Punks in Suits: How to lead the workplace reformation

In this clip Blaire talks about how new generations at work are demanding that businesses stay true to their values and some of the qualities they bring to their work. 

In this clip Blaire explains why logic won't be enough to convince people to change. Instead they need their own emotional 'why'. We cannot create empowered, meaningful, humane workplaces with command and control change initiatives. This clip is part of the Punks in Suits app and supports the Punks in Suits book. 

In this audio clip, Blaire differentiates between leadership and management and dives in to what that really means - how are leaders spending their time? When are they managing and when are they leading. This clip is part of the Punks in Suits app. 

In this audio clip for the Punks in Suits app, Blaire shares some thoughts about distributing decision-making (and, vitally, information) down through the organisational hierarchy. Holding on to decision-making authority, saying "The buck stops here" and rescuing people from the discomfort of making decisions reinforces hierarchy, even when you have attempted to take out layers of complexity. 

This short piece of audio goes with the app and explores the two main beliefs in the book. 

If you've downloaded the Punks in Suits app, or read the book, you will have access to this model. Here I describe what the 4 quadrants mean, before you complete the checklist in the next module. 

If you've downloaded the Punks in Suits app, this is your welcome from me!

If you've downloaded the Punks in Suits app you'll be asked to set aside reflection time to consider how to upgrade your leadership. In this piece of audio I talk about how to get the most from your reflection time. 

If you've downloaded the Punks in Suits app, you will have access to a checklist to see where you sit in the Leadership/Trust Model. In this bit of audio, Blaire talks about how to fill it in. 

Miranda Willems is a Social Innovator for Future Generations. She works with companies and other groups to help them perceive from a 7 Generations perspective.  In this thought-provoking conversation she describes what it means to sit in the centre of generations to come and our great ancestors. It’s so important that we listen to the voices of younger colleagues and those with different perspectives especially those who provoke us to see the world through a very different lens. I learnt a lot. I hope you will as well.  Key points Ask - What kind of a society would we be if we don’t make decisions with the interests of our children at the heart? What kind of culture would we be if we did?  Think about ‘the brightest possible future’ when imagining the future.  Having reminders – photos, objects – that help connect you with the past and future are practical ways to keep different generations in the room. Combined with forums that literally bring different generations together can radically change your perspective.  Our brains struggle with long term thinking. We need to build muscle in order to think about ‘brightest possible future thinking’ with all our relations. It doesn’t come naturally. We need to evolve new brain patterns.  Doing this can provide a sense of calm or ‘rest’. Rather than being in the frame of mind of watering the fires day to day, this thinking provides a broader space that enables us to be part of something bigger. This can feel liberating.  Humans are capable of making decisions but also to imagine and dream.  We are stuck like ‘addicts to time’ to all we have to get done. Do we have the courage to let go of that?  Consider making a council of young people, or a mix of generations, with a perspective of 30-40 years. Invite inter-generational opinions into the room. Make a sincere invitation to learn from each other.  Embrace others as part of a community, to combat the feeling of loneliness. We have created isolated systems. Instead we need to organize as an eco-system across generations.  

Cassandra Worthy is a fellow keynote speaker who believes that we can use our emotions as a signal to understand our responses to change and then grow through change rather than resisting and struggling. Her company, Change Enthusiasm Global, helps organisations build resilience and readiness for change. In this conversation we look at what this means and how you can use your emotions – and help others to do the same – as an invaluable tool in a business environment that is always changing. Key pointsResponses to change are different person to person and change to change. But when we are introduced to change we are usually invited outside of our comfort zone. Emotion comes up when we face change. Anticipation, expectation, fear and a whole range of other emotions bubble up. There are no ‘wrong’ emotions. What choices do we make then, and what choices could we make, at the intersection of change and emotion? Change today isn’t linear. It’s stacked and layered on top of each other. It is everywhere and ever present. You have to keep practicing ‘change enthusiasm’ which is a mental framework which helps you, time and again, face in to change and embrace it. When employees start talking about feelings, leaders need the same courageous strength to express theirs. And this needs to be consistently practiced both at work and outside, when going through change and when not going through change. Those organisations that don’t embrace emotion will become obsolete. The role of leaders is to demonstrate empathetic, vulnerable leadership where they create the safe courageous space where people feel comfortable expressing their truest emotions. Sometimes the ‘doing’ is simply ‘being’ – holding the space for the person expressing emotion. They don’t necessarily need you to problem solve. They just need to be understood. That’s it. One of the best things you can give your employees is a better, healthier, more emotionally self-aware you. One of the best things you can give your employees is to work on ‘you’. When you feel these emotions, it must mean you are being ‘welcomed in to a moment of opportunity’ – a change to grow and develop. https://changeenthusiasmglobal.com 

