My quest to build a commitment culture

A few months ago, I committed to sharing frank, unvarnished and honest updates on my personal journey as a new MD and the struggles I face running the business, along with some of the strategies that appear to be working in my favour.?

In my last article, I talked about the dating game that is recruitment and some of the strategies we are putting in place to help bag the best people.??

For this instalment I’m going to share my thoughts on how to keep working relationships happy and more importantly, productive, and long lasting. I’m going to talk about how great managers can be supported by the business in developing personalisation and connection but also in effectively measuring what matters.?

Connection breeds commitment?

This made me smile……. national treasure Sir David Attenborough has been crowned the UK’s ultimate ‘dream boss’ in a new study! It’s not surprising really as he’s such a great communicator and educator.??

Attenborough was originally a senior manager at the BBC before he became controller of BBC2 in the mid 1960s.?

In a management role, he would have been responsible for setting a clear vision for staff and defining what constituted success. As a natural communicator he would have forged a strong connection at a personal level with the people around him to ensure they were committed to the vision. He would also, of course, have been responsible for reviewing whether the actions of his department were contributing to the BBC’s overall goals.??

I’m sure he was an absolute joy to work for and worthy of this new ‘dream boss’ status.?

A positive manager/employee relationship?

A positive relationship between employee and manager is a major factor of business success and employee satisfaction. This is something I feel strongly I can’t afford to get wrong.?

I’m sure we’ve all felt we’ve worked for someone that couldn’t give two hoots about us at some point in our career. The effects can be catastrophic. A bad manager can destroy the effectiveness of an entire team and send quality staff packing.??

As geographically dispersed teams grow in propensity and organisational structures flatten, our managers need to engage with our staff at a deeper level than ever before. The feedback from a group of graduates who joined IRIS last year was that the most important thing to them was to feel valued. This speaks volumes!?

I’ve mentioned before that I believe that management is a career pathway, not a rite of passage. At IRIS, we look for individuals that have the soft skills in abundance and train the rest.??

We also have a company-wide solution in place for performance tracking that helps managers keep the actions of each team member aligned to the company’s overall goals and their own career ambitions. It really empowers individuals to self-manage their performance and development. It’s simple but incredibly effective and has been a gamechanger for us.?

Measuring what matters?

We have found that productivity increases exponentially when we give employees the opportunity to self-manage. This can only be achieved by leaving old habits behind. Stop measuring presenteeism and instead communicate clear objectives and measure against key results.?

This starts at a cross company level and cascades down into the different business functions and departments. Just 3-4 things, not a long list!??

Each department then selects the objectives and key results that they are going to contribute to the cross-company targets. It then filters down further, to an employee level. Each person becomes project orientated, responsible for a few key things that roll up in the departmental targets and so on.?

Setting personal objectives becomes dynamic and more frequent. Employees stay on track and know how their contribution supports the wider company goals. And it is the outputs of the objectives that are measured by managers, informing how individual performance will be evaluated.?

I told you it was simple. But, so few companies have something like this in place.??

We have launched a Podcast channel this week. Podcasts | IRIS

Be sure to sign up so you can hear me and some of my esteemed colleagues share their learnings from the world of business.?

Until my next instalment, over and out.?

Steph x?