Building Better Cultures

In this episode of the Building Better Cultures podcast, we learn about the principles of Raw Leadership, how to lean into your authentic power as a leader and how to create better organisational cultures that your employees want to participate in. Our guest is Colleen Bashar, is the Senior VP of Global Solution Sales for Guidewire Software; a cloud-based service that efficiently combines digital, core, analytics, and AI to deliver results to clients. Colleen walks us through her 16-year journey at the company, where she started as a sales consultant, to her current position as a people leader and how she effectively manages a team of over 150 people.

KEY INSIGHTS:

>>> What 'Raw Leadership' is, and its three core values: Curiosity, Authenticity and Vulnerability. >>> The importance of investing and reflecting on yourself as a leader to help you lean into your authentic self. >>> Why practicing self-awareness is incredibly powerful.

LINKS:

GuideWire LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/guidewire-software/ Colleen's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colleenscott/

ABOUT SCOTT: Learn more about Scott McInnes, your host and the Founder and Director of Inspiring Change, by clicking here.

ABOUT OUR SPONSOR - WORKVIVO: If you're struggling with communications in this time of new hybrid workplace conditions, click here to explore Workvivo, a collaboration platform that offers seamless digital integration.

Celebrating Success and Building Pride​:

We're doing some focus groups for a new client, and an attendee said, "We used to hear stories of the difference we made, and we don't hear about it anymore. It'd be nice to get that back.​" ​ Why is it important? ​

Because it helps to celebrate your purpose – Why you exist – through the difference you make, and that's at the very core of the culture you want to create​.

Stories bring strategy to life:

Strategy is boring – stories bring it to life and show the difference people can make. The halo effect is people seeing examples of the difference they can make​.

Aligned with your strategy, it highlights the difference everyone can make​ They create a sense of belonging and a reason to stay – we know from research that people will move jobs for a mere 5-10% pay rise, so we need to do something more to get them to stay – pride is EMOTIVE and powerful​. ​ So how can you find and tell them?​

Proactively look for them – get your senior leaders or internal communications staff out into the business, talking to people and asking, 'Tell me a story about a time when you or someone on the team made a difference.'​

Create feedback channels for your front-line staff to provide feedback on the stories they see and hear. And turn it into a recognition programme or reward your people when they submit a story. ​ Using Your Stories:

Bring them to life at staff events, turn them into short internal podcasts or videos on your intranet - even email as a last resort​ Keep it local – ask leaders at team meetings to spend 10 mins asking teams about what's made them proud.

About Scott (Your host): Learn more about Scott McInnes, your host and the Founder and Director of Inspiring Change, by clicking here.

On this episode of Building Better Cultures we're checking in with Kevin Empey, Managing Director of WorkMatters, who first shared thoughts about pandemic fall-out back in March 2021 (Ep 61)

Kevin details various models going forward and where the priorities must lie for leaders invested in cultivating agility as well as sustainability. The need for onsite collaboration and innovation is real, but so are the advantages virtual workers have seen in skipping their commutes. Are hybrid solutions a brilliant compromise or the source of confusing mixed messages? Finding the right balance will require leaders to develop experiential metrics as well as communications that resonate with the hearts and minds of employees. "We have an opportunity to reset workplace culture and reaffirm it," says Kevin. "And also maybe to lose some of those values that we said were important, but in fact actually are not." Employee experience and servant leadership loom large on the new Work 4.0 horizon – one ideally based in fulsome, authentic values and transparency. What signals is your workplace culture sending in this time of transition?

Key Takeaways:

• Pandemic overnight transformed old, arguably broken models of workplace culture.
• What's coming next? Organisational culture has been infused with a complexity of choice, modes of operation, challenges and opportunities.

• Should leaders embrace flexibility or prioritize certainty? Kevin advocates for "freedom within a frame," providing guardrails while preserving a critical measure of flexibility.
• Workplace culture has been forever redefined by the upsides that employees have experienced in working remotely. There is an element of questioning that makes directives less easily rolled out than in the past.
• Change management today requires more intentionality than ever, with leadership mapping communications to employee hearts and minds.
• Office productivity and meaningful collaboration have a bar to meet. Employees no longer want to default to long commutes just to check the box.
• What's does Work 4.0 look like? Kevin sees two intersecting horizons:

• • The 2022 Agenda: Helping leaders and managers navigate the transition to new work models that are sustainable and effective today.
  • The Long-Term Agenda: Visioning objectives, strategies and cultural values that will drive greater adaptivity and agility moving into the future.

