People are important, so what?
It make sense that people are critical to a businesss. Without the people, You couldn’t operate.
Your people interact with your customers, without them you would not have customers or people to service and help them. I think we can agree people are important.
It make sense that people are critical to a businesss. Without the people, You couldn’t operate.
Your people interact with your customers, without them you would not have customers or people to service and help them. I think we can agree people are important.
Many, if not most organisations have an HR team, it’s their job to do all the people compliance, put policies and procedures in place to protect employees and the employer and ensure there are critical programs for roles, responsibilities, leadership and development, 360 feedback, secondments, and other programs to support employees.
However, it’s the leader’s role (supported by HR) to hire, retain, manage, develop their people. It means getting the right people in, supporting and developing them, creating an environment where people are developed, rewarded and recognised.
Now more than ever, managing your people is important. The war on talent has meant that getting good people to join your organisation/team is harder than it’s ever been, therefore looking after your existing employees and retaining your existing workforce is critical.
Every employee wants something different and therefore understanding where they are at, and what they need to be successful and work to be rewarding is critical. A lot of HR can be theory, policies and procedures. However, it needs to be practical hands-on approach to work with each team or employee to ensure that you set up all the teams and the organisation for success.
This will also come down to the culture, it’s about building a culture that people want to work in, that is bottom up built rather than top down.
If you want to work with someone that is brilliant at working with leaders, businesses and employees to redefine culture with a practical, action-oriented approach – look up Colin Ellis. Unbelievable outcomes!
2023 is another year of uncertain times, but one thing is for certain, attracting and retaining the best talent is critical to ensure you can deliver on your goals and key metrics.
At Whiteark we work with companies on their people strategy, with hands on experience we offer a range of services and templates that can be used to help you implement some good people strategies.
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Meetings, it's time to crack the nut!
Ok I never cracked this one in Corporate life, too many meetings, back to backs and never get time to return phone calls or do your emails in work hours so nights, early mornings and week-ends became the norm.
Ok, I never cracked this one in Corporate life, too many meetings, back to backs and never get time to return phone calls or do your emails in work hours so nights, early mornings and week-ends became the norm.
For people that know me I tend to work long hours, I want to do a good job and that normally meant working longer hours during the week and on the week-end.
However, one of the things that impacted my hours was meeting. There were so many meetings that I really didn’t get work done during the day, much. Sounds stupid, however it’s more common than you think. You spend so many hours of each day in meetings, the ability to deal with fires, and get some real work done became too hard.
I also became the person that created the meetings, and the more meetings I added because I want to get the work done or speak with someone in a meeting was required. This got worse during COVID, video calls for something that was a 5 min chat, no one speaks on the mobile anymore it’s video calls all round and something that should be 10 mins is now min 30 minutes, and people feel like they need to fill the time. It’s stupid.
I also became the person that created the meetings, and the more meetings I added because I want to get the work done or speak with someone in a meeting was required. This got worse during COVID, video calls for something that was a 5 min chat, no one speaks on the mobile anymore it’s video calls all round and something that should be 10 mins is now min 30 minutes, and people feel like they need to fill the time. It’s stupid.
Some companies are better than others, but it’s a problem that needs to be solved. It will make a material difference to a number of really important factors and therefore it’s the nut to crack, for 2023.
I had some thoughts on how to improve this – and I tried to implement a range of tactics, but I failed, I am pretty sure I failed because I never did crack the meeting nut. If a company can crack this nut, and give each person back 50% of their time for work, then the productivity impact would be enormous.
So I’ve decided that this is my nut to crack this year, 2023.
I am going to interview people or get them to produce videos to share there ideas or thoughts around reducing meetings in organisations. I am going to find a number of organisations that want to make the change, and we start by rolling out a plan of attack and measure the success.
Before we start this adventure it’s important to be clear on the problem we are trying to solve.
Problem to solve: There are too many meetings in the diary, it makes it difficult for employees to get their work done.
How widespread is the issue: At the beginning I thought the issue was more leadership, in meetings with other leaders and their team and because majority if their job leading people that was ok, but now it’s across the board and therefore people who have a day job, outside of meetings are in meetings all day. It’s really widespread.
Our focus: we will focus in on Corporates, not consulting firms etc but Corporates.
What is the problem:
• Employees haven’t got time to their work.
• Work output/productivity is impacted.
• Many meetings not well planned (agenda) or documented and therefore become a talk fest.
• Meetings become people’s whole day.
• With the war on talent, utilising your people to deliver a result, is critical to ensure their role is fulfilling.
