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There is no doubt that, right now, the world of work is a challenging one. The mantra at the moment in organisations seems to be DO MORE WITH LESS. I cannot see how this is a recipe for success, and I don’t see how that model is sustainable, all it leads to is higher levels of stress for everyone and a greater likelihood of mistakes, failure and burnout. 

So today I’d like to make a plea to all of you reading this to be more KIND and UNDERSTANDING of those who you work with and those who work for you. We are living through incredibly stressful times. The stress and anxiety scores, as measured by the office of national statistics, have not gone down much at all since the end of the pandemic. They are remaining stubbornly high and that is absolutely born out in the stress levels I am seeing in leaders and teams I have been working with this year. 

Organisations have been consistently making cutbacks and ‘efficiency savings’ for over ten years now. Think about it, when was the last time the organisational ‘management of change’ or ‘re-structure’ ever led to MORE people in your directorate or team? You might be one of the very few who has received more resources, but when you think about it, was the ‘more resources’ because it had been so cut back previously that it was impossible to deliver without significantly affecting performance? Likelihood is that it was. 

Now, some of you reading this will quite accurately highlight that part of this will be due to automation and technological advances. This is true, but this general reduction in workforce is across all sectors and almost all organisational sizes (apart from start-ups of course), and it is leading to many feeling under-resourced and overwhelmed. 

This is compounded by the flatter structures now established within organisations, with lower headcounts, and removal of management levels. This means there is a higher stress level at a lower hierarchical level within organisations. 

I have been studying the effects of stress in organisations for over ten years now, and it’s safe to say that the levels now are higher than I have ever seen them. I ask a simple question in our ‘working smarter not harder’ workshops, it is this: 

Hands up if you feel you have both the time and capacity to get everything that you need to get done, done at the right level and at the right quality? In your normal working hours? (i.e. your contracted hours)

Not one leader has put their hand up in over ten years and, recently, people have looked at me as if I was crazy to even ask the question! 

I have had to add in extra workshop days around resilience and stress, and even ‘how to get a good night’s sleep’ into our team and leadership development programmes because, right now, the leaders and teams I work with truly need them. 

When you research into stress (specifically its side-effects) it helps you understand a lot of what is going on within organisations. Have a quick check in with the list below – are you seeing any of these signs of stress in your leaders, your leadership team, in your team, amongst your fellow team members, in you? 

Bad decision making? Being reactive? Inability to think straight? Lack of creativity or innovation? Lack of strategic thinking? Being snappy? Emotional reactions? Being irritable? Blurting things out without thought? Feeling over-emotional? Being exhausted? Lacking motivation? Short temper? Feeling lethargic? Making impulsive decisions? Being grumpy for no reason? Over-thinking things? Isolating yourself? Being hard on yourself? 

All of these things can be directly linked to the bio-chemical symptoms of stress. They are all related to having stress-hormones in your system – yes even the ‘lack of creativity or innovation’ one! 

The truth is that we are not taking the effects of stress seriously enough within our organisations. We need to take action NOW to bring ourselves back from the brink of complete burnout. 

We have let ourselves tolerate stress for too long, and we now tolerate behaviours that before we would never had tolerated. It is time to call out unacceptable behaviour and leaders who are not living to the values of the organisation, and it is time as leaders to remember that now, more than ever, we need to be KIND and UNDERSTANDING. 

Much of what is happening in organisations is as a direct result of what I call the ‘unholy trinity’  – lack of sleep, working longer hours to get everything done, and the inevitable stress that comes as a result. SLEEP, WORKING HARDER, STRESS – when we’re caught in that vicious cycle it only ever spirals downwards and many of you reading this will recognise it in yourselves.

Now of course the most important thing is to actively equip yourself (and your team/your staff) with the tools to enable you to get a better night’s sleep, to work smarter not harder and to reduce the impact of stress in your lives. That is precisely what our ‘RESILIENCE TOOLKIT’ programme was created to help with. (If you want help defeating the unholy trinity for yourself, your team or your organisation, then just get in touch!) 

