INTRO:
In episode 31 we examine culture shifts in the workplace with Llewellyn de Jager.
We explore the spirit of the ‘new world’ as a pioneer, a place of no rules, and no culture to make it easy to understand. With it, this ‘new world’ brings challenges, but also opportunities and innovations. We have the freedom to choose right now, how best to create our ‘new world’. We delve into this in the light of culture, using the Cebano model as a frame of reference. Most importantly we look at how if we allow fear to drive us, we can end up with a toxic culture. And that, when reintegrating back at work, we need to evaluate whether our current way of doing things serves us as organisations.
Join our conversations around reintegrating post lockdown.
FIND OUT more about our (Re)ignition Support Package – helping you maintain your psychological balance when you return to work.
Listen
Watch
TRANSCRIPT:
Theran Knighton-Fitt: Hello, welcome to the next episode of the mental health and wellbeing as a result of COVID-19 webinar series, the series that is brought to you by Mygrow, the emotional intelligence platform. Please make sure you don’t forget to go sign up for your free access to Mygrow at www.mygrow.me. You can go and see some of the resources that we’ve made available as well throughout this series.
What is the purpose of the series?
So essentially, what this reignition edition is all about with our webinar series is to provide tools and resources to help companies, leaders, organisations, employees, to help you flourish psychologically, emotionally, relationally, during this time. To walk with you, to just give you tools, to make sure that you can make the most of this time.
Okay, let’s do a quick recap of our previous episode. We unpacked that couch conversation between Debbie and I, in the episode before that, Debbie and I had a long conversation on the couch talking about this moment and the impact that it has had on our family. And then in the previous episode, we had a debrief, we had an unpack with Robin Scott, the clinical psychologist, who had so much to share with us about some tools and some tricks to really just help us relationally in this time. I hope and trust that you found that helpful. Okay, in today’s episode, which is called Cultures Shift, with Llewellyn De Jager. We’re going to discuss a couple of different things. I’m going to start off now just walking us through this whole concept of the new world and what that means for us. Drawing from America and the history of going to America because of course, that’s where the idea of the new world comes from.
So, just going to speak about that for a couple of minutes. Then we’re going to jump in and have a conversation with Lew De Jager, who is a culture specialist, works with organisations to help them diagnose, analyse the culture and how they can move forward and progress their culture into a more healthy space. I’ll introduce him a little bit later. Right now. Sorry. And then after that, I’m going to be chatting a little bit about the neuroscience of habits. Okay, so let’s dive in and talk about this idea of a new world. So, this word, this phrase a “new world”, or then “new world”, should I say actually comes from, you know, Western history where many years ago, centuries ago, people went to America, from the old world, from Europe, from a world that had been very uninnovative for hundreds and hundreds of years. Very little innovation. Because of religious persecution and other dynamics and wanting to make your fortune and make your way in the world. People left and went to America to the new world. But America, while it was full of opportunity and full of so many different potential things that humanity could do, and so exciting. It also came with some dangers, when you grew up in the old world, you knew how it worked. You knew the systems, the social systems, the hierarchies.
You know, very well-established legal systems and an understanding of how society works, then you head off into the new world and you’re out in the frontier. And there’s no rules. So yes, there is potential, but there’s also highwayman. There’s outlaws, there’s all sorts of different things that you haven’t had to face before, different kinds of wild animals, and no social system or culture to make it coherent, that is easy to understand. You find yourself needing to be your own farmer, your own hunter, your own soldier, all sorts of things you didn’t need to do in the past. And part of the reason that pioneer spirit is possible is because when you need to head out and encounter these difficulties, these harsh winters without the infrastructure and the coal to help you burn in your fire every single day like you had in the old world. When you have to face these, what it does is, it sparks innovation. And that’s what we’ve seen. That’s what we’ve seen as we look at the history of America, An incredibly pioneering, innovative people. But as I say, you are faced with all sorts of challenges. And in that moment of leaving the old world and going to the new, you have decisions that you need to make, what are we going to leave behind? We’re leaving religious persecution behind. And that’s written into the Constitution of America, freedom of speech, all sorts of different things in who they are as a nation, is as a result of them deciding, “We are heading into a new world, what does this new world look like for us?”
