What do you talk about on a power walk?
I took a break from the office at lunchtime yesterday to meet up with a friend for a much-needed power walk. The plan? Breathe out, blow off steam and indulge in what we do best: high-octane turbo chat!
With a ‘hashtag living my best life’ Otis trotting along at our sides, we canter through the family and friends update, gallop through the epic work highlights, and charge into two of our favourite topics: industry challenges and professional plans.
We are both the same age and, although our job titles differ (hers is enormously grown-up), we are both responsible for a business, a team, a client portfolio, and the myriad of stakeholders that come with it. Given our similarity in age, we tend to approach each other’s plans and observations with a bucket-load of relevant questions.
Industry Challenges
The big topic was culture, both of us seeing organisations suffer as a result of cut-backs and restructuring, driven by the global political and economic landscape, alongside leadership decision-making that is either laboured or lacks strategic thought.
But the suffering we are seeing isn’t as a direct result of these external/internal factors and the implemented changes that follow, but more a lack of care and support provided for those that leave, and for those that stay. There seems to be a reduction in joined-up leadership thinking across teams, and a lack of focus on developing high-performance environments, while helping people feel good about what they do.
The Answer
My friend is whip-smart. She provides deep amounts of strategic and commercial value to some of the biggest global board rooms. So, when she offers a solution, I listen (and try to mentally take notes as she talks faster than me!):
“It’s pretty straight-forward. Stay laser-focused on your markets and your people. Progress for both isn’t linear, it’s more roller-coaster, so stay agile and pay attention to what’s evolving and what’s dwindling (that’s for both markets and people). Then you have the ability to place the right people in the right opportunities.”
And what about our professional plans?
We’re both ambitious with a good degree of energy, neither of us are great at sitting still, it feels like stagnating. So, there’s always a good degree of two-way challenge around what needs to be nurtured, developed, and squared-away currently to allow for us to focus on ‘what’s next?’ There’s no point in hopping onto the next shiny thing if we are not polishing our existing operational and team responsibilities. We believe this earns us the right to look at where we go next. And when we do, we always develop a professional plan that:
- ignites and leans into our strengths (what are yours?)
- requires us to lock-in and pay attention (get clarity on risk and consequence)
- aligns with the wider strategic objectives of the business (help others to buy-in)
- demonstrates to our stakeholders that we are adding serious value (elevate your personal currency)
- brings people with us, and helps them feel good about what they do (build and inspire a community, foster a performance culture)
All the best power walks are circular (some even include a pub). As with all circles, we arrive back at where we started, which is exactly what happened in our turbo-chat – we believe that, if organisations paid more attention to joining up strategic objectives with people objectives (not ‘resourcing’), they might find that the resulting culture is one of engagement and personal buy-in, driven by clear messaging, care and support.
Comment and share if you agree, offer your ideas if you don’t!