However, it’s also important to remember that everyone right now is facing significant workload pressures and, as a result, will be under elevated levels of stress. So, you know what? They might not be PERFECT, they might be upset or emotional, they might get reactive or snappy and they might occasionally exhibit behaviours that, with a little reflection, they would not be proud of. 

NOONE wants to be what I call a NEGATIVE RIPPLE. They don’t wake up in the morning and say: 

“You know what? Today I want to really be horrible to everyone I meet, I want to annoy and frustrate others, and be snappy, irritable and rude.”

NOONE wants to be that. 

So, this is a reminder that we all need to be MORE KIND and MORE UNDERSTANDING of our team, our staff and yes, even our leaders – it’s stressful times out there and that means we’re not going to be at our best all of the time – so a little kindness and understanding is what is required. 

Now I am not justifying bad behaviour here, nothing gets me angrier than bullying behaviour or use of power to undermine or denigrate our people. Be very clear, we all need to stand up to such behaviours and not tolerate them. And, by the way, by that I literally mean ‘stand up’ and ‘walk out’ if you are in a room with someone exhibiting bullying behaviours, call it out if it is not directed at you, or leave the meeting if you are on Teams. More people need to be active bystanders and call out unacceptable and abusive behaviours. 

What I AM encouraging is that, in your teams, it’s incredibly important to be kind to each other. Now more than ever. If someone is struggling to hit that deadline be a little understanding, give them help and support if you can. If someone has got a little emotional, check in with them, offer support and show them you care. If you’re interacting with a service part of the organisation, your IT or HR or Finance Teams for example, let them know that you APPRECIATE their help, don’t just go in bullishly demanding to have whatever it is sorted. Remember they are there to help you – and help them help you by being kind and by being understanding. 

As a leader, showing that you care is not a sign of weakness – it is a sign of strength. As we approach the end of the year it’s a perfect time to say thank you, to give appreciation to your team, your people, for all they have done for you this year. As leaders you will have your own stresses, your own pressures to deliver, but do take time to reflect on your own impact, your own behaviours. If you were snappy or accidentally berated one of your staff in a meeting (even if for good reason), just make sure that you check in and make it right afterwards. 

Look, it’s inevitable that from time to time you will lose it, you will let your frustrations or emotions get the better of you and THAT’S OK – you are human after all and right now you are facing tremendous stresses in your work-lives, all of you. And there is no better time than right now to CHOOSE BEING KIND AND UNDERSTANDING above all other things. 

Let’s show that we CARE, let’s give a little GRACE, and be a MORE POSITIVE RIPPLE in our teams and in our organisations. A little kindness goes a heck of a long way, and I promise you it will make the world of difference to you as well as those who you dare to be kind to. 

If you’d like to tackle stress and rebuild resilience within your organisation, if you’d like to help your people to have the tools in their toolkits to beat the unholy trinity and work smarter not harder in 2025, for the benefit of all, then why not drop me a line and we can talk about how Meta can support you to make 2025 a year where you all thrive, rather than just survive. 

As this is the last article I will be writing this year, let me finish by saying I think that you are all amazing. You’ve worked incredibly hard this year, and you know what? You have earned your time off. Enjoy your festive period, make sure you all re-fill your fuel tanks to over-flowing, so that you can start 2025 with a full fuel tank and a re-charged resilience battery. 

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! 

I hope that 2025 is kind and generous to you! 
In peace and with love
Jo, CEO of Meta

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO GROW AND FLOURISH IN YOUR ORGANISATION?

Today I want to talk about the big C-word. No, not THAT C-word, and NO definitely not THAT C-word! I’m talking about Culture, a word which organisations are always banging on about as important but seem to do very little to actually make it a priority or reality. 

Your people matter. You know that, I know that, but what do you do to make sure that your people KNOW they matter? What do you do to make sure that your people have the right working environment and ways of working that make them feel loyalty and love (yes LOVE) for their work (and, by extension, for your organisation?)