But in those early days, without the structures in place, it’s mayhem. It’s the Wild West, there’s all sorts of outlaws and people doing all sorts of things that they would never get away with back in the old world. So it is dangerous. And we’re going to look a little bit later after the chat with Llew about routines and habits and and how we can learn from the neuroscience of what’s happening in that field, to help us understand what we can do in this moment to make sure that we are holding on to the best of what we had from that old world. And we are making decisions that are going to lead us forward in innovative ways that are going to help us create the best in the New World, instead of just devolving into some kind of Wild West outlaw kind of situation, where there’s no rules and life expectancy is short.
Okay, we’re gonna jump on a call now with Lew De Jager. So Lew is an old, another old friend of Mygrow. He’s actually, full disclosure, he’s actually on our board. So, we do a lot of work with Lew. He’s an actuary. But, you know, he started off his career doing actuarial science. And then they started a company that did remuneration, consulting, and strategy. But very quickly, they pivoted into the culture space. So, it’s a bit of a strange fit, and we’ll ask him to explain why he had that, in a moment. But he is their company, Cebano, and Lew himself is, I would say, one of the leading experts and specialists in Cape Town, probably even in South Africa, around culture. They do some incredible work with some pretty cool companies. So, let’s get Lew on and see what he could share with us about culture in this moment as we head into a new world. Lew, can you hear me? Do we have you on the line here?
Llewellyn De Jager: Loud and clear, Theran.
Theran Knighton-Fitt: Hey, welcome. Welcome to the show today, thanks so much for being with us. We’re really excited about everything that you’re gonna be able to add. I introduced you as an actuary who’s interested in culture. Now, those are two very different fields. Why is culture so valuable, so important to you? And why did you feel you you wanted to go into this into this field? And tell us why we should be thinking about culture, at this time?
Llewellyn De Jager: Yeah, Theran I think everybody probably knows that comment of Peter Drucker, where he says, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” and I guess in my business career, I quickly came to learn and see that culture is absolutely critical. And culture can either help organisations achieve their strategies and what they set out to do. Or they can waste a huge amount of energy, and cost and everything related to that in trying to get where they want to be, and maybe never reaching it. So, culture, for me, it’s important from a business strategy perspective. And the other thing is just wanting to see healthy organisations, you know, to support the wellbeing of your people, and ensuring that they can deliver the best. So, yeah, culture in my view is absolutely critical.
Theran Knighton-Fitt: Okay, so it’s critical at the best of times, we’re not in the best of times, well, let’s not couch it in positive and negative language. Culture is important all the time, but now is a specific kind of time. Why is it vitally important that we really just keep our lens focused on culture and put some time into thinking about that for our organisations as we as we head into the future?
Llewellyn De Jager: Yeah, I think I mean, personally, I think business leaders are facing huge challenges at the moment, just keeping alive and staying afloat. And so I understand a lot of the energy goes there. But I think it’s a really good time to sit back and say, “Well, what is happening in the culture of our organisation, and the way we work with each other?” And I mean, our modes and methods of dealing with each other has changed substantially. And I think it’s a good time to relook at culture and say, “Hey, when we get back together again, in whatever form that might be, how are we going to harness this, our culture to actually enable us to achieve what we need to achieve?” So, I think it’s time well spent, in thinking through what that could look like.
Theran Knighton-Fitt: Yeah. Okay. So, you work with organisations in the culture space? What is it that you use to diagnose or to have a look at culture? Can you walk us through a model that you use that may be helpful for our users?
