In our first blog article within the series, we outlined how to decipher and share your vision within your team, and how to ensure that this is consistent with your overall business strategy. We then provided advice in our second article on how to incorporate methods geared towards empowering, inspiring and motivating workers, prompting subsequent engagement.

Moreover, in our previous piece, we developed this motif further, indicating what should be considered to ensure that your team skilfully execute the meticulous details outlined in your plan, enabling you to achieve your vision.

It’s often considered to be the case that once a target has been accomplished, then focus can be completely shifted towards setting new goals – quite the contrary. Rather, companies must ensure that progress is sustained and that high standards aren’t compromised.

Sustaining Progress

When objectives are achieved, it’s pivotal to maintain performance, business standards and continually improve; a failure to do so could hinder business performance and present your competitors with the opportunity to capitalise on your shortcomings.

Therefore, it’s important to harvest a working culture whereby achievements are celebrated and recognised. Positivity within the workplace is contagious and can have a resounding effect in prompting a team to maintain their standards or even surpass previous successes.

Various methods can be applied to acknowledge the success of your team and inspire your team to perform continually:

How to Maintain Company Performance

Thank Staff

People often overthink how they should express their gratitude. However, there are many instances whereby a simple ‘thank you’ will suffice.

Some might say that staff are simply performing their duties and that thanks aren’t necessarily required. However, thanking staff when they have performed well not only indicates that you value

their performance; this will often instil confidence and can make them enthusiastic to please during future exercises.

Send a Token of Appreciation

Showing your staff members that you value their work is essential if you want them to be engaged with your business and its overall philosophy.

Sending a token of appreciation is a popular way of showing support to workers, with the acknowledgement a simple, yet effective way of highlighting that you appreciate a job well done; the token doesn’t need to be flash or expensive – it’s merely a small act of kindness used to convey your gratitude.

Whether it’s a personalised letter of thanks, a gift card, or a day off, never underestimate the overriding impact that kudos can have on the morale within your team.

Host a Team Event

Sustainability often hinges on positive energy and thrilling work culture being cultivated within your workplace and throughout your workforce.

Team building events can prove beneficial in offering workers with a change of environment, whereby they can enhance and establish skills that can be applied to their everyday role.

Such events encourage collaboration and communication, with characteristics used to ensure that projects are completed per time efficiency. Moreover, team-building exercises can identify strengths within your team that may otherwise have gone unnoticed and can also establish trust and cohesion within the team.

Additionally, events such as company awards ceremonies and employee of the month are other methods can be used to motivate your workforce and maintain high standards.

Supplement this positive work culture by promoting the importance of learning new skills and developing individual and group practice.

If something doesn’t work, don’t dwell on failure. Instead, consider what went well and how reoccurrences can be avoided. Positive, constructive feedback can be given during individual and team meetings to help people learn and recover effectively from setbacks.

In many cases, failure can often be attributed to insufficient knowledge. Therefore, offer career development opportunities and reward members of staff who complete training in a bid to entice them to cultivate their skills.

When staff are using new products or implementing new skills gained from training, use a pilot programme as a risk-free way of testing their understanding.

Case Study: How Did Michelle Maintain Standards, Business Performance and Plan for the Future?

When planning how her team would bring her vision to life, Michelle asked herself: ‘How will I structure the reward scheme to inspire performance longevity and improvement?’

While many companies opt for a financial reward in the form of a lump sum at the end of the year, Michelle and the senior management team adopted an alternative stance when awarding staff.

The importance and influence of financial incentives weren’t ignored by Michelle. Therefore, she decided to push ahead bonus payments and incentives that would be rewarded each quarter, dependent on how the team were performing and whether they were on track.

It was deemed that this method would incentivise staff because there would be reassurances offered in the form of tangible financial returns that would indicate that their hard work was paying dividends. This was mutually beneficial – the team were given bonuses at the end of each quarter, while the company built a team who were driven to perform results.

For example, at the end of the summer quarter, Michelle assessed the numbers and her team met the target that was set for the three months. Therefore, she rewarded them with their bonus and assured them that if standards were maintained or exceeded, another bonus would be received at the end of the next quarter.

Drip feeding the gratuity payment and spreading incentives through the year heightened engagement and gave the team the impetus to work hard; they realised that their efforts would be acknowledged if they performed to the expected standards.

In addition to financial draws, Michelle also introduced other ways to incentivise and thank staff, including team socials, awards and team events to encourage her staff to preserve consistent performance levels.

In business, education is an endless cycle and these lessons facilitate improvements. Therefore, at the end of the year, measures were put into place whereby Michelle and her colleagues established areas of strength and areas for improvement.

A period of reflective learning was completed, whereby performances at multiple sites were assessed. For instance, the studies revealed that while the 5% sales increase was achieved by Michelle’s team, the sales team in London surpassed their sales target by 10%. Therefore, Michelle compared sales methods being used by the team in London, with her team to distinguish how sales could potentially be improved further for the following year.