That’s where the BIG C-word comes in, because Culture is where it’s all at. Culture is what makes the difference, but the problem is, most organisational leaders don’t know what to do to create the right culture, and certainly in today’s busy workplaces, they don’t find they have the time to give it the attention they know, in their heart of hearts, it deserves. 

Culture is one of those big, important, but often misunderstood words in the organisational lexicon. So, what DOES it mean? 

Well, as you know, we do at Meta love us a bit of etymology (root meanings of words) and if you look it up CULTURE is taken from the Latin word ‘cultura’ – the same root of word as used in cultivate and agriculture. 

‘creating an environment to encourage things to grow and flourish’ 

The metaphor I like to use when I’m doing workshops on team culture and organisational culture is that of the humble YOGHURT pot (it’s a good one as yes, yoghurt is a live culture!)

If you take some milk, a little live bacterial culture and create the right environment for it (a nice warm place), then magic happens (with a little patience and time) and you get some tasty yoghurt. 

However, if you don’t pay attention to your yoghurt, if you leave it a little too long..

Well, we’ve all done it haven’t we? We’ve reached into the fridge for the pot of yoghurt and realised, as we peel back the lid, that to our horror, this is the OLD yoghurt pot that we forgot about! 

And what does it look like? Well, it certainly doesn’t look appetising anymore – it’s green, furry and mouldy! It’s totally gone off. 

What was a thriving culture, has gone bad. 

I know it’s not a perfect metaphor, but it usually raises a chuckle in the leadership teams I work with, because we have all had that experience. And that’s precisely what happens with our approach to organisational and team culture. We pay it a bit of attention (normally because the executive leaders at the top table have gone away for an awayday and come back with some new organisational values, or HR has decided to do some cultural work off the back of some poor staff survey results) and then, after a few focus groups, posters are put up on walls, some new lanyards are designed, mugs and screensavers are created with the values written all over them, and it’s tick box, cultural work done! 

Then, we forget about it again. We forget that, actually, the culture needs more than just a short-term fix. It needs attention, it needs tending to, it need encouraging, it needs reinforcement, it needs more than just a few people to own it to make it happen. It takes real time to ensure that we  have the RIGHT things flourishing and growing! 

Now I get it, it’s hard to justify extensive cultural development in today’s profit driven business world. But as the legendary business guru Tom Peters says in his newest (and sadly last) book – “Excellence Now: Extreme Excellence”:

“ – People’s engagement and growth really first.

• Leaders who put creating and maintaining a caring and spirited and equitable culture really first.
• Now.
• I would remind you that the data unequivocally says that ‘people first’ – concern for the organisational and community health and producing products and services that matter is far and away the most effective bottom-line business practice there is.”

Tom Peters knows his stuff. He’s been doing this for longer than I’ve been on the planet (I’m nearly 50). This apparently ‘soft stuff’ this ‘cultural stuff’ is really important, and it’s going to become more and more important as the workforce generation moves towards being a majority of Millennial and Gen Z employees. 

Gen Z, especially, are a fickle bunch, and I mean that with all the love in the world. They don’t do ‘corporate’, they don’t do ‘the big career’, they don’t care about how it’ll ‘look on their CV’, they don’t have much loyalty… UNLESS you create an environment (culture) in which they feel valued and appreciated. A culture where they feel that they’re learning, growing, and recognised. A culture where they can see that they’re making a difference somehow and, that they’re doing something worthwhile.

Almost ALL of those things can be classed under one organisational imperative – YOUR CULTURE! 

In a world where attracting the right staff and retaining the right staff is getting increasingly more difficult, in a world where there’s more long-term sickness than there has ever been, it’s vital for the future success of your organisation to start paying real attention to your ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE. 

Why? Because if you get it right – not only will your people grow and flourish but, as result, your organisation will grow and flourish too! (And yes, I mean even on the bottom-line and in hard data measurables). 

