Pride Month: Unlocking People Potential 2

Welcome to this edition of Unlocking People Performance.

June is Pride month and as a fully paid-up member of the LGBTQ+ community, its importance is close to my heart. I support several organisations in taking action to make their culture more inclusive and often end up telling my story in the process.??

Pride month is important to me because as a queer kid at school in the 90s, I felt lonely. There were no ‘out’ queer kids in my school - not one - because it would have led to bullying, abuse, and even violence. I felt the burden of my secret, and of masking my real self.

I was lucky in that throughout my subsequent working career I had managers who were supportive of me and made me feel welcome and included. This enabled me to be at my best and reach my full potential.

Others aren’t so lucky.

Even in 2024, there are lots of people who don’t feel comfortable being themselves at work because their leaders don’t make the effort to intentionally create a culture where everyone belongs. In Pride month therefore, I’d love it if you would reflect on what you do to intentionally create an inclusive culture in your organisation. We all have the potential to make positive change.

Enjoy the newsletter!

Tom

Latest Insights

Beyond Potential podcast?

I am excited to announce the launch of the ‘Beyond Potential ’ podcast. I’ve teamed up with my good friend and colleague Tomas Mason CEO of Potentia Leadership , and together we've created 'Beyond Potential’. ?

It's an entertaining, informative, and immersive podcast about how individuals, teams, and organisations, can maximise their performance and be at their absolute best. If you’re a CEO, Chief HR Officer, senior leader, or just aspire to become more effective and happier in your role, then this is the podcast for you. We provide our own observations and expertise, and hear from diverse and interesting guests with great stories. You can subscribe through your favourite podcast platform and join us for insights, inspiration, and hopefully a few laughs along the way.

We'd love you to have a listen and get your feedback, good or otherwise! Season 1 is shaping up nicely but we’re open to ideas for season 2 and beyond, so let us know what you'd like us to feature or if you'd like to be a guest. Episodes 1 & 2 are out now, and a new episode drops every Friday

LISTEN TO EPISODE 1

Episode 2: What makes a great culture? With special guest Jo Smedley

Jo is the Co-Founder of Zest Learning , a fantastic learning, development, and coaching business based up in Yorkshire. She's also the host of the Culture Unwrapped podcast . We grill Jo on what she thinks makes a great, high-performing, organisational culture. We also find out a bit about her and what makes her tick. It’s a great conversation.

LISTEN TO EPISODE 2

Executive effectiveness: the importance of self-care

I'm currently exploring the importance of self-care for executives. Those in senior positions can easily get caught up in the outputs and constantly firefighting the most urgent issues. However, it's those I observe prioritising self-care, and ruthlessly focussing on where they spend their time that achieve the best outcomes.

In my article 'Executive effectiveness and the importance of self-care', I share some of the rituals and disciplines I've seen help them remain effective, and resilient for when firefighting can’t be avoided.

READ MORE

Insights from the news

Office vs home working – we’re still talking about it

Pretty much every organisation I work with seems to be having an ongoing conversation about where their people are based. I spoke at a Compeer Limited event last week, and it came up as one of the questions there. This?article ?from Forbes presents research that organisations offering hybrid working see better wellbeing and lower attrition with no impact on performance.

I think putting arbitrary numbers of days in the office isn’t perfect but necessary for lots of organisations. But leading hybrid teams takes effort, and we need to be clear on why we need people to come into offices and make it compelling. The important reasons can be articulated using the 6Cs:

Communicate – team meetings, feedback, performance reviews

Collaborate – problem solving, strategy sessions, project milestone meetings

Create – brainstorming, project kick off meetings, planning sessions

Celebrate – recognition activities, team building, social activities

Coach – onboarding new starters, on the job training, coaching and mentoring

Care – caring for individual team members, volunteering, networking

Feel free to get in touch or drop me a DM if you’re struggling with leading a team where people are working remotely. It takes a different sort of leadership, and I have ideas.

My favourite resources?

Returning to the inclusion theme, I was interested to read this?article ?in HBR about the relative success and failures of DEI interventions. It’s important that organisations are focussing on the right activities that add value. The research shows that some interventions actually do more damage than good.

‘With great power comes great responsibility’ – so said Uncle Ben in ‘Spider-man’.

Do you think about your leadership power? As we get more senior, we naturally have more power and need to be more careful and intentional about how we use it. This?article ?from HBR gives some great tips on doing this.

We specialise in supporting LGBTQ+ leaders and high-potential LGBTQ+ employees

As someone who identifies as LGBTQ+, I specialise in supporting leaders and high-potential employees from the queer community through individual and collective coaching and broader development. I'm also a keen advocate of initiatives to elevate queer people working in all types of businesses through supporting www.proudhr.co.uk and www.lgbtgreat.com . I'm also a trustee of www.marlboroughproductions.org.uk .

At HEX , we're huge advocates of diversity and believe it is a prerequisite for organisational success. We don’t just focus on the important traditional areas of inclusion but also focus on the value of cognitive diversity and the positive impact an inclusive culture can have on the whole workforce, and an organisation’s clients.

We bring a unique mix of tried and tested interventions, expertise, and our own lived experiences. FIND OUT MORE