Are you unsure how to further improve your business performance? Call Co-Creation on +44 7876 024555 to speak with a member of our specialist team, or email us to find out how we can help your business perform to its optimum potential.

Defining Leadership Edge

To establish a sense of credibility and authenticity, leaders identify areas of strength and establish where they can offer the most value – this is otherwise referred to as a ‘leadership edge’ or a ‘brand’. Each brand of leadership will define how an individual approaches leadership habits.

The traits identified by leaders are considered to be the unique and powerful characteristics that can enhance their role as a leader, in turn, improving the overall quality of their practice.

Why is Your Leadership Edge Important?

There isn’t a fixed definition as to what constitutes leadership; it presents itself in many guises and people lead in different ways, with their style often influenced by the team that they’re leading and the company where they’re working.

Nonetheless, the market is inundated with competition and people are continually vying to establish their company as the market leader. Therefore, establishing your leadership edge has the potential to make your company stand out ahead of rivals. Moreover, promoting your leadership edge can also enable you to enhance your overall working reputation within your company.

For businesses to collaborate effectively, compatibility is essential – fraught business relations can seriously hinder working prospects and be prohibitive in the facilitation of targets. Establishing a clear-cut leadership edge and generating awareness of a distinct leadership edge instils self-confidence and self-motivation, negating the effects of imposter syndrome or self-doubt.

As part of your leadership edge, there are four leadership habits – a series of key constituents that when combined successfully, can have a significant influence on the success of both short-term and long-term aspirations within your organisation. These four facets will form the basis of our upcoming blog articles.

Our initial focus will focus on sharing your vision and the importance that a leader should attribute to sharing their vision and philosophy with their workforce to accomplish objectives.

Sharing Your Vision

It’s essential to recognise changes and trends that are occurring within your sector. These will shape your vision and plans when orchestrating your business plan.

Your plan should outline your vision, expectations, and how you intend to fully optimise business performance goals. Fine-tune this proposal and send to your staff and stakeholders.

When formulating your strategy, consider the following:

• What’s Your Definition of Success?
• What Are the Aims of Your Organisation?
• What Strategies Will be Implemented to Accomplish Your Goals?
• What Are Your Stretch Goals?
• What Expectations and Principles are in Place at Your Business?
• How Do You Propose to Conquer Key Challenges?
• How Will You Fully Optimise Your Team?
• Have You Accounted for Potential Risks?

When sharing a vision, it’s pivotal for leaders to outline their ambitions and their interpretation of success. Don’t be ambiguous; if your workforce and stakeholders can’t understand your intentions, this will hinder the overall success of your plans.

Introduce a system whereby you can monitor success and track whether targets have been fulfilled. When planning, follow the SMART system:

• SPECIFIC – Make clear goals that can be easily understood;
• MEASURABLE – Ensure that every goal can be measured;
• ACHIEVABLE – Don’t set goals that are too hard to achieve;
• RELEVANT – Make sure that your goals are pertinent to your company and sector;
• TIMELY OR TIME-BOUND – Enforce realistic periods and deadlines.

Case Study

To illustrate how this looks in practise, we’ll follow Michelle, a CEO of a pharmaceutical company, through the four leadership habits.

Michelle’s business has aspirations centred around two core principles:

1. Increasing product innovation;
2. Increasing market sales.

Having understood her strengths and identified her leadership edge, Michelle is keen to share her vision for the company with the team and begin working together to ensure that she, along with her colleagues, can achieve the company targets and fulfil their goals.

However, before sharing her vision, Michelle acknowledges that her targets lack specificity and clarity. Therefore, she develops the initial plans, revises the initial targets and opts for the following vision for herself and her team:

1. Introduce at least one new product into phase one clinical trials by July;
2. Increase sales by 5% in the UK by the end of the financial year.

Leaders need to avoid ambiguity when sharing a vision. These revised targets are clearer and can be well-communicated by the CEO to staff members. Moreover, progress can be successfully measured, given the distinct stretch targets set by Michelle.

Having determined her vision and targets for the company, Michelle now has to communicate what the goals are, how they comply with the company’s overall strategies and how she believes her team can implement a system that will see the vision come to fruition.

For the company to succeed, Michelle and other senior management figures within the organisation must spark engagement amongst the team; this topic is the focal point of the next blog.

Unsure how to successfully share your vision with your team? Do you require advice on how to communicate your ethos engagingly? Call Co-Creation on +44 7876 024555 to speak with a member of our specialist team or email us to find out how we can help you effectively interact with your workforce.

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way.”– John.C Maxwell

What is a Leader?

With society continually being shaped by ever-changing norms in a political, social, and economic sense, organisations are being presented with continual challenges throughout their quest for success. Leaders are being forced to incorporate a smart way of working to generate positive work outcomes.

While leaders share the same common goal of sustained success, leadership itself comes in many forms. The most inspirational leaders commonly fulfil their goals by homing in on key areas of strength to achieve their optimum potential.

