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Is your team not quite clicking and you can't put your finger on why? Are you carrying the weight of holding everyone together while the business keeps moving? Do you wish you had a way to actually understand what's going on around your people and fix it?
You're in the right place.
This podcast helps leaders understand the signs around their team and change them intentionally; so performance, engagement and trust follow naturally.
I'm Josey. I was part of a fractured team and chose to do things differently. What we built together turned out to be what the world's top 30% of organisations do consistently. I spent two years sitting on it before deciding to share it. Now I can’t wait to share it.
If you're ready to lead differently people-first leadership is the better way to have a better day.
Ciao.
Next steps:
Step 1: Take the Leadership Self-Assessment - www.theolivetreemethod.com/leadership-self-assessment
Step 4: Listen to the episodes - we start with aligning to the Leadership Self-Assessment - 26 core areas to make the difference
Step 2: Sign up and make the The Olive Tree Method yours - www.theolivetreemethod.com
Step 3: Reach out if you have queries - josey@theolivetreemethod.com
This is podcast for you. What is the leadership quality that 30 % of the world's best organizations have in common and therefore what 70 % of us are missing out Hang in through the intro. I can't wait to talk about how awesome people first leadership can be for you and your team. I'm stoked you're here.
Podcast Intro
Welcome to the first ever episode of the Living Workplace podcast. I'm glad you're here. This is all about you as a leader. That leadership quality that 70 % of organizations are missing, it's people first leadership. It's a different way of stepping into your work day and how you lead the people you're responsible for and your knowledge and management of the conditions that are around them. Most of us say, of course, that's the job, but most of us are leading the operational and functional stuff not the people stuff as a priority. We manage behaviour when it becomes necessary or a problem. People first is different.
I've come up with the saying, there is a better way to have a better day, because there is. A highly functioning team is noticeable. The energy is high, the engagement is consistent, positive and supportive. You know it when you walk in the room. These teams will know that their immediate managers and the business support them. If that's not your team, you need a team transformation. A team transformation is a process you move through together. A decision to do things differently, a new identity that has to form, and you lead it. You can't patch it. You can't fix one thing. You also can't lead without integrity and conviction in who you're working for. The change won't last. This is what it takes when you know your team's environment is not quite right. People first is the fastest way to that transformation.
In my experience, it's difficult to hold your head up in an environment that doesn't know how to support human behavior and believes that it consistently needs to adjust operationally and the people change with it. In the past many times I felt like I couldn't win especially in middle management. You're squeezed for results without having any solid influence on how that gets achieved. I was a new member of a fractured team and newly leaderless.
I was offered a window to see what was going on and I knew if I followed the same path as the people before me, myself and the team would end up in the same spot. I was given the opportunity to put into practice the things that I believed in and the things that I knew made a difference with past teams and working on performance. So we embarked on the biggest team transformation I have experienced. I am so passionate about sharing its successes and diving into the specific things that worked.
With the team, the different path we took was to focus on getting the operations to work for the people. Step by step, things fell into place. Not because of magic, because we had data on the conditions surrounding everyone. We knew where we needed to be and we embraced the need to change and grew as we went. For me, it was utterly magic. Change is tough, but when change is done well, it's a game changer.
Some things changed immediately, but about a year later we were unrecognizable. People were asking if we had positions, leaders were emailing wanting to work for us. To walk into an office where the team is in flow, happy and engaged. Even when something's gone wrong, everyone's still up, it's a great feeling.
The process we went through was not rocket science. It was patched together because it all made sense to help a fractured team look at itself and work as a whole.
It was intentional, planned forward movement to get the team in a proactive position so we weren't blindsided by business decisions. I was desperate for us all to be in that proactive position rather than reactive, thriving rather than surviving. I found out much later that what we were doing was people first leadership. At the time we worked with what we had and we were putting each other first to not drown in the work.
I was deep in the data. I'm passionate about leadership and learning and a stat stopped me cold. Only 30 % of organizations worldwide put people first as their actual strategy and they're the ones seeing better results, higher profits, real growth. The other 70 % managing tasks, keeping the machine running and four out of five people in those environments are disengaged, one of them actively undermining the workplace.
I sat with that and I thought that's most of us. That's most of our teams and it doesn't have to be that way. Discovering that what we did as a group is what the best in the world do, that made me sit up and decide the process that I'd put together for that team was worth sharing and getting over any resistance I might have about being seen.
So who's this podcast for?
This stuff is for the leader who's willing to look inward and not just outward at operational stuff.
Being open to the idea that they might be part of what needs to change.
Maybe to step out of faith and be okay with being uncomfortable, holding the vision while the teamwork and the groundwork is been done.
It's for the leader who shares the wins, celebrates the successes, and is ready to play the long game with the business, not the short one.
If you need to change, People First Leadership is the way to build a team that embraces pivots, is resilient to change, and actively engages in the process.
You need to be strong enough to say sorry, to be vulnerable, to be yourself.
This is not for the leader who thinks that they already have the answers, who shrugs away the gut instinct that it's just another bad day, tomorrow will be different, who resists checking in with the team to get feedback about how they're doing, who is looking for a one-time fix, who looks for confirmation of their good works in the wrong places.
This isn't a magic wand despite its magic results. People's circumstances change with intentional decisions to do things differently. Building a foundation of understanding, taking some ownership, and then tending it consistently. Everyone that's doing the work together. And I promise you, it's simpler than you think to get started.
I absolutely believe this stuff should be available for all of us to learn as leaders. You might not be in complete control, but you do have many things that are in your control that will make a difference to how you enjoy your team and therefore enjoy your day because they will be.
I'm a firm believer in doing the groundwork first. I have the olive tree method which is the process we went through digging in and finding out about the conditions that surround your team and getting real feedback. This podcast is designed to support you the leader in any change process and getting the best out of the team you have.
I've built a free leadership self-assessment that takes about five minutes and tells you where you can focus first. That's available at theolivetreemethod.com. It'll provide you with some broad ideas on how to support change and a resource list that I've gathered over years to spark inspiration or more curiosity about what People First leadership looks like.
I'd love for you to be part of this movement to move the dial on those appalling stats and there's many more as I dug in. Each episode in the podcast will match a topic on the leadership self-assessment so it all links in.
I can only go by my experience and I want to be completely open. It makes sense for me to give you my interpretation of what moves change the most in an area we look at. I'll do this by exposing my own vulnerabilities with situations I've gone through, or the mistakes I've made to get to the learning.
I've seen and felt the difference. I've lived the difference. I've made the mistakes. I know in my heart you'll benefit from this way of leading your team. I can't wait to explore the people first world and present simple and effective ways that you can emulate the world's best.
It's never just one thing that builds momentum or erodes teamwork, it's little things consistently over time. If it's time for a turnaround for you, I hope to positively impact your transformation journey. I love a good laugh. but I'm dead serious about workplace environments and whether they're good for us.
The next episode, I'm talking about the one thing nobody tells you when you get promoted. And once I got this, it changed how I looked at leadership and how I showed up to walk that different path.
Before the end of each episode, I want to invite you to get curious about something that might be discussed Maybe look at things a little bit differently once you're in your own reality. Questions you may not have asked yourself for a while, but are feeling. So first one, How are the conditions around you? Not your team, not your manager, just you. I'll see you soon.
Be blessed. I wish you the best work day. Ciao.