The Making Great Work Happen blog
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The Great Leadership Delusion
Instead of falling for the leadership industrial complex, organisations should be doubling down on developing foundational skills for middle managers. It's the supervisors, team leads, and mid-level managers who shape the day-to-day experience for most employees.
The 5 Pitfalls of Team Building Events
If you're going to take your team off the job for a day it has got to add value to, and reinforce, the work you do together. Avoid these pitfalls and instead have an experience that will set everyone up for success for the rest of the year.
Are silos sabotaging your culture?
Every organisation is a collection of subcultures and, with growth, silos can be inevitable. By ensuring managers have culture building skills, these subcultures can be positive rather than destructive.
10 Undebatable Benefits of Purposeful Culture Building
Not investing in culture development is like buying all the ingredients and then expecting dinner to make itself! Here are 10 compelling reasons for working on your culture.
Empathy is the foundation of productivity
Empathy is not a ‘nice to have’. It’s the connective tissue of high performing, productive teams that enables people to do their best work without overwhelm or burn out.
Why 'Culture First' leaders will always succeed
When senior leaders make investment in culture their top priority, they will always reap the rewards, both in terms of business results, but also in staff engagement too.
How to be an email trailblazer
Too much email is everyone’s problem. Yet is can be simple to solve - provided there’s agreement on some behavioral changes.
4 Signs of Culture Window Dressing
Does the culture you are projecting to the outside world correlate with your employees’ experiences? When you window dress your culture you are creating a disconnect that will ultimately play out across the entire organisation and its performance.
People just want to be respected
All most people ask for is respect. For who they are, what they believe, the value they add, the feedback they provide, the things they’ve achieved and the mistakes that they’ve made.
What does culture mean to you?
What does culture mean to you? Understand it better to create and evolve it successfully.
Does your organisation suffer from initiative-itis?
Too much on your plate? It’s time for some prioritisation and to let go of non-strategic ‘initiatives’
Is your culture slowly rotting?
The signs of a toxic culture are there if you’re willing to look. And then you must take action to stop the rot.
When in Rome… Why senior managers need to understand social cultures
Recognise what you don’t know about other cultures and then jump in, willing to learn and try - that’s how senior managers can create a global culture.
Is your organisation talking a good game when it comes to culture?
Talk is all well and good; action is much better. Any investment in culture will pay dividends, so what are you waiting for?
Challenging Dumb Cultural Norms
You don’t need permission to stop doing the things that are getting in the way of high value, productive work. Be the change!
You can't do more with less. However...
Sometimes you have to say ’no’. Teams that focus on doing fewer things to a high level of quality, will always achieve more than those that are overwhelmed by work.
Leadership is not a Checklist
It’s not a list that you’ll never be able to live up to, a pithy saying or a lesson you can easily learn. Leadership takes focus and intentional action, every day.
Culture Change? Start with the little things
Like many things in life, little and often is a great way to make positive changes and your workplace culture is no different. If you want to stop paying lip service to great culture and actually get on with creating one, start small.
Is Too Much Culture Stuff a Bad Thing?
If your culture ‘stuff’ is getting in the way of your culture evolution then it’s time to simplify by focussing on what really matters and making sure you move from ticking boxes to taking ownership.
Waiting to fix something that’s broken
Cracked cultures won’t fix themselves - the problems will build up until bursting point. This is a cautionary tale of what happens when we wait to do the work to improve the workplace