Over the past several years, consumers have become more conscious about their purchases than ever.

According to the Global Sustainability Study 2021, 85% of consumers across the globe had made more sustainable purchases over the previous five years, and sustainability is now a top purchasing criterion among 60% of all consumers. The sustainability movement has gained a lot of traction in recent years, and the consumer call to support sustainable companies has grown.

In fact, while there was a concern that the pandemic detracted from efforts to address the climate change crisis, the opposite has actually occurred. Gen Z adults cited environmental protection as their top personal concern in 2021, and they are now demanding sustainability and ethical practices from the brands they trust. Reflecting consumers’ concerns ahead of the United Nations’ 2021 COP26 Climate Change Conference, more than 1,000 companies announced they would reduce emissions in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement. Today’s consumers expect more from the companies they work with; they want to engage with brands that care about them, the climate, and the future. And companies are increasingly heeding the call.

As a leader, it’s essential for you to embrace sustainability as a core value in order to connect with more consumers and increase trust in your company. As more and more people focus on making purchases that benefit the environment and the earth, it becomes crucial to gain company buy-in for putting sustainability at your organization’s center. By prioritizing sustainability throughout your company, suppliers, and distributors, you can successfully navigate the sustainability landscape and drive your business forward.

The Importance of Prioritizing Sustainability Initiatives

This should go without saying, but the path toward sustainability requires more than raising awareness within your organization. Sustainability success also hinges on consciously working every day to limit the amounts of waste produced and resources consumed. Even the smallest steps matter in terms of sustainability. Consistency is key.

While sustainability requires a lot of self-examination and nuanced work, it helps to focus on the benefits of sustainability and waste reduction efforts. Globally, 1.3 billion tons of food per year are discarded. Wasted food means wasted fertilizer, fuel, water, and manpower. This model is far from sustainable, so reducing the amount of food wasted, even by a few percentage points, would be an improvement.

Additionally, it’s important to make animal feed safer. Doing so improves the health of animals, which means more efficient production of meat, milk, fiber, and more. Better production means a greater ability to produce enough food to feed the world’s population with less land and fewer inputs. The key to lasting change is helping companies reach metric-based goals that are actually attainable.

Strategies for Actualizing Sustainability Efforts

As you can see, it’s becoming even more important for organizations to drive sustainability forward. If your organization has never focused on sustainability, however, it can be difficult to know where to start. To make sustainability initiatives a greater focus in your organization, these are a few steps to consider implementing right now:

1. Get the board of directors on board.

Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan once said, “What matters to society matters to investors.” If investors aren’t buying your initiatives, then your ideas will die before takeoff. To secure buy-in, tell them what you are going to do, how it’s going to get done, and why you are doing it. These are seemingly very simple steps, but they are extremely important for short-term value creation. Once the board understands what you are doing, make sure your management team believes in your sustainability efforts. From there, work to get support from your entire employee base.

2. Define your goals.

Sustainability initiatives are more likely to succeed if they are defined to be specific, achievable, and measurable. What are your organization’s goals? Which outcomes are you trying to achieve, and how will you measure progress? Identify specific benchmarks for your organization so that everyone on your team sees the “finish line” — and the mile markers of progress along the way — before the project even starts.

3. Educate your employees.

Successful sustainability initiatives depend largely on your organization’s change management. Taking steps toward a sustainable future requires leading the changes from the top down, which means that you should take the time to educate your employees about the importance of sustainability and why your company is choosing sustainability for the future. Company buy-in does not happen on its own. Rather, you have to lead by example and show your employees why what you are doing is worth it.

4. Steel your supply chain.

The transition to more sustainable operations requires the manufacturers of certain commodities to use sustainable practices. Many retail companies, such as Walmart, are working with their suppliers to reduce carbon emissions across the board. In fact, the company has worked to give suppliers the resources necessary to make progress toward its climate strategy. Through its Project Gigaton, Walmart is more than halfway toward its goal of reducing 1 gigaton — or 1 billion metric tons — of greenhouse gas emissions from its global value chain. While it’s challenging to reach the goal of net zero across the supply chain, collaboration is key to getting closer to that goal.

