new normal"), how are you feeling? Many of our clients’ report feeling weather-worn, buffeting by the effort of steering through Covid and all its storms and gales.

Your energy may be low, but maybe your heart is lifted and optimistic about the future if only you could gather yourself up and power on.

In times of turbulence, we often stretch to behaviours and skills that are not natural. This is tiring and takes concentration and is maybe why we feel our reserves are low. As a result, some of us may be tempted to move on from our current roles to feel like we are breaking the habits and renewing ourselves, gaining a sense of doing something different.

One way to reinvent ourselves is a little closer to home, though. Resilience has been at an all-time high in the past few years. It has brought invention, creativity, tenacity and let's not forget pivoting. So maybe a way to rejuvenate ourselves is to step back and do a good old-fashioned review of our resilience and what it has done for us.

We have been coaching individuals and teams around resilience for many years and one of the crucial things to realise is that it isn't about gritting teeth, never moaning or not owning up to finding times tough. It is quite the opposite, in fact. Resilience teaches us to speak up if we need help, actively seek out people that know more than us and purposefully rest and recover.

Have a go at thinking through three of the six resilience factors and how you have benefited from using them.

Determination – the ability to dig deep and welcome challenges. How many times have you done this recently? Have you delayed instant gratification and instead dug in and produced your best work? What satisfaction did you get from that and what have you learned about yourself? Did you have a mantra for tough times that you can still use today? For example, "If a job is worth doing, it's worth doing well", "head down, keep walking", "5 o'clock will come". Using mantras can keep our spirits up and team mantras are potent. For example, one of our clients used to work for Cadburys in the IT team. After a tough week of transforming and developing, the team would say, "now let's go make great chocolate". Love this. It reminds them why they have done their best that week and that it was for the good of the whole organisation and themselves. Oh, and for all of us who love chocolate!

A sense of purpose – how much has the last year moved you towards where you want to be in life. It may even have fast-forwarded it. We always knew we should embrace digital online learning but kept putting it off. Several lockdowns later and we feel like we have been doing it forever – have you done something like that? Have you gained experience in one year that might have taken you four if there hadn't been a crisis?

Connections – who have you networked with recently? How many online coffees have you had with colleagues across your organisation that would never have happened in the office? What have you learned from them that helps you now and in the future? Have you gained a broader understanding of your organisation from all those pub quizzes you attended, humanising colleagues from all functions?

Those are just three resilience areas. Use them to reframe last year as rejuvenating, stretching, challenging rather than tiring.

Last year could have been 100% tiring or 100% inspiring!

Get in touch if you want to know more about building resilience for yourself and your teams

Happy new year!  We’re not making any predictions for 2022 – there are enough memes doing that for us.  A personal favourite is:

“Before I agree to 2022, I need to see some Terms and Conditions.”

We may not know what the next 12 months has in store for us but we know there will be change.  There always is. In times of great change, it can be useful to look for constants, especially if they are ones that take us to a better place.

When it comes to personal and professional growth, coaching is one such constant.  Here are 3 reasons why:

  1. It is lockdown-proof. The word ‘hybrid’ has been used so much recently it’s destined for a firm place on the latest Bullshit Bingo card. While it is a new term for how we work, it has applied to coaching for years.  This one-to-one interaction works equally well face to face or from a distance and a combination of both works even better. It means internal coaches can work with colleagues from different teams, sites and parts of the globe and those seeking an external coach can make their choice without the restrictions of geography.
  2. It has survived fads and trends in L&D. Every profession has its flavours of the month.  Learning and development is no different.  If you’ve been in this game for over 30 years as we have, you will have seen a fair few.  A trend has tangible benefits and solves a particular need whereas a fad is often driven by a coolness factor and an “I want some of that too” mentality.  When coaching first came on the scene, many thought it was a fad but decades later, it endures with credibility and impact.  It is going nowhere.
  3. No sheep are dipped in the coaching process. Mass group training has great value where there is a common need.  In a coaching situation, the need is rarely mass-produced and that means coach and client can work together in an individualised way, targeting priorities and taking action where it counts.  In the early days, coaching was viewed as an expensive luxury, the domain of the senior executive, because it only applies to one person at a time.  Years on, it has proved itself money well spent as individuals directly attribute success, advancement and impact on the bottom line, to their coaching sessions.  It is selfish time to think, talk and be supported and challenged to take action.

