Leadership

So much seems to be written about culture, and its importance, and the role leaders play in creating it.  And yet in my personal experience CEO’s and CHRO’s don’t spend nearly enough time and energy on the subject.  And of course whether you actively manage it or not, every organisation has one or more cultures ( large organisations often have subsets of culture within).

The Picture in this article shows what happens in nature when humans leave cities. Well, business is no different than nature.

Negativity takes over just like nature takes over when humans leave. In the case of businesses, people are disengaged. When staff are unhappy, they are in the office, but their attention is elsewhere. They much rather be somewhere else.

I’m sure you’ve heard it many times before but I’ll repeat it for the sake of context…

Communication is key when you want people to change

But in contrast…

Communication is an area that is most frequently complained about by employees

Clearly there is a gap!

Failure to understand the people side of change is akin to failing to learn to break when learning to drive. Sure, you'll probably get to where you intended to go, but you'll be battered, bruised and have a trail of angry people behind you.

All of us, at some point, have experienced a poorly delivered change. Either a technical change or an organisational change, either as the culprit or the victim.

The second, and arguably most important half, lies in building and maintaining a highly-effective team.