Sustainability efforts require more than a few people on board. They require support from the entire company, as well as your suppliers. By adequately preparing all stakeholders for your sustainability initiatives, you will create a realistic sustainability plan that people can support for years to come.

Strong leaders use their Emotional Intelligence to increase their effectiveness.

Not all of the tactics below will be relevant to your situation, but undoubtedly, some ideas and strategies will assist you in enhancing your understanding of yourself and help direct you in becoming an Emotionally Strong Leader. 

Improve Your Self-Regard 

Leaders who have high self-regard have an accurate view of their strengths and development opportunities. They are more likely to have a genuine concern for others, share success, and hold themselves accountable when things go wrong. They are confident in themselves and don’t shy away from admitting their development opportunities or mistakes.

Tips and Tools for Increasing Self-Regard:

• Surround yourself with supportive people.
• Integrate more positive habits daily. 
• Believe in yourself, and until you do, act as if you do.
• Challenge your self-limiting beliefs.

Surround Yourself with Supportive People 

Surround yourself with the people in your life who simply “get you” and love you. When you feel bad about yourself, rely on those supportive people to help you counter your self-limiting beliefs or negative thoughts. Solicit feedback about your strengths from your supporters so you can start to appreciate, as much as they do, your natural talents and personality traits.

Integrate More Positive Habits Daily 

This need not be an arduous exercise—in fact, that would defeat the purpose of this building block for increasing your self-regard. The best way to add positive daily habits is to keep it simple, especially at first. Identify the areas in which you are looking to grow or change, and find small ways you can incorporate a new habit or routine into an already existing structure. Do you want to improve your outlook on life? Why not incorporate a daily gratitude statement with your family before dinner? Looking to exercise more? Perhaps plan a walk to fetch a coffee after lunch? The possibilities for small positive habits are endless if you plan and tie them to things you already do.

Believe in Yourself, and until You Do, Act as If You Do

You are capable of achieving amazing things. Believe that you can, dedicate yourself to taking steps toward what you want, and work hard. Create a vision in your mind’s eye. That vision will help you think through your action plan and how your dreams will materialize. Until you feel confident in yourself, act as if you are. At times, you may believe everyone can see your insecurity. But here’s the wonderful truth. It’s invisible—it’s just a thought. As long as you don’t act on that thought, no one can see it. Just act as a confident person would, and start noticing the results.

Challenge Your Self-Limiting Beliefs

Our self-limiting beliefs can control our life choices—what we choose to do and not do. We need to put those negative beliefs aside and work on not letting them rule our life. These destructive beliefs get in your way of being the best version of yourself. With that in mind, think about what you can do, and rather than letting your self-limiting beliefs continue to damage you emotionally, learn to reframe a previously negative mindset into a more positive outlook in your life. For instance, are you are looking at any situation through a negative lens? How could you turn this around and interpret the same set of events in a more positive framework?  

Boost Your Self-Actualization 

Leaders practice self-actualization by continuing to improve themselves. Self-actualization enables leaders to bring creativity, innovation, and an open mind into the workplace. It relates to a motivation to optimize both their performance and that of their teams. Leaders who are strong in self-actualization often participate in activities with meaning and are aligned with their own values, which leave them feeling satisfied, energized, and motivated. They are passionate and enthusiastic and strive to be their best. 

Tips and Tools for Increasing Self-Actualization:

• Take time to rest.
• Learn something new.
• Exercise your way into happiness.
• Discover your passions.

Take Time to Rest 

Technology has made it possible to stay connected with each other 24/7; messages and emails come flooding in at any time, and we feel inclined to respond, even if our workday has ended. But remember, we are humans, not machines. We need time to rest, rejuvenate, and reconnect with ourselves. Getting proper rest requires discipline. So take some much-needed time for yourself and schedule rest.

 Learn Something New

Learning something new keeps your mind engaged; you are exercising your brain and improving your memory, concentration, and ability to problem solve. Learning expands your world view and perspectives and helps you gain skill sets, opening more doors for you. One excellent way to broaden your social circle is to take a class or pursue a new hobby, which will increase your likelihood of making friends with similar interests. 

