Building Better Cultures

This episode of Building Better Cultures throws a spotlight on mental health and well-being as we tentatively re-enter workplace cultures forever changed by the pandemic. Scott's guest, Donna Reilly, is an expert in the development of corporate wellness programs. She reflects on Covid19's long-term impacts on organisations and the adjustments leaders will have to make in light of employees awakened to the importance of work-life balance. In this new reality, everyone has seen that remote offices can and do work. What does it mean when employees refuse to return to business as usual? Will there indeed be a "Great Resignation" or will corporate teams come together to evolve new methods for collaboration?

Donna offers concrete advice for leaders and employees alike – as well as a special shout out for managers in the middle, who have been in many companies the advocates and protectors of employee health and wellbeing. Now, says Donna, it's time for people at every level of the enterprise to take deep breaths and invest in self-care.

Since a hybrid workplace model appears to be here to stay, Donna proposes that enlightened leadership undertake initiatives designed to protect corporate mental health and enhance overall well-being, collectively and individually, as move into a new era.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• There are multiple elements and experiences at play when it comes to people's wants and needs in today's workplace, which only empathy and communication can bridge.
• About "The Great Resignation" – Donna believes it has been what she prefers to term a "Great Awakening," a result of the world's pause, time in which people were able to reevaluate their quality of life and status quo.
• Organisations have some catching up to do now that workers have experienced flexible conditions
• Donna outlines some of the health and wellness issues that are likely to arise as the result of new hybrid work environments:
• FOR LEADERS: The one-size-fits-all model no longer applies. Employees are more self-aware and will require bespoke approaches to qualify of life.
• FOR EMPLOYEES: Health and safety procedures will be top of mind as will adjusting to more live interactions and less control over their work-life balance.
• Donna suggests some tactics for leaders seeking to smooth the transition:
  • Survey employees both formally and informally, put champions on the ground and clearly establish what they want and need.
  • LISTEN to feedback and concerns.
  • Invest financially to establish the supportive tools indicated.
  • Take a long-term approach to investing in employee health and wellness strategies, which have documented ROI.

• Donna suggests some tactics for employees seeking to smooth the transition:
  • Don't return to the office without taking time to prepare (logistics like child care, commuting, changes to morning/evening routines).
  • Take a few deep breaths to calm yourself as you go.
  • Employees have a responsibility to contribute to their own mental health and well-being, for which Donna can provide tools and support. But at the end of the day, the effort and commitment rests with individuals themselves.

• PARTING WORDS OF ADVICE FOR EMPLOYERS: Truly stop, listen and commit to long-term employee mental health and wellness "because that's where you'll get the biggest dividend."
• PARTING WORDS OF ADVICE FOR EMPLOYEES: Don't forget about your "self." You know you best. Take baby steps every day, doing something you love in order to reinvest in and re-energize yourself.

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

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 Quotes:

"Although the restrictions are lifted, a lot of organisations are taking their time … You're going to have different policies and procedures depending on where you work." (Donna)

"Instead of calling it 'The Great Resignation,' Why don't we call it 'The Great Awakening' or 'The Great Realization' or 'The Great Rejuvenation' or "The Great Evaluation'?" (Donna)

"Self-reflection and what that can lead to is definitely a catalyst for 'The Great Resignation' and from an organisational perspective, they're learning too." (Donna)

"The (employer-employee) balance of power has somewhat shifted. People have had the time to go, 'What do I really want?' " (Scott)

"What we often forget is that people leaders are also people. We put all this pressure on them …but don't spend enough time necessarily thinking about them as a group." (Scott)

"(Middle managers) need support from above in terms of who is there for them, but also a gentle reminder that you don't have to be a solver of everybody's problems. You've got a lot of internal and external help in that space." (Donna)

"The role of the organisation is to supply whatever might be needed in terms of people to go to for support, different initiatives or programs … but (employees) have to want to support and build their own well-being."

