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Is that even the best term for it? I prefer a goodbye, see you again interview; after all even if you wouldn't necessarily rehire, you would still want them as a promoter? Offboarding is another term, but really, is that what we are trying to do “off” the person? Give it a title that feels a bit more human, we are dealing with people, and we’ve always said, they are the heart of your business. One objective of exit interviews is to get a handle on what’s happening inside the business, and where best to place your energy when it comes to improving the experience people have with you. Asking a lot of questions about targets, expectations, job design, development and promotion are great, but if you can’t do anything with the responses, then maybe it’s best to move on to the next? So what should you ask? Questions that provide insight into improvements that impact business performance such as culture, leadership and team cohesiveness. Another objective of exit interviews is to discover what would make them stay, and if they'd come back or be a promoter for your business. This is all about talent pipelining. We know the fight for talent is continuing, so don’t be afraid to express your sadness at their leaving and to let them know, you’d welcome them back. After all, exiting a business should be just as engaging as entering one, don’t you agree? Think of it this way, when a customer leaves you, what would you do to get them back? So why treat the heart of your business, your people any differently? Something else to consider is how to personalise the goodbye experience and ensure they are open and honest with their responses. So perhaps it’s a two part approach, some questions asked by their leader at the time of resignation and when leaving day arrives, have HR or an external party ask the more difficult questions about their leader and team. Time to say goodbye should also involve letting them know their contribution made a difference, that you appreciate them. So build it into your processes, and ensure it’s sincere. What else should you consider? Do you mandate it or is it optional, we can’t give you the answer, so put it to your leadership team to decide. Should you ask questions that exaggerate the bad and the ugly of the role (every company has them), is that the final impression you want them to walk away with? What about tenure, does that impact the questions, how they are asked and by who? Who see’s the responses, should they be filtered, and how will they be used to improve team and company culture, and how do you communicate this to everyone? Getting the goodbye right, can provide valuable information about your culture, leadership and teams that then becomes a source of continuous improvement for the business. So here's one you may want to consider using.

When you rise up to the challenge of your first leadership role, it is never quite what you expect, so our two directors have spoken candidly about what the experience was like for them as emerging leaders. It was a mix and surge of excitement, seeing the future and anxiety around suddenly having a team of people with diverse capabilities that you needed to rally and engage with, says Melina. When the future was positive and things were on track, it was easy, but in some cases, you inherited a team that was just getting the job done and disengaged. I recall thinking I’ve got this and within seconds panicking that I was failing as I navigated another tumultuous conversation. There wasn’t time to plan for those conversations, you had to jump in. Melina recalls being hungry to learn, yet lacking the learning opportunities, mentors, or role models around her to draw from. There was no google, no online webinars, no ted talks, the best books she could access included “who moved my cheese” and “how to win friends and influence people” so it was sink or swim. Eventually swimming with some help from her floaties, noodles and kick board!” She learnt very quickly that it was critical to find and access all resources and networks around you. When I reflect over my leadership journey, especially those first few months, it was a whirlwind of emotions, recalls Suria. On one hand I was ecstatic that I was promoted, all my hard work as a high performing individual had paid off. Suria felt the promotion was finally the recognition she deserved. And on the other hand, she wondered what exactly had she signed up for? Leading was especially tough. She now had a team of people reliant on her, that somehow, she needed to influence to achieve the results that were needed to keep her in that newly promoted leadership role! No matter how much leadership content Suria digested, she claims she never quite felt prepared, “in the early days, my experience as a leader was incredibly lonely and overwhelming”. It’s clear that the right support and coaching is critical when rising up, as new and emerging leaders learn to navigate the unknown with a double-edged sword of excitement and fear of failure. But what got you here won't keep you here, so we asked both directors to be upfront about what their double-edged sword felt like. Seeing the future has always been the exciting part of leadership for Melina and finding new and novel ways to engage her team in that future, setting goals and cultivating unity. That part of leading was innate to her. And when people kicked goals, particularly the ones that thought they couldn’t, it energised her as she relished in seeing people grow and believe in their own greatness. At the other end were those challenging conversations, balancing tension and conflict, letting people know that performance was not up to expectations. No one wants to deliver bad news, as humans, it’s natural to steer away from these conversations and as a naturally optimistic leader, Melina preferred the positive to absorb her focus. The challenge was to deliver poor performance feedback in a way that is useful and helps people grow rather than holds them back and is disengaging, as that was much harder to recuperate from. Melina describes that as a new and emerging leader, with no training or role models, it was like walking into a leadership lab, learning through trial and error. Suria always believed her calling was people. Developing people and seeing them grow and transform both professionally and personally was what excited her about leadership. It was never enough to be a high performing individual contributor - she was passionate about teams and more specifically how to transform underperforming teams into extraordinarily successful teams. This passion anchored Suria, particularly on those days that were especially challenging navigating tension between team members or having to let someone go who was not meeting performance expectations. We asked both Suria and Melina if they could do it again, what support or development would they want as emerging leaders? Both agree that an opportunity to learn with others in similar shoes would have been powerful and may have helped them undo some of those early mistakes. And that a mentor, coach or role-model outside their direct line manager would also have helped them quench their hunger to learn from experienced leaders in a safe environment, as well as having access to practical tools and tips they could practice with and take into everyday workplace conversations. Which is exactly why they designed and launched RISEUP to the challenge, a program and playbook for emerging leaders. Bringing people together in similar shoes to learn, practice and grow in a safe environment, whilst accessing practical tools they could take into the workplace. So, what advice did they have for up and coming emerging leaders? Melina says she didn’t need to over think this one, her advice; stay curious, prioritise building trust and connection and take the time to ensure all team members feel connected. Discover the unity in the work, discuss meaning and define purpose. Let your skills and theirs do the rest. And learn, wherever, whenever, and often, via programs, communities, books, online, networks, coaches, mentors, feedback, self-assessments, the list is endless, more importantly see learning as infinite. Similarly to Melina, Suria believes it's important for a new leader to establish and build connection with their team first and foremost. This includes either introducing, or deepening existing team rituals such as a morning goal setting meeting or weekly team lunches, a time where you come together as a team to check in, connect, set goals and celebrate. Her second piece of advice is to build a network of other leaders and mentors (if you haven’t already) that you can lean on for support, encouragement and mentoring. Cast your net wide connecting with leaders with different strengths or who can offer you alternate perspectives. She says leaders are more likely to make effective decisions, be more innovative and experience growth when they collaborate and harness the collective wisdom of others. As a new and emerging leader, while your journey is yours alone, it doesn’t have to be lonely when you have your tribe in your corner! To discover more about our RISEUP emerging leaders program, email us, or register for one of our 2022 up and coming programs here. melina@peopleq.com.au suria@peopleq.com.au