 Exercise Your Way into Happiness

Study after study has shown the positive effect being active has on our brains. Exercise produces endorphins and proteins that make us feel happier—it increases our cognitive abilities, helps us sleep better, enhances our self-perception, and improves our whole sense of well-being. It puts more pep in our steps every day. On days that you don’t feel like exercising, go for a five-minute walk (I mean, if you can’t find five minutes, that points to a larger problem, no?). Getting a daily dose of fresh air and activity can help you feel good about yourself.

Discover Your Passions

Ask yourself what fills your bucket and is meaningful to you. Being self-actualized means first discovering and then pursuing what matters to you. That is what fulfillment is all about. Not sure what matters to you or what you are passionate about? Start with determining what you value. Your values are your guiding principles. They determine what you think is important and can dictate how you choose to live your life. See if you can take action and live more congruently with what you value. In essence, that will make you feel more fulfilled. 

Excerpted from “The Emotionally Strong Leader: An Inside-Out Journey to Transformational Leadership” by Carolyn Stern

Digital transformation has quickly become a “must” for all businesses — but many companies are misunderstanding the concept.

Many think of digital transformation as a group initiative to move away from outdated processes and rethink their use of digital solutions, and they’re not wrong. But that answer is shortsighted: What you’re trying to accomplish is a foundational change in the ways that people work. Failing to account for this component when attempting to implement digital transformation can pose serious problems down the line.

Take the average employee. When asked, they’ll more than likely say change isn’t a big deal. In fact, they welcome the idea of it. However, if you were to read between the lines, what most people mean is that they like it when other people change or when processes become more efficient, but it doesn’t actually affect how they accomplish their work. It’s uncomfortable — if not unsettling — to stray from the “traditional” ways in which you conduct work each day, which is what you’re ultimately asking of your team.

Managing organizational change associated with any digital transformation effort must factor in the people who will be using the technology. Otherwise, the chances that these efforts will be met with resistance increase exponentially and may be abandoned altogether. It is for this reason that a change management plan should be at the center of your organizational planning for digital transformation. This approach places your employees at the forefront of considerations, ensuring that the change is both seamless and painless for internal staff.

Factors to Consider in Your Change Management Plan

To avoid getting overwhelmed with your plan, start by focusing on individual aspects and considerations. One aspect that must be part of any change management plan is the ever-growing popularity of remote work options. Remote work has become the norm — largely out of necessity, but also out of demand. After the past couple of years, many people prefer the option of at least a hybrid work model and will gladly consider a move to another organization if those needs aren’t met. At last count, 55% of workers now want greater flexibility with their schedules.

Of course, this doesn’t mean your entire workforce should go remote. Certain responsibilities are best left in the physical office space. Before you get too far into the organizational planning for digital transformation, it’s important to pin down which roles require face-to-face interactions and communicate those needs throughout the company.

The move to remote work has also changed the way people collaborate. At one time, digital collaboration entailed working on a document and then emailing it to another party. Now, it’s gotten to the point where you can store a document in the cloud and multiple people can be working on it at the same time — all the while discussing those changes via a Zoom meeting in real time. Consider what you want collaboration to look like, both in terms of teams and overall company culture, at the end of your digital transformation journey.

Finally, don’t forget about automation growth. It’s a trend that’s gaining traction, and you should factor in how automation and AI will change the way in which teams will conduct business each day. Automation and AI are becoming integrated with the expectations of how employees function. It makes everyone more efficient, allowing team members to put more energy toward higher-level tasks.

Tactics for Better Managing Organizational Change

Managing organizational change is no small feat. You must enter into an initiative with a well-developed digital business transformation strategy. While what that strategy looks like will vary from one organization to the next, certain tactics will always be important— and that often includes the following:

1. Understand the ‘why.’

To drive any change management plan, it’s key to understand the “why.” This is the North Star guiding the company on the digital journey, so be sure you can clearly explain the benefits and solutions of implementing digital transformation. Start by defining the business outcome you’re trying to deliver. Work up a concrete description that you can use as part of your communication plan, emphasizing why you’re doing what you’re doing.