• Kevin believes several factors that will be determinative of corporate fates:

• • Whether flexible, forward-looking models for performance management, rewards, development, recruitment and succession are adopted.
  • Whether leaders put in place processes adapted to new workplace cultures.

• • Whether Future of Work strategy is leveraged to examine and redefine who, how, why and whether certain workplace processes remain viable.
• • Whether agile cultural, leadership and employee experience strategies are established and sustainable in the long term.

• Advice for maximizing organizational opportunity at this juncture:
  • Implement coaching and HR support to foster servant leadership.
  • Adopt strategies that thoughtfully reflect corporate values and culture.
  • Acknowledge and address leadership vulnerability in the face of unknown variables and change.
  • Balance open communications and a human-centered approach with a more directive, command-and-control leadership style where indicated.

• Moving ahead cultural values are center stage, revealing truths and challenging received wisdom about what works and doesn't for employees across demographics.
• Leaders are faced with a unique opportunity to undertake a robust assessment of the values that underpin their cultures and will shape workplace health going into the future.

ABOUT KEVIN EMPEY

Kevin is the founder of WorkMatters, a leadership and organisation development consulting firm focused on supporting business leaders, HR leaders and their employees prepare for the changing world of work.

Website: https://workmatters.ie WorkMatters @LinkedIn Kevin @LinkedIn Kevin @Twitter

ABOUT SCOTT MCINNES Learn more about Scott McInnes, your host and the Founder and Director of Inspiring Change, by clicking here.

ABOUT WORKVIVO If you're struggling with communications in this time of new hybrid workplace conditions, click here to explore Workvivo, a collaboration platform that offers seamless digital integration.

Organisations of all sizes are trying to define parameters for today's new workplace cultures – whether remote, on-site or in-between. Host, Scott McInnes, invites a people management expert Andrew Bartlow, the Founder and Managing Partner at the People Leader Accelerator, to share his 25+ years of expertise. Andrew shares practical tips and tools leaders can implement when establishing healthy workplace cultures. He dives into detail on a critical strategy –– clarity –– and its importance in engaging and motivating your organization to pursue corporate goals.

Thank you to our sponsor, Workvivo, the communications and collaboration platform that provides seamless digital integration for your hybrid or traditional workplace.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Leaders need to stay flexible and iterative with new workplace models while at the same time communicating solid, dependable plans.

2. Change management via tiny steps can be disruptive. Andrew advises "ripping off the bandage" and carefully considering decisions to accelerate adoption and minimize fatigue.

3. Internal communications are the core much that happens within organizations, but rather than dropping by a desk, it's about dropping in on chat or Slack.

4. Determine the best modes of communication. What works most effectively at each level of the organization?

5. Learning through listening (and osmosis) isn't gone. It's just moved from the hallway or cafeteria to social media platforms.

6. Create dedicated corporate retreat spaces where "planful" human interaction occurs.

7. Execute meaningful, consistent communications and check-ins at all levels.

8. Andrew sees new mediums as potentially impactful alternatives to the written word: Podcasts, short audios, and video messaging.

9. To retain and recruit talent in a highly competitive market, organizations must offer remote options, fair compensation, and competent and humane management.

10. Andrew believes the No. 1 thing to build a thriving workplace culture is clarity, including well-defined organizational priorities and comprehensive and comprehensible messaging.

ABOUT ANDREW BARTLOW Andrew helps organisations design people-management practices that support success. Leveraging 25+ years of Human Resources and Talent experience within the most highly regarded HR functions globally, he provides organisational advisory services and mentoring for HR leaders.

Website: www.peopleleaderaccelerator.com

Andrew @LinkedIn

ABOUT SCOTT MCINNES Learn more about Scott McInnes, your host and the Founder and Director of Inspiring Change, by clicking here.

