This shifting through potential future unicorns business is not as easy as I had anticipated, y’all! For those of you who haven’t yet seen it, last week I launched a Unicorn search of sorts in that I am trying to find the best candidates for the success stories in my next book whom I will kit with the Aristotle principles, our PeopleNotTech Team Dashboard and the method I’ve developed to lower HumanDebt.
There’s more information at www.duenablomstrom.com/ccoforhire and keep the recommendations and suggestions coming because, while I met some interesting companies, only one of them has potential so far.
Of course, even finding out how they are each doing so I can make a decision to come on board and execute this one-year change is a job., One that’s consuming but fascinating.
That said, I realised that while it may make some uncomfortable, there is no reason to conduct any lengthy interviews and discoveries, at least not at first, as the method is the same for everyone - Do the daily Human Work - Increase EQ - Be empathic and kind to yourself and others - Learn - Increase the team’s Psychological Safety and the organisation’s Aristotle Score. Where I would like to focus my attention is on democratising the science that makes a difference at all levels of the enterprise and focus on creating a data-led-people-culture with a trusted feedback mechanism where people can keep it real and see they have been heard and appreciated.
Don’t let the latest sensationalist headlines of “wellbeing initiatives don’t work and could be harmful” fool you as the caveats are numerous and the chief amongst them is how “INDIVIDUAL” wellbeing initiatives are failing not those that are done with the team in a group which is practically what we always said at PeopleNotTech. Psychological Safety is a group dynamic, the performance we seek is a group dynamic, and the way people are able to perform their work depends on this group dynamic so why on earth would we even dream of resolving any of those at an individual level?
Return to the undeniable facts:
The science of well-being is well documented and eminently researched - if nothing else, the fact that gratitude has the power to rewire neural pathways to diminish depression and rebuild one’s ability to have a positive outlook on life is absolutely enough but many other strategies are effective and necessary;
Group interventions work to better team dynamics and performance;
Creating a habit intentionally is possible and it should be done for every good habit including the Human Work in companies;
Focusing on having employees who can be in the Zone according to their Character Strengths is paramount;
The current workplace crisis is very expensive indeed and disengagement in particular is an urgent problem - in the absence of action, things can get worse rapidly.
One thing that really pleases me is to see that, while most people I spoke to who were moved by the offer were CEOs and Investors, the idea is not seen as a threat to any of their leaders including HR and I have met one such Superhero in particular who runs the people operations of a 900 techies enterprise that just got an injection of capital. He contacted me last week after the announcement and said “I downloaded your video of soundbites that includes your philosophy from a conference and I showed it in our management meeting, and every time someone has a negative thing to say regarding the Human Work I’d replay your relevant bit. Eventually, they asked me to build a proper risk analysis to show “what happens if we don’t do this culture thing” - HELP!”
I'll let you know what we get up to with that.
My hope in documenting the journey to find these future unicorns is that some people will read this and ask the same questions or try the same experiments in their own backyard thus growing in the meanwhile.
There is no space for individual egos when it comes to how fast some companies must ascend or vanish.
There is no space for doing the same things that have led us to have disengaged and mentally unwell employees.
There is no reason to try and potentially save the global economy as this article is claiming Amazon is attempting to do by protecting the real estate market by asking their employees to return to the office.
There is no time to pay only lip service to being well because if we’re not, we won’t get to where we want to be.
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At PeopleNotTech we make software that measures and improves the wellbeing and Psychological Safety of teams, come see a DEMO.
“Nothing other than sustained, habitual, EQed people work at the team level aka “the human work” done BY THE TEAM will improve any organisation’s level of Psychological Safety and therefore drop their levels of HumanDebt™.”
To order the "People Before Tech: The Importance of Psychological Safety and Teamwork in the Digital Age" book go to this Amazon link