• It’s a waste of time, energy.
• Ever heard of zoom fatigue.
Hypothesis – to be validated:
• This is a problem that go across many organisations, however maybe worse in larger organisations.
• It’s driven from the CEO, Executive Leadership team – if they meet a lot, they can also then create a lot of meetings and it flows down.
• It’s not clear what is a meeting versus an email or phone call.
• Leaders and managers are impacted more than employees.
• Having an EA doesn’t necessarily help, as they see a gap and put in a meeting. Calendly and other similar apps are a good idea but may mean you lose control of your diary and don’t get a say on who is in your calendar.
What I have seen implemented in organisations:
• Meeting free day – once a month.
✔️ If it’s done companywide it works better than a division, especially if the division is corporate area (e.g. finance).
✔️ I have seen companies do customer day on that day, and people are encouraged to get on the phones, or go on a ride along with sales reps to meet customers.
✔️ While it was a good idea, it’s hard to enforce company wide and it doesn’t fix the other days of the month.
• Shorten meetings to 25 mins and 50 minutes rather than 30 minutes or 1 hour to give people a break between meetings. I think it’s a good idea and you can use teams to have this as default, but it doesn’t get rid of the meetings.
• I have seen organisations work on limiting the number of people attending meetings, so only the people who need to attend the meeting attend and if more than X number need to cull.
• Meetings need to be in the mornings or afternoons, but again without a companywide change it’s hard to manage. But the idea is good as it allows people meeting time and then work time, and gives people a big chunk of time to get work done.
I did see on Linkedin over the break, that a number of companies have said no more meetings, over 2 people. There was a lot of positive response to these companies, however not sure that this is sustainable.
Measuring success:
• Improved employee satisfaction
• Improved employee productivity
• Reduced turnover
• Reduced overtime from employees
We will assess along the journey, the ways to measure success.
It’s the start the journey, we want to understand the problem, and validate the hypothesis, work with a range of people to determine some strategies to resolve the issue, trial these out in a number of organisations and assess what works and what doesn’t.
During this journey we will keep you informed of our progress, as every company and leader could drive a significant improvement in the way they operate and the outcome on their people/teams.
If you are interested in following along or being involved in the social experiment, please reach out….
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Why companies fail at executing change?
Why companies fail at executing change?
And what you can do about it….
Yes, it’s harsh but the data doesn’t lie. More than 80% of projects don’t deliver. That’s a terrible statistic.
Think about how many money businesses spend on projects & the projects don’t deliver….hmmm if only something could be done.
Why companies fail at executing change?
And what you can do about it….
Yes, it’s harsh but the data doesn’t lie. More than 80% of projects don’t deliver. That’s a terrible statistic.
Think about how many money businesses spend on projects & the projects don’t deliver….hmmm if only something could be done.
There are 5 main reasons companies fail at making change, through major projects:
1. No executive sponsorship
2. Insufficient budget
3. Change resistant culture
4. Only using internal resources, who have a day job
5. The business case doesn’t explain the why in a way that people buy in to the change
So, for a bit more detail on the 5 reasons that companies fail to make change, through major projects:
No executive sponsorship
If you don’t have Executive Sponsorship, you are doomed. When money gets cut, and projects get reprioritised your project will be removed or cut first up. If change is required from the change, you will need Executive approval to drive the change through, if you don’t have it you are doomed.
So what….
You should have an Executive Sponsor, but also 2-3 other influential Executive Sponsors that can help you navigate the politics of getting things done and ensure they have your back when shit hits the fan.
Insufficient Budget
You know the budget processes where everyone bids and they give everyone their projects but just cut the top off the 20% of all projects, so no projects are funded correctly. Without the right level of funding you need to cut corners and what you started as the plan is now in the toilet and you are making things up to hit all the metrics to ensure that the project is not cut further.
So what…..
Fight for your budget. Have a detailed budget prepared and if they cut it show them what they are not going to get and the financial implications so you have an ROI story. If they still don’t give it to you, adjust your business case for the new funding to ensure that you adjust people’s expectations on what will be delivered.
Change Resistant Culture
Have you ever worked in a company, where the company just couldn’t do change, it wasn’t that they didn’t want to, but they didn’t. They were paralysed. They had tried so many times and failed that they were all cynical about making change that when a new person came in they convinced them that they wouldn’t be able to change either, and not to bother. And so the cycle of a change resistant culture is bred. It’s really sad. It’s possible to make change, but you will need to make people uncomfortable and if you have change resistant HR you will likely get yourself into all sorts of trouble.
So what…..