Coaching can be defined as a relationship of rapport and trust in which the coach uses their ability to listen, to ask questions and to play back what the client has communicated in order to help the client to clarify what matters to them and to work out what to do to achieve their aspirations.

When you put it that way, there is little to lose and much to gain from a coaching relationship.  Many of you reading will know this already and have years under your belt of successful coaching experiences.  If that’s not you yet, consider making 2022 the year you get a coach, become a coach, or open the door to coaching in your organisation.

We don’t know yet how 2022 is going to pan out.  What we do know is that, whatever this year throws our way, will be talked about, planned for and solved at coaching sessions the world over.

Hello again. In part one of this article, we addressed feedback, our motives for giving it and how to ensure you examine your motive before you open your mouth.

Now that is sorted, you can deliver the feedback in a way that is taken well.

It is vital to know the go-zones and no-go zones of feedback.  Derek Biddle, occupational psychologist and co-author of Leading and Developing for High Performance describes the layers of an onion.  The inner layers represent our personality and values - who we are fundamentally and the standards and codes by which we live our lives.  These are incredibly personal and tough to change (you could argue that we shouldn't have to change them and certainly not because someone we work with/for thinks we should).  These are the no-go zones for feedback.  Comment on people's personalities or values and you could be accused of hitting below the belt. The outer layers of the onion represent our attitudes - our approach to and views on things and behaviour - the outward signs of our attitude.  These are the go-zones for feedback.  They concentrate on what a person does, not who they are, they are easier on the ear and more likely to be acted upon.  It's the difference between telling someone you desk share with (a likely scenario as office space shrinks to fit the needs of the hybrid workforce) that their messy papers, Post It note pandemic and nonexistent filing make it impossible for you to work and can you both sort out a better system: above the belt - and telling them they are a shambles with no idea how to organise themselves and you bet their home is in a right old state - below the belt.

It works with positive feedback too.  Telling someone they're a fabulous person is nurturing and kind but more akin to feedback you give a mate and not terribly useful.  Fabulous in what way exactly?  And how can I transfer my "fabulousness" to benefit other areas of my work? Better to be told specifics - your positive impact on the team, your ability to manage a project well, your inspirational pitching style - with examples - than to be fobbed off with sweet but rather sweeping statements.  So, keep your feedback above the belt.

A lot has been written about techniques and structures for feedback. Take it with a pinch of salt.  In some places of work, it would be a start just to get people doing feedback at all, let alone trying to weave it around a fancy process. It goes a long way if you keep your feedback open, honest and respectful. Being open and honest is not enough.  One person’s idea of being open and honest could be another person’s idea of brutal.  The third part - respectful keeps any major offloading in check.

While we're on the subject of technique, beware the unsubtle ones like the Praise Sandwich (sometimes referred to with a different, altogether less palatable sandwich filling). The idea behind it is to sandwich some negative feedback between two bits of positive feedback thereby softening the blow.  Guess what?  We all know when it's being done to us and it gets used mainly when you have only wafer thin positive bread to act as bookends for a massive wedge of negative filling. "Thank you for turning up to work today - just about everything you do in your job is rubbish - but I really like your earrings."  Okay, an exaggeration but you know how it goes.  Better to say what needs to be said, check how they feel about it and what their view is and then look ahead.  Any feedback that is constructive should be followed by some sort of action plan.  If it is positive feedback, then acknowledge what has been done well, discuss how they can be even better and/or spread that success and look to the future.  If the feedback is about something you want them to improve, it's a case of looking at how that might be done.  The essence of constructive feedback really, is that life goes on after it.  There is a future, a way to improve, a path to move on to.

