Respect, compassion, support – how can I help you be at your best?

If you’ve had any personal conversations with your employees recently, you may get the sense that some of them are burnt out, under considerable pressure from ongoing pandemic-fueled fire drills, feeling stressed, anxious or even lost. These are words shared from some of our clients recently.

The merging of personal and professional life for many has diluted quality time and focus in both, merging them into a ‘get through another day’ kind of mess.

Forget for a minute the headlines around the great resignation and what ‘tactics’ you need to employ to retain your talent and prevent them jumping ship (but if you do want to take a look, we shared our thoughts in Forbes here). Think beyond that. What do your people really need, as humans? Have you asked?

With them dedicating over 50% of their waking week-day hours to work, what responsibility do you have to support them being at their best? It’s pretty easy to make the case for it being: “more than anyone else!” So what are you doing about it?

One of my clients last week explained upon their return from a big marketing industry leaders conference, how the dynamics had changed dramatically from the same event- 2 years prior. As you might expect the vast majority of the content then had been focused on digital transformation, data and analytics, the customer experience, sustainability, and even brand purpose. This time, 85% of the content was focused on people.

Did we somehow forget along the way that (the right) people are our greatest asset? Also, generally as our biggest cost (translated – investment)- people should be our biggest priority and offer by far our largest opportunity for competitive advantage. It’s pretty simple- enable the right people, focused on the right things to be at their best and you’ve set yourself up for success. But simple doesn’t mean easy.

So, what does this mean?

It means looking at all three parts of this equation:

Right people + Right Focus x at their best = optimal performance

…and, assuming you need at minimum to maintain current capacity to keep up with the status quo in the market- start tackling the equation in reverse order. Why?

Because “at their best” is the leverage point in the equation. You’ve likely seen the research- inspired people = 225% more productive than satisfied (Bain 2015, HBR article here); people in ‘flow’ (in the zone) perform 500% better (learn more here). Importantly, to achieve ‘inspiration’ and establish moments of ‘flow’ we have to ensure we’re taking care of the basics – back to Maslow!

More recently, MIT Sloan found that “a toxic culture is 10.4 times more likely to contribute to attrition than compensation” and further that the three most powerful predictors of a corporate culture were: 1) Employees feeling respected; 2) Supportive Leaders; and 3) Leaders living core values.

So, starting by asking the question, listening and understanding what your people need to be at their best, is arguably a basic need that reflects these top three predictors and we would suggest, is the most profitable area of focus. Because, even if you don’t have all the right people and focus, if you’ve done an ok job in getting the majority of folks to perform at their best – you’ve just established a big cushion of capacity, and earned the opportunity to fix things from a head start, rather than playing the much harder game of catch up.

What do your people need?

From our experience “what your people need” is an opportunity to explore, evaluate and embed their individual purpose within your organization. If their purpose is the reason they want to get up in the morning, it reflects both a basic need and an opportunity for self-actualization (back to Maslow). By our most simple definition, an individual’s purpose represents them at their best, making a difference. To get there, we dig deep with them into the following formula & model:

Purpose = Passion + Impact + Application

In taking clients through a series of thoughtful self-reflection and forward-projection activities, combined with coaching support, they unearth their passions, the impact they want to have in the world and, importantly identify what they need to do to activate and integrate both, day-to-day. In our Live and Lead with Purpose program, over a period of 10 weeks and 20-25 hours of effort (depending upon program design) they have completed three primary deliverables:

One Page Purpose Game Plan which represents a framework within which they can be the ultimate version of themselves for the next 10 years;

Clear list of Commitments and Actions designed to repurpose a certain amount of hours per week from energy draining activities to ‘at my best’ value-added activities; and

Support team identified & activated through sharing elements of their One Page Purpose, with their developmental priorities defined, thus giving them the confidence to accelerate out of the gates.

Moreover, they are inspired to bring their purpose to life, hone their focus to what matters most, are more optimistic and confident in thriving post-pandemic. They have gained a better perspective on short-term stress, improving their mental health and thus are better able to demonstrate positive energy, authentically at work.

This is one proven way to support people being at their best. Embedded into the process are people’s professional ambitions – something very tangible to partner on with your people over the next few years; in addition to The GC Index assessment which identifies each individual’s natural energy and enthusiasm to contribute in a certain way- which is something immediate that can be used to build upon people’s strengths, and to improve team make up, and group performance.

Perhaps the most tangible short-term outcome and where the ROI is clearly visible (and has the potential to increase thereafter) is on the repurposing of hours. In our last engagement with 25 Senior Leaders, this aggregated to a minimum starting point of 125 re-purposed hours per week (during the work day). Most importantly, the hours being dropped represented energy-draining, minimal / negative-value activities; which were replaced by energy-positive, at my best / value-added, activities. Thus, further making the case for the significant leverage you can attain from focusing on supporting your people in being at their best.

The more people who go through the program, the more consistent the language, open the conversations, and compassionate the individuals are to each other. The shared experience essentially acts as a catalyst for them better supporting each other and is therefore an additional multiplier, over time.

Finally, longer term outcomes would hit most of the primary employee engagement metrics, fueled by having converted a significant amount of goodwill from supporting them without an agenda, into performance. That’s the ultimate benefit, but your motivation here in offering this opportunity should be, because it is the right thing to do.

To learn more about how we could help you in supporting your people in being at their best, please get in touch.