But for people like me I see this as a challenge and opportunity to show people change can be done. However, for the normal person, this is incredibly sad and depressing and really does making change and successfully implemented projects hard, if not impossible. You’ll find the PMO in these organisations is full of people that are stopping people from actually delivering on anything as well. My only solution is they need Collin Ellis – he can actually help organisations with the culture change.
Internal Resources – who have a day job
Internal resources are great! Actually, a combination of internal and external resources is a great mix for any successful project but need to take internal people off their day job to implement the project and backfill them. Find strong leaders, change leaders and SME’s and put them on the project, and backfill them and give them a budget to hire some other people to support. But empower them. I kinda of answered the so what about on this one.
The Business Case doesn’t explain the Why
Do you know why you are making the change? Have you articulated to the people that need to buy in? Does it make sense? Have you communicated it, and then communicated it and then again? You need to be clear on the why and everyone else needs too, so when people get fed up, they remember why they are doing this project.
At Whiteark we love to work with businesses to help them deliver exceptional projects, that deliver results and financial outcomes. We get our hands dirty to implement with your teams. We will force the hard conversations, will challenge the team to think bigger, will make people a tad uncomfortable – but will make the project be successful.
Our approach and team are tailored to what you need, so reach out and have a conversation if you have a project you want to be successful or you need help on a project that needs to be restored or project portfolio reprioritised and reviewed
Reach out for a no obligation chat to Jo Hands on 0459826221, or jo.hands@whiteark.com.au
Article by Jo Hands, Whiteark Founder
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The A Team
The A team, how it operated & why it worked?
You know, the team that works well together, delivers outcomes and is a high functioning team – known by Jo as the “A team”. If you have ever been led or been part of the A team, you know what I am talking about.
The A team, how it operated & why it worked?
You know, the team that works well together, delivers outcomes and is a high functioning team – known by Jo as the “A team”. If you have ever been led or been part of the A team, you know what I am talking about.
When there is change, do you ever refer back to the memory on how a team should work and operate? Understanding how you build and operate an A team is critical. What makes the A team work & how do you replicate this again to go with A team version 2.
I have been blessed in my career to date to work in an A team, under a great leader and be the boss of an amazing A team.
No team is perfect, and you can never replicate what you have, but the secret sauce of what makes this A team is helpful for any manager and leaders as they build the most effective team possible.
What our people want:
People want to make a difference.
People what to be appreciated.
People want transparency.
People love connection and being something that is bigger than them or their team.
People want to work in a team / company where they can have fun and laugh and be themselves.
This all seems to make sense. So, we need to create and environment for our employees / team that ticks all these boxes.
What our company wants:
To provide a commercial service / product in the market that is leading
To generate a healthy return for the service/product
To stay ahead of the competition
To always improve the way things are done, through continuous improvement
For employees to take accountability and responsibility
So, the question then comes, how do you marry the two?
5 key elements to building & operating an A team:
Hire the right people – be clear on the capability you need. Don’t hire too many people like you. Hire people that are passionate and driven and get other people in the team involved in the recruitment process.
Fire quickly – when you hire the wrong person (and you will) move them out quickly as one bad egg can cause issues.
Build a high-performance culture – give feedback often, reward good outcomes & recognise people with things that matter to them – money, time off, visibility, training opportunity, another project or a promotion. Make sure you give you employees the glory when things go well.
Clear roles & accountabilities – be clear on what they do, their role, how they fit into the overall goals of the team / division / organisation. Be clear on how they can contribute to the team.
Communication – build a culture of constant communication – transparency and get the team to build a better way to do things – as 2 heads or 5 is better than one.
As a leader you have a very important role, to build a high performing team. There will be reasons why it’s hard or impossible but there are always things you can do to improve the performance of how a team operate. They are not rocket science but they will make a big difference.
One thing not to forget, is have fun. You spend a lot of time at work, so don’t forget to have a laugh and enjoy what you are doing. Sometimes we take ourselves too seriously, so don’t forget to smile and laugh.
Proactive approach to culture and employee engagement including flexibility is becoming really critical.
Leadership is an important element for all organisations, to execute successful outcomes having engaged staff is instrumental.
Don’t underestimate the simple things, to retain, engage your staff to get the best out of them. In the current environment with the job market, this is more important than ever.
Article by Jo Hands, Whiteark Founder
Do you have any other items that you would add to the A team list?
Tag a member from your A team or your manager of your A team and discuss what good looks like for setting up an A team.
Want to talk about building your leadership team? Reach out.