Finally, there is a big element of getting your own house in order when it comes to feedback.  You may be skilled at giving it, but how elegant are you at receiving it?  We worked with a client when he was setting up a new team from scratch.  Once the team had bedded in, he looked to work on his own self-awareness with a “full-circle” feedback tool that encouraged his staff and colleagues to give him constructive feedback about his work style, leadership and communication.  The results were detailed and clear, in many cases extremely complimentary and motivating, in just a few, a little tough to take.  But he took them all, welcoming the feedback and acting on it where he felt appropriate. His example inspired many of the team to be more open to feedback and make it a regular feature of their team culture.  So, before you unleash yourself on unsuspecting colleagues, with your own special brand of feedback, do a quick check that you too can receive feedback with grace.  Listen to it, ask questions about it, decide what you are going to do with it and above all, thank them for taking the time to give it – genuinely and not through gritted teeth.

They say all feedback is a gift.  Sometimes it can feel like a badly wrapped one with unwanted contents.  But it usually has something to offer and a colleague or team member being prepared to share a perspective with you – that takes guts, so take a deep breath and welcome it. They may even surprise you and say something positive.  Now that’s a gift worth having.

We should be so good at doing feedback nowadays. It’s a shame we aren’t. We start with the best intentions – to give regular feedback and be open to receiving it too – yet when the pressure is on, we forget to make it a priority and fall back on the mealy-mouthed act of speedily pointing out the flaws and staying quiet about all the good stuff. We also worry that we don’t have the right to give feedback – to team members, colleagues and bosses. Not only is it our right to give it, it is their right to expect it and to give us feedback in return. It just needs to be done with a modicum of skill, compassion and common sense.

In this two-parter, we’ll examine how you give feedback and receive feedback well and avoid the pitfalls of silly techniques and inauthentic work-speak.

Part 1 - start on the right road by examining your motive. What is compelling you to want to give the feedback in the first place? It might be a genuine desire to help someone grow and develop, the need to stop someone who is behaving in a way that is holding them back, or a wish to comment on something you feel they do really well and the positive impact it has. These are all honourable motives and are likely to result in constructively delivered feedback. A compulsion to get something off your chest or to take someone down a peg or two are less honourable (though understandably tempting at times) and are more likely to lead to destructive feedback - and in the short term certainly, will do more harm than good.

Some motives could go either way for example, the desire to pass on the benefit of your experience through some feedback. If that is your motive then find a way to do it so it doesn't sound patronising: "Let me, the great sage of many years’ experience, pass down to you the rookie, the great honour of a particle of my considerable brain." We have all had that done to us at one time or other and rather than listen to the content of the feedback, it makes you want to thump the person. The benefit of your experience should be offered not imposed, and put into context, for example, this worked for you once but it may not work for them - for it to be a constructive experience.

Finally, beware the motive of cheering someone up where they're having a bad time, by giving praise. If you tell them things are better than they really are, and they are savvy enough to know they're not, they may distrust your feedback in the future. Better to talk to them about what is going wrong and give them some perspective on the situation, than try to stick a smiley plaster on a gaping wound.

Once you have your motive sorted you are ready to deliver the feedback. In Part 2 we’ll discuss how to give it so it is taken well. Then we’ll tackle feedback you might have coming your way – and how to receive it with grace. Because you know what they say – if you can’t take it….

How are your teams feeling about returning to the face-to-face universe? Some may have a spring in their step. But, on the other hand, some may be dragging their heels or worry about finding their work shoes and are considering arriving in their trusty slippers. (Warning – inappropriate footwear for the outer world).

