G's Reflections w/c Nov 27
Power moves, F1-mindset, end of year internal comms, and the power of pride.
I’m exploring how I can find the balance of writing consistent but solid content, so bear withe me as I experiment. [Ask] let me know what you’re loving!
This week I’m testing my version of ‘week notes’, a concept introduced to me by marketing expert Rob Miller who runs Orso and generously gives away his time and advice around all things marketing (thanks to the other Rob for sharing this offer on LinkedIn!).
As usual, there’s a lot swirling through my mind as I come off an intense week of offsites last week. I can feel the rebellious tension from my brain that wants to do absolutely nothing (coupled with the countdown to the holiday break), hitting against the excitement I have across project deliverables, new ideas and inspiring clients.
Despite this internal battle, I pushed through and captured some of the patterns that is coming through my work this week, and a big one is the intentional shifts leaders need to make around culture change.
Here’s what I’ve been reflecting on this week.
Hearing a CEO of a charity I’ve been working with for over two years reel off an extensive list of positive signals and successes of the culture change we’ve been working one was one of the most rewarding parts of my week (until I met the robots). In our first session back in 2021 she shared how she had “lost her mojo” and we set out to build a strategy that both excited and stretched her, but also tactics on how to bring her team along. Today’s results are the outcome of consistent effort, leaning into hard conversations and a lot of self-reflection. If you’re at the start of a change, just know that it takes time but it is possible.
The other thread is the upcoming BIG internal comms moments:
The ‘end of year message and,
Kicking off the year message.
These two internal comms moments should not be missed. As a general rule the end of year message should focus on celebrations and achievements, it’s not the time to stress “how next year we will have to work harder”. Most people will forget the details by the time they come back in the new year so focus on how you want to make people feel vs what they should remember. If you haven’t communicated any big org changes by 1st week of Dec I’d hold off until the the New Year message. The New Year message is all about strategic direction, motivating through getting things done, what you commit to being different, and a solid direction.
A theme I see creep into my scale up clients is hiring ‘big org talent’ who are very expensive and except them to build systems. When you’re growing, you need the builders not the operators. It’s a very different skill. Your culture should be set up to reward the builders, process implementers. The big talent are great at refning and scaling on top of a highly regulated and systemised org structure, they often will struggle to build them.
[Top tip] Witness a power move moment in an executive team meeting where someone asked a potentially contentious questions. Another leader was about to respond, stopped themselves and asked “What was the intent behind that question” which diffused the tension and lead to an important conversation instead.
Through my role at Defiance VC, I’m building a founder development program that blends the athletes mindset along side the entrepreneur performance. There are so many parallels but I often struggle when the nuances of how different the conditions are aren’t spelled out so I AM totally nerding out on this. I was connected to a few ex-FI engineers and was keen to understand how “high-performance” trickles down” to the teams in the factory. Much more on this another time but one of the takeaways from an initial chat was how much a sense of “pride” kept motivations high.
Pride. Pride is often an internal motivator but leaders can do more to connect the dots. I remember ages back one of the company’s I was working closely with had an LA office with a European HQ. The cultures were distinctively different Europe build, US sold. At this point in time Europe was going through sticky org changes and morale was on the lower side. In a conversation with the CMO based in LA he casually mentions how he heard that a “queen of pop” loved using the product. I stressed to him how important these stories are to hear across the business as those it seems tripe can literally diffuse tensions from bubbling up. I saw it happen first hand at other places where the pride in the product was so strong, it became about serving the “greater good” vs our small ego based squabbles.
A build out this model this week to highlight the “High performing Team conditions”. Will build this out more but keen to get early feedback.
Pride (Praise)
Highlight the why
Praise that their efforts match
Craftsmanship
Process
Consistent
Clear roles and responsibilities
Easy to fix mistakes
Prioritisation
Streamlined decision making
Aligned to the same goals
Happy end of week. If you enjoyed this let me know (a like is fine), and if. wehaven’t already connect with me on LinkedIn.
You got this.
G