Don't leave it too late to pause, reset and proceed - Oona Collins
Now that lockdown restrictions have lifted there seems to be a sudden rush for life go back to 'how it was before' and return to normal. Life is no longer what it was before though, as people, we have all changed; our circumstances have changed and our priorities at work and at home have changed.
One of the biggest mistakes we can make as business leaders at this point is to underestimate what these changes are going to mean to the people in our teams. Instead of rushing back to the operating model and culture we had cultivated before, we need to take the time now to pause, reset, and then proceed.
Now is the time to be asking yourself and your senior management team lots of difficult questions and considering some key issues. Those questions will need honest answers and you will need to draw on all the emotional intelligence at your disposal to do this.
Over the years I have learnt that honest answers only come from stepping back and taking a moment to put yourself in a place where all you are thinking about is those questions. This doesn’t mean you have to take a week off, instead it can be as simple as taking a day away. In fact, from the clients I run sessions with on a regular with, the insight they get from an ‘away day’ dedicated to asking questions and exploring answers is enough for them to be able to come away with a very clear plan of action.
Many businesses and teams have seen staff changes over the last 18 months, with new starters coming in and some team members leaving. With this there is now a real opportunity for leaders to create a culture from scratch. This is especially true because the culture created during the pandemic, with most people only working from home, is very different to that which will have existed prior to Covid-19. It is therefore important to think about whether past cultures really match the values and ideals of the business. Whist doing this, you should have a clear idea of non-negotiables from past cultures and know what the core behaviours that you want to maintain are.
A great example of resetting a company culture comes from the impact Tim Cook has had at Apple since he became CEO. He took the opportunity presented by Steve Jobs’ death to reset where the culture priorities lie. An article in Wired in April 2019 explained, “Cook is transforming Apple into a company with progressive values around inclusion, diversity and privacy, and is championing the company’s environmental initiative. In 2011, when Jobs died, Greenpeace’s Greener Electronics Guide scored the company at just under five out of ten in its commitment to the environment. Since Cook took over, Apple has invested billions in green power and is now running on 100 per cent renewable energy worldwide. It is also the only technology company to commit making its supply chain 100 per cent sustainable.” In recent weeks though Cook has come in for criticism for his instruction to Apple staff that they would need to do at least three days per week in the office as part of their new hybrid working model. His reason for this fitsperfectly with what he believes is an essential part of the business model, that the creativity and innovation that is at the foundation of the business, is best achieved when teams and colleagues are together. Cook’s newest challenge may well be how to find the right balance between what he deems as a non-negotiable and what his workforce wants from a new working culture.
When left unmanaged, company cultures can lead to valuable people leaving businesses because they don’t feel aligned to the culture around them. I worked with the CEO of a division of a global corporation recently who hadrelocated from one country to another, whilst he was settling in to his new location he realised how uncomfortable he was with the culture that existed there. He also came to realise that his own leaders were not willing to listen and change the culture to be more diverse and transparent. As a result he felt his only option was to leave the business and take his skills, experience and knowledge of the business with him.
There is also a need to think about what returning to office based work means for those team members who joined during lockdown. Their knowledge of the company culture is as they have seen it during remote working. It is highly likely that they will be anxious about how things will change and what life in the office will feel like. At the same time, there is a need to be considerate of those who have seen their friends leave the business. For them there will also be an element of unfamiliarity with returning to work and not being sat with who they normally sit with or taking lunch with the people they normally chat to. Likewise employees who have been with the company a while but who took on new roles within the business during lockdown will also need attention.
A recent article in the Harvard Business Review, titled ‘How to Re-On board Employees Who Started Remotely’, stresses the importance of including anyone who has had a role change whilst away from the office over the last 18 months in an on-boarding strategy. I would suggest expanding this to look at how to on-board the entire workforce into the new way of working.
Expanding the on boarding process will give leaders the perfect opportunity to re-align the company culture. It is a chance to be very clear about how they want staff to operate and behave, in a way that they probably have not done before. Communicating these non-negotiable core behaviours at the beginning is an ideal way of limiting damage further down the line. The CEO of a growing entrepreneurial company in the property industry decided to let one of his biggest fee earners go because they could not agree on core behaviours around client care that he felt were a critical part of the company’s brand and core values. As with so much in leadership, it is about having the strength of courage and conviction to have significant conversations from the start so that everyone knows the expectations. These important conversations not only clarify what it takes to be successful so people can navigate their own career path, they also clarify ‘the rules of play’ that may not be obvious to everyone until they are broken.
Once communicated it is important that the messaging and actions remain consistent going forward. Consistency builds trust, inconsistency breeds mistrust. The example set by Gareth Southgate during the Euro 2020 finals shows just how true this is. Over the last few years Southgate has driven forward a consistent message regarding the England team. By not straying from it he has created trust in his methods and vision from all stakeholders; supporter, players and the FA. He has taken full accountability for his decisions and this has resulted in everyone pulling together to achieve more in this tournament than has been achieved for 55 years.
As we come out of the pandemic, there is a very clear global trend that people at all stages of their careers are making big decisions based on their experiences over the last 18 months. This last year has made many people realise that things need to change, it has made them think about what they want from work and life and what brings them joy. They have done their own pausing and resetting and are now ready to proceed. These people need to see that their leaders are doing the same and are engaging with them to see if the way they want to proceed matches the vision of how things will move forward in the new way of working and a new company culture.
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