Today's workplace demands more collaboration than ever before. The nature of our work has narrowed through specialisation and yet the problems we’re solving are multidisciplinary and require working together across specialist teams to get the job done. Collaboration is defined as the 'action of working with someone to create value’ and is a necessary skill that everyone should be encouraged to sharpen given the universally accepted truth that two heads are better than one! The accelerated adoption of digital tools and tech throughout the pandemic only validates the importance of collaboration at work. Now fast forward to 2025 where the National Skills Commission reports Australians will spend 1.2million more hours per week collaborating. Staggering isn’t it!? Now is the time for Leaders to cultivate the conditions that enable their teams to collaborate effectively, accessing the collective wisdom - a higher ground that can’t be achieved by bringing similar strengths and skills together. It relies on diversity and inclusion at the heart of it and must support equal and active participation from all team members. Diversity, inclusion, equal & active participation The benefits of accessing the collective wisdom doesn’t just stop at problem solving. It allows for employees to upskill, develop, and learn from one another. It creates efficiencies and increases capacity and an appetite to tackle and adapt to change. It improves engagement and builds stronger social connections and trust. It allows organisations to deliver innovative products and services all of which result in increased productivity. Whilst it might seem logical to bring all your high performers together to work on a project, that doesn’t always yield the best results. You get more with diversity, it’s a richer experience. Richard Hackman, a pioneer in organizational behaviour uncovered through his research that there are certain ‘enabling conditions’ that allow collaboration to flourish, debunking that it’s personalities, behavioural styles and attitudes that are critical to how well teams collaborate. These enabling conditions include a compelling direction, strong structure and supportive context. Building on this research was Google’s own Project Aristotle which supports that it's how teams worked together that made all the difference. Leaders yield better outcomes building a culture and teams that aren’t just carbon copies of your top performers, but those that can contribute in other meaningful ways. You’re connected by the common goal or purpose, bringing complementary strengths and skills. Combined, you’re a stronger team than what you would be with the same strengths and skills. Unlocking the collective wisdom of teams requires Leaders to be clear on the team's purpose as well as inspire their teams to not only find meaning in what they do day to day, but also understand their customer and stakeholder impact. Crucially Leaders play a role in moderating ‘team time’ ensuring diverse voices and views are surfaced and that each team member can participate and contribute equally. Leaders should be aware of not only what’s being said but what is unsaid to amplify the quiet voices. If you find yourself faced with a quieter team, take the opportunity to amplify the voice you do receive. Safety also needs to exist, it’s a condition where people feel that they won't be shut down or ridiculed. Use that opportunity to role model what people in the team would expect if they too shared their thoughts. And in your 1-2-1s, set the stage early and invite people as they share ideas with you to bring it to team time, playing their cheerleader but also giving people the time to prepare for the moment when you do want to share their voice. Sometimes people don’t speak up because they don't know what they don't know. As I like to call it, the DKDK. It’s only possible to unearth this through joint discovery and exploration. Consider out of the box questions to help people ideate to get them thinking and seeing a situation differently (and even change up the environment). What don’t we know? What does the ideal future goal feel like, what would be happening around us? What are we telling ourselves? What culture is needed? Who and what would benefit? If we said yes to this, what would we be saying no to? What would others say? And so on. Ultimately behind the teams that achieved more, were Leaders that created enabling conditions for collaboration. These leaders support diversity through skilfully curating their team’s strengths and capabilities and leveraging the richness of different viewpoints, harnessing the team’s collective wisdom. So, consider building a team and culture that aren’t just carbon copies of each other, but can contribute different perspectives, skills and strengths, with everyone connected by the common goal or purpose. To find out how PeopleQ can help, contact us today for more information on Leading with EQ and a PQfactor demo.

