The world of business and society at large is filled with extreme stress and worry. Disruptive events that would have previously happened ‘once in a decade’, now occur every year, or even every six months. Covid-19, the war in Ukraine, inflation, and the cost of living are among the growing anxieties to organisations and the individuals in them. These events, out of any employee’s control, are hampering creativity, innovation, and productivity throughout organisations of every shape and size.
A recent study from Gallup shows nearly half (44%) of employees now experience stress a lot during the work day, a new high on the previous year which already saw record levels of employee stress, worry, anger, and sadness. This is a wellbeing crisis at a global level, and organisations that ignore it risk losing talent and falling behind their competitors.
Tackling the crisis and overcoming it within organisations means helping each other, creating meaningful connections in teams and building an environment of authenticity and trust. HR and the people and culture functions are in prime position to do this.
This begins by doubling down on things we know: engagement might be yesterday’s word but it’s more important than ever. Questioning how engaged employees are, is the first step in achieving better engagement. It’s also a two-way street between the leadership team and the rest of the business. The CEO and other C-suite members need to genuinely connect with people and be engaged with them to win hearts and minds. The leadership paradigm of the past saw people follow CEOs simply because they were skilled and charismatic. Now people want a deeper connection, they want to know what they do is important and that it matters to the organisation. This requires CEOs to be more vulnerable, more personal, and more exposed. In return, an organisation’s people feel able to be themselves, to be more authentic, and to work free from fear. This quickly turns into an environment of optimism, which is the springboard for creativity and innovation.
To develop this within the leadership team, there needs to be a shift in mindsets. Beginning by identifying the goal, then deconstructing the thinking of the group, removing the blockers of change in order to create renewed mindsets that support the desired transformation goal. This approach focuses on the invisible human dimensions within a team to help identify what behaviours and beliefs are working and which are not. To free a leadership team of its negative aspects, HR needs to facilitate a space of trust and authenticity, where individuals can be open about fears. From there, HR has a much better understanding of a leadership team’s relationship dynamics and how these may be acting has hurdles or enablers toward new growth objectives.
We find that much of the negativity in a team’s belief system is grounded in mistrust and unhealthy critique. Often this is a mistrust in relying on someone else to carry out a task, and then a lack of forgiveness or even outright blame if someone does something wrong. That person is then not trusted going forward and a vicious circle is created. A lack of communication, either intentional or unintentional is another common inhibitor, which often leads to individuals or a number of individuals within a team working in siloes.
Part of the process of removing this negativity is focusing on a team’s strengths and its opportunities for growth. Perhaps they have strong collaboration, they are good communicators, members of the team can have authentic discussions and feel safe enough to make healthy challenges. Honing in on these and drawing them out is the first step in building meaningful connections, removing fear, and creating a space for judgement free creativity.
To be sure, shifting a culture of fear to one of trust and care is an awkward journey. But it is a necessary journey; it unlocks an individual’s skillsets, their vision, and their ability to collaborate. When achieved at a leadership team level, this manifests in a group that is better performing and drives better results. This is then reflected in the wider organisation. A team at the top that is trusting of one another and without fear is one capable of being vulnerable and more authentic, which in turn leads to greater engagement with their employees, clients, and the communities they serve.
Ultimately, it’s about breaking the vicious circle, deconstructing and removing the performance blockers, and establishing new mindsets that create a transformational virtuous circle of higher performance.
