Future Work/Life is my newsletter in which I explore ideas focused on the future of work and how to lead energised, entrepreneurial and productive teams. If you find it interesting, please share it! And if you’d like to hear more from me, book me to speak with your team.
Want to build an engaged workforce?
Of course you do!
Here are some lessons from someone with the inside track on building the world’s leading online, Mighty Networks CEO Gina Bianchini.
Every day I hear another story about the challenges of creating engaged hybrid and remote teams. It turns out the amount of time spent in an office may be different than before, but the same challenges remain! So, here’s the basic toolkit you need for instilling a sense of mission and building a performance culture.
First, let’s start by acknowledging what’s wrong - here’s what I most commonly see:
Teams lack a clear, shared purpose.
Leaders don’t cultivate open dialogue and positive accountability.
There’s a focus on short-term goals at the expense of long-term vision.
Lack of serious focus on tracking and recognising progress and growth.
No practice of asking future-oriented, transformative questions.
Now, here’s how can you start to change things:
Step 1:
Establish a clear purpose.
Once every aligns around a shared goal, it’s amazing how quickly you create a sense of belonging and teamwork. Write it down. Discuss it. Don’t be shy about constantly referring to how you’re going to achieve it.
Step 2:
Promote open dialogue and accountability.
This is where many organisations stumble. They encourage monologues rather than dialogues and uniformity over diversity. Create a culture of open discussions that allow diverse perspectives to thrive - these enrich the team's collective intelligence, sparking creativity and innovation.
Step 3:
Prioritise personal and team growth.
People need to feel a sense of progress. Recognise their efforts. Celebrate wins, however small. Constantly push people to stetch themselves and their team mates. One great way to do this is to ask generative questions like. "what are you able to do a year from now that you can't do today?" empower your team, giving them a vision and a sense of optimism.
The work doesn’t just stop there, of course, and it takes regular work and transparent communication. But follow these steps and you'll be moving towards building an engaged workforce.
For more on why you need a shared purpose to create engaged communities, check out my podcast conversation with Gina Bianchini on this week’s Future Work/Life podcast.
And if you’d like to hear more from me on these themes, I speak regularly at company and industry events. Get in touch to learn about my 2023 keynotes:
Mastering hybrid leadership
Growing with digital leverage
Building a talent flywheel
Have a lovely weekend,
Ollie