For a leader to thrive, it’s fundamental to establish and identify a unique leadership edge. This helps to inspire people and fulfil short and long-term targets.

What is Leadership Edge?

To establish a sense of credibility and authenticity, leaders identify areas of strength, and establish where they can offer the most value – this is otherwise referred to as a ‘leadership edge’ or a ‘brand’. 

The traits identified by leaders are considered to be the unique and powerful characteristics that can enhance their role as a leader, in turn, improving the overall quality of their practice.

Four aspects form a leadership edge. These include:

1. Aspirations – These are what an individual wants to achieve and fulfil via their leadership, and the overriding legacy that they wish to leave;
2. Strengths – Areas whereby a person excels. We’re all invigorated by individual interests, and these qualities provide the potential to thrive;
3. Values – These are principles and belief systems that a person conforms to that are used to guide career and life decisions;
4. Abilities – Natural talents that are applied by an individual to accomplish professional targets both for personal and team/company goals.

Benefits of Establishing Your Leadership Edge

Each leader is unique and offers individual traits and characteristics. Therefore, it’s beneficial to convey your brand, for a variety of reasons. 

For instance, the modern marketplace is highly competitive; establishing your leadership edge has the potential to differentiate your qualities from that of a competitor. Also, the promotion of your leadership edge can Increase visibility within a company and enhance your working reputation.

Compatibility between two or more parties is essential to achieve optimum outcomes and good team working. Communicating your leadership edge enables you and your colleagues to be more self-aware in how you work together to make the most of your strengths across both short-term and sustained periods.

Moreover, generating an awareness of a distinct leadership edge enhances self-confidence and inspires self-motivation rather than suffering imposter syndrome or self-doubt.

Strength-Based Leadership

There is often an emphasis placed on identifying weaknesses, as opposed to encouraging ingenuity. 

Strength-based leadership subverts this philosophy, instead, encouraging people to contribute their individual USPs to achieve a shared goal. With all-rounders a rare commodity, strength-based leadership identifies multiple areas of strength, combining a multitude of skills to enhance performance and fulfil business objectives.

Global sports manufacturer Nike is a prime example of how strength-based leadership can pay dividends, with the foundational team combining several traits to prompt business growth.

In the company’s formative years, founder Phil Knight identified business management and corporate negotiation as his areas of expertise, while co-founder Bill Bowerman, equipped with a broad knowledge of track and field, excelled in product development. Rather than frivolously assigning roles within his team, founder Phil Knight encouraged others to focus on their areas of strength.

The ABCD approach outlines guidelines relating to strength-based leadership:

• Align – Rather than individually delegating projects, seek input from your team about which tasks they would like to complete. During the decision-making process, consider the skillsets of your employees, communicate, and identify where their skills are suited best. This can help identify areas where members of the group may thrive.
• Build Diverse Teams – A workforce varying in age, culture, gender, etc. will provide a multitude of ideas. When forming a team, it’s important not to surround yourself with similar people, with similar ideas. A diverse team, with different strengths, will ensure that various traits are introduced to the team, creating ground-breaking ideas, and enhancing the likelihood of surpassing competitors.
• Culture of Transparency – Honesty often prompts positiveness within the workplace; employees will be more receptive to feeding back their professional motivations and aims. Responses have the potential to highlight what individuals perceive to be their strengths.
• Don’t Govern, Encourage – While the formation of a diverse team can be challenging, this is the easier part, with the true difficulty laying in empowering your team to work creatively. Strength-based leaders must allow their team to be bold in their approach and express their opinion. It’s the responsibility of a leader to listen to a team, before guiding them in the right direction, as per their strengths without hindering their enthusiasm.

Leaders can often be overbearing, sometimes intimidating, approaches that can be detrimental to their workforce. It’s essential to acknowledge that leadership is a privilege, not a right. Strength-based leadership places importance on people being encouraged to utilise their main competencies to improve morale and productivity.

Co-Creation Leadership Lab

Communication and collaboration are the two fundamental characteristics of successful leaders.

It’s often considered that great minds share ideas, a philosophy and driving force behind our new enterprise, the Leadership Lab. Our pioneering event presents like-minded professionals with the opportunity to discuss current business affairs and share ideas and values.

With significant developments constantly emerging within the business sector, the Leadership Lab affords attendees the opportunity to liaise with renowned senior-level peers during our exclusive event, in turn, refining their knowledge and overall practice.

To echo the sentiments of American artist Shepard Fairey: “Creating is about sharing ideas, sharing aesthetics, sharing what you believe in with other people.”

The Leadership Lab reflects these sentiments, in that the event encourages participants to community ideas with each other, leading to the acquirement of new skills, and the potential for exciting business opportunities. 

For more information about Co-Creation’s Leadership Lab, scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2020, please email Dave Harrison, at dave.harrison@co-creation.group.