Llewellyn De Jager: I’d love to Theran. I mean, we have a number of frameworks and one of them is something we’ve developed in-house called our Cebano successive culture shift model, where we try to understand where an organisation may be focused at the moment with culture. And we ask the critical question, “Where do they believe they should be?”, as well. So that we can do some kind of a gap analysis and understand what is it that we have. And hopefully, the elements in it that they want to keep. But what is important for us to change going forward, as well? And then we can focus appropriate strategies in that space.
Theran Knighton-Fitt: Okay, so the viewers can see this on the screen. This progressive success through culture shift. Talk us through these different categories. What are these different words? It’s an up into the right trajectory here.
Llewellyn De Jager: Yeah. So, a few years ago, Jim Collins wrote a book Good to Great. And I know many leaders have rea that and organisations all seem to think they were on thst journey. They were already good and they just had it become great. We quickly discovered that the spectrum is far broader. And so one can go all the way from the left which is toxic, that’s the unsafe space where you really don’t want to be, to the rigid, which is very rules driven might be with good intent to try and control the outcomes. But I mean, if you think of the times we live in now, we’ve always said, you know, “When the winds of change blow, rigid is very brittle”. And so that’s also why I think organisations should be looking at right now. The good is the more me-centric culture, so it’s more about me, what I achieve, and organisations can do well in that space. However, the great space is more we-centric. So, it’s, “How do we work together as teams? What are our shared values, aims, ethos, how do we how do we achieve that?” And then the endearing space, which is a fantastic space to be in. That’s where it’s more about the greater good. It’s about servant leadership. It’s about purpose, you know, “What is my purpose in life and how does my role in this organisation help me live my purpose?”
Theran Knighton-Fitt: Yeah, it strikes me that I guess just 21st-century business, in general, would call us towards that endearing space. But this current moment, what we’re seeing in the world right now is that, at least this is, from my perspective, I’d love to hear your view on it. But if we’re not moving our companies towards being the kind of company that would be in your endearing column there, it may be tricky for us to actually survive. If we’re going to take this moment and push ourselves further down the spectrum, in some kind of conservative attempt to control, my current feeling is that that’s just bad news. That’s not going to work. Some of the really encouraging stories that I’ve been hearing and seeing about what companies are doing out there are the kinds of stories that make that company endearing to me. So, this is sort of why I’m saying that. I’d love to hear your thoughts on that.
Llewellyn De Jager: Yeah, I think you know, when we think of what COVID is doing, I mean, there’s a lot of fear in the world right now. And fear tends to drive us towards left of this model, in our desire to control uncontrollables and lower risk, and, you know, I’ve said under stress, we regress. So, if you’re working in a team context, if the stress is really high, it’s quite quick to fly off the handle and your behaviours aren’t what you would love them to be. And that pulls you down into even the toxic area. So, understanding the impact of society and what’s around us, on how we responding in the culture, is also going to be critical. If I can add to that. I think in terms of why the right-hand side is important. If you think of what business needs today, I mean, we need innovation and creativity to be right at the top. I think when we go back, it’s not going to be business as usual. And you don’t get creativity and innovation at all in the cautious and unsafe space. You just can’t thrive. So, creating a culture where that can thrive is going to be really important.
Theran Knighton-Fitt: Okay, so now when you look at a company, you don’t obviously just walk through the front door and say, “Yeah, you guys are a good company”, you have some kind of way in which you unpack these. We can’t spend too long on that. But tell us how you would diagnose a company as endearing or rigid or great.
Llewellyn De Jager: Yeah, so, I mean, no company is at any one state in this model. Although I must say, when I facilitate sessions, you know, explain the model and you say to your company and your followers can do that now on the webinar, “Where do you believe your team or your organisation is predominantly?” They’ll quickly probably point to one and say, “Oh, no we’ve got a chunk of green and orange” or “No, there’s a lot of red”. I mean, they intuitively know where they are. But what we do is we focus on a number of key aspects. So, we’ll look at things like working relationships, communication, systems and processes, and get people to, your people in the business to select what they’re experiencing now in that particular aspect. And what they believe you should be experiencing to achieve your maximum success. And then that will help us build analytics around the outcomes. So, it’s through a survey process basically.