Having spent the majority of our corporate lives working for a global human resources giant, it's fair to say hiring was imprinted on our hearts mind and souls, it was akin a tattoo to the heart. We lived breathed bathed drank assessment analysing every minute detail of the process in order to improve our chances of getting each hire right. I've always said, hiring is not a perfect science, yet we continued to strive for perfection. We ripped apart the entire process, from attraction, to assessment, to offer and onboarding. And we looked for improvements. And what did we learn? Culture was the most significant element, assessing for someone that was right culturally, outweighed getting the technical criteria right. And if your culture is one where people collaborate and thrive, than one of the most likely skill sets is emotional intelligence. That lead us to creating all sorts of frameworks and interviews to identify and assess for these skills. But recently, my pain of writing my own was taken away. Completely. We became a Genos certified practitioner in 2016, and since then we have loved delivering their leadership programs. That is our core focus. Genos took their deep love and insight for emotional intelligence a step further, and now we can offer our clients a Hiring for EQ Interview guide and assessment tool. And this for us is the secret sauce! Hiring for EQ not only improves your chances of getting each hire right, and hiring for culture, it also in the long term improves productivity. But why is it particularly important for organisations embarking on building a thriving culture? Well if you're going to focus your energy time and effort into building a thriving culture, wouldn't you want to protect it when bringing new people into the organisation? And that protection is to ensure every hire is the right one, by hiring for EQ. Request a sample report, or contact us today to find out how your organisation could benefit by hiring for EQ.

Here’s a few reasons why we think a thriving culture is good for business. Firstly, we spend so much time at work, that it makes sense to make it a place where people want to come by creating a great culture, and the contagion of a positive (or negative) culture often spills over into our personal lives. Who doesn't want a business that contributes this kind of goodness in the world? Traditionally, business owners and leaders have focused on strategy and performance outcomes but executing any of this requires people. A thriving culture brings a balanced approach to the WHAT, HOW, WHY and WHO of your business. I like to call it humanising the workplace by considering how people feel and go about doing their work. After all, people are at the heart of your business. Conflict and tension will always exist, look around, it's more evident today than ever before. A thriving workplace, where people are connected and genuinely care, means teams will approach tension as something that can be worked through and overcome, as opposed to a workplace where it’s avoided like the plague, and therefore builds and builds, having a major impact on not just those that hold the tension, but also others around them and ultimately your customers! What is it they say, Happy Teams, Happy Customers When staff feel that they are equipped and supported to perform at their best, the chances are these attitudes and mindset spill over into the customer experience. Then there's the roll-on effect of this on your brand and ultimately the performance of your buisness. A thriving workplace also means people feel better able to collaborate, to problem solve, improve customer outcomes or innovate so that your business evolves with your external environment, which today is evolving at paces never seen before. Now that has got to be good for productivity, customers and business performance? It also gives everyone something to be proud about, and proud people love to talk (boast), so imagine the reputation that builds from all that boasting? More importantly for me, it humanises the leadership team and business owners, it shows you care about outcomes and people equally, and when leaders do that, they are seen as more approachable, which again, its those roll-on effects, they are more respected and more likely to be heard by their teams. Running and leading a business in a dynamic fast moving and complex environment is hard enough, having a thriving workplace where people are happy, helps relieve some of the stress and tension that comes with being a business owner and leading complex teams. Speak to us today if you want to know more about how your business can shift from being good to great, and before you know it, this list above will feel like your workplace. Contact us at melina@peopleq.com.au or suria@peopleq.com.au For more about PQfactor visit https://www.peopleq.com.au/pqfactor