It is finally happening, that normality that we were craving 18 months ago. Grabbing the coffee on the way to the office, the water cooler moments, being able to pop over to your colleague and chat something through. And yet…working from home is alright, your staff have adjusted beautifully, have their little customs and like the home/work balance they have created. If furloughed, they might have been anxious about the future or have enjoyed the freedom and loved taunting the people they live with who are stuck in numerous Team’s meetings.

We know the world has changed in many ways, but what about your workplace? Suffolk Mind has been researching the population throughout the pandemic. As a result, they know which emotional needs have been challenged over the last 12 months and have many ideas about what managers can do to enable their staff to feel better about coming back.

The interesting thing about their research is that many of us are not anxious about what we expect to hear. Overall emotional support was pretty high. Feeling connected to people and the community seemed relatively healthy. Most employers have done an excellent job through the pandemic and individuals have been resourceful about maintaining their emotional health if they can. Of course, there will be exceptions to this. You know your staff well, so you know where the support is still needed.

What is it that your staff may be anxious about? How can you as a manager support your people through re-entering the workplace?

The things keeping many people up at night as they prepare for returning to the workplace are all about practicalities. Some examples for you:

  1. Is the fridge still there for me to put my packed lunch in? Do I still need to label it to stop Bob from Accounts nicking it?
  2. Does the car park still exist opposite the office, or will I have to find another one? Will a new one be a further walk; do I need to pack an umbrella?
  3. Will my Oyster card still work at the barrier, or has life on trains and tubes become a whole new game?
  4. Remind me how I book a desk again? Can I remember how to summon up that killer instinct I need to reserve my favourite spot? Is my favourite spot still there?
  5. What did I wear to the office? Does it all still fit?
  6. My office bag hasn’t been used for 18 months – what did I fill it with? Where is my office pass, my notebook, pens? Why have all the pens disappeared from my house? Do I need one, or did I used to get one from work?
  7. Has the bus route changed? Will it still be the same stop, number, gruff driver?
  8. I think I’ve forgotten the route I used to walk/cycle every day; can I still park my bike at the back of the building?
  9. Can I still get a Metro at the station? I think I used to do the Sudoku to pass the time – can I remember the rules of Sudoku?
  10. I’m used to a morning run before settling at my desk – when can I fit that into my day? Dodging the dog walkers is an essential part of my daily routine.

No doubt you are getting the idea. It reminds us of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, everyone slipping down from self-esteem to physiological and security needs.

The good news is that once we have all done the first couple of days, we will probably get back in the swing of it. The buses still smell the same, chinos are not that bad, and the packed lunch remained chilled.

How can you help the transition? A few ideas for you.

It looks like investing in elaborate wellbeing strategies might not hit the mark for everyone – knowing that the sandwich guy still comes at 11.30 might.

Happy re-entry, everyone.

www.suffolkmind.org.uk

www.suffolkmind.org.uk/ena - emotional needs audit

7/11 breathing with Suffolk Mind - YouTube   - 7/11 breathing from Suffolk Mind

Imagine you are driving a car with a passenger beside you. In the back are a bunch of people laughing, mucking about and munching on snacks. In the front, your face is grim. You can see the road ahead and it doesn't look good. Black clouds are coming over and you have an uneasy feeling that you are lost. You catch a sideways look from your passenger and realise they see it all too. The noise from the back and the seemingly carefree behaviour is beginning to grate on you. Can't they see the challenges ahead? Why don't they help? Why is it always you who has to sort everything?

We use this analogy to describe what happens when senior managers don't communicate with the rest of the team. Challenges and problems are not shared with those in the back seat who are kept in the dark about the road ahead.

This often results in a feeling of "them and us", which is probably one of the top unproductive behaviours in organisations. When push comes to shove, it weakens an organisation. Have you ever tried to restructure a region, close a service, implement a new CRM system or introduce a new procedure? How did it go? If it went smoothly, you probably don't have a" them and us" issue. A change led well is a beautiful thing full of communication, honesty, transparency and a feeling of being in it together. If those changes went badly, is it because no one knew why, it came out of the blue and no one knew things needed sorting out? Was there a privacy screen between you in the front and them in the back?

