We’ve shared a few pitfalls now, part 1 referred to feedback disappearing into the metaverse and score tunnel vision, part 2 referred to spreading your focus too thin, ruminating on the who what and where and approaching workplace culture as project. We could continue the list of pitfalls, however we see these and the two below as being the major ones for leaders to bring into vision.
Don’t replace dialogue with data
Employee engagement and culture tools will provide leaders and organisations with data and insights, but remember that’s all it is, just powerful data to support you as a leader to direct your focus and attention. It’s the team conversations that shape and give context to the scores and overall data.
Missed opportunity: Whilst the data is useful and will provide you as the leader with some valid insights, it’s important to not rely solely on data alone. The richness and real transformation will always come from having the team conversations and following through on actions. Leaders risk this valuable opportunity to dig deeper into what their employees want without the dialogue.
Practice: using fearless inquiry and asking powerful open questions to prompt deeper team discussions. Part of your role as the leader is to facilitate a quality discussion, so set the stage for the team and let them know you’ll be inviting their input.
Not prepared to change
When embarking on your cultural transformation journey, it’s easy to think of it as an exercise with a start and end point; however, as we mentioned earlier in part2, culture is not a project with a due date. It’s a group construct that everyone contributes to and is responsible for. It does require an open mind, and it’s the leaders that are prepared to be courageous, show a little vulnerability and genuine care for their people that do better than most.
Missed opportunity: If you’re not prepared to use your employee engagement or culture tool to support your team’s transformation then you could be missing out on accessing a whole range of benefits. Research tells us that cultivating a feedback and learning culture promotes creativity, sharing of ideas and innovation which of course results in further growth, agility, adaptability and resilience.
Practice: Embracing change! I know that’s easier said than done, however no one experiences growth in their comfort zone. You need a bit of head wind to evolve and grow. Regularly ask yourself “What didn’t serve us well the past week that we should let go of? And what did serve us well in the past week or month that we should do more of?” As they say, nothing changes if nothing changes.
At PeopleQ, we exist to inspire cultures to thrive, so people thrive. We do this by choosing to focus on our strengths to execute a few key things exceptionally well that relate to workplace culture! That's our culture tool, PQfactor, powered by Teamgage, our leadership programs, our consulting on talent acquisition frameworks and our SVP workshops.
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