2. Answer employees’ essential questions.

At this point, you’ll have the “why” reasoning laid out, but you still need to answer the rest of employees’ questions. Employees often want further details relating to the “what,” “when,” and “how” prior to implementing digital transformation — and especially the “who” it will affect the most. Connect those specific elements to the desired business outcome and then give employees the opportunity to ask questions. Remember, change is uncomfortable. Lead with empathy; open communication can help to quell many concerns.

3. Listen to your employees’ feedback.

Once you explain what you’re trying to accomplish and open the floor to questions, you need to listen to what your employees are saying and implement practical changes using this feedback. You’ll likely find that their suggestions hold a great deal of weight for making the process more efficient. Besides, taking suggestions has a way of getting employees on board with your digital business transformation strategy. Instead of feeling like side characters to a decision from leadership, they become active participants in the process.

In one of my most successful change implementations, the team was initially opposed to the proposed change: Most of their jobs would change dramatically. I asked the project manager to conduct meetings to collect objections without giving any pushback (this took a lot of discipline). Then, she circulated the tabulated objections to ensure they were all described accurately, and the implementation team set developed a mitigation strategy, with metrics, for each and every objection. We pulled the team back together and went through the objections with mitigations, and the team had no choice but to agree that if the metrics indicated the objections had been mitigated, the change would be successful. Once they had been heard, the team pitched in to put the mitigation plan into effect, and with a lot of hard work, we found success (and had the measurements to prove it!).

4. Provide time to process the change.

There will always be a human element to any change. As your business implements digital transformation, give people the room to think about what will happen. They need time to digest the information presented to them. Even after employees have asked their questions and voiced their concerns, they need time to think and accept how their work will change. If need be, encourage team members to carve out some time in their schedules to think through the things that are happening rapidly. It’s something that I started doing about 10 years ago. The habit’s not exclusive to digital transformation, but I made a conscious decision to put time on my calendar outside of meetings to digest information.

Change is inevitable. How people go about doing their work isn’t immune. However, you can make the process much more efficient and painless by taking into account more than just the technology involved in digital transformation. You must factor that human element into the equation to ensure success.

Employee performance feedback is vital to growing a sustainable business. Managers know this, yet 69% are uncomfortable communicating with their employees, according to an Interact survey. More than a third report that they’re wary of giving feedback employees might respond to negatively.

So, how can managers improve employee satisfaction with feedback processes if they won’t talk to their teams?

Uncomfortable managers will avoid employee performance management, which could lead to division and derision among subordinates, especially if departmental and organizational goals aren’t being met. This ultimately impacts productivity and quality, which can drag your company down into the Leadership Bermuda Triangle.

What Is the Leadership Bermuda Triangle?

The Bermuda Triangle is located between Miami, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico in the Atlantic Ocean. The area is known for a high occurrence of tropical storms and hurricanes that bring down even the most well-equipped ships.

A few years ago, two of Harrison’s executive coaches and global trainers, Rick Tate and Julie White, Ph.D., observed a pattern emerging from leaders struggling with employee performance management. There was a consistent pattern of three out-of-balance paradoxes that contributed to managers not setting clear expectations, not effectively holding employees accountable, and creating cultures of dependency that were clearly self-defeating. They dubbed the behavioral pattern the “Leadership Bermuda Triangle.”

The Leadership Bermuda Triangle can similarly sink your ship. Like its near-mythical counterpart, the Bermuda Triangle of Leadership occurs when captains steer their crews through dangerous forces of nature. Leaders are often unaware of their weaknesses to these forces.

Fortunately, there are four ways to tell if your performance management style is destined for a watery grave:

1. Low accountability, high empathy.

When leaders fail to hold employees accountable, productivity and performance suffer. It’s great to foster a friendly environment at work, but it’s important to maintain authority so employees don’t take advantage of permissive management and assume that everything they do is OK.

2. Low certainty, high reflectiveness.

Sometimes leadership fails to confidently and properly communicate expectations to everyone on the team. This is easy to do in fast-paced work environments where things are constantly changing. At the same time, leaders might be open to feedback and willing to listen. This leads to employees who are unsure of what to say or do.