Theran Knighton-Fitt: So you’re getting the feedback from the people themselves about their own lived and felt experience of the culture of that organisation. Okay, all right, let’s let’s segue a little bit into, you know, speaking less about this model, well less about the process of how we diagnose but, and spend a bit of time talking about what you think the challenges are now, as we look through some of the different categories that you would use. So, what is unique about this moment, that leaders or companies should be thinking about, in terms of all the different variety of aspects involved in their business? And how that comes back to culture? There you go, very broad question, take it where you want.
Llewellyn De Jager: So, maybe we can just look at one or two of these aspects. But if you think of something like our working relationships, you know you can see on the model, you can look at different words going from toxic to endearing around what working relationships could look like. And I think the ability to have online meetings as we do now, which has exploded around the world, there are new questions that come in around what working relationships look like where we are not together in one room. But we are virtually linked. What is driving either the fear-based or the like “what an amazing opportunity approach” to this. And where are you lying? You know, I think there’ll be learnings from where our culture was, in terms of in working relationships, when we’re all in the same office to what we’re experiencing now. Some of it will be good and some of it will be not so good. And so where does that fit in the model and where would we like to pull our working relationships in terms of culture to ensure kind of maximum success in the business?
Theran Knighton-Fitt: It sort of reminds me of a, it’s literally just come to mind right now, sailing analogy, you brought it up just now and the winds of change come, but there’s this you know, in sailing, you’ve got to trim your sails or I don’t know exactly what all the terminology is, but you’ve got to do something to respond to the weather. And, yeah, one of the things I really like about about the way you guys go through this whole process with organisations, and you’ve done this with us at Mygrow, is taking a large focus on the core values of a company. Because those things, if those are going to be constant, I mean, maybe they’ll change at a time like this, I’m sure that’s viable. But we would think those would be the constants and other things have shifted, the winds of change have come, we need to change something, we’re going to change our sails. Do we change our core values? Or what do we change? How do we go about meeting this moment, while still staying true to who we want to be?
Llewellyn De Jager: Yeah, I mean Theran it’s a really good question. And you know, for me, the core values of the business should be kind of the plumblines against which they measure or consider how they living in terms of organisation culturally. And what’s key beyond that is the behaviours that respect that, sorry, that support, behaviours that support those core values. So, if I just think of a few, I mean, many organisations have a value like respect, or something to do with that around relationships. What does respect look like in our new world? Where we having Zoom or Microsoft Teams’ type meetings? What does it mean in terms of, and even simple things like dress code, body movements? The length of our meetings, I mean, people have less and less focus time available to them if they’re on a Skype or Zoom call. And what how do we respect each other around interruptions? How do we make sure all are heard? And I think there’s going to be new learnings for leaders in terms of how they facilitate those meetings. You know, bringing empathy into meetings even more important now, because I don’t know what’s happening to you on the other side of the screen, you could be kicking the dog under the table or playing with your WhatsApp on the side. So, ensuring that people are connected, brings in a whole new consideration around what our behaviour should look like.
Theran Knighton-Fitt: And I mean, this is a great example for me of this, of how this new world that we’re heading to is one where there will be unexpected blessings and joys and things that are better than what we left behind. And the reason I bring this up now is because I’ve heard a number of people saying that they’re finding Zoom connections, maybe counter-intuitively, they’re finding the Zoom process, actually easier to include the whole team. I’ve heard that from a couple of different people that sometimes in the meeting room or the boardroom in person, you know, people aren’t, you know, one person is more likely to take over and someone else isn’t going to contribute. But actually on a Zoom call, it’s easier to have a bit of an egalitarian approach to it or bring some balance. So, that maybe one of the things where actually we find our value, a core value is respect. And there’s some nice little nuances that are actually easier in this new world, in this environment to handle. And of course, the converse is completely true as well, there may be some things which were so much easier before to maintain these core values. And now they’re, you know, they’ve been lost by the wayside.