It’s not just Gen Z, it’s all your people, whatever generation they were born in. Right now, people are crying out for a little attention, a little development, and to be working in a great working environment, and to contribute to a great organisational culture. 

And there’s the key – culture is not something that should be dictated from on high from the C-suite executives (no pun intended), it’s something that should be created, contributed to, nurtured, and tended to by everyone. 

An organisation is a living system, and if you want that system to be efficient, effective and productive, then you need to ensure that the environment, the culture, is one that allows those things to flourish. 

When I say your organisation is a living system; The LIVING part of your system, the most IMPORTANT part of your organisation, IS your people. 

This is where we hit up against one of the biggest BUSINESS MYTHS – that if you let your people co-create your culture, they will ask for the earth, and it will end up in anarchy and chaos. 

I’ve been working in the field of cultural excellence for over 22 years, and I can tell you, people just want basic stuff. To be able to treat others and be treated themselves as human beings. Show them you’re serious about investing in them, and the culture and the return on your investment will be loyalty, dedication, productivity, quality, creativity and innovation. 

When was the last time you asked your people (your organisation or your team – depending on what level leader you are reading this) how they wanted to work and what culture they’d like to see in your organisation or team? 

Likelihood is that if you’ve ever asked that, it was probably a while ago, so now is a perfect time to revisit it. It’s much easier than you think – I promise! 

It doesn’t take much investment, certainly far less than the last re-structure or new system rollout, or rebranding or management change, or that new operating model work you did in your organisation recently. And yes, it does take a little time, but we promise you it will transform your organisation into one that everyone LOVES, wants to come to work for, and wants to give of their best to.  

So be you a team leader, director, exec or CEO, now is the time to start getting serious about your culture. Ask yourself these questions: 

1. What do you want to grow and flourish in your team, directorate or organisation? 
2. How do you want your people to feel when they’re working for you? 
3. What environment do YOU thrive in? What environment do you think your staff might thrive in? 
4. In an ideal world, what would be the type of working culture you’d like to see in your team/directorate/organisation? 
5. If you could wave a magic wand, what would you change about the culture you currently have? 

Take some time over these questions, and don’t limit your thinking! Just because you’re not in tech or in media or design, doesn’t mean you can’t have an amazing culture. Don’t be limited by what you think is realistically possible in your organisation, think BIG, and dare to dream – that’s how the truly greatest leaders and organisations do it. 

Then, when you’ve done your thinking, why not drop me a line and have a conversation about your cultural vision and we’ll happily share a few tips with you of how to make your vision a reality and get your team, your organisation, on the road to the destination of BEST PLACE EVER TO WORK. 

That is, after all, a part of why Meta is here – to help you turn your cultural dreams into a practical reality. 

Have a great month all.

In peace,
Jo Clarkson
CEO of META
jo@metapositive.com

We were all sold a bit of a false promise with the advent of technology in the workplace, that technology would be a miraculous cure-all for almost every organisational and team-working issue. 

We were going to have a four-day working week (because computers would be doing most things), but that never quite materialised. Communication would improve with the instant communicative power of emails, but I think it’s safe to say that there are not many of us who would agree with that statement; in fact, most people we come across find emails the bane of their working lives! 

Now we’re using technology more than ever for our communications, not only at home but also in the workplace. The pandemic led to a lightning-fast rollout of new technologies that, without the pandemic, would probably have taken three-to-five years to have been implemented in as many organisations as they have been. Zoom, MS Teams, and WhatsApp are now fundamental parts of any team’s communication. 

Over the past 23 years Meta has been in business, we’ve gone from teams being in the same office (and mostly the same area of the office), to being spread over numerous offices nationally, and then to the bigger organisations over numerous offices globally. 

When you’re not in the same office, this will inevitably affect a team’s effectiveness and its ability to communicate well. Combine that with a team which is in five different time zones, and it becomes an even greater challenge. 

Communication means, etymologically, “that which we share together”– it comes from the same root of the words “common” and “commune”. Yet, nowadays, how often do we SHARE things through our communication and how often do we just say things or send things?