3. Low assertion, high helpfulness.

Some managers love to roll up their sleeves and get work done alongside their crews. This can exhibit great leadership, but it can also cause employees to feel unsure or even become complacent. They already compare themselves to peers, and now they’re also comparing themselves to their bosses. This can lead to unnecessary stress placed on managers for “expected” help, lack of development or skills loss among the crew, and, worst case, an environment of resentful behavior.

4. Low frankness, high diplomacy.

Occasionally, leadership tries to soften uncomfortable conversations. Beating around the bush or sugarcoating issues can be perceived as refusing to provide straight answers. Although diplomacy is valuable, a lack of directness and getting to the point causes distrust. You might find your best talent abandons ship when they are unclear about expectations and lose confidence in their manager.

If you are experiencing any of the above symptoms, don’t worry. There is a solution: fostering self-awareness and soliciting a 360-degree employee feedback loop.

Addressing Leadership Paradoxes

Effective leaders drive organizational performance, and they feel a special kind of pressure while bearing a heavy load of responsibility. Essentially, you’re just a human being like everybody else, but your employees view you as something of a superhero. The further up the ladder you go, the stronger the admiration. This leaves you to balance leadership paradoxes (i.e., contradictory behaviors) that, if out of balance, can contribute to difficulties giving and receiving employee feedback.

For instance, you must take pride in your abilities while recognizing your team’s work. You must develop close relationships with subordinates while also maintaining a professional distance. You must treat everyone equally while respecting their individualism. And you must extend flexibility while also meeting deadlines and getting the job done.

Balancing opposing behaviors can improve manager-employee communication and relationships. But how do you accomplish this when the behaviors seemingly contradict each other? Let’s dig a bit deeper to navigate these complicated leadership paradoxes.

Examples of Feedback to Improve Performance

Providing employee feedback means maintaining warmth and approachability while also enforcing company rules to ensure work is done correctly and on time. If you dive straight into hard-to-swallow critiques, employees might become defensive and won’t be as receptive. If all you do is praise employees, on the other hand, then they’ll never grow.

A manager giving employee feedback should start with a caring statement, such as, “I want to see you develop the skills to climb the ladder.” Or, “I’m consistently impressed with how well you do your job.” This ensures the person feels like a valued member of the team instead of another squeaky cog in the wheel.

You must be a compassionate enforcer who can adapt and react to whatever steps the employee takes from there. If they improve, continue helping and encouraging them. But if they don’t, you need to get to the bottom of what might be causing the performance issues. Try asking what they feel they need to excel at their job. Show that you care about their success.

Above all else, you must learn how to get comfortable giving feedback. You should always be assertive and truthful while enforcing the rules fairly and consistently. People need a direct yet tactful guide to lead them through the perpetually unknown. But once you come out the other side, you’ll see the return on your efforts. Businesses that regularly utilize employee feedback have 14.9% lower turnover rates, and 68% of employees who receive consistent and accurate feedback experience job fulfillment.

The Leadership Bermuda Triangle is a dangerous place that leaders should avoid, though they are often unaware of these unseen areas or derailers. If managers find themselves excelling at one aspect of leadership while struggling in another, then they’re likely managing reactively instead of proactively, resulting in dysfunction, distrust, and stress. Thankfully, you can avoid the Bermuda Triangle and grow into a competent leader by learning, accepting, and proactively addressing uncomfortable truths during employee feedback.

Over the past two years, the business landscape has changed in a material way.

• The question of people/talent is very fluid at the moment (flexible work, high resignation rate, shortage of skills)
• Supply chains have been disrupted globally
• Inflation is on the rise, affecting margins
• Global access through online channels is fully accepted, which has opened up new possibilities
• Geopolitics is shifting fast

In my experience, there is a (natural) reluctance on the part of CEOs to question the validity of their business. The fallout of a negative answer is probably just too much to bear. So, often the response is to ‘hit and hope’, not rock the boat and hope things turn out alright.

The problem with this approach is that it represses legitimate anxiety, which festers and compounds over time. The results are predictable: loss of sleep, scratichness, tentative leadership, lowering of confidence to make important moves. No one can ask or answer this question for a CEO. Maybe a board will raise the topic, but the ultimate responsibility — at least for a CEO who wants to lead with conviction – lies with the CEO. The experts from the complexity school of thought recommend ‘nudging’: small, micro-steps as opposed to over-brave leaps forward.