If I look at Mygrow for example, one of our core values is fun and leisure. Because we believe that it’s so important for another core value that we have, which is people in relation and we’re managing to maintain the people in relation quite well. We’re, you know, we’re still making sure we have team-wide Zoom calls, there’s a lot of laughter, there’s a lot of stuff that goes on, and that’s I guess, also fun, but so much of what we used to do in our office has slipped by the wayside. You know, we eat together in the office, we eat together every single day. It’s part of what we do to try and have the culture that we want. And we’ve tried to do that. And to be honest, it’s been really hard. We’ve got in our Google Calendar across the whole company lunch at 12:30, but it’s hard. It’s actually it’s been a hard thing to maintain, especially with a webinar at times at 11, which they were a while back. And the team’s feeling fragmented.
So, we’ve seen some ways in which this new remote working structure has helped us to maintain some of our values and then other things are being pushed by the wayside. A little bit like fun, like leisure, like eating together. Yeah, not quite the same. I mean, the other day, I was at lunch with the team. I was the only one eating, no one else had food in front of them. We were all there in the Google Hangout together, but I was the only one eating, so yeah, We are heading into a new world where it is going to be hard to maintain some of these core values because some of the old tools we had are gone and I think maybe the call that you’re putting out here is for organisations to just take a moment and stop and remind themselves what their core values are and is the new future or the current rendition of working, is that serving those? And if not, maybe they can do some things.
Llewellyn De Jager: As you speak about Mygrow and your team. I mean, teamwork is another core value that many organisations have. And again, what does that look like? Because I read the other day, people are bouncing between fear and fury. Fear of “Am I and my family going to get COVID, what does it mean for my business going under?” and fearing in terms of the lockdown and what it’s doing to us or society. So, what does that look like in the workplace when it comes to teamwork even when you do start to go back, or some of you start going back? What happens when people don’t wear masks, what happens when social distancing isn’t what it should be? How are you going to make sure that those fears are addressed, that you speak about them in your team, that there’s the kind of vulnerable, authentic space that I think you’re going to need probably more of and not less. How do you include those who are coming in virtually versus those in the office? It’s going to be some interesting times.
Theran Knighton-Fitt: Well so much of what you’re saying here actually, sure it rests on everyone, but it is the work of leaders. So, let’s segway into leadership. I know we’ve got maybe four minutes left or so. So, let’s not spend too long on this. I’m sure you and I could chat for hours about this kind of stuff. But the role of leadership going forward when it comes to culture, setting examples, leading when it’s tough, whatever, however, we want to frame it. What do you see in terms of this new world of culture and at this moment, we’re heading into? What do you want to recommend for leaders?
Llewellyn De Jager: So, I mean, there’s actually on that model, there’s a slide that looks at just leadership, and how that goes from toxic to endearing as well. And I think if we look at what leaders have been called to, in this new world, then it’s probably more empathy. Yeah, even better listening skills, a bigger need to build trust within your team, and grow your people in their sweet spot where they can actually add the most value to your organisation. And the culture is fundamentally important in that process. So, as leaders, I think we’re going to have to look even deeper at what are our own fears, and how do we manage those and lead well into a space where there’s just, there’s too much fear already.
Theran Knighton-Fitt: Yeah, reminds me of, sorry, I know I’m supposed to be chatting with you and I’m just throwing out a whole lot of my own ideas here. You’re the expert, I got you on for your ideas. But it reminds me of this ignition moment, we did a couple of episodes back talking about communication and clarity in regards. I just want to call the viewers back, if you didn’t get a chance to go and see that ignition moment. The one about communication I think would be super helpful just in terms of this culture conversation as well. Llew, any last words? Any final thoughts from you?
