Making sure your staff understand the purpose of your organisation is crucial to getting them to stay, according to a Gallup poll at the end of last year.

So, how do you create a sense of purpose in your organisation? Here are five things you can do to create that sense of purpose in your organisations and teams.

1. Keep it simple

Having a straight-forward goal and purpose is important.   Jim Collin’s idea of a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) is well-known and helps focus on what is important.  Just to give you an idea of a BHAG here are two practical examples.   Here is Amazon’s BHAG “Our vision is to be earth’s most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online”.  Everything they do from making the on-line experience one simple “click” through to their policy on returns keeps you coming back as a customer.   Google also has a straight-forward mission statement too – “To organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful’.   Both mission statements and goals s are succinct.

2. Create a great working environment

It sounds obvious,  but if your staff are in a suffocating workplace environment, rather than a comfortable work place with ambient temperatures and good desk space, then it can leave them feeling lethargic and not giving their best.   Their focus, and their conversations with colleagues, is likely to be about their uncomfortable conditions rather than what they want to and can achieve for the organisation.

3. Engage and be accountable

Getting your staff excited about purpose is one thing but delivering it is quite another.  Organisations with good opportunities for staff to contribute their ideas and share their views constructively are more accountable and means that any radical change you need to adopt to achieve your mission is more likely to be accepted. It is also important that the leaders are visible and communicating regularly with their staff.

4. Be confident . . . but humble

According to the London Business School, the best performing companies all have an air of confidence, but this is something easier said than done.  Staff will follow leaders who are confident, or even have an air of confidence, but not those who are arrogant.

Jim Collins who wrote “Good to Great” tells the story of Darwin F Smith who took over Kimberly Clark, which back in the 1970’s was a “stodgy old paper company”.  Smith was a mild-mannered in-house lawyer and was made Chief Executive which some thought was an odd choice.  He remained Chief Executive for 20 years and in that period he transformed the company into a leading paper-based products company beating rivals such as Procter and Gamble.  Smith was described as a man who carried no airs of self-importance.

5. Be prepared for an endurance test

There has been much written about “resilience” whether on an individual or organisational level.

When things are going well and your mission and strategy is working then all is well with the world.   Yes, it important to take advice where the strategy and plans need to change, but also be prepared to be purposeful about pushing through things that are key to the success of the organisation.

As anyone who has worked abroad or in an international setting will tell you, ways of communicating in one country may not necessarily work in another.  There are some surprising and fundamental differences even within Western and Asian cultures that need to be taken into account.

For instance, while the direct negative feedback given by a German boss might seem unnecessarily harsh in America, while an American worker’s enthusiasm might come off as excessive and insincere in Germany.

In Erin Meyer’s recent book “The Culture Map” she looks at eight dimensions which highlight the main differences between cultures.  They are

Communicating – low context vs high context

Evaluating – direct negative feedback vs indirect negative feedback

Persuading – principles vs applications

Leading – egalitarian vs hierarchical

Deciding – consensual vs top-down

Trusting – task-based vs relationship-based

Disagreeing – confrontational vs avoids confrontation

Scheduling – linear-time vs flexible-time

The two dimensions which impact particularly on feedback, namely evaluation and communicating, can leave both managers and individuals bemused as to “what is really being said”.

She quotes the story of a French Finance Director going to work in the USA for an American boss.  Her team, mainly Americans complained to her boss that in the first rounds of interviews she was unduly harsh focussing on the negative rather than any of the positives.   She was taken aback.   Her style of evaluating her team had worked perfectly with her French team.  In her mind she knew the Americans to be “to the point” and direct, but what she didn’t know was that Americans, when it comes to feedback, tend to be over the top with their praise using words like “great”, “fantastic” and, of course,  “awesome”.  On the other hand, when it comes to negative feedback they will dress it up with some positives and even then might put it in writing rather than in a face-to-face meeting.

The same Finance Director had a similar experience when it came to her own performance review.   Her American boss lavished her with praise about the aspects that were going well, but she missed the more nuanced issues about her performance that her boss was trying to tell her.   Fortunately the author, who was the Finance Director’s coach was able to step in and help them work through the communication blocks.

Have you had or are you currently experiencing some communication or performance review challenges?  Perhaps understanding the prevailing culture of the individuals or group you are working with would help you understand their context better.  Please get in touch if you want to talk confidentially about any situation you face.

It is estimated that right now, one in six workers is dealing with a mental health problem.   The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) report, in their latest absence management survey, that two out of five employers say they’d seen an increase in reported mental health problems in the past year.  So how comfortable is your organisation speaking about these issues when you see that colleagues and staff members are struggling?

Ideally employers need to take a proactive approach to stress management which focuses on prevention and early intervention, not just responding when a problem becomes significant or when someone goes on sick leave.

A number of organisations are looking at the main causes of stress in their organisation so they can try to reduce those stressors and also increase staff members’ resilience to deal with pressures they may face.

What can you do to reduce workplace stress?

• Do a stress audit and subsequently direct resources to reduce or eliminate the sources of stress.
• Ensure people feel adequately trained and supported to do their jobs well.
• Increase support for staff during periods of change and uncertainty.

Which interventions should you introduce to help build staff resilience?

• stress management and relaxation techniques training
• training aimed at building personal resilience (such as coping techniques, cognitive behaviour therapy, positive psychology courses)
• promoting healthy behaviour and exercise
• flexible working options and improved work-life balance
• personal counselling schemes.