"I don't think we'll see the (mental health) impact until we're fully at the end. We are still in that bit of survival mode, even as restrictions are lifting. People are still having that tense feeling. I don't think we're fully relaxed." (Donna)

"I don't think it's until we've come out the other side and allowed ourselves a sense of relaxation that we're really going to be able to assess the damage." (Donna)

"If all that came out of Covid is that we talk about (sensitive issues) more openly, then that's a win. That's an absolute win!" (Scott)

"Listen to what (your employees) want and take a long-term approach in terms of investment because that's when you'll get the biggest dividend." (Donna)

"When you start to feel stress levels rise, do something just for you! … People forget to take the time to check in on themselves and their energy levels. So take time for you." (Donna)

ABOUT DONNA Donna is an experienced wellness coach, trainer, facilitator and consultant. Her goal is to help people discover their true passion in life and work with them to reach their full potential. An experienced Senior HR Business Partner, she has worked in people functions across financial services for more than 16 years. Donna has a proven ability to work with stakeholders to executive team level and uses her energetic, creative, positive personality to help empower others and develop strong relationship with clients

Website: www.donnareillywellness.ie Donna @LinkedIn

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

ABOUT WORKVIVOTo discover Workvivo, a workplace communication and engagement platform that offers seamless digital integration, please click here.

In this episode of Building Better Cultures, Karen Jones spells out the many elements of the gold standard diagnostic model she deploys as a Managing Director at Denison Consulting. The inquiry starts with a survey of 12 key cultural measures, but those results are not an endpoint. On the contrary, they are meant as a starting place for critical conversations about what's working within a workplace culture – and what most clearly is not.

The kind of diagnostic consulting that Karen does depends on tremendous buy-in. While her initial point of entry is most often through Human Resources, the work can't fully succeed unless support comes from the top echelons of leadership. That ownership and willingness to be accountable are what fosters the atmosphere of trust required for employees throughout the ranks. The Denison process depends on candid, vulnerable feedback from team members at every level of the enterprise and, says Karen, that will never happen if they don't feel safe to speak out.

And once they do share thoughts? It's on corporate leadership to take real, meaningful steps towards adopting solutions. Failure to put evident muscle behind the outcome of a cultural survey will only leave employees dispirited, if not cynical, about the entire process.

Learn how high-performance culture can go to the next level when a concrete methodology, open communication and leadership integrity converge. It's a conversation timelier and more important than ever for companies adapting to today's quickly evolving hybrid workplace.

An overview of Denison's model is available here along with other resources

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, especially within the context of the hybrid workplace, click here to explore Workvivo, a collaboration platform that offers seamless digital integration.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The path through medicine, psychology and research ultimately brought Karen to where she is today, working as a coach and expert on organisational culture.
• Karen believes culture isn't something that can be summed up quickly, but that can – with the right tools – be measured and modeled. This requires balancing mission in the market and systems/processes to enable desired results.
• Diagnostic measures assess beliefs and assumptions that people are making in their organisational context – which originate from their own personal context.
• Throwing terms and affirmations up on a wall or into corporate literature will only breed cynicism if leadership has not committed to putting infrastructure and sustained support around those professed values.
• The very real impacts of having a toxic team member, even one who is highly successful, and at what point they must be asked to move on. And, if the employee is invited to leave, will leadership make clear that it was a values-based decision?

• Setting the Bar: Communicating values and systems in support of a high-performance culture will inspire specific conversation about the strengths and challenges to getting there.
• Culture is Business: It doesn't matter what strategies or innovations leadership tries to implement, it will fail if team members aren't fully bought in. Denison's focus is on ensuring adoption, which requires thoughtful strategic mapping.
• It's essential to establish an open climate of trust in which behaviors can be discussed and members of the enterprise at all levels feel safe to speak candidly about conditions on the ground.
• Culture most often sits with HR, but the owner should be the CEO along with the entire senior management team. If the effort is compartmentalized in HR, that's a red flag. It needs to be adopted from the top-down, bottom-up and everywhere in between.
• Karen's thoughts about the single most impactful thing that leaders can do today to improve their culture: Be curious. Ask your teams how they are feeling, what they need, what they don't have. Set clear expectations and stay open.

KEY QUOTES

"In order to really understand your current state of culture you have to have a mechanism that starts to elevate those beliefs and assumptions that are driving people's perceptions of the business."

"I believe people want to come to work to be their best. They get distracted when systems, processes or indeed people bring them down in motivation or emotionally or tap into fears."

"We have failed as a consulting firm if culture is a separate piece that people do when they have a bit of capacity. Knowing your culture, understanding, diagnosing, discussing it on a daily basis with your teams is really doing culture work."

"You can't create trust. Trust is an outcome of reliability, keeping promises."

"If we've done the strategy mapping, all the leaders understand their contribution to the culture. It's also the responsibility of every single person; every individual creates and impacts culture."