The micro-step here is to simply raise the question publicly, ideally with your Exco.

How many current employees would you rehire if the company or your department were started today?

Problem: Too many hiring decisions are based solely on job fit — the candidate’s first impression, number of years in the industry, worked for a competitor, has a degree from a prestigious college, or came highly recommended by a friend.

All valuable information, but job fit is not enough for today’s rapid-fire business environment. Hiring is the front door to your future success.

If you want to increase your employee retention and engagement you need more information. Today, candidates must fit the job, the culture, and the manager. For example: Does the candidate have the right attitude to fit your culture? Will this person be a good fit for your management style (i.e., micro-manager, dominating, affirming, etc.)? Hiring decisions that are based on a person’s overall fit will benefit the company and the individual.

Here are three ways to tell if a candidate will fit your management style and your culture:

1. Today’s candidates come prepared with standard, canned answers to the most asked interview questions. Dig deep and don’t accept their prepared answers. Be prepared with behavioral-based interview questions with several probing follow-up questions.
2. Scientifically based pre-hire assessments will give you objective 3rd party information about the candidate. Your assessments should include a distortion scale to determine if the candidate is misrepresenting themselves. Your assessment should have company-specific benchmarks, include interview questions, and have multiple uses (i.e., selection, promotions, career development, conflict resolution, leadership, etc.)
3. Ask the candidate what type of manager he/she performs best with – dominant, detail-oriented, aggressive, etc. Conversely, what management style most intimidates them?
   
   Employees are looking for work/life balance, to be part of something bigger than themselves, to contribute to a worthwhile cause, and to be respected for what they bring to the job. Hiring for job fit alone is no longer working. Add culture fit and manager fit to gain a competitive advantage.

Are your employees going back to the office? Here’s how to help them in the transition.

Whether we’re ready for it or not, things are beginning to get back to business as usual when it comes to how work gets done. In-person meetings are more common, as is returning to the office two to three days a week. Business travel is back, too. The majority of companies expect business travel expenses to be back up to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2023.

For many, this transition back to work might have felt like a long time coming, but now that it’s actually happening, it may feel a lot more like whiplash. While working from home had its unique set of stressors and drawbacks, it also offered something that many people, myself included, may be reluctant to give up: time.

Over the past two-and-half years, my team and I created something of a new norm for ourselves, finding a healthy balance between our work and personal lives that ultimately resulted in a higher output of real work. This work took the place of the time-consuming commutes, mandatory in-person meetings, and hours lost flying back and forth to different destinations in the pre-pandemic environment. Now that many of these things are coming back, however, that balance will change again, and everyone will need to find a new normal that works for their business and themselves.

Helping your teams readjust to office life

This won’t necessarily be easy, but it’s our job as leaders to help our employees navigate this transition while trying to maneuver it for ourselves. This will require flexibility, a willingness to expect the unexpected and, above all, a strong dose of empathy for what your employees are going through.

1. Be aware of your team’s obligations.

Before you decide that a meeting needs to be mandatory or in-person only, make sure you’ve considered the obligations your team members have already committed to. That includes being aware of commute times and travel schedules and how they affect their current workloads.

Sit down with your teams and figure out whether they can still handle what’s on their plate now that traveling and commuting are taking up significant chunks of their working hours once again. Make sure they know this isn’t a reflection of poor performance but simply a part of the adjustment process.

2. Be empathetic of life outside work — for all parties involved.

The past two-and-a-half years have blurred the lines between people’s work and personal lives more than ever before. There were many times, especially for those with kids at home, when the line didn’t seem to exist at all. It could be stressful and chaotic, but it also helped to remind many of us of the importance of making enough room for both of these crucial aspects of our lives.

Don’t lose sight of this as you go back into the office. Even if team members’ kids aren’t at home 24/7 anymore, there are still plenty of activities and obligations that are just as important as what’s going on at work. It’s not reasonable to expect everyone to deprioritize their personal life just because in-person work is back.