ABOUT WORKVIVO If you're struggling with communications in new hybrid workplace conditions, click here to explore Workvivo, a collaboration platform that offers seamless digital integration.

Darren Murph is an organisational architect who specialises in and knows what works – and what doesn't. Based on 15 years at GitLab, most recently as Head of Remote, he has all kinds of concrete advice for organisations trying to figure out the correct configuration for their individually distributed workplace models.

Some C-suiters are reluctant to abandon old office-based operations, emphasizing proximity over business results. But looking ahead at the role and impacts of organisational design, Darren believes the forward-thinking, progressive leaders (and ultimately the most successful enterprises) will embrace flexibility, learning and a healthy redefinition of what it means to … build better cultures.

You can check out GitLab's playbook, filled with information about all things remote, here.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

• GitLab was founded as an all-remote company and today has 1,500 team members in more than 67+ countries with no brick-and-mortar offices.
• What to keep in mind when getting started with a remote work design:
• Shift your mindset from where people work to how people work.
• Actively implement programs that combat proximity bias. Leadership can communicate that there is no advantage in working at the office by themselves working from home.
• Audit workflows across your organisation and ask: Will this work if everyone is distributed, or do they need to be in an office? Then build out a changelog based on those jobs that require an office and reconceive them.
• Making remote work viable across the enterprise builds resiliency.
• All-remote or all co-located workplace environments are the easiest to administer because the playing field is even. Hybrid, by contrast, can quickly devolve into the worst of all scenarios with proximity bias and jockeying.
• The easiest way to hedge against proximity bias is to keep senior leaders outside the office by default. Remote work is a top-down proposition and requires conviction.
• Agility is key, and the ability to test, learn, and iterate. People and operations can be modulated based on proactive experimentation.
• Darren references research compiled by the workplace communications platform Slack that reveals interesting insights into the impacts on middle management of the overnight adoption of remote work and the current lack of response on the part of leadership.
• Writers Take Note: The most important thing a company can do is ensure that all employees have strong written communication skills. Effective storytelling will be far more influential in remote environments that don't rely on or reward charisma and talk. Scott recommends some related reading from a previous guest, John Simmons, author of "We, Me, Them and It."
• On Diversity: Hire a diverse group of recruiters, watch your staffing demographic shift, and broaden by extension.
• Parting thoughts for leaders at companies of all sizes:
• Build the right workplace culture and ethics into your business model.
• Fully embrace a people-first orientation that recognizes the power of uplifting employees with empathy and flexibility.
• Take advantage of the journey and opportunity to get honest, embracing the importance of values fit – not just a culture fit.

ABOUT DARREN MURPH

Named an "oracle of remote work" by CNBC, Darren serves as GitLab's Head of Remote. He is a visionary in organisational design, leading at the intersection of people, culture, operations, inclusivity, marketing, employer branding and communication.

• About Darren/GitLab
• @LinkedIn
• @Twitter

ABOUT SCOTT MCINNES Learn more about Scott McInnes, your host and the Founder and Director of Inspiring Change, by clicking here.

ABOUT WORKVIVO If you're struggling with communications in this time of new hybrid workplace conditions, click here to explore Workvivo, a collaboration platform that offers seamless digital integration.

Big corporate initiatives designed to transform workplace cultures are often top-down affairs, this week's guest has taken a different approach to integrate sustainability across Swiss Re, a global financial services provider. James Hartley, a global HR Leader at Swiss Re, shares with us the nuts and bolts of their CO2NetZero programme, a rallying point for climate activism that has ignited ongoing interest and creativity among employees around the world.

James has maintained the momentum by staying communicative and open to changes as well as by fostering storytelling that resonates on a personal level. The results? Many measurable quantitative and qualitative impacts, large and small, as well as an interactive app that more than 4,000 employees have downloaded to track, learn about and better understand the ways in which environmental healing starts with the kind of individual daily efforts we can all make — if we know how.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• James unpacks Swiss Re's corporate DNA, which fuels a commitment to sustainability:

• • A purpose-led culture whose core mission includes empowering employees to help make the world more resilient.
  • Climate change and reaching a net-zero footprint is a central corporate value.