Communication in organisations has become very transactional – “I need this, so I will get it from you”. Which it is very easy to do (mostly via emails), but it misses a very important part of communication – the feeling! And here’s what’s important to know: without the feeling, communication is not very effective – because communication is a FEELING NOT A FACT.

We want to feel we’ve been heard; we want to feel that someone has understood us; we want to feel that someone is actually communicating with us and not just telling us something. We want to feel, in this hybrid era, that we’re part of the team, that others care about us, value us, and appreciate us. 

That all comes through how we communicate with one another.

It’s great in some ways that, now, we get to work at home. Technology has advanced so that we can be at home and do most of our work pretty effectively. There are some bonuses to working from home (although it’s a whole other question as to whether we actually USE those bonuses much now) but there are also down-sides. One of the down-sides is how it affects the team dynamic. 

It’s not as easy to collaborate with your team when you’re not in the same room. It’s not as easy to build relationships with others when you’re not in the same office. It’s not as easy to call for help or get the informal support that comes from having your team-mates next to you in an office. It can be quite isolating to work from home and, with the current pressures of work, that can lead to anxiety, increased stress, and a feeling of overwhelm in the individual team member. In the past, this might have been highlighted with the team or seen by the team before it got to that stage. 

The other fundamental issue with hybrid working and not being in the same office is that it will inevitably affect team communication. When you’re in the same office (and yes, I know, not everyone wants to be there, but go with me), then you can just check in with other team-mates during the day. You can easily access advice, support, and other team-mates’ knowledge when you’re in the office. There are also the informal conversations which build rapport, relationships, team spirit – the energy that exists when a team sits together can be palpable and helps all the team members get through those tough and challenging days. 

During the last three years, we’ve worked with numerous leadership teams and teams within organisations. One of the consistent themes that has come through from those team development journeys has been that communication has gotten worse, not better, during the hybrid era and people feel less part of the team and more isolated now they are working from home. 

In the past there were only really three main channels for communication. Face-to-face, via the phone, email/text. Now, as technology has grown, there are more. Communication has always been an issue in organisations (just refer to any staff survey you’ve had over the last 20 years, and you’ll see that, more often than not, communication is highlighted). But now, in the hybrid era, we need to consciously re-look at communication methods so that we can improve our team dynamics and team effectiveness, and make sure that everyone feels a valued part of our team. It’s time for a re-evaluation of our team communication strategy. 

Pre-pandemic we didn’t have to consciously think about team communication as much, but what I’m suggesting is that now, we really do. 

So, what can we do to improve communication in the hybrid-era? Well, the first thing is to make sure you have a clear communications strategy in your team (and by the way, if you are a director or CEO this should be done as an exercise across your directorate/organisation – so there is a common communications strategy!). 

What do I mean by a comms strategy in this case? 

Well, nowadays, there are more channels for communication. Not just face-to-face, phone, and email/text – there is video conferencing with Teams video or Zoom, there is Teams chat, there are various WhatsApp groups, and then various specialist chat or messaging platforms that your sector might use. 

The first thing is to agree as a team is: WHAT COMMS CHANNEL you use for what, and in what hierarchical order? For example, you might agree that face-to-face is still the most preferable but, if you can’t do face-to-face then what channel do you use? Put them in hierarchical order – I can bet you that, when you have this conversation, almost everyone will put emails last and, as a result, at least within your team, it should mean there are fewer emails.

You might make an agreement that, if it’s an emergency or an issue of importance, you call one another on the phone. If that is known and agreed in the whole team/directorate/org, then when you see a team colleague or leader calling you, you know to answer because it is important or, if you have a missed call, you immediately call them back. 

You might agree that, if you need to ask a quick question from someone, the easiest way is to send an MS Teams chat message. Or you might agree that the team WhatsApp group is really only for social and informal things, not for anything important that requires action. 

What you agree and what hierarchy you come up with are up to you as a team. What’s important is that you’ve all taken part in it, and you’re all in agreement.