"We have the quantitative number on the measure but after diagnostics, for us, comes honest conversation. The number isn't the be-all, end-all. It's significant, but what really matters is teams sitting down and sharing the story (behind the numbers)."

"We like to assume we leave our emotions at the door when we go to work. We absolutely do not. We're human. It's about the being, not the doing."

"Sometimes leadership teams might need to do some work themselves before they're ready for this level of exposure."

ABOUT KAREN JONES

Karen works closely with clients and certified partners to turn what is often ambiguous and intangible into something energising and productive. She helps organisations define the high-performance culture they are seeking to create in order to drive their business results, through aligning people to their strategy and ensuring they are able to deliver the promises they make to their customers.

Working in the board room and the shop floor to align corporate culture and leadership climate, Karen aligns with teams to build their strategic clarity and create an environment that builds commitment.

Website: www.denisonconsulting.com Email: [email protected] @LinkedIn

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

ABOUT WORKVIVODiscover Workvivo, a workplace communication and engagement platform that offers seamless digital integration, please click here.

Our latest BBC shorts is about Creating Boundaries.

The pandemic has accelerated the idea of home / remote working and it's here to stay.

It's given us the flexibility to create a more blended approach to our work and home lives, like bringing the kids to school, doing a load of laundry, grabbing a coffee or going to a doctor's appointment.

BUT…

We're missing the downtime commuting gave us. We need to take that time back and do something we enjoy, like read a book, call someone up on the phone, listen to a podcast or just chill out!

AND…

We've not been great at creating and maintaining boundaries. A lot of us are working more hours, but are we being effective by doing so?

When you finish work for the day, actually STOP. Decide a time that your workday ends and leave it there – no laptop, phone, email, chat, you get the picture. Turn the notifications OFF.

Make time for yourself – Schedule in (YOUR CALENDAR) some time for you. The time you will use to rest, process and recharge.

And, hey, you're allowed to relax. You don't need to feel guilty about it. You'll be a better person and more energized to take on challenges and roadblocks.

Work-wise do the same;

Agree on a schedule with your team — When do we turn on? When do we switch off? There need to be guidelines but they need to be respected - you will be a more productive colleague for it.

And if you're a boss, lead by example.

Change doesn't just happen — YOU need to make it happen, for yourself, your colleagues or your team.

So what will you commit to doing differently today?

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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

The Building Better Cultures podcast starts out the new year with a lively conversation featuring Ray Walsh, a communications and internal localization consultant whose professional background and years of living in various European markets have given him unique insights into the power and nuance behind effective messaging. The author of "Localizing Employee Communications: A Handbook" shares thoughts about the challenges unique to global organizations that want uniformity of messaging but not at the expense of effective penetration among the employees those internal corporate communications must reach.

Ray reflects on the responsibility of leaders to collaborate and co-create communications by taking an active role in the process. The most effective internal communications understand and incorporate local culture. English works as the global language of business to a large degree, but not in all instances, which is why Ray has developed a framework for tackling the thorny problem of reaching across business units and teams in markets of varying sizes and cultures with variable norms. This podcast offers concrete tips for building (and co-creating) compelling content that will resonate among individuals while preserving central corporate culture and messaging.

Click here to read more about Ray's approach through his handbook, "Localizing Employee Communications."

To learn more about the Building Better Cultures podcast and related services, visit www.buildingbettercultures.com

If you're struggling with communications while adapting to a hybrid workplace model, click here to explore Workvivo, a collaboration platform that offers seamless digital integration.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• About the perennial challenges in Global (and global – small "g") Communications:

• Differences in language and culture.

• Comms materials not written in the local language (or taking into consideration other workplace differentiators) are less compelling, effective and inclusive.
• Lack of comms leaders with skills to translate, personalize and make more accessible internal marketing materials is a problem within many corporations.

• Ray shares thoughts on the cascade approach, in particular internationally - when management across functions is asked to share information but not provided language support, it leads to fragmentary duplication of effort and puts the enterprise at risk for error or inconsistency.

• Co-creation of communications requires thoughtful briefings, including:

• Who's the audience?

• What's the desired outcome?
• Is there anything you need to measure and why?
• Consider presentations that take specific approaches (co-created, translated, versus cascaded as-is).

• Ray finds it helpful to group markets into tiers:

• Tier 1: Large markets that merit co-creation of materials.