• Does micro-change make an actual difference? Absolutely — when people band together to take individual actions that build community and truly add up through sheer volume.
• Swiss Re's CO2NetZero programme is iterative — meant to be co-created, fluid and responsive to feedback from across the enterprise.
• Inviting employees at every level of the organisation to participate not just in the execution but the conception of an ESG programme is key. By building cross-functional teams, staging workshops and taking ongoing feedback, leadership secured tremendous buy-in.

• Internal champions play an important role by spreading the word and engaging others.
• Narrative Benefits: Out of Swiss Re's company-wide commitment to sustainability has come a wealth of anecdotes, both emotional and practical, that connect to the "why."
• Sharing personal stories opens up emotional connections in even "right-brained" financial services types, reinforcing the overall corporate commitment to climate activism.
• Swiss Re's sustainability programme is built on trust, not micromanagement. James believes employees feel deputized and motivated to take action independently.
• Bottom Line Stats:

• • 130,000 individual acts of climate activism.
  • 1,500 tonnes of direct removal through carbon certificates.
  • A cumulative direct removal of thousands of tonnes globally.

• Maintaining Momentum:

• • James fosters ongoing engagement by cultivating connections, very often through constantly refreshed shared stories and interactive tools on the app.

• • The platform is constantly refreshed with new series of challenges, education and information.
  • Regional champions are deputized to run with locally relevant ideas.

• Recommended first steps for companies of any size that want to make a concerted commitment to sustainability:

• • Start a conversation. Don't be intimidated by being the need to be something big, shiny and already fully formed.
  • Create a space for individuals to bring their ideas and express their creativity through action.

• • No matter the size of your organisation, recognize that every single action contributes to a joint movement that drives bigger global change.

If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider clicking here to rate and review it!

ABOUT SCOTT MCINNES Learn more about Scott McInnes, your host and the Founder and Director of Inspiring Change, by clicking here.

ABOUT JAMES HARTLEY

A transformational and purpose-led People & Culture Executive, James has extensive global HR experience.

• James on LinkedIn - @LinkedIn
• Website - About Swiss Re's Sustainability Programme

ABOUT WORKVIVO If you're struggling with communications in this time of new hybrid workplace conditions, click here to explore Workvivo, a collaboration platform that offers seamless digital integration.

Are you ready to integrate a values-based component into your corporate ethos? It's a big commitment, but one with tremendous ROI at every level. On this episode of Building Better Cultures, Scott talks with Sandy Cross, CPO in the Professional Golf Association of America (PGA).

But for it to work, the effort must be for real. Without buy-in from top leadership – a deep understanding and commitment to sustained change – don't bother, says Sandy. The PGA's working group based its program on feedback from up and down the organization, and leaders have deployed it without equivocation. Learn what elements are key to upping your DEI game and how your workplace culture's frame of mind benefits when a clearly articulated corporate values set is kept front of mind.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Mission-driven to values-based: The PGA culture embraced its mission deeply but Sandy advocated for more attention to the "how" of executing that agenda.
• The PGA developed a playbook to support four people-centered pillar values – each of which includes visible, observable behaviours:
  • Have each other's back.
  • Practice gratitude.
  • Get better every day.
  • Start with clarity.
• Sandy's initiatives have bolstered retention by fostering the flexible, culturally connected hybrid workplace that Millennials (especially) demand.

• The PGA used a bottom-up approach to define values, based on the outcome of a working group of nine employees selected by peers.
• Keeping It Real: Sandy's values-driven agenda emphasizes measurable, behaviors and actions.

• Having well-defined values gives a chance for difficult conversations because they provide a shared language, foundation and understanding.
• Committed Deployment: The PGA's approach is holistic, using values as a lens starting at the hiring process through onboarding and annual values-based (as separate from performance-based) evaluations.
• Opportunity for Growth: Team members who "get it" can serve as coaches, mentoring and encouraging open communication among team members.
• Watch Out for Weaponization: There can be friction because values-based culture doesn't promise that everyone gets what they want every time.
• Powerful Goal-Setting: Each PGA individual on an annual basis must identify one of the shared values they intend to prioritize for improvement and articulate what success would look like. What's the desired behavior or outcome?