 Diederick Janse is an Holacracy Master Coach and Trainer and a partner at Energized which supports organisations move towards self-management.  Holacracy is a particular form of self-management. In this conversation we discuss self-management in more depth but with a focus on leadership and what he refers to as citizenship within organisations. Key pointsThe starting point for self-management is creating roles which have accountabilities. There is no need to ‘get it right’ first time because as you work with the roles you start to notice gaps, or tensions. Leadership isn’t a role automatically encompassing people management. People management processes are distributed to different roles. Look at tensions as something neutral. It’s a gap between where we are and where we should be. You don’t need to change the whole organisation at once. You can pick a place to start (for instance, clarity of roles and accountability). This immediately allows you to redistribute or let go of swathes of work which you currently do as a manager so you can actually lead. We get pretty invested in our job titles and that becomes part of our identity. Before believing you MUST put your opinion on the table, consider: Could this decision cause harm? Does it affect my role? Historically people have self-managed, even in ancient tribes. It’s in our DNA. But that doesn’t mean everyone wants to do it, or has to. However, with new generations coming in looking for autonomy and meaning there is more demand for this now. Everyone can take ‘leadership’ for spotting tensions and looking to resolve them. Citizenship goes beyond autonomy. It’s not about ‘being left to get on with your work’ but about freedom to contribute to a share purpose and objective. Following is just as important as leading. That doesn’t mean ‘obey’. It’s about fully bringing yourself, offering your opinions and expertise and then letting it go. Followership is underrated. The natural tendency is for people to defer to you because of your perceived authority, Be willing to look for ways to make this less so. https://energized.org/en/what-we-do/https://www.holacracy.org  

Chris May is founder of Mayden, a tech business which supports healthcare services. Mayden is a ‘self-managing organisation’ although it didn’t start that way. In this conversation I talk to Chris about some of the challenges he has faced as he continues to work on his own willingness to distribute decision-making and step away from the conventional role of founder and CEO.Key points: Self-managing organisations do have leaders. But they people who are in the best position to lead in any particular situation, rather than leadership being a permanent role. People generally do not need managing. Self-management only works well if you have clarity of the vision and strategy. You have to repeat this over and over for it to sink in. You need a no blame culture. This means you’re likely to get much better quality because people aren’t motivated to hide their mistakes. Organise for the majority who behave well and have no interest in cheating the system. Get out of the way. Fulfil your legal obligations and then find a job for yourself where you are needed rather than relying on your status, job title or seniority to be a role in itself. The ethos of an organisation is worth fighting for, but that responsibility doesn’t sit only with directors. Everyone contributes to the evolution of the ethos. Your interview process should screen out the people you don’t want in your organisation. You can create a self-managing micro-culture within your organisation, if you’re organisation doesn’t have the appetite to embrace less formalised hierarchies as a whole. But you’ll need to brave to do this!Be less chimp and more bee. 