The second thing is re-capturing that team spirit and making sure the team feels like a team. How do you ensure that you are regularly checking in with each other? Do you make sure that you have regular in-person team meetings, for example? Do you do things as a team to keep the team spirit alive and well? What about a team quiz, what about ‘worst joke of the week’ on your WhatsApp team chat? 

When was the last time you all went out for a social event or a team lunch? There are many ways to re-capture and foster the team culture and re-invigorate the team spirit. 

I’ve seen things like lunch clubs, and food shares – where team members bring in a lunch to share or have a theme for their lunches like ‘home-made soup’ or ‘food from my country or region’. These things don’t have to be done together in person, they can just as easily be done over Teams whilst at home. Also, many people no longer take their lunch breaks, so it’s a great way to improve the team culture and also to ensure everyone has a lunch break and fills their fuel tank. 

Does your team check in with one another every week, every day? Do you have a buddy system where members of the team make sure they are looking out for their colleague’s well-being? Do you have a rant buddy in your team? Or an expert who you can ask for advice and guidance on particular job-related topics? 

I’m talking primarily now to the team leaders. When was the last time you had a team away-day? I bet it was most likely quite a while ago, was it more than a year ago? Was it pre-pandemic? If so, it’s time you had an away-day with your team! 

Getting out of the office (and out of your home office) and getting together as a team to do some learning TOGETHER is so powerful and so important. Especially now, considering you are not together in an office as often. It helps to build team spirit, helps to identify and deal with the issues and problems you’re facing as a team, and gives the team an opportunity to really get to know one another, not just within work roles and as fellow team-mates, but also as human beings. You might use your team away-day to consciously look at upskilling your team on a particular topic or, feeling inspired by this article, look at developing your own team comms strategy and making sure that everyone in your team feels valued, supported, and appreciated! 

At Meta we love helping people navigate the new challenges that hybrid working gives to a team and to an organisation. So, if you’d like a fun, enjoyable, but practically useful away-day with your team this year, if you’d like some tips on how to make your team away-day a rip-roaring success, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We have a wealth of topics that can be used as a basis for a team away-day with purpose, which will improve your team’s effectiveness and boost your team’s spirit. 

I hope this article has made you think, and I hope it makes you revisit your own team communications strategy and reminds you of just how important your team spirit is in this hybrid-era of work.  

The world of work is changing, so let’s make those changes work for us! That’s what we’re in business at Meta to do. So, if you’d like some advice or help or support, on how to make work really WORK for you, you know where we are.

Have a wonderful month! 

In peace and with love

Jo xx

We’ve been fortunate over the last few of years to have been working with many senior leaders in all three sectors (corporate, public, and third sector). One of the consistent themes that comes through the work we do with those leaders is the complaint that they don’t have the time or headspace to lead – which is concerning, but not unusual. 

With the flattening of structures and streamlining of organisations, more responsibility now falls to the individual leader. They are rewarded for their management skills and ability to deliver, rather than their leadership skills, and with reduced headcount in almost every team or department, they have fewer people to get done what needs to be done. 

So that means the leader gets dragged back into the operational aspects, which leaves a leadership gap at the top. Who is leading? Who’s steering the ship? Who is charting the way in the chaotic seas of the current business landscape? (Or should that be seascape? :D)

From our research we have found the biggest issue that leaders have is finding/creating time for being strategic, for planning ahead. They are so tied up with back-to-back meetings, with fires that need putting out, with the urgent, that they’ve barely got time to do their actual job. In fact, we have met many claiming that it’s really only at the end of the day that they get time to do much of their own to-do lists – to do the job that they’re actually paid to do. 

There is just SO MUCH that needs to get done now, with notably lower resources (be that budgets or numbers in your team), and there’s barely enough time to think. It can be overwhelming and, certainly, the day-to-day becomes all consuming. It’s difficult to break away from the cycle of putting out fires and responding to the insatiable demands of organisational delivery, but it’s incredibly important that we do. Without leadership there is no vision, no direction, and with no-one steering the ship, you’ll end up just going around in circles and, ultimately, are likely to run aground. 