It’s time, instead, to normalize the option to opt out sometimes and prioritize flexibility over a rigid work schedule or mandatory in-person meetings that add stress but don’t necessarily add any practical value for the business. Be open to feedback from your team about finding a better outcome that works both for the company and the people responsible for its success.

3. Find the best way to stay connected in this new environment.

One of the big challenges I faced during the pandemic was finding ways to keep my team members engaged with their work and connected with one another. I did small but effective things to alleviate this problem, such as sending out an email every Friday to connect with the team. I also took bigger steps, like taking our dormant travel-and-expense budget and using it to create swag boxes that helped make it clear how much we appreciated everybody.

Travel is back on, however, so the budget can no longer accommodate that type of gesture. Even the smaller (but still time-consuming) things like that Friday newsletter are difficult to keep up with as new commitments take precedence. But that doesn’t mean the sentiment behind these efforts should be discarded.

My employees were vocal about how much they appreciated these gestures. While those particular methods may no longer be workable, keeping that sense of connection and appreciation alive and well is important. Look at the things that worked during these past two-and-a-half years and try to find a balance that will help you pull the best parts forward while still being clear-eyed about what’s possible in the current environment.

4. Protect your own time.

There’s a reason they tell you to secure your own oxygen mask before you help others when you’re on a plane. You’re in the best position to see to the needs of others only if your own needs are already met. This is true when it comes to helping your employees, too. If you’re struggling with your own work-life balance, or even on the verge of burnout yourself, then you’re not going to be very effective in helping others navigate their own issues.

As travel picks up again, you’re likely to find yourself saying “no” to more personal opportunities to accommodate it — I know I am. That doesn’t mean you must sacrifice all of your downtime, though. Set limits on your work time where possible. I, for example, have set a rule for myself to agree to only two after-work events per month. This helps ensure that work stays, for the most part, within work hours and doesn’t take over my entire life.

Things will likely never go back to how they were before the pandemic, but that’s not necessarily bad. Take what you learned about your team and how they work best during the pandemic and figure out how you can apply it to their work lives as they are now. By working with your team instead of delivering orders from on high, you can help ensure that you’re getting the best out of them while they’re getting the most out of their work.

The excellent book CEO Excellence shares some research about which roles generated the most value. Their findings were revealing in one instance: 37 people (out of a company of 12,000) generated 80% of that business value. 

One role singlehandedly was responsible for 10% of that value.

The takeaway is this: hierarchy and value creation often don’t go hand-in-hand.

This gets to the point of organizational design: how you shape your organization, so it’s set up to perform.

Conventional wisdom is that it’s about people. And it is to a considerable degree. But another lens needs to come into play beyond just getting your people to be the best versions of themselves. 

And that lens is about recognizing where your business’ ‘horse-power’ comes from and ensuring the conditions are appropriately in place for those horse-power generating individuals to thrive. 

Do they have the right reporting lines (hopefully directly into you)

Do they have the right resources?

Are they getting the proper development?

Do they have the appropriate support?

Are their communication channels set up for them to have the right conversations with the right people at the right time?

This isn’t about making wholesale changes to your set-up. Instead, it’s about ensuring you’re not missing a trick by unintentionally hiding your most important value-creators under a rock just because that’s been the historical arrangement of your business. 

Take a fresh look at your organizational design by throwing the organogram out of the window. The organigram is a false construct that has minimal bearing on performance. It’s just an arrangement on a page. 

If you seek performance, the underrated art of organizational design must come into play as a CEO. It might not be what you’re drawn to as it might seem to be an overly complex topic. But it’s not. It’s a real thing that needs to come into your arsenal. 

In coaching processes, the coach – either implicitly or explicitly – works

With the idea of ‘old way v. new way’. It’s a way of aggregating the total behaviors of what is not working, and transitioning them to a newly aggregated set of behaviors that is fit for purpose.