Whiteark is not your average consulting firm, we have first-hand experience in delivering transformation programs for private equity and other organisations with a focus on people just as much as financial outcomes.
We understand that execution is the hardest part, and so we roll our sleeves up and work with you to ensure we can deliver the required outcomes for the business. Our founder has a combined experience of over 20 years’ working as Executive in organisations delivering outcomes for shareholders.
If we can help you, reach out for a no obligation chat to Jo Hands on 0459826221, or jo.hands@whiteark.com.au
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The secret sauce of change
❝ Change is hard at first, messy in the middle, and gorgeous at the end❞
- Robin Sharma -
Love this quote on change. It’s a good reminder that change is hard. That is why people are good at change
“Change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end”
Love this quote on change. It’s a good reminder that change is hard. That is why people are good at change.
Data doesn’t lie
80% transformation (change) programs don’t deliver the required outcome.
78% of people in organisations (generalisation) don’t want to make change
Organisations that effectively make change, have an improved customer and employee experience & a better financial outcome.
Every organisation is working to make change – new product, new sales strategy, new investment, new plan, new operating model, new ways of doing things. Change is what continues to add value to organisations.
Organisations that effectively make changes are more customer centric, employees like working at these organisations and have a better financial outcome. So, it’s a no brainer. We need to create an environment in an organisation for change to occur and for it to be celebrated.
While nothing I have said above is really revolutionary or something you didn’t know, why is making change so hard? What is the secret sauce to make meaningful change?
SECRET INGREDIENTS TO SUCCESS
Culture – if you don’t have the right culture in the organisation, you will not be able to make the change. Culture takes time to develop and when done well, is co-developed with the organisation to get their buy in and create the culture they want in an organisation. The person I have seen do this the best is Collin Ellis.
Leadership – strong Executive leadership, where people are not scared to fight for what is important, to have challenging conversations and to take the job of navigating teams and organisations through change, as their number 1 priority. If you don’t have this, you are not going to success.
Why – being clear on the why. Why are we making change. What is it going to improve – for our customers, employees and the way the brand / product is perceived in the market?
Linking the activity with the why is critical to get buy-in.
Champions – build a strong champion network across the organisation that have Executive team support to implement a change agenda. Strong personalities to push through the hard bit and resistance piece and drive the change agenda.
Agility – as you are making change, your plans might change and you need to pivot quickly, not a 6 month review but on a day by day basis to ensure that the change doesn’t lose momentum and people don’t give up that the change will occur.
Celebrate change – making change however small should be celebrated by the CEO and leadership team. People should be encouraged to make changes in their teams, roles and outcomes. Saying change is important, is one thing but then celebrating or recognising people for change is another.
Time & money – without time and money, nothing happens. Time (resources) need to be allocated to make change. Giving people time out of their day-to-day work to do the change journey. The structure might be dedicated resource on change program or space in role(s) to have time to work on the change, not getting too lost in the business as usual.
Money makes the world go round. Funding needs to be allocated to change programs. Doesn’t need to millions of dollars, but flexible funding to make incremental changes or a larger change program is critical.
When I think about change, sometimes we overcomplicate things.
That is where the concept of continuous improvement works well. What is the key changes an organisation, department or team need to make to improve the customer experience, product, operational efficiency or to stay ahead of the market.
Having a funding model that is aligned with your planning, ensures that small, incremental changes (continuous improvement) can get done in an organisation.
Not all projects need to be large big bang, sometimes small incremental changes will have the biggest impact. See articles and documents written by Whiteark around Continuous improvement and Simplification that you might find interesting / helpful / inspiring.
If you have some other ingredients for secret sauce, please post a comment, DM me or reach out, I would be interested to chat further.
Article by Jo Hands, Whiteark Founder
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Effective hybrid working starts with company culture
Colin D Ellis, an award-winning speaker, facilitator, and best-selling author has recently released his new book – ‘The Hybrid Handbook’. Colin covers the 6 Considerations your organisation needs to address to implement a successful Hybrid Working Model.
Colin D Ellis, an award-winning speaker, facilitator, and best-selling author has recently released his new book – ‘The Hybrid Handbook’. Colin covers the 6 Considerations your organisation needs to address to implement a successful Hybrid Working Model.
To secure your talent pool for future success, you need to move quickly on implementing your Hybrid Working Model to be considered an employer of choice. It’s time to start working through your checklist.
As a business owner or manager, it can be difficult to know whether a particular issue is related to capability or capacity.
In general, CAPABILITY refers to the skills and knowledge needed to perform a task, while CAPACITY refers to the available resources (time, staff, equipment, etc.) to complete the task.