David Marquet is a former US Nuclear Submarine captain and best-selling author of Turn the Ship Around and Leadership is Language. I quote him throughout the book as he has extraordinary personal experience of the power of making some of the changes I describe. He rethought his leadership style and pushed authority down through his crew because he felt deeply that one brain (his) could not be as intelligent as all the brain on board combined. In our conversation we discuss trust and what trust means, the difference between red work and blue work and he even gives a sneak peak into what he's writing about next.  During the interview David shows me an old photo of a foreman in a factory and he talks through what the image shows and what it represents so you'll hear him refer to that. Key points: Red work tends to be physical and is ‘allergic’ to variability. Blue work is about thinking and making decisions. The organisation was designed to divide people into thinkers and doers. The people doing the work aren’t the people deciding about the work. It must be coercive. If you can get over the seduction of power and every decision doesn’t hinge on you your life is infinitely better AND your business can better compete in today’s market. We can now engage everyone in the thinking at certain times. Rather than some people being thinkers and others doers, we all sometimes think and then all sometimes do. Trust doesn’t mean people will get decisions right. Trust means that a person says what they mean and mean what they say, and that their intent is to make a good decision. We tend to believe that trust also means that a person can look into the future and has all the knowledge and ability in the world and therefore their decision will be the right one. But none of us can do that. Asking if people are sure, or if they know they are right, is problematic. Instead talk about ideas in a probabilistic way. E.g. “There is a 10% chance it will work so it’s worth trying”. This gives people permission to share ideas they wouldn’t normally share. Your ideas will be stronger if you air them to groups. Even Newton and Einstein made mistakes and learnt from others. You have to give up all feeling of competence. When you want to ‘be good’ you avoid challenges and feedback. Stand beside yourself as an observer or as your own coach so you are less attached to your ego when assessing your performance and areas for growth. 

To understand more about the potential, and threat, of AI, I wanted to talk to Jordi Ferrer. As head of ServiceNow’s UK and Ireland business, he knows first-hand what this new technology is capable of. In this wide-ranging discussion we face in to the threat AI poses but then move the conversation on to AI in our organisations, the impact on how we utilise human beings, the benefits to businesses and the implications for leadership.  Key points:  You can now interact with technology in a conversational way. It feels you are interacting with a being.  We need to develop rules and guardrails to limit the power of this technology so that it can be used to our benefit and not our detriment.  This technology could eliminate a lot of mundane tasks. Where humans don't add value it is better for technology to be used. But typically this shift won’t be motivated by a cost-saving. The cost saving will not be compelling enough. However, the boom in customer service, services for citizens, will be a more significant prime motivator.  Companies that wait until the pain is so significant they are forced to change, will disappear.  The IT department is about to become a central, strategic function. AI will be found in the classroom. Your bank, using AI, will be able to tell you how you’re spending your money, instantly, and how to utilise your finances more efficiently. There are many questions we would like to ask but the information is hard and slow to access so we haven’t even asked...until now.  Leaders need to be open to opportunities to use technology to get to the source of problems rather than spending money patching up legacy systems and solutions just because that’s what they are used to.   The possibility that you could simply ask AI “Tell me what I need to know...” and it would! You can find out more about ServiceNow here. 

About Kay Sargent: Kay Sargent is a director of HOK’s Global WorkPlace[1] practice. With a passion for using design to transform how and where people work, she spends her days (and many nights) working with clients on workplace strategy and design.Based in Washington, D.C., Kay leads project teams that solve clients’ business and organizational challenges related to real estate business process, strategic planning, workplace strategy and change management. She collaborates with organisations ranging from tech startups to Fortune 500 companies to optimize their real estate portfolios and create the most innovative work experiences.In this interview Kay and I discuss work and location. Given that hybrid working and how to make that work is one of the first questions I’m asked when leaders come to talk to me after a speech, I wanted to explore the topic with someone who thinks about real estate and the changing requirements of space full-time. In this conversation Kay explores how and why we gather, how to stop treating employees as ‘potted plants’ and how technology can help make work spaces work.  Key insights:  It’s not just about where we work and how we get to that location but what sort of work we do when we get there. We aren’t potted plants, but many offices are often designed as if we are. We need to design them to encourage move, options, and choices. Our cars have more tech than our workspaces. We need to leverage technology to enhance the user experience. Remote work has a cost, financial, culturally and from a well-being perspective. It’s not for everyone and just because you can work remotely doesn’t mean you should. We are sweeping biases (proximity bias, preferential treatment) under the carpet. We need to acknowledge it exist and take steps to prevent it. Hybrid is the hardest way of working to pull off, it’s more of an operational model than a workplace solution and companies who endeavor to embrace it need to put in the work to make it successful.