For example, choosing to be more high-performance orientated by being more disciplined, keeping purposefulness in mind, and communicating more effectively. As opposed to the opposite – the ‘old’ way. The same applies to CEOs, but it’s more layered. The CEO role isn’t just about actions, it’s about an entire worldview:

● Who you are

● What you believe in

● Your views on business performance

● Your attitude to self-development

These are all big questions and ones that won’t be answered overnight. They take time to craft, shape, refine and become used to, eventually turning them into a coherent and tight CEO package. My experience working with CEOs is that this sort of thinking is not top-of-mind due to the operational pressures of driving successful results. Which is fine – it’s understandable and it’s not a dynamic that is ever going to change. There will always be busyness. However, holding the question of old way v. new way should not be something that is equated to being a task and thus shouldn’t take up operational bandwidth. If it’s seen or experienced this way, it’s a sub-optimal way to go about it.

Rather, the contemplation of your ‘new’ way of being a CEO should be something you warm to, are compelled by, and are attracted to. If it’s not, there is probably work to be done about how you’ve set up your CEO role. Is it one that allows for thriving, or are you condemning yourself to the drudgery that can easily accompany the CEO role? If you do nothing more, on the back of this missive, than contemplate whether a new way could exist for you, that’s sufficient. It will likely catalyze something that will bear fruit in its own way, according to its own timeline. But, get it started, at least.

Very, very few employees in the history of human work have faced corporate change of the sort that we’ve seen during the past two years. Even now, companies continue to face a constant barrage of change as they attempt to adapt to a business landscape that continues to move beneath their feet. 

You would think that as change has become a part of their daily lives, employees would learn to accept it — or maybe even embrace it. But that’s not usually the case, as evidenced by the ongoing negotiations between employers and employees worldwide over returning to the office, which is demonstrating that some employees are actually very resistant to change.

But “resistance to change” creates a self-perpetuating cycle that leads to frustration, defensiveness, and organizational paralysis.

How Should Leaders Respond When They Feel Resistance to Change?

It happens all the time. With the best interests of the company and employees at heart, a leader obsesses over a problem, doing the grunt work necessary to find a workable solution — only to find that the solution is received with precisely zero enthusiasm, causing the leader to frustratedly ask, “I’m trying to help! Why are they fighting so hard against this change!”

Asking that question is an indication that you’re working with a flawed mindset. The question is itself a label, based on your reaction to the event. And it’s the belief that people are resistant to change that’s the real problem.

People actually don’t resist change. We know this because people are changing voluntarily all the time. Once we understand that the people we work with aren’t resisting change in general, it becomes much easier to ask pointed questions about what the specific objections to this change might be, and how the team can move forward productively.

Here are the three questions to ask when change gets tough.

1. First, pause and ask, “Why do I believe they are resistant to change?” The specific actions that we tend to notice include things like negative knee-jerk reactions, predictions that it won’t work, or failure to follow through after being trained for change. But each of these things are perfectly normal, human workplace behaviors. Interpreting these as a sign of resistance to change may say just as much about your mindset as your team’s. And labeling these behaviors as change resistance can set up the toxic cycle of defensiveness that makes successful change impossible.
2. Once you pause, ask the next question, “Where are these reactions coming from? Why are they reacting this way?” Knee-jerk cynicism may simply be a personality trait. A prediction that the change won’t be as effective as predicted may be an honest attempt to preemptively address an issue the employee sees coming down the line. The crucial behavior for the leader is to work from the assumption that the team wants to succeed as badly as you do, and their behaviors tell you something important about what they’re thinking.
3. Finally, pause a third time and ask, “Do I know something my team doesn’t know, or do they know something I don’t know — but need to?” The first question helps you avoid the mistake of forgetting that your team doesn’t actually have access to the inside of your head, and it’s entirely possible that if they knew everything you knew about the situation, they’d be on board with the change. So tell them! 

Likewise, it’s possible that if you knew everything your team knows, you might have reached a very different decision. After all, you hired them to know things you don’t know and do things you can’t do. The proactive solution to this, of course, is to make sure that employees are consulted about major changes before the day they’re announced. But if you find yourself meeting resistance, it’s wise to pump the brakes and ask yourself if what’s actually happening is that team members with specific and valuable domain knowledge are seeing something you’re not.

By this time next year, we’ll have a pretty good idea of the way many companies handled the return to the office, what approach they used with their employees, and how successfully — or disastrously— it all went. In the meantime, Dr. Dawn-Marie Turner will continue her work helping organizations view change as an asset, rather than a liability.