 Making an early invention by spotting and addressing early signs of a stress-related issue is important to prevent it from escalating.  Staff members need to feel able to flag a problem with their line managers and feel confident they are capable of taking action.   So it is important that your organisation invests in:

• developing the people management skills and confidence of managers at all levels so they feel able to have the appropriate conversations with staff
• line managers knowing the teams and people’s usual working styles to be able to spot behaviour which is out of sorts and may be an early warning sign of a potential issue
• developing a supportive work culture to encourage staff to discuss and seek support when experiencing stress
• provision of, and signposting to, support mechanisms, for example a counselling service

The CIPD has come up with a clear set of management competencies for preventing and reducing stress at work.  This is a useful framework and checklist for ensuring your line managers are equipped to deal with stress at work.   If you’d like a copy please get in touch.

What makes an organisation a great place to work? Culture is one of 
the hardest attributes of an organisation to articulate and measure, but also one of the
most important and valuable.  Positive and aligned organisational cultures can

• motivate staff to perform and engage with
their work
• align behaviours to common values and purpose
• share knowledge and insights
• be more productive and responsive
• build trust.

On the reverse side, when toxic, culture can cause significant issues for the business and its staff, leading to

• low performance and morale
• high levels of staff turnover
• significant harm to the organisation and
to the well-being of employees.

In times of challenge and opportunity, a healthy organisational culture can make or break the success of a business and of the people working for it. It follows then that leaders should be leading the way on the people aspects of corporate culture. Yet in the many organisations I am acquainted with, I hear staff saying that the senior team or, indeed the board of trustees, are not modeling the behaviours that should underpin the organisation’s values. So why this dissonance?

The Financial Reporting
Council (FRC) has come up with a UK Corporate Governance Code aimed at positioning the board as a central element for establishing the culture of the organisation and maintaining the ethics and values thus setting
the ‘tone from the top’.

The FRC also identified that in order to be effective any board required dialogue that is both constructive and challenging. The problems arising from “groupthink” have been exposed in particular as a result of the financial crisis. One of the ways in which constructive debate can be encouraged is through having sufficient diversity on the board. This includes, but is not limited to, gender and race. Diverse board composition in these respects is not on its own a guarantee. Diversity is as much about differences of approach and experience, and it is very important in ensuring effective engagement with key stakeholders and in order to deliver the business strategy.

A joint culture project between the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has been leading on
the people issues theme of work, exploring exactly how boards should consider the culture of
their organisations, and crucially the steps which they can take to understand and develop positive working environments. Through their research they have gathered insights into four key themes which are set out in the action points below.

So what are the key action points for your board?

As well as ensuring that the composition of the board is diverse, it should :-

1. Champion change from the top: Lead cultural change from the top, and evidence its impact on the business. Ensure that the board is diverse and representative of the organisation and community in which the business operates, while ensuring that all appointments are based on merit.

2. Address the reward question: Align measures of performance, reward and culture to address issues of pay and ensure that reward decisions take cultural alignment into account.

3. Empower the board’s committees: Empower the remuneration committee to challenge, and act with integrity and independence. Ensure that the board responds to the remuneration committee transparently and with full commitment. Maintain a focus on corporate culture to challenge the board to remain accountable for cultural issues, and highlight potential issues before they arise. Establish a culture committee to oversee cultural risks and opportunities, and hold the board to account on issues regarding culture.

4. Protect whistleblowers and those speaking up: Create employee voice and whistleblowing processes that protect employees who speak out about cultural and behavioural issues, and ensure that the board takes effective action to rectify concerns.

So how can you get the best out of your team?   Should you offer positive feedback to let people know when they’re doing well, or should you offer constructive comments to help them when they’re off track?

Research from Harvard suggests that this is a trick question. The answer, as one might intuitively expect, is that both are important. But the real question is — in what proportion?

The researchers examined the effectiveness of 60 strategic-business-unit leadership teams at a large information-processing company. “Effectiveness” was measured according to financial performance, customer satisfaction ratings, and 360-degree feedback ratings of the team members.

The factor that made the greatest difference between the most and least successful teams, was the ratio of positive comments (“I agree with that,” for instance, or “That’s a terrific idea”) to negative comments (“I don’t agree with you” “We shouldn’t even consider doing that”) that the participants made to one another. (Negative comments could go as far as sarcastic or disparaging remarks.)

The average ratio for the highest-performing teams was 5.6 (that is, nearly six positive comments for every negative one). The medium-performance teams averaged 1.9 (almost twice as many positive comments than negative ones.) But the average for the low-performing teams, at 0.36 to 1, was almost three negative comments for every positive one.

Negative feedback is important when we’re heading over a cliff to warn us that we’d really better stop doing something horrible or start doing something we’re not doing right away. But even the most well-intentioned criticism can rupture relationships and undermine self-confidence and initiative. It can change behaviour, certainly, but it doesn’t cause people to put in their best efforts.  Only positive feedback can motivate people to continue doing what they’re doing well, and do it with more vigour, determination, and creativity.

This research is echoed in an uncanny way by John Gottman’s analysis of marriage and couples.  The single biggest determinant is the ratio of positive to negative comments the partners make to one another. And the optimal ratio is amazingly similar — five positive comments for every negative one. (For those who ended up divorced, the ratio was 0.77 to 1 — or something like three positive comments for every four negative ones.)

Clearly in work and life, both negative and positive feedback have their place and their time. If some inappropriate behaviour needs to be stopped, or if someone is failing to do something they should be doing, that’s a good time for negative feedback. And certainly opposite views are useful in leadership and team discussions, especially when it seems only one side of the argument has been heard. But the key even here is to keep the opposing viewpoint rational, objective, and calm — and above all not to engage in any personal attack – under the disingenuous guise of being “constructive”.

So how can you (and I!) be more aware of the ratio of positive and negative comments we make in the workplace – and how can we keep it as close as possible to the ideal of 5.6 to 1?