We work with teams at all levels of organisations and watch out for the "them and us" syndrome. Here are some ways we can spot it:

How do you turn this around? By inviting the people in the back seat to lean over the front seat and see the road ahead, the black clouds, the map and how lost you are. Once they know they can help, you are still accountable, but harnessing everyone's skills will make sure you get to your destination successfully. You create understanding and that brings creativity and teamwork.

What does this look like?

Gripping the steering wheel of your car and not sharing the burden is a lonely place to be. You have a wealth of talent in that back seat who can help shape and transform anything in your organisation. So, look after yourself, pull over before you feel tired and lean over the back seat, grab one of those snacks and join in the fun of teamwork.

During a recent coaching session, a CEO admitted that when he headed up an Engineering firm he was a great engineer, but as a leader he was a pain in the neck.  Too much nit picking and not enough enabling.  He just couldn’t resist getting stuck into the work of others and what was intended to be helpful was received as interfering.  When he then went onto a role leading an organisation in a totally different field – a field he knew nothing about – he had no choice but to lead.  He couldn’t do the work of the people below him, so his role was clearly defined:  to put energy in to leading and managing the organisation and its people to achieve better things.

This year has taken the skill of backing off to a whole new level.  Without having people under our noses, we couldn’t engage in close contact managing (for that, read meddling in some cases) so we had to learn to trust and enable.  Now that we are entering our next phase of working, which for many is shaping up as a mix of office and remote working, it is time to take yourself by the scruff of the neck to avoid unlearning the good habits the pandemic forced us to embrace. Let it go, let it go…

It helps to remember what got you to this point.  Did you rise up the ranks due to your technical abilities?  You were so good at the work it earned you a promotion. Or perhaps you entered through a different route. You were good at leading teams and managing projects and able to apply those skills in a range of settings.  Neither route is better; it just is what it is.  You can’t help what you don’t know, and you can’t unlearn what you do know, but you can make the best of either situation and avoid the inevitable management traps.

So, for leaders and managers who are experts in the work of the people in the team:

  1. You will always have credibility. You’ve been there and done it and you have wisdom to offer, so mentor others to grow and develop in their knowledge and skill.
  2. You might find delegation and letting go a bit of a challenge. Will they do it as well as you?  As it happens, they may do it better, which is great, but even if they don’t, they may just do it differently, or cheaper, or quicker than you and all of those have value.
  3. Be careful that all roads don’t lead to you. Technical experts often become fixers of others’ problems rather than coaches who help people work it out for themselves.  One day you may leave and whilst you want a decent send off, people to be a bit sad etc., you don’t want the place to fall apart.  So, encourage people to sort their own problems, with your support.
  4. Your knowledge is not in question here, so take time to develop your leadership skills. Leadership is a skill to be mastered, like any other and the great thing about it is that you can apply it in a variety of settings.
  5. Watch out for meddling tendencies dressed up as “being helpful”. If you do it because you are missing something you love (management roles can be very lonely for technical leaders), find something else you love, or be a contributor on another project rather than overpowering others who have a job to do too.

And for leaders who didn’t take the technical route:

  1. Listen hard and learn fast. You don’t need to be able to do the jobs of everyone in the place, but you do need to have intelligent conversations with them about their work and what you can do to smooth their path to success.
  2. Consider a stint on whatever happens to be your version of the shop floor, more than one if you can. It’s a first-hand experience you can discuss with people, will give you a better insight than just observing and may well up your credibility with others. At the very least it will give them something to laugh at.
  3. Attend forums where you can develop a bit more technical knowledge. As well as benefitting you it shows commitment to the team respect for what they do and can help you develop some great networks.

Whichever route has got you to where you are now, make a commitment to using your knowledge and skill to be the kind of leader people want to have around.  Meddling is so 2019.