• Tier 2: Mid-sized markets in which materials are simply translated word for word.
• Tier 3: Smaller markets in which content might simply be passed on as-is.

• Irrespective of tiers, it's important to be collaborative in developing communications and work with those who are most engaged and able to make messages accessible for employees downstream.

• The Power of Storytelling: Most leaders still don't fully understand what it truly is, the kinds of color available to all of us or the many low-stress ways in which life experience can be personalized and incorporated in presentations.

• Ray believes it's advantageous to produce internal communications materials in the local culture's native tongue when the objective is to resonate on a deeper emotional level.

• Ray offers his best advice for companies looking to improve communications: Rather than centralizing, identify local stakeholders, consult with them often, given them time to co-create, translate if necessary and use their advice as you produce global materials in English for smaller markets.

KEY QUOTES

"In regional offices here in Europe I see physically that we have gaps – gaps in understanding, gaps in motivation, business conditions, culture. More of us that work in home offices need to know that we have these gaps."

"People are more likely to act on content that speaks to them."

"We have to rely on (a cascade approach) a lot and I think we should. Unfortunately information isn't like water. It doesn't flow naturally like a cascade, so it has its problems."

"I don't think we can simply put out a campaign and say, 'Let's cascade this' and just assume that they're going to do it effectively and in a fully engaged way."

"If you're going into too much detail, you're underestimating what your mature communicators can do for you. And if you don't give enough detail, then you're really encouraging … just flipping it forward."

"It's really important wherever possible to connect communications with (leadership's) desired local outcomes."

"Anything that connects abstract, global concepts to local examples, we consider a story; anything that grounds lofty concepts into the specifics of the workday."

"When we're trying to motivate or persuade, that's where I think it's much more effective to speak to (local employees') guts; to use their mother tongue, to make it easier for them."

"If you want to change behavior – or, more likely, prevent misbehavior – trainings coming from us in the Anglosphere may not be so effective."

"We have to from the very beginning build a mindset for global-ready content. Global readiness, I believe, should be built into almost everything we produce."

ABOUT RAY WALSH

Ray Walsh is an American communications consultant based in Prague. For 20 years he has supported global clients in a variety of industries and managed employee communications in-house for companies including UPS and DXC Technology. He has lived in his native US, and in Germany, Belgium and the Czech Republic.

Website: www.raywalsh.net @LinkedIn ABOUT SCOTT MCINNES

Learn more about Scott McInnes, founder and director of Inspiring Change, by clicking here.

ABOUT WORKVIVO To discover Workvivo, a workplace communication and engagement platform that offers seamless digital integration, please click here.

It's the end of the year and a time to think about what we've achieved this year and perhaps start to think about what lies ahead.

But taking time to reflect on achievements isn't something I've ever been very good at, and I don't think others are either. But it is really important to take stock and celebrate our achievements. If we don't it can often be the case that no-one else will either

So take some time to think about the three or four amazing things you've achieved this year - no matter how big or small.

----------------------------------------- '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

The world is no longer linear, and yet old command-and-control management structures persist. In this episode of Building Better Cultures, international management consultant Gill Kernick shares powerful insights about why it is that C-Suite executives sometimes lack the leadership skills necessary to support healthy workplace cultures. Internal communications, policies and best intentions go only so far when it comes to shifting paradigms.

Gill offers thoughts on why it is that some companies get stuck, their leadership mired in old-school thinking. Agile workplace structures give members of the team at all levels of the enterprise an opportunity to speak up and the confidence that their voices will actually be heard. Gill explains why it's so critically important to create an environment grounded in authentic care and respect. It unleashes great performances and sets up a safe landing when – as inevitability happens – failures occur.

There are concrete measures that leaders can take to empower employees to communicate now – rather than later when it's very possibly too late. Invite bad news. Look for red flags. When leaders speak honestly and with compassion, they provide the entire workplace culture permission to act with courage and conviction.

Among the suggestions Gill has for enlightened leaders:

• Ask proactively for the bad news, then welcome it!
• Assign and rotate the role of designated challenger among various team members.
• Make mistakes a source of learning, not blame; opportunity, not failure.
• Tell the truth. If something is amiss, just own it – with grace and an attitude that encourages others facing risks or failures of their own.

Click here to learn more about Gill's new book, "Catastrophe and Systemic Change: Learning from the Grenfell Tower Fire and Other Disasters."