Llewellyn De Jager: Theran, I personally think is as organisations, we must look at our culture in this environment we live in. As the stakes go up as the risks have become bigger. In my personal view, culture is even more important. And you can either waste lots of energy by having a negative culture pulling you down. Or you can actually release a lot of energy by getting the culture where people feel they can innovate, can be creative, and can contribute to the wellbeing of your organisation and their futures.
Theran Knighton-Fitt: Yeah, and one of the things I’ve been spending a bit of time thinking about recently is this whole idea of stakeholder theory. And, you know, it’s so much more than just the shareholders who are the stakeholders nowadays, you know, and we’re seeing that with companies, I guess, probably with the companies that are more on the right, the enduring side, understanding that it’s not just the shareholders, it’s the employees too, but it’s not even just the employees. It’s the communities of the employees. It’s the families. And, so being able to create and co-create, I guess, a culture where people can thrive and flourish, that spills out into their families, into their communities, their suppliers, their, you know, their clients.
Llewellyn De Jager: On that point, we like to speak about one to the power of six. So, it’s your stakeholder the shareholder, it’s the employee. It’s definitely the community in society, but it’s also your suppliers and your customers. And I think if you look at what this lockdown has done in the business value chain, trying to get a healthy culture that includes our suppliers, and our customers, is going to be really important.
Theran Knighton-Fitt: Well, actually it’s funny that you bring this up, because the next full episode that we’re going to do is actually a chat with one of our customers, a company called Iridium. Who are I think just leading the way in terms of understanding their position in a wider ecosystem. The innovation that you speak, that you’ve spoken about, and that we’ve mentioned in the series a few times, the innovation that this moment needs, is innovation will beyond just our own little huddle, you know, conservative thinking will drive us back down to the left on your model. So, yeah, for the viewers, stick around, in a couple of days whenever that episode goes live for the chat with Iridium, because they’re doing some amazing things that are flowing up their supply chain and down as well. So yeah, and I think it’ll be super inspiring to hear some of the stuff they’re doing and how they’re thinking about how to support their own people while how to create a culture of support in this new world, but also to think broader in the words you use to the power of six, in their place in the wider ecosystem. Anyway, Llew that’s all we have time for today. Thank you so much for your input. Yeah, your perspective, your view, your experience around culture, I think is always valuable, you know, but right now is super valuable and I want to just encourage any of the viewers who may be thinking “We don’t have time and capacity to be thinking about culture right now. We are spending money on other things, or we are spending focus on other things”. It’s often like that, you know, now’s the time when the things that need to be invested in. You don’t feel it now, but you’ll feel later if you don’t invest now So, yeah, reach out to Cebano if you’re looking for someone to help you with, with some of this culture work, and of course, the Mygrow reignition support package, which I’ll tell you a little bit more about later. Anyway, let me say goodbye to you. Thanks, Llew. Thanks for having us.
Llewellyn De Jager: Thanks so much. And I just wish all the viewers well. We all lead, at minimum ourselves, many of us lead others as well. And may that come from from a place of well-thought through values and living the behaviours we want others to live as well.
Theran Knighton-Fitt: Well, that was Llew De Jager chatting to us about the importance of spending time and intention right now on thinking about culture and what culture we want as we go forward. I want to just spend a couple more minutes with you telling you something about a specific field, which is the study of habits and what is happening neurologically in our brains when we have habits. I’ll apply it back in a second to the whole conversation we’ve had so far. So, I don’t have a lot of time right now to tell you everything about the series of experiments that Ann Graybiel has been doing over the last, I guess, 15 years or so at MIT, looking at habits and habit formation and what is happening neurologically, in the minds of rats, who she taught to run a maze, run a specific shape maze to get a reward here or a reward there etc. It’s a very interesting set of experiments and maybe we can spend some longer time on it in another episode, but the one thing I wanted to highlight today is this idea of task bracketing, which has come out of their research.