2020 forced us to embrace remote working and many have fallen in love. It makes sense, it saves time, money and energy and helps life feel more balanced. Apart from the home-schooling part as many a frazzled working parent will tell you. So in love are some that they claim they never need visit an office again; that they can connect with their colleagues perfectly well from a distance. As usual love is blind and if you look closely, the cracks are starting to show, so to avoid a splinter becoming a full-blown shatter, read on.

Firstly, some context. We haven’t worked permanently in an office for 30 years. We’re not sure we’d know how to anymore. We’d probably make endless faux pas and get hauled into small rooms for someone to have a word about speaking too loudly, snorting when laughing and upsetting Anna by drinking Vimto out of her favourite mug which says “Be grateful every day” on it - grateful for the mug indeed but that is beside the point.

In our many years of being office based, field based and managing both remote teams and ones who sit back-to-back, we can conclude that we are great fans of remote working. Follow the rules of good practice and any fellow nomad will tell you it’s an efficient and effective way to be a strong contributor. It is interesting then, that a one year enforced ban on office working for most, has highlighted the real value of being together with colleagues in one place and what we’re losing by being apart.

You may have observed working patterns in 2020 when the pandemic hit and then hung around. We can summarise these into three stages:

Stage one: Set Up and Reassure. Many industries moved fast to get people what they needed to function at home, set up morale building initiatives and a rash of one to ones and team meets to ensure everyone was coping and smiling. And if you were lucky, standards were adjusted, and expectations managed.

Stage two: Keep Calm and Commute. With home working now the norm, standards were restored. As restrictions eased, albeit temporarily, some ventured back into offices whilst others preferred (and in many cases were encouraged) to remain at home. Office returners welcomed more space, resources and human contact but had to navigate one-way systems, handwash stations and the shock of being only one of two people in the office.

Stage 3: Back in Solitary. A winter lockdown held little of the novelty of its sunnier predecessor and motivation levels waned. And that is pretty much where we are now, with hope on the horizon that we will emerge blinking into the light at some point soon.

These stages have served to show what we are truly missing by being apart and what we can do without. Here are three of each – add them to the mix when you discuss your longer-term policy for where work is located in future and how that impacts on business, team working and the sector in general.

Three reasons you don’t need to be in the office:

  1. For team members to do their individual work. Provided everyone has the resources they need, space and peace to work and a bit of self-discipline, we’re all discovering we can get more done apart. We benefit from less chatter and “can you spare me a minute?” type distractions. No commute for many has been a game changer and we’re getting our heads down to deliver to tight deadlines.
  2. To check up on your team. You really don’t. Remember what you had before all this upheaval - your employees were trustworthy, worked hard and the last thing they needed was micromanaging. They still don’t. This is an adjustment for team leaders – it’s tough not to have face-to-face access to people and what they are up to, but it’s a vital adjustment to make, if you want to lead a high performing team.
  3. To perform the comms basics. Updates – one to one, team or business can be done perfectly well through the range of remote tools we’ve all mastered. And if point two is bringing you out in hives, remember you can check up on progress during these catch ups.

Having flown the flag for remote working, here are three powerful reasons why we need a return to base camp, for some of the week at least.