It’s been repeatedly said that feedback is a gift! Ultimately, feedback allows you as an individual, leader or organisation to grow, innovate, perform and helps you to stay in tune with what’s happening - all of which will boost your competitive edge! Of course that all depends on how you decide to look at it? ‘Decide’ being the operative word here. You can view feedback as criticism or explore it as a development opportunity to refine how and why you do what you do. Decades of neuroscience research shows that our belief about learning can impact how we receive and even how we deliver feedback. Having a growth mindset; the belief that skills can be improved with time and effort, means leaders can harness this piece of neuroscience by rewarding improvement rather than simply focusing on results and outcomes alone. It’s important to understand that it’s how we behave, i.e. the way we do things, that drives culture so being able to effectively link feedback to specific behaviour that led to the result or outcome, will promote further learning and growth. Given organisations are increasingly recognising the benefits of divergent thinking, workplace tension and conflict will naturally rise as a necessary by-product of teaming and collaboration. It is our natural default to become defensive when we hear criticism as it triggers our primitive brain to switch to protection mode. Equally individuals are at risk of becoming easily offended as you start to invite more open and honest communication. If you are a leader or an organisation experiencing this type of tension within your team, it might be time to cultivate an environment that encourages clear, open communication where people feel safe sharing their thoughts honestly without fear of retaliation or humiliation, as well as being open minded enough to receive feedback with curiosity. This is of course easier said than done, especially initially, however overtime this will create a culture where feedback equals healthy creative open dialogue and where customer experience, organisational outcomes, team culture and individual growth become the focus and your competitive edge. Here are some leadership tips to help you harness the power of feedback Spend time at the outset to reframe feedback as development rather than criticism which trigger’s protection mode. Get your team to agree on how they would like to share and receive feedback so that everyone is clear. Encourage a growth mindset by shifting your language and focus to be centred on the strategy and process rather than the end result itself. Reward and celebrate improvement. Leaders, adopt a coaching style when appropriate. It's the equivalent of saying you believe in the people you hired. Giving advice and solutions may suggest you are judging someone’s capacity to generate their own. Leaders should empower people to consider their options and provide them with thinking space to do so. A culture of growth and innovation requires Leaders and teams to continuously look for ways to improve the customer experience. To do so requires us to understand the customer experience, continuously look for ways to improve it and define how any change will help our customers. Organization’s seeking continuous improvement, also seek 360 feedback. Find ways for feedback to travel up, down, sideways, internal and external. Performance Reviews and employee ‘stay’ interviews are a few ways. Add employee engagement surveys, NPS, CSAT and regular dialogues about the experience people have with us. To discover how we can help you, get in touch with us today. 0498 800 008 or 0407 776 888

Surviving to Thriving Our next episode is live ! Join us as we delve deeper into the idea of thriving and high performing teams explaining why we think it's good for business.

We've talked about cultivating trust, now it's time to focus on TRUSTING YOURSELF.

We unravel coaching and share a workplace tip for leaders

We continue the focus on TRUST, this time from a communication, language and mindset perspective.

I’ve been contemplating this. Back when I was in corporate, executive coaching was reserved for, well, executives, or coaching adopted to help navigate difficult situations/behaviours. So what could have been different for me? I would have spent more time self-reflecting which is the most critical muscle a leader can have. And perhaps I would have sharpened my awareness of my behaviour and actions, as well as that of others, to add more insight to my thinking? I would have been challenged to expand my perspective, to see it from another’s. Perhaps I would have been more empathetic and sharpened my people skills resulting in better relationships at work? I would have actioned monthly changes to my leadership style, and perhaps those small steps would have amounted to significant and positive change over the long haul? I would have bounced my thoughts and ideas around with someone else, and perhaps that could have led to more effective workplace decisions? I would have had someone help me navigate and manage my stress, and perhaps that could have improved my health and wellbeing? I would have found someone I could trust my deepest inner thoughts to, who would have seen what I couldn’t, and maybe their reflections could have resulted in bringing light to the beliefs that were holding me back? I would have had regular opportunity to release myself from the everyday doing, and perhaps this would have reignited my creativity and resulted in ideas with better execution? I would have checked that feeling in my gut, rather than sit with the circulating thoughts of doubt, questioning myself to the point of spiralling and feeling like all hope was lost, and maybe I would have found the courage to use my voice? I would have improved my memory of events, made more effective choices, become intimate with my values and beliefs and perhaps this would have built confidence and trust in me? I would have grown, taken more risks, used my voice more, and felt better about my achievements, and therefore happier and maybe this happiness would have spilled into my family and personal life. Melina Lipkiewicz is a certified IECL Executive coach and ICF member. To find out more about our coaching programs, visit our page here, or contact us for a confidential discussion. 0498 800 008.