How are organisations resetting and rebuilding right now?
I cannot but return back to a term that I have already talked about – Resilience. In particular, organisational resilience. That would require a cultural mindset and behaviour that nurtures an ability to mitigate, respond and recover from abnormal events, based on how people work, communicate and serve. Jim Harter referred to it as a ‘make or break trait for organisations during tough times’.
But here’s the truth – abnormal events are occurring far more frequently than they used to in the past, so this presents a compelling ‘why’ to see organisational resilience treated as business as usual.
A recent Gallup report concluded that positive employee attitudes to work, leads to the kind of discretionary effort that helped their business units thrive during challenging economic conditions. Some reminder suggestions of how leadership can nurture a resilient and engaged organisation culture (especially during challenging periods) are below.
- Resilient leadership first. It is no secret that the culture and performance of an organisation is defined by the leadership that leads and manages it.
- Set clear expectations – be explicit in letting staff know what is expected of them.
- Embrace transparency and effective communication.
- Provide employees with tools and resources to do their job – a key responsibility of leadership.
- Let people do what they do best – embrace the opportunity of employees to bring ideas forward that can add value and impact.
- Visibility of the big picture – employees should understand how they are adding value and impacting the organisation goal(s).
- Quality mindset and discipline – Have a robust and relevant process and policy structure in place.
One thing is for sure. Nurturing an organisation culture where all staff are fully engaged and committed to the ‘way we do things around here’, will be an ongoing challenge for leadership in the new normal work environment. How we work, where we work and who’s at work, are all changing dynamics that we need to embrace.
Exciting times ahead. I suggest we get ourselves prepared.