  1. To learn from more experienced colleagues. What got you to the level you are at now? I’m guessing a lot of it involved grafting, being thrown in at the deep end, falling down, wiping your grazes and getting back up again to be better. But you will also have learned a lot from others, from just being around them. When you saw your line-manager excel at a negotiation, overheard a conflict well handled, shadowed a colleague and watched them deal expertly with a major client– that learning was absorbed without you even realising. The pandemic has wiped out these little gems of learning. We need to be back together again so less experienced team members can learn from the veterans. So many of these nuggets happen by chance, it’s impossible to recreate them virtually.
  2. For team cohesion. At some point, teams need the warm body experience. Teams who were geographically spread pre-Covid still knew they were going to meet up at some point in the year. If these events are well facilitated with meaningful agendas, they create a sense of team so powerful, it keeps us going until we meet again. The shared experience stops people getting scratchy with each other from a distance. We recognise the value in the relationship and keep collaboration levels high. You spot the mole hills before they expand to mountains. You get a feel for how people are in a way you just can’t on screen.
  3. For a sense of company culture. Despite all the work your business has done to develop company values, behaviours and guidance on “the way we do things around here”, there’s a missing piece. As it turns out, culture also has a postcode. We need to be in a building to truly get a sense of the company we have joined. No one is more surprised by this than us, but we have been involved in a number of virtual onboarding projects and it is a bump in the road we keep hitting. There is something about co-habiting while working that gives us a clear sense of culture. Central operations dictate the primary culture with regional hubs adding vital subcultures. They help us work and behave as one brand. It’s official, you have to be there. Not every day, but some of the time.

As with most things in life, balance is boring but key. Let’s create a future that combines a respect for remote working with a newfound energy for the office. For the good of team, we must once again learn to live together - and apart and maximise the benefits of both.

When we ask a group of leaders about the best leader they ever had, they tell us about the one who supported, stretched and believed in them. It is never a leader who gave great speeches, spun awful news, or kept them in the dark. At the root of the relationship, with their favoured leaders was trust. A firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.

Think about who you listen to through this pandemic. Chris Whitty is our choice. He is knowledgeable, consistent, and human. He can speak to us straight; have our back and wants us to avoid the virus. Not a whiff of hot air from Professor Witty.

How do we get to the nirvana of a trusted leader? Let's explore its four elements.

Credibility – you know what you are talking about, you know what you don't know, and you treat those with less expertise with respect. You speak with an air of authority, not superiority and never trip people up with your knowledge.

Reliability –doing what you promised. It includes being on time. We worked with a team whose leader was always late to sessions. His team were resigned to it. What they really thought was, "why can't he get up earlier, be more organised and show us some respect by being here on time?". It undermined so many of his great attributes and was so simple to fix.

Intimacy – do not panic, this isn't about any weird exercises or confessions. It is about your people feeling psychologically safe with you and valued for their differences. We recently coached a young woman who was terrified of public speaking. Her last boss often ridiculed her when she presented, delighting in any mistakes. It had a profound effect on her and was holding her back. Who wants to be that boss? Needless to say, she didn't trust her boss as far as she could throw her.

Self-orientation – this is the secret sauce. High self-orientation is to be avoided. It is all about you – how you are coming across, feel today, and how this is all impacting you. You have to be managed; an email is sent round every morning by reception warning everyone of your mood. Instead of spending energy working, your people are steering you around the hurdles like a toddler.

Low self-orientation is the aim. You are okay with yourself, so use your energy to grow fabulous people and to make sure everyone achieves. Yes, deep down, you allow yourself a little smile of satisfaction when someone in your team is impressive, nails the pitch or gets promoted. You deserve a quiet moment of reflection on being a trusted leader and what that does for the team.

Finally, a few ideas for you around trust.

  1. Keep up to date with your area of expertise, allow others to teach you about theirs, be curious, love learning.
  2. Aim to promise what you can deliver.
  3. Examine your leadership mindset. Do you challenge and support your people? If you do too much support, you risk de-skilling your team, too much challenge creates stress. Just enough of both keeps you in the safety zone.
  4. Explore emotional intelligence. Can you reason with and understand your emotions so that you can regulate them and channel them usefully?
  5. Pass on your wisdom around trust to your team. Help any individuals who find any of the elements difficult. Sometimes when we teach, we learn.

 

 

Another question we ask groups we work with is about who has influenced them. Mothers are top of the list way above David Beckham and the Queen. We like to think our children would mention us if asked that question.

Aim to be the leader your team members name when we ask them who is the best leader they ever had.

"Trust is the highest form of human motivation. It brings out the very best in people", Stephen Covey.