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Gill shares a little of her background, including a lifelong fascination (starting in her formative years in South Africa) with human potential and the influence organisations can bring to bear in the contexts of equity and justice in the workplace and beyond.

• Catastrophic events often share a single commonality: Concerns were raised and dismissed. Liabilities tend to go completely unnoticed because they don't fit into traditional, outmoded paradigms in an increasingly complex world

• Intelligence from the front lines is critically important. Enlightened leaders understand that the healthiest workplace cultures remove barriers and free up the flow of communication.

• Organisational cultures depend on fresh thinking and the safety to foster systemic change. But before change can happen, there has to be an intentional approach that focuses not on piecemeal fixes but rather a sustained platform to support meaningful evolution.

• Planks in the Platform: Critical ingredients to effecting change.

• A willingness to engage with dissonance (and outright resistance) and dig into the gaps that no amount of documentation or policy-making can fill or reorder.

• Internal communications that directly address the changes and micro-changes that need to occur and hold space for those charged with executing them.

• Disbelief will persist as long as systemic change remains an abstraction (i.e. trainings, handbooks) rather than an actual, measurable human behavior that exists in real time.
• Leaders must demonstrate that they value feedback, that all voices are welcome and that mechanisms have been established to support them.

• Risk-taking has to be balanced against unintended consequences, taking into account the many variables – not least low probability events with high-consequence implications. It's a multidisciplinary pursuit that requires data analysis and feedback from all stakeholders.

• Diversity is the single biggest protection against bias, but workplace cultures have some distance to go before integrating not just the look of diversity but the actual voices and points of view represented by those from different backgrounds, orientations and experiences.

• Time is often the enemy of complex, sustained cultural change. Meaningful paradigm shifts require intention, grappling in gray areas and the dedication of ongoing resources.

• Averting negative consequences – catastrophic or more run of the mill – requires a workplace culture in which team members can bring their whole selves to the table. Innovative thinking, as well, demands a true openness and safe space for challenge.

• Leaders have it within their power to set the stage for healthy communication and collaboration, through tactics such as:

• • Ask proactively for the bad news, then welcome it!

• • Assign and rotate the role of designated challenger among various team members.

• • Make mistakes a source of learning, not blame; opportunity, not failure.

• • Tell the truth. If something is amiss, just own it – with grace and an attitude that encourages others facing risks or failures of their own.

• Gill's Top Tip: The single most important thing organisations can do to capture and apply the lessons of failures would be to search for bad news. Challenge the green and embrace the red!

ABOUT GILL KERNICK

Gill is a Strategic Consultant with a global track record of producing results through Development, Intellectual Property Design and C-Suite Culture Change Strategy Delivery. A sought-after author and speaker specialising in Safety, Culture and Leadership, she is an agile, strategic thinker with the ability to operate at all levels of an organisation and across diverse cultures. Gill partners with major Multi-National Corporations to create sustainable change, focusing on building leadership and management capabilities in complex, high-risk environments.

Gill's Book: "Catastrophe and Systemic Change: Learning from the Grenfell Tower Fire and Other Disasters."

Companion Podcast: https://shows.acast.com/catastrophe/episodes

@LinkedIn @Twitter

To learn more about the Building Better Cultures podcast and related services, visit www.buildingbettercultures.com

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.

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

ABOUT WORKVIVO To discover Workvivo, a workplace communication and engagement platform that offers seamless digital integration, please click here.

Peter Senge, the American systems scientist and author said, "People don't resist change; they resist being changed." And we've all heard the McKinsey '70% of change programmes fail' stat hundreds of times (largely because of a lack of buy-in from people and leaders).

Most corporate 'big change' is agreed by CEOs and senior teams and then pushed down through the organisation from the top, often without sufficient explanation or 'linking and labelling' back to purpose or strategy.

So what about if we turned that on its head? What if we drove change from the bottom up, by empowering people across organisations to make hundreds of micro-changes that, when rolled up, result in that big change the organisation was trying to create all along?

Yes, you'd need to ensure that everyone knew where you were going, why and how you're going there. And you'd need to ensure that everyone was pulling in the same direction by having:

1. A strategy but making it more compelling by turning it into a narrative that talks to head and heart.
2. A really emotive WHY - what's your purpose and is it compelling enough.
3. Lived values that are celebrated when they're live and people held to account for when they aren't.
4. Engaging Leaders that support and clear roadblocks and can contextualise and translate strategy.
5. Really clear objectives that cascade from organisation --> division --> teams --> individuals.

