Trouble in Paradise: Monthly Round-Up
In case you missed it..everything you need to redesign your Company Culture
Poor workplace mental health has been estimated to cost the UK £56bn a year; and in the rush to address work culture issues; and get companies ‘performing’ again; the solution posed by leaders across a multitude of organisations has been a cry of ‘back to the office’.
This month has been a topic close to our heart. At
we are a predominantly remote organisation (other than when we run face to face client sessions); and we’ve worked with some phenomenally successful global entities that work in a way that puts their teams and their lives first. We’ve watched in confusion as many of the advances of the past few years in relation to more inclusive, flexibly minded work practices have been retracted in haste.We are in an era of fundamental change to work life practices and cultures, and so many clients had asked us about how to make first steps in this redesign, that we dedicated a whole month to the topic. Here’s a quick summary of what we covered:
1. We looked at why a breakdown in trust is the problem, not where we work from
Our first piece this month looked at the fundamental breakdown in trust that has occurred between leaders and teams in organisations; and how this can be repaired. We explored why new working models aren’t sticking; and touched on the creation of ‘Community Contracts’ that you build with, not for your teams, could be the solution:
(2) We developed a framework to create meaningful workplace communities
Our framework explores the challenges our internal communities are facing, how to define the value exchange between different stakeholders in the organisation; how to map communities; and how to support and enable those groups. Finally, we looked at the visible changes that you are looking to create in your redesign: how do you judge success & steer everything towards it. Spoiler alert: if the leadership aren’t living and breathing the new Community Contract, it won’t take across your community as a whole.
(3) We shared the LookUP List
Giving you some specific recommendations to go deeper; and for those of you who love the detail, a more robust resource list on workplace redesign in the name of a more human approach. We love a read / visit / listen list and this one’s a good one.
(4) We talked to 4 Community Building Experts
This month’s experts were a power house line up! We spoke to:
Nishma Patel Robb: President WACL
Nishma covered the importance of releasing control; and the importance of showing your vulnerability as a leader:
Bruce Daisley, Best-Selling author, podcast host and speaker
Bruce is one of the foremost experts in workplace culture, having dedicated years to understanding the practice (and as a former senior leader at Twitter, he knows a thing or two about corporate culture).
Lizzie Penny and Alex Hirst, co-founders Hoxby and The WorkStyle Revolution
Hoxby’s vision since day 1 has been ‘To create a happier, more fulfilled society through a world of work without bias’; and the organisation has been a live test bed for everything that Lizzie and Alex believe in.
Zack McCune, Director of Global Brand, Wikimedia
As a long standing employee of one of the most decentralised, community driven organisations we have come across, there aren’t many people who know more about effective community building than Zack does.
https://wearelookup.substack.com/p/0deaac50-896d-4a47-b3f8-2d6726f371c7
That’s all for this month!
Next month we’ll be focusing on New Tricks: how to get ahead of a mid-career slump, and kick-start the most fulfilling phase of your working life.
Working lives are longer than they’ve ever been, extreme change is all around us, and everyone needs to find a working path that works for them. Whether that’s a bold new venture, or a gradual evolution into a new professional era.
This month we will bring you:
A point of view on why we old dogs might need to learn new tricks – and some potential areas to focus
Tips and tricks from our LookUP Experts to become effective lifelong learners
Some of the key learning from our LookUP post-redundancy Personal Brand event
Our LookUP List, packed with great summer reads and areas to explore
This emerging need is one of the main reasons we set up
in the first place – we can’t wait to share some of our thinking, and to hear yours too!Thanks again for reading
Caroline and Matthew