Culture Change

At work, we are slaves to the acronym. If we can find a way to abbreviate a company name, a process or a condition we will use it. Even though, forever after, someone will always be explaining the acronym to someone else who hasn't heard it. When it comes to employee performance, many of us are slaves to the KPI and the KRA. There is certainly a role for these in planning and measuring employee productivity.

In life, people generally try to help one another. This may be rooted in behaviours adopted by early man, who realised that there was safety in numbers. Several millennia of subsequent human development have since overlaid social, moral and spiritual stimuli. But we all know that our willingness to help others is affected by the situations we find ourselves in. I saw this myself the other night while boarding a crowded flight.

I recently touched upon the fact that everyone suffers from Monday blues and suggested that the average employee might find Monday’s bluer than her leaders do. I felt that leaders and managers might want to consider this as they try to crank up the working week. One or two people wrote to ask me what the solution might be. It struck me that, if leaders practised empathy, they could come up with their own solutions.

One rewarding aspect of involvement in The Amalgam Leadership Programme www.amalgamleadership.com is the quality of the conversations on our Alumni chat. Few of our Alumni were any different from their peers when they joined the programme, now entering its 7th year. Their career success was rooted firmly in the domain of IQ. Since childhood they had studied with diligence and later applied themselves wholeheartedly to their professional development.

It’s ten years since The Brand Inside opened its doors for business in Africa. Our intention was to help companies deliver on their promises to customers. Unlike other consultancies we took the idea of ‘brand’ as our North Star. We asked, why shouldn’t something so persuasive for external customers be brought inside the business to inspire employee behaviour?

Most of us who are lucky enough to enjoy full time employment are pretty clear on when it’s time to go to work. But on where to go to work, opinions remain divided. As of this month, according to Forbes, 12% of American workers work from home while 28% work in a hybrid model. The balance still goes to a workplace despite 65% of them saying they’d rather be at home. Having watched the US version of ‘The Office’, I don’t blame them.