They taught these rats to run a maze to go and get some chocolate milk as a reward. And they figured out how to actually map and see what was happening neurologically in their brains while they were doing that. And this idea of task bracketing has come out. Essentially, what it means is, when you have a habit, when they have learned this habit, this routine, “Oh, I know where to go, I’m gonna go get some chocolate milk, run this maze, go get my chocolate milk”. Once they have learned that routine, brain activity takes a massive reduction because of a certain sort of way of doing I guess my version of saying it is, shorthand for a certain task. Before they had learned the habit. They would monitor the minds of the brains of these rats and there would be neural activity firing all over the place, every little thing in the maze is interesting. “Hmm sniff this little thing. Maybe we should go there. What’s this? What’s that? Oh, yes, yes, walk, walk slowly”. The whole brain is just firing non-stop, then they get to the point when they realise. “Ah chocolate milk, drink some chocolate milk”. Do that a number of times and soon they learn where they can go to get the chocolate mark, they have developed a habit.
As soon as you put them in that maze, off, they go. They take all the right turns to get to the chocolate milk. And what they noticed, as soon as this habit had been formed in them, and these rats knew how to run this maze to get what they wanted, as I said, the neural activity had a major reduction. At the beginning of that task, there would be a spike, a sort of a peak of neural activity in a certain part of the brain, and then they’d go into autopilot. Brain wouldn’t be thinking about this until the task was complete. So spike, run around, get the chocolate milk, drink the chocolate milk. Another spike. And these two spikes have brackets, that bracket the activity, and as I say, it’s sort of shorthand, it’s efficiency for the brain.
This is what habits are, this is why we have habits. This is why they are even a thing because they are a way of the brain being able to make things efficient, so that we can free up our mind to think of other things. Think of this yourself, you can drive all the way to work, you know, when you used to drive to work, without even thinking about it, because it’s your routine, and your brain is in autopilot. But when you’re not in that kind of habit, and what they figured out is that they could shut off that habit by inhibiting a certain part of the brain. And as soon as they shut off that habit, all of the neurons are firing. Everything’s interesting again in the maze, there’s possibility, there’s potential. “Hmm, maybe we should go here, maybe we should do this. What is this? What is that?” Potential. Potential for seeing everything around them in a new way. Now, how does this apply to where we’re at right now in this conversation around culture?
We are heading into a new world where our old habits, our old routines are all disrupted. Maybe not all of them, but many of them are disrupted. We’re no longer in autopilot. But we will get into autopilot again at some point, and that’s not a bad thing. That’s a good thing. But now is the time when there are multiple possibilities, now is the time where there are opportunities for all sorts of things, but not just opportunities for positives. You know, remember what I was sharing about, you know, the new world and heading off to America. It’s also a time for some bad stuff that could be settling in. It’s also the time for us to bring the worst of our old habits and reinstate them, instead of the best of our old habits. Now is the time when we have the potential to come up with a new world that is better than the old world.
And I want to encourage you to take this moment and apply yourself to it. Now, while the neural activity is firing and everything is interesting and there are possibilities everywhere. Now is the time when innovation will rise. Now is the time when creativity comes to the fall. But the stakes are high. As Llew was saying, we can go into this new season with aspects of who we are and our culture that are worse than what we had. We can regress, you know, stress makes us regress, is one of the things he said. There are real dangers that lie ahead around the culture of what our organisations are, how we operate, who we are, there is a danger in this time. But there is also opportunity. And I want to encourage you to make the most of this moment to leverage the opportunity and the potential for who you can be as an individual and as a company. And I’m confident that if we do that, and if we apply ourselves to that, we will be able to head into a future that is better than the past. The Mygrow reignition support package is aimed at helping you navigate this time in such a way that you can actually develop your company and your processes and who you are into a way that will support your people and support the vision and the values of your company. Thank you very much for being with us today. I’ll see you in the next episode.
WATCH our other webinars around reintegrating post lockdown.
Further Reading:
The secret to great leadership.
Shifts in workplace value systems.
Feeling overwhelmed, out of balance? Find out about our (RE)IGNITION SUPPORT PACKAGE.