As they say, the only constant in life is change – and that is certainly something which has characterised my career of nearly two decades working across both public and private HR teams.
Buzzwords and trends seem to come and go – anyone remember when ‘rigor’ was the learning obsession of the day?! – but here’s a few things I have learnt to be consistently true when it comes to achieving engagement and productivity, as well as managing agile, happy and high performing teams.
Introducing agility
An agile mindset is not a one size fits all panacea to all that ails your business. Before introducing agile working and learning styles, it is essential to first take a step back to identify who, what, where and when we need people to adopt agile skills sets.
Adopting a growth mindset has been crucial to the success of Apex Group’s unique ‘hyper growth’ trajectory over the last three years – scaling up from a 2,000-person organisation to 12,000, both organically and through some significant acquisitions…all during a global pandemic!
Focus on the positives
Many of us – especially in high performance environments – are guilty of focusing too much time and attention on seeking out faults and areas for improvement. There is undoubtably huge value in flagging, investigating and resolving mistakes or errors and ensuring that the institution learns from them to succeed in future. But we should also try to anticipate and prepare for future challenges, by running scenarios or ‘drills’ so when it’s happening in real life there’s been some practice on how to respond.
Of course, these defensive measures have a role in driving continuous positive change and evolution, but in addition, ensure you take the commensurate time to focus on the strengths and celebrate successes. Observing areas of strength means that we are able, for example, to identify which team members are generalists, while others are more specialists. Then you can help grow their skill sets with an end goal of enhancing depth and breadth across the organisation or team as whole.
Agile mindsets still need boundaries
The word agile brings to mind a vivid picture of physical nimbleness and flexibility – but as I’ve learnt in yoga classes, if you over flex your muscles, you can break! Over demanding mental agility from a team can be just as exhausting as physical agility – hopping between back-to-back calls and switching from one topic to another is like going to the gym and trying to use all the equipment in an 8 hour HIIT session… we wouldn’t do that to our bodies so why do it to our minds?
Setting boundaries and organising the working day is crucial, and I’ve learnt, that if you don’t respect your own boundaries, no one else will either. But as I’ve mentioned, there is no one size fits all to embedding agility in a team. The transition to working from home en-mass – and now the return to hybrid work patterns – has seen people forced to adapt to sudden changes and most reported working more intensely no matter the industry. As a manager, it is important to know how the people you work with thrive and do their best work – some love the short sharp pressure of a tight deadline, some love collaboration, some need solitude and quiet to achieve their potential.
