We are on the cusp of a revolution in how we utilise the talent of our people. Not only are people’s expectations of work changing, but our expectations of our people are changing.
Nine out of 10 employees would be willing to swap a percentage of their lifetime earnings for more meaningful work. 56% of workers won’t even consider a job at a company that has values they disagree with.
More than that, we – their employers – need them to care.
When today’s employees find their work meaningful, companies save an average of $6.43 million in annual turnover-related costs for every 10,000 workers. Productivity improves by up to 33%, worth around $10,000 per employee.
I don’t need to tell you this. You’ve been trying for years to convince your organisation that the context in which our organisations operate is changing so much that many of the fundamentals about management and leadership are no longer fit for purpose.
Now the call to action is urgent.
Against a background of constant uncertainty and change, deteriorating mental health, woeful distrust in institutions like governments and the media to tell us the truth, climate change and, of course, AI (the threat and the opportunity), leaders must finally be willing to reject Victorian Age beliefs which get in the way of rethinking how we truly engage our people.
In my new book, Punks in Suits – how to lead the workplace reformation – I identify two such beliefs which, in nearly 25 years of coaching senior leaders and leading culture change and leadership development programmes, most organisations have not managed to jettison, despite a lot of talk about people being their greatest asset.
Unpicking Victorian beliefs
These two beliefs are:
- People are second-rate machines and,
- Most people are trying to get away with something.
The first belief looks like this – Machines are preferable to people. They are efficient and predictable. They operate day and night with consistency. But because we can’t get machines to do everything, we use people. Ideally people will behave like machines, and we will put in place structures, rules, processes and systems that create as much predictability, efficiency and consistency in how people work as possible.
Of course, most leaders care about people and they know that people offer something a machine can never offer – heart, emotion, caring about what they do. But while they acknowledge that we have to relate to people differently than machines, a lot of the time they want them to put their emotion to one side and become as predictable, efficient, consistent and productive as a machine.
And the second belief looks like this – If we give them an inch, they will take a mile. Even if the majority want to do the right thing, we had better be cautious and put in place processes and systems to stop bad apples spending all day chatting, stealing stationery and inflating their expenses. Senior, more sophisticated people are needed to supervise and control more junior people, offering them inducements to do a good job and keep them on the straight and narrow.
Clearly, leaders know this doesn’t apply to everyone. They have some great people. But the way they manage people, and the style of leadership far too many senior people rely upon, bakes these beliefs into our culture. It doesn’t matter how many engagement surveys you do, how much lunchtime yoga, how many team-building offsites and how many new versions of the organisational values you generate, the very compact we have with our people is what’s flawed.
Where should leaders start?
In my book I identify six places to look if you are ready to rethink how we work and how we utilise people to best effect. I start by exploring the impact of new tech, specifically generative AI, new approaches to empowerment and trust, hierarchy, a rethink of the role of leader, how we instigate organisational change and the role of business as a force for good in the world. And then I ask the reader if they want to accept the call to adventure and start shaking up the status quo.
But if there is one first step, it is to consider the ways your leaders (and you, personally) put limits on your willingness to trust others.
Typically, leaders think about trust in terms of whether they are trustworthy. Let’s not take that for granted. Being trustworthy means knowing what you stand for and then standing for it. It should have a price. It should make leaders uncomfortable and force difficult conversations about matters of principle.
Organisations should wrangle with tough ethical topics and think deeply about what it means to live by their stated values. All too often values around people are sacrificed when there is a financial cost. Inevitably people start to wonder whether ‘organisational values’ and the leaders that espouse them, mean anything in reality.
That’s a sure-fire way to destroy trust in leaders as a source of information. And if people don’t trust you, how can you really engage with them? How can you get all that extra value from them that helps your organisation thrive in these tough market conditions?
But there’s another element of trust – willingness to trust. And this is where those two Victorian beliefs really show up. If you believe that the humanity of people is charming and, at times, useful, but also something that needs to be switched off for the sake of efficiency, productivity and ‘getting stuff done’, and if you believe that people need close monitoring so they don’t take advantage of any freedoms on offer, you will not genuinely be willing to empower.
People can only be empowered to the extent that a leader is willing to give away power. You can’t empower and hold on to power at the same time. And that feels risky. What if they make a bad decision? What if they make a self-serving decision? What if they can’t handle the responsibility?
These fears are exactly why we cling to the Industrial Age rules of work. But the consequence is that our people are operating with one hand tied behind their back. They are capable of so much more, but their leaders are standing in the way.
The biggest change a leader can make to liberate all the untapped talent in your people, is to understand this: However smart you are, you aren’t as smart as everyone combined. The challenges our organisations are facing are complex, and the solutions required are sophisticated. Leaders have to be brave. They have to be willing to let go of the accoutrements of power, the ego-boosters, the superiority complex, and enable the wisdom of every single person in their organisation.
And that requires constantly questioning the limits of their willingness to trust and looking for the systemic ways the organisation limits trust. Look at how decisions are made, how information is withheld, how people are monitored and supervised. Listen out for conversations where the intent is to ‘protect’ people from decisions and information they probably can’t handle. Listen out for the implication that people will take advantage of particular freedoms or will revert to their innate laziness. Is there fear around anarchy, chaos and dissent unless people are closely managed? How are people tracked and measured?
And then ask – What would we do if we trusted people? What if people wanted to do a good job here…how would we proceed then?