• The best first steps for organizations undertaking a "values journey":
  • Talk to the leadership team. Are they ready on every level to embark on – and stay committed to – the journey?
  • Support and embody the mission throughout the enterprise.
  • The program has to be embedded across the full employee lifecycle.
  • If it's not going to be a deep, sustained commitment, say Sandy, skip it. False starts, shallow or hollow efforts are definitively a step in the wrong direction.

ABOUT SCOTT MCINNES Learn more about Scott McInnes, your host and the Founder and Director of Inspiring Change, by clicking here.

ABOUT SANDY CROSS

As Chief People Officer for the PGA of American with responsibility for DEI, Sandy's career journey has been about building purpose-driven, values-based and people-centric cultures. Learn more here:

• Website: www.pga.com
• Sandy @Twitter
• Sandy @LinkedIn

ABOUT WORKVIVO If you're struggling with communications in this time of new hybrid workplace conditions, click here to explore Workvivo, a collaboration platform that offers seamless digital integration.

If we didn't already know it, the pandemic laid bare the fact that, as humans, we inevitably bring our whole selves to our jobs - including a range of emotions. This episode of Building Better Cultures focuses on mental health, which has taken center stage in the workplace and softened the separation between personal and professional.

Our guest, Niamh Fitzpatrick, a psychologist who works with business and sportspeople alike The pandemic deprived us of the ability to congregate among our favourite tribes (sports, entertainment, extended family, volunteer activities) but it also delivered a critical pause — a chance to get honest with ourselves and assess our priorities.

Our workplaces can be a source of the safety and acceptance on which humans thrive, particularly when leaders (themselves humans in need of support) foster cultures of openness and psychological safety.

This episode offers advice about how to recognize and respond to workers in distress; the role of communication and empathy in fostering healthy, productive workplace cultures; and how to bring out the best in teams by seeing, accepting and supporting the very real impacts of mental health.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Humans are tribal by nature and we seek out professional, social and familial groups with which to identify, share values and protection as well as create accountability.
• Why the pandemic has deeply impacted mental health:
• Daily tribal connections (sports, entertainment, social networks and other diversions/rituals) were suddenly completely shut down.
• Covid19 produced heightened emotions and vulnerability in people across the spectrum.
• The pause induced by lockdown afforded people a chance to notice feelings.

• Because we are humans first, we bring mental health challenges with us into the workplace; or we pay the price for suppressing them.
• Teams do not perform to their highest capacity when mental health is being denied or ignored. Successful leaders encourage their teams to express feelings within the workplace context.
• Executives, too, are humans impacted psychologically by the same stresses with which they are helping employees cope.
• Leaders who want to be alert and astute about mental health impacts should:
• Tune in and determine their employees' psychological baseline (even if only via Zoom): Are individual workers typically late, harried, prepared, unprepared or overwhelmed? Dial-up managerial skills and take note of the status quo.
• Watch for any changes in effect and then follow up with questions and concerns.

• Four pillars to protect leaders from burnout:
• (1) Sleep/rest
• (2) fresh air/movement
• (3) nutrition/hydration and
• (4) connection.
• Effective leaders give workers permission to process their emotions.
• Niamh's Top Takeaway: An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behaviour. The sooner authentic mental health challenges are validated, the sooner we can process emotions and take steps to move on.

ABOUT SCOTT MCINNESLearn more about Scott McInnes, your host and the Founder and Director of Inspiring Change, by clicking here.

ABOUT NIAMH FITZPATRICKNiamh Fitzpatrick is a psychologist who works in the area of peak performance in sport and business, helping sportspeople and business leaders with performing under pressure, confidence in business, resilience in the face of setbacks, team cohesion and corporate wellness. She also works with people around loss and grief and wrote 'Tell Me the Truth About Loss,' following the tragic death of her sister, Daire Fitzpatrick, an Irish Coastguard pilot in 2017.

