The 3 Critical Conversations Every Manager Should Be Having

It's a misconception that top-down decision making works to create sustainable change at your workplace. This concept likely holds weight as the old hierarchical pyramid and decades of short-term management and under-development built infrastructures in many workplaces that promoted C-Suite superiority and employees as expendable commodities.

The two most significant outcomes of being positioned as expendable commodities are:?

• Forged feelings of disempowerment
• An environment of disengagement

It’s why organisations that choose to abstain from involving all of their people at all levels in organisational decision making, planning and goal setting fail fast in aiding positive change and innovation.?

Leadership haughtiness, floundering and positioning themselves as above not central to their community generally popularises practices like lying, hiding and faking and stifles collective problem solving, collaboration, interconnection and creativity across the organisation. Creating a culture where executives don’t know what affects performance, motivation, or good outcomes and employees don’t care.

BrewDog’s June 2021 “Toxic Culture Open letter ” saga is a glaring case in point. The multinational brewery and pub chain fell victim to leadership haughtiness and floundering, which erupted in upwards of 250 employees signing an open letter to highlight the ‘them vs us’ culture the leaders had begun to encompass.?

The impact of the open letter and the consequential public fallout forced the BrewDog leaders to rethink their grandiose ‘personal’ branding strategy. The CEO publicly committed to reengaging with his employees and rebuilding a culture that positively impacts their people strategies, supply chain and customers.

So what three conversations do influential, innovative and ethical leaders and employees have to limit the damage of outdated organisational practices??

1. Do We Endorse Community As Much As We Push For Individualism??

Don’t get me wrong; individualism encourages independent learning and self-reliance, but on its own, it forces everyone to focus upwards, not across or outward. It often creates a sense of urgency and impatience that pushes people into fast-tracking into management positions before they’ve had time to accurately assess their skills or gain experience, confidence or the mindset to be responsible for the people responsible for getting the job done.?The impact is usually inadequate middle management who struggle to coach and develop their team before being placed on the chopping board when their employees fail to attain the results set out by the leadership team.

Individualism habitually prevents team building, a collective commitment to the company goals and identifying how they contribute to the big company’s missions and visions which a community does. Endorsing community-first doesn’t stop or start with leadership. Community-first usually begins with a manager committed to building a sense of belonging within their team. Designing a community feel at your workplace will boost honest conversations, making it permissible for people to say; I don’t know, I’m worried, I made a mistake and collaborating on resolutions, even before leaders see the benefit.?

2. Is The Purpose of Your Role And Why You Matter Clear?

Ok, this one made me chuckle because I imagined your face thinking about having this conversation. But, leaders, managers and even employees who are early adopters of innovation and sustainable change are having this conversation. They understand that an environment that doesn’t give people more than a monthly salary to look forward to will not engage or motivate people to be or do their best.??

It is empowering to clearly define someone’s role and detail why they are an integral part of the company. Understanding how everyone impacts the company missions, visions, and goals inspires collaboration and momentum for everyone to strive for the best. Trust organically builds when everyone knows their purpose as it moves people away from viewing peers as competitors and more as a support system. Having a definite purpose promotes longer-term thinking rather than short term profitability, boosting motivation and transformative idea sharing across the organisation.??

3. What Aren’t We Doing Efficiently In Your Department??

Efficiency is often a complex concept to grasp in the workplace, as one person's idea of efficiency is another person's overzealousness, especially if there hasn’t been a community conversation. Efficient organisational systems boost everyone’s understanding of the best way to get projects and tasks done collectively. Efficiency also promotes inclusion as it helps people find accessible ways to achieve goals and good results.?

Having a conversation around organisational efficiency aids in distinguishing the different worldviews of your organisation's ecosystem and clarifies how people perform best as part of a team and individually. Organisational efficiency opens the door to thinking about effortlessly prioritising and delegating tasks to somebody else under your supervision. If the goal is to lessen frustration and burnout, this conversation will help you all discover a solution quickly.

Summary

A company committed to sustainability and acculturating its people will always begin with conversations with its people first. Maintaining momentum with regular check-ins and a thirst for building kinship will steadily increase engagement and productivity across the organisation.

Written by

Dannique Blake

About the Author        

Dannique Blake is a Company Culture Consultant and Founder of Cultured Insights.?

She’s on my mission is to save 1000 UK startup founders time and money by making their employees happy, motivated and productive, by 2025.

Dannique is a people operations extraordinaire with 16 years of experience in employee coaching, behavioural change and company culture development.

Dannique walks startup companies through their company culture, employee engagement and performance enablement transformation to support their brand, culture and everyone’s wellbeing.

Dannique’s “Let’s Get Real” masterclasses take a modern approach to support leaders and managers with achieving company culture and organisational design success. Her next masterclass, What Is Company Culture? Takes place on the 9th of September 2021. Dannique also supports start-up companies with company culture strategy and implementing employee experience practices that encourage engagement and productivity.?

To learn more about her work, email her at [email protected] .?