Something to just mull over perhaps?

'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

Host Scott McInnes' guest on this episode of Building Better Cultures exemplifies the passion she prescribes for strong leadership. Zana Goic Petricevic, founder and managing director of Bold Leadership Culture, brings a uniquely compelling brand of coaching and transformational approach to empowering workplace cultures. Her new book, "Bold Reinvented: Leading with Courage, Consciousness and Conviction," lays out foundational steps that leaders can take to inspire the best in their teams.

Communication is key, and it starts with setting the right tone and vision. The strongest leaders, says Zana, are constantly learning. They're able to hear all kinds of perspectives and embrace a broad spectrum of viewpoints. In other words, they are learners (the No. 1 trait Zana believes the strongest leaders share). There is an infectious energy communicated when corporate decision-makers are unafraid to do the digging, entertain the feedback and explore new, potentially better paths.

Zana shares with us a powerful model for corporate self-actualization with the acronym SOUL, Self, Other, Universe and Legacy. In this episode she spells out each of these four elements, providing personal examples and a challenge to leaders who are stuck in a "check-the-box" mentality. She wants all of us to ask – at work and in life – are we leaving it all on the field? Are we approaching the world from a place of fear or love? Passion is contagious and the visionaries who bring it transfuse everything and everyone around them.

Zana gives a shout-out to a book that has informed her thinking. Click here to learn more about "Radical Wholeness: The Embodied Present and the Ordinary Grace of Being," by Philip Shepherd.

You can discover more about the Building Better Cultures podcast and related services, by visiting www.buildingbettercultures.com 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

• Originally from Croatia, Zana introduces herself as a coach and consultant, as well as an author who understands ways in which conversations can be valuable tools for dissecting and improving leadership styles.
• Different cultures and a global orientation are integral to Zana's approach.
• The single word that for Zana embodies the best leaders? Learners. They share a common ability to stop and think, understand, raise their own awareness and grow.

• Another core competency prevalent among strong leaders? Decisiveness. Interestingly, it correlates back to being a learner. Doing your homework and pausing to reflect enables clear, decisive decision-making.
• Shifting perspective about what constitutes development can be powerful. Beyond the classroom, it can occur in myriad unexpected places, even among difficult colleagues.
• Does everyone have the potential to be a competent leader? Zana unequivocally says, "Yes!" It all depends on whether we actually choose to engage those innate abilities.
• About Zana's model and the four things she believes are key to sound leadership, which all require that we bring a strong sense of soul to the mission. Those elements are:

• S: Self. The journey begins with raising our own self-awareness and confronting ourselves honestly as to our beliefs, preconceptions and blind spots.

• O: Other. Leadership doesn't occur in isolation. When we lean into each other and bring compassion, we are strengthening a message of trust that builds strong cultures.
• U: Universe. On the leadership journey, there comes an inevitable point of adjusting to the larger atmosphere we're co-creating around us. What are we doing to impact and shape our overarching culture? We are part of a whole.
• L: Legacy. Great leaders bring a passion. They see the value and meaning in the work they are doing, and that commitment to honoring purpose is contagious.

• How do you know if you're laboring under an unconscious bias? We need to tune in and receive the feedback. We cannot grow ourselves alone, and devoid of how we're impacting those around us. It can be a calling "forth" rather than a calling "out."
• Zana shares thoughts on the subject of trust, which she believes has three faces that are inextricably intertwined:

• Trusting ourselves: You need to believe that what you are bringing is worthy and unapologetically embrace it, as well as take responsibility for your impact.
• Trusting others: It comes down to a decision to invest in a relationship, allow mistakes and provide a safe space to grow a mutual bond.
• Trusting something bigger than ourselves: We must come to terms with the fact that not everything is under our control, much as we would like it to be.

• It all comes down in the end to impact. Are you being the leader you are meant to be and bringing to each day a commitment to eliciting your best self in every endeavor?

Zana's #1 Leadership Gamechanger: Ask yourself whether you're playing to win, or playing not to lose. These are two drastically different approaches that determine whether you're doing things from a place of fear or a place of love. Are you staying silent and safe or speaking up? Are you taking risks to create what's missing or are you hanging back?

ABOUT ZANA GOIC PETRICEVIC

More information about Zana's new book, "Bold Reinvented: Next Level Leading with Courage, Consciousness and Conviction," is available here.