Website: http://www.niamhfitzpatrickpsychology.ie Twitter: @NFitzPsychology

ABOUT WORKVIVOIf you're struggling with communications in this time of new hybrid workplace conditions, click here to explore Workvivo, a collaboration platform that offers seamless digital integration.

There's been a recent trend towards hiring for culture or values fit. It seems sensible in principle - hire people who share a similar working ethos and they should fit in and get going more quickly - but, in doing so, what might you be missing? How can hiring people with similar value sets help to create more diverse workforces? Or create that bit of tension and challenge that often results in bringing the best out in your people? So maybe it's not about hiring for cultural fit, but about hiring for cultural add or cultural stretch?

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'Shorts by Building Better Cultures' is a short-form podcast in which we share our tuppenceworth on subjects in the areas of leadership, employee engagement, organisational culture and internal communications.

#BuildingBetterCultures #BBCShorts #InspiringChange #CreatingConnections

In this episode of Building Better Cultures, we hear from a top virtual-speaking specialist who sees a golden opportunity in the virtual world. Peter Hopwood, a global executive speaker coach, believes the most reticent public speakers can emerge as stronger, more engaging communicators than ever before.

There are ways to leverage your online environment and actually take pleasure in an ability to control the stage. Peter highlights the many variables (from sound to lighting to backdrop to gesticulation) that can be modulated to our advantage. He also explains other new factors to consider, such as the imperative to develop disciplined, compelling messaging that quickly captures – and then holds – people's interests.

To learn more about the Building Better Cultures podcast and related services, visit www.BuildingBetterCultures.com. You can also find out more about Scott's coaching and consultancy by visiting Inspiring Change's website.

If you're struggling with communications in this time of hybrid workplace, click here to explore Workvivo, a collaboration platform that offers seamless digital integration.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Some of the changes and challenges that leaders in our new hybrid face:
  • In a virtual world we lack all the usual sense-based indicators and cues.
  • Screens requires that we amplify (or minimize) our expressions, gestures and actions so that they read remotely.
  • Factors like sound, lighting, voice, concision, air time all impact how we come across online.
  • Attention spans are shorter and harder to marshal remotely when so many competing apps are there to distract.
• Stay conscious at all times of how you're showing up, whether you're connecting and how brief the amount of time to engage really is.
• Many leaders are lagging behind in awareness, oblivious that what worked in boardrooms doesn't translate to Zoom, WebEx or whatever other online platform.
• When you're appearing onscreen, capitalize on the upside! You're 100% in control and can manage how you project and what kind of background you present.
• What storytelling is for Peter and why it matters: Stories about what has happened to us and the attendant emotions define us as humans and create the bridges through which we connect. Emotional connection = Power of storytelling.
• Emblematic words in a post-cubicle hybrid workplace where people show up differently – Empathy, Gratitude and Community.
• Advice from Peter for leaders who wish to become better communicators: Be curious and show curiosity; and tell stories

EPISODE QUOTES"I help teams and professionals find their stories and deliver them in a way that connects in a way that people will remember for the right reasons."

"Screens are almost more intimate than face-to-face so the key is really being aware of how we're coming across."

"We really have to make sure that the things we share (onscreen) are more concise, more to the point, get people feeling engaged and connected."

"If you can do well and get chemistry going (onscreen), it can only help you when it comes to going back to or building on your in-person communications skills."

"If we can connect with emotion and get people to feel that emotion and connect it with the message we want to share, then to me, that is the power of storytelling and how to use it."

ABOUT PETER HOPWOODBritish Global Speaker Coach, Virtual Speaking Specialist & TEDx Coach, Storytelling for Sales Trainer, Worldwide Corporate Events MC & Speaker - lived in 7 countries, worked in 42, currently based in Croatia, working worldwide on Zoom! Storytelling strategist, confidence-booster & connector, I help professionals and global teams define, craft and deliver stronger stories, connect with their audiences and customers and take control of their messages, storyline & speaking impact. Website: www.peter-hopwood.com Peter @LinkedIn (lots of tips and resources)

ABOUT SCOTT MCINNESLearn more about Scott McInnes, founder and director of Inspiring Change, by clicking here.

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