Manifesto

All people within the organisation should be seen. Humans have an innate desire to grow, progress and improve their situation. The organisation where people work should be determined to provide an environment in which people can do this.

Adults want to work in an environment that is supportive and yet challenging. An environment that provides them with the resources to carry out the role they are there for. They want to perform, to know how their performance and contribution connect to the larger purpose.

We are emotional beings and this should be valued and recognised in the workplace. Ignoring this because it is hard is akin to saying its not raining when you are using an umbrella, or insisting it is night time when the clock says its 10am. In other words, the better, authentic choice is to face reality. We are emotional beings, work with this and harness it. It makes for a much richer work experience.

It is important for leaders to provide an environment in which people can do what they do well. This means being highly predictable, keeping shape and showing emotional poise each day.

The act and trait of demonstrating patience can’t be overstated as a leadership behaviour. People need to know the leader that turns up today is the same one that will turn up tomorrow.

The single most important thing a leader can do is provide a clear and coherent direction of travel and ensure from that the organisation will not depart. This direction of travel should be designed with your people.

The co-design and writing of this document is simply the first step of a relentless ongoing action to radiate its content. The leader is to see the direction of travel is ‘lived’ throughout the organisation. This takes time, focus and energy, it needs to occur formally and informally, explicitly and implicitly.

Our knowledge and insight into the brain through the ever growing field of neuroscience is critical to how we design organisations and also learning for adults and children. It impacts on how we design systems, form teams, communicate with our stakeholders execute our core business and purpose. The challenge, this is still a relatively young area of science and is therefore evolving rapidly.

Co designing solutions to problems is far preferable than dictating solutions. This is the case regardless of the age of those doing the co-design. Doing this will lead to better solutions, greater engagement and deeper traction in the execution of the solution

Knowing yourself, having insight into how you think, how you respond under pressure and the strengths you bring to a role is an absolute must in any role. Essentially a good baseline of self awareness, that is growing is a minimum in any employment situation.

Teaming is a deliberate act that can’t be left to chance. It is incumbent on the leaders of an organisation to spend time, teaming a team. Leaving it to chance will mean a truckload of assumptions are being made by the leader and the team members. This will lead to storming and norming that any organisation regardless of purpose doesn’t want or need. People want to work with others, but they shouldn’t simply know how to without deliberate learning and dialogue.

I have yet to come across an organisation where coaching isn’t useful to its reason for being. Forming, growing and enabling a culture of coaching is perhaps the single biggest leadership action you can take to lift performance across the whole organisation. Even if you only do two things each session, what are you working on for the next week and how can I help?

Teachability is linked to humility. Understanding of both by the individual and the organisation that they must always be learning and there is never a time where there is nothing to learn. There are times to be learning at pace and there are times to consolidate learning, but never a time when you know it all.

Being teachable therefore speaks to a mindset of wanting to learn and seeking new learning, insight and wisdom.

The power lies within the room. When you get a group of professionals together you are in fact gathering a rich and deep intelligence set. These people collectively have so much lived professional experience to bring to the table, to solve problems, design solutions, refine systems and enable each other. The leadership challenge resides in how to harness, enable and grow it.