Releasing control. Unleashing community.
We talk to Nishma Patel Robb, CEO at Glittersphere and ex-Google Senior Director of Brand and Marketing...
There’s no simple solution to the challenges of modern workplace culture.
The most effective leaders tend to be those that are thoughtful, open-minded, and keep exploring to find a better way.
That’s certainly the kind of leadership that Nishma Patel Robb has always provided, whether that’s leading Marketing at Google, pushing the agenda for women in advertising at WACL, or in her many other senior roles across the industry.
And she hasn’t stopped learning yet.
As she said herself in her LookUP interview:
"The best leaders will be the ones who go, 'I don't know', and who are comfortable with their vulnerabilities…the hardest thing is actually decoding our brains and behaviours because we have had our entire lives surrounded by command and control behaviour”
Our conversation with Nishma happened at a moment where there was yet another wave of ‘let’s get them back to the office’ headlines (and we’re sure another is just around the corner).
But this interview reminded us that whilst in tough times, the urge to go back to what you know, back into your safe space, is an entirely natural reaction as a leader, it’s just not sufficient for the economic times we live in, the technological times that are coming, or the full potential of a workforce with diverse needs and styles.
Nishma, like us, very much sees community building as fundamental to finding better solutions to the challenges of the modern workplace.
But she also reminded us of how hard this can be, not just because of fear of the unknown, but because our own horizons and experiences are often too limited by our algorithms or our social bubbles.
How can we build a sense of community with a group of people, if we don’t really understand what they want, and we don’t see what they see?
Nishma’s got a brilliant antidote to that, which we fully endorse - go and see, go and do, the things that you think you would never want to do!
In this interview we went really deep on the things that make a great workplace culture, and all kinds of aspect of internal community-building, including:
How the pandemic shaped her view of what makes a great culture
Why she believes community is the future of business
Why and how we can give up command and control, and let community flourish
Why the real power lies in micro-communities
How to avoid being transactional as a community builder
How to embrace the beautiful power of intersection
It’s a fantastic interview, and we can’t wait for you to see it.
Most of our LookUP interviews are for our paid subscribers only, but we are giving this to everyone for free.
Enjoy!
All this month we’ve been exploring the power of community to build workplace culture. If you’d like to dig deeper, check out our overview post here…
And check out our framework for community building here (you’ll need to upgrade to paid to get the full version)…