Website: www.boldleadership-culture.com Zana @LinkedIn

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

ABOUT WORKVIVO To discover Workvivo, a workplace communication and engagement platform that offers seamless digital integration, please click here.

It sometimes feels like Employee Engagement has been superseded by the new, best thing in leadership thinking - purpose, values, leading in a hybrid world etc. But, for me, it's about getting the fundamentals of work right so that workplaces are the best they can be to allow people to be the best they can be

David Macleod and Nita Clarke published Engage for Success in 2010 and the four enablers of EE are as true today than they ever have been:

1. An emotive corporate story

2. Engaging Leaders

3. Employee Voice

4. Integrity

Scott spoke to David and Nita in Ep 43 of the Building Better Cultures podcast and you can find their work at www.engageforsuccess.org

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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

While it may seem counter-intuitive at first, there is wisdom in the concept of leading from behind. This episode of Building Better Cultures deconstructs team dynamics and the long-term impact of providing individuals the space to contribute. Host Scott McInnes invites Peter Docker, the popular motivational speaker and author of multiple books, to share his unique take on human collaboration and the tools he's developed to put theory into practice.

Learn about the three pillars that Peter details in his new book, "Leading from the Jumpseat: How to Create Extraordinary Opportunities by Handing Over Control." Together they provide the mutually reinforced scaffolding for fostering healthy cultures – wherever people are working together and accountable to one another. Those three key ingredients include:

• Commitment
• Humble Confidence
• Belonging

From his years as a pilot and respected mentor in the Royal Air Force – as well as his transition into the private sector and beyond – Peter has derived an approach that empowers individuals and opens the way for the kind of leadership that inspires loyalty, drive and authentic pride of purpose.

The conversation wraps up with reflections on legacy. What do we wish to be remembered for – and why? For Peter, it's a question to be examined carefully. What may appear on the surface like the thing you wish to be remembered for could actually be far less important than what you have achieved just below the surface; sometimes the most penetrating impacts ripple out slowly over time.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• A bit about Peter's eclectic professional journey, from his career as a pilot with the Royal Air Force to his more recent success as an author and speaker.
• What "Leading from the Jumpseat" means and why this book is important not only for leaders of the largest companies but also within a single family unit.
• Peter shares the origin story that sparked the idea for "Leading from the Jumpseat."
• Leadership as Human Connection: Leaders are tasked with nurturing a sense of belonging because it fosters responsibility. People will tend to step up by choice more easily than they are willing to be held accountable. The secret ingredient: Caring.
• There is nothing "soft" about caring. Leaders who support and cultivate are nurturing a level of commitment not unlike that which military leaders elicit from their troops.
• Making the right moves: How leaders can promote a workplace culture that holds space for employees to contribute and shine. It starts at the top of the organization with clarity about priorities and goals. Once those guard rails are in place, the stage is set for what Peter calls "humble confidence." It's not about ego but clarity and purpose.
• What constitutes "humble confidence":
• • We are able to listen and welcome input from others.
  • We see the world as a place of purpose and opportunity, rather than scarcity and fear.
  • We're thinking of others around us, rather than just ourselves.
  • We're resolute in where we're going, even when we aren't sure of how we'll get there.
• On Commitment: The difference between a position and a stand: Peter explains the way in which a stand is clear and clearly moving forward. Once a stand is established, the commitment follows and a plan of action can be put in place.
• Peter offers some concrete exercises for leaders who want to build a better culture:
• • Commitment: Rather than a position against, figure out the stand "for" that sits underneath it.
  • Humble Confidence: Take a situation at home or at work for which you know a solution. Rather than going straight to problem-solving mode, enjoin those around you to suggest what they might do. The willingness to create that opportunity requires humble confidence.
  • Belonging: Send a text to someone you've been out of touch with for a while or reach out to someone on your team with a call out of the blue just to find out how things are going and what you can do to be of support. This is the human connection that underpins everything else.
• Peter explains why the concept of legacy is so important in his view. It's about being the pebble in the pond, and not knowing where those ripples will go. Holding space for those unknown effects is critical because we don't know what amazing things may derive downstream.

ABOUT PETER DOCKER

Click here to check out options for purchasing "Leading from the Jumpseat: How to Create Extraordinary Opportunities by Handing Over Control."

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

ABOUT WORKVIVO To discover Workvivo, a workplace communication and engagement platform that offers seamless digital integration, please click here.