Kim Cameron states that “Positive leadership is often interpreted as touch-feely. But the evidence over the last 10 years is clear. If you implement it, performance and customer satisfaction go up. The duty of a leader is to create an organisation where it is easy to practice kindness”
In the last 2+ years the team and I have spent a significant amount of time crafting our culture and implementing a range of Positive Leadership strategies. We have a daily offsite every 6 months to drive initiatives that shape our culture and who we are, set clear actions points and follow up as a team to execute. We have transparency in our office on all that we do (results, culture etc) and hold each other accountable for success.
The initiatives we have rolled out include but are not limited to:
Shared Purpose – Drive Success, Delivery Transformation, Empower Careers – that was workshopped and agreed with the team over numerous sessions.
Daily Stand-Up – we have a 15 minute daily stand-up ran by a different member of the team each day. We cover key elements of their role, new jobs/clients, interviews, key candidates, leads in the market, key activity to achieve for the day, discuss our values and share what we are grateful for.
Shared Vision/Mission/Values –These are visible and in display on our office as we walk in the door. We discuss our values and who has displayed them in each of our daily stand up meetings.
We understand each other’s passion/drivers – Every Monday (in our only sit down, formal meeting outside of team member 1 on1’s) a different team member chairs the meeting to discuss a case study from the week before (successful or non-successful) that we can all learn from. We also discuss our highs and learning points for the week and the chair of the meeting talks about something they are passionate about or driven by. This could include family, their country of origin, a sport star, a motivational speaker or any topic that they enjoy. This helped built exceptional relationships and vulnerability among the team.
Triggers On The Door (see blog post - https://www.matthewcossens.com/blog/more-than-motivation) – Each team member has a trigger on the sales floor door (inspirational quote, picture that drives them) to remind them of who they are and want to be.
Best Version Of You / How You Show Up For Others (Customers / Colleagues) - We completed an exercise as a team with everyone reflecting on the words “I AM”. Each team member completed the exercise and finished with three words to describe themselves. For example, My ‘I AM’ was fearless, driven and successful. Each team member also considered how we show up for our customers/colleagues and had three phrases to relate back to. For example, mine were Inspiring, Delivering Their Outcomes and Character. (Beyond Integrity) We discuss this in our end of week discussion on a Friday afternoon with a team member to elaborate what that means for them and how they achieved that during the week.
A Successful Week Is – Each team member on a Monday lists on our large blackboard (the whole wall) what a successful week looks like for them. We discuss this as a team every 2nd day (as part of the stand-up) and how we are tracking towards our successful week.
Gratitude -we believe in the power of gratitude and discuss this regularly.
During 2018, I had the opportunity to complete the Positive Leadership Development course through the University of Melbourne. The course provided reinforced the journey we were on as a team, gave us the science behind the success of Positive Leadership and additional tools (Appreciative Inquiry, Strengths Based Questioning, VIA Leadership Tool, High Quality Connections Exercise etc) to implement and enhance our journey at Aurec. I would highly recommend anyone with an active interest in this space to consider the program facilitated by Professor Lea Waters and Professor Adam Barsky.
An overview of results in the last 2 years include
Profitability (more than doubled) and turnover significantly above industry norms
Staff turnover heavily reduced
Exceptional employee engagement
A positive culture and climate
World Class Net Promoter Score (NPS) – https://www.aurec.com/nps
Excellent customer feedback
This hasn’t happened by accident, (but not by perfect design either) and is the culmination of focus and a lot of small activities done well, but we have also learnt and tweaked our approach on the way. The team have embraced the journey and we push forward together.
One of our core values is to continuously improve and I think as a team we have held to the following quote by John Maxwell “Experience is not the best teacher! Evaluated experience is the best teacher”
We have an environment that is non bureaucratic (a flat structure), entrepreneurial DNA (IT Professional Services and Recruitment) and we have full control to pivot the business and try new ideas. The above journey has set the foundation from which we can continue to drive a Positive Leadership approach, with new knowledge and initiatives to drive greater results.
Having implemented a positive leadership approach I agree with Kim Cameron and his four strategies that “These four strategies (positive climate, positive relationships, positive communication, positive meaning) are not independent of each other, of course, and they tend to overlap and interrelate with one another.” And “Positive leaders enable extraordinary performance by fostering a positive work climate, by fostering positive relationships among members, by fostering positive communication, by associating the work being done with positive meaning, and by implementing these four strategies.”
What are your thoughts on positive leadership? What results have you achieved? Engage below with your thoughts, feedback and questions.
This article is originally published at www.matthewcossens.com/blog/
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