We conducted a Q&A interview with Martin Kirke, Coach, Non-Exec Director, Consultant on HR, D&I and Change, around leaders, and how they can create a culture of inclusion.
From your experience, what are the attributes required from our leaders to gain their commitment to engaging our community and driving forward the diversity agenda?
The Leadership Development Programme was created after years of successful interventions in many organisations, and in various sectors around the world. Why not view some of the major benefits achieved by some of our clients who have gone through this programme by downloading the case study.
In the past 3-4 weeks, I met some top management executives and 2 CEOs. We were discussing about innovation, culture, mindset and some latest technology stuffs. In one company they wanted to increase innovation competency, in the other they are looking for young genuine leaders to drive new digital initiatives and the next company is looking to hire innovation managers to administer their innovation projects.
For many bosses, the employee’s transition to negativity comes for no apparent reason. However, a common complaint I hear from dissatisfied employees is that they do not get creative freedom. They suggest creative solutions that would yield better results, but get told “No.” They feel caught in the “but we’ve always done it this way” trap. Creativity is essential for your employees’ work to have meaning. With meaning, they are more engaged, which means less absenteeism, better teamwork, better service, and increased productivity. To foster creativity, try the following:
I learned about the concept of Muri at Toyota.
I was surprised to find that many Lean practitioners either never use it or barely pay it lip service. It is one of the most crucial lead productivity measures of all.
Muri means overburden
Muri is a Japanese word used in The Toyota Way. It means the unnecessary and unreasonable struggle in a system. Just as materials should flow seamlessly with minimum fuss and effort, the same should be true for people.
Recently, I had the pleasure of delivering a workshop for the ICSA conference in London.
As the premier conference event for company secretaries, board and governance professionals it was an opportunity to explore how inclusion and diversity in corporate governance, in all its guises, is being addressed. It was encouraging to realise that the issue of inclusion was not a discrete topic of discussion but one that permeated many of the issues under scrutiny.
I was talking to a friend the other day and, as usual, asked how it was all going. She said it'd been busy at work, very busy in fact and for all the right reasons, but it had meant that she’d had to put an out of office on her Email to say that she may be a while responding and for people to phone if it was important. One such person, who had been waiting and chasing for a response, cheekily found a slot in her diary and chanced their arm for a chat. She accepted.
Social media is littered with beautiful photos of happy people doing wonderful things. The pursuit of happiness has become a catchcry. Success is measured by popularity, beauty and material wealth. Thank goodness for the creation of selfie filters to tweak the imperfections!
The temptation in coaching follows a similar rhythm. Work out who you need to influence most, ensure you have the right corporate look, the outfit, the grooming, the physique. Create inspirational goals. Go on a values-driven journey to enable a happier, more successful life.…
We have never stopped evolving and we must never!
In my last few pieces, I have written about the slave trade, conscious capitalism and how we have to do better in the world today. A review of history shows us so clearly how we as a race/species have evolved over the past thousands of years. Not all of our progress has been good, wars, genocide, extinction of species, pollution etc. But we have also made progress by reducing infant mortality, expanding human rights, education, life expectancy, technology etc.
Regardless of how many organisations espouse a core value of integrity (e.g. Accenture, Adidas, Alibaba, Amex, Coke, Huawei and Tencent etc.) cases of individuals and organisations breaching common ethical standards continue unabated (Volkswagen and diesel emissions, DJI and supply chain fraud, Changchun Changsheng Biotechnology and rabies vaccine quality or Renault-Nissan and Carlos Ghoson’s alleged financial misconduct ). Organisations, rightly, are seen as serving the societies in which they sit and breaches of trust consequently are devastating – destroying significant brand value.