The principal problem as we see it, is “capacity”. 

Right now, we’re all struggling with the problem of capacity. In organisations now, as they have been slimmed down to the bare bones, there is just no capacity other than that which is quantifiably needed to deliver what needs to be delivered. 

There is NO spare capacity in organisations anymore. No buffer, no extra capacity or resource built in for when something unexpected happens, no spare capacity in our teams if we have more than one person off longer term. 

The simple fact is that most of you who are reading this will be admirably doing a leadership role that was originally done by two or more people. Same work-load, if not greater, but just the one leader. This means that not only is your organisation working at full capacity most of the time (if not all of the time) but you are running at full capacity too! 

• Do you struggle to work at the end of your day? (Like when you read the same line of that email over and over and over again?) 
• Do you find it hard to concentrate, absorb or retain information? (Like that big report you have to read for the board meeting tomorrow?)
• Do you find yourself stuck in the operational weeds, getting caught up in things that are way below your pay grade? Or leadership level? 
• Do you find yourself constantly fighting and putting out fires, that you know, actually, with a bit of forethought and planning, probably wouldn’t have started up in the first place? 

If the answer is yes to any of the above. You need to clear some capacity. 

You need to literally clear some brain space. 

You need to create the [brain] capacity to lead. 

Most leaders right now are working against their brains and against their bodies. At work you need to have your brain and body on-side. Work with them, and all is possible.. against them and it’s guaranteed to be a tough and challenging day ahead. 

The simple fact is that your brain and body WANT to serve you. They try their best to do what they can for you, but if you’re not helping them, it’s hard for them to help you. 

So, where do we start? 

We start by understanding that SLEEP is your greatest leadership resource of all. With a good night’s sleep, you can be your amazing brilliant best. Without sleep you’re in trouble. Now I’m not going to go into why sleep is important here (please refer to previous articles I’ve written on sleep, which are available on LinkedIn and which you can read in part one and part two) but rest assured I’ve been doing this leadership stuff now for 22years. I have come to realise that SLEEP is not a luxury, it is a necessity, and the current sleeplessness epidemic in this country is the number one cause of many of our organisational and leadership issues. 

The second thing to understand is that our brain needs FUEL to perform at its best. Over the last five years, we’ve seen a worrying trend in people not just missing or not taking lunch breaks, but not even having breakfast in the mornings! 

If you woke up and your phone or laptop was on 25% battery charge would you just leave it? Would you think that battery life would get you through your entire day? No of course you wouldn’t! That would be STUPID – you plug it into an energy source (in that case, electricity!) 

And yet, that’s what we are doing when we don’t eat breakfast, when we skip lunch. We’re expecting our brain to perform with no fuel, with no energy. When you look at it logically, is it any wonder that we struggle and find our work-days challenging? 

So those two are the first stages to creating the brain capacity to lead. 
The next is to understand that your brain needs to have regular breaks to clear capacity during the day. 

I’m not going to go into the neuroscience of this in the article (come to one of our creating the brain capacity to lead workshops if you’d like to find out the science behind what I’m talking about) – but simply put, the conscious part of your brain (the part that you use for pretty much everything that you do in your average working day as a leader) has a tiny capacity, and limited processing power. 

What this effectively means is that by lunchtime, for most leaders, these days, you’ll be feeling as if you are “full”. You haven’t got much brain space left to cram anything else in or process anything more. That’s because you are quite literally “at capacity”. 

At that point there is NO POINT in doing anything else. 

You need to stop. You need to take a small break and allow your brain a little time to clear you some capacity. It will do that IF you don’t keep trying to cram stuff in it. If you actually stop, you can clear capacity and then carry on at a decent performance level. 

We call it taking “micro-breaks” and we ask people to remember this, saying “move your body, move your mind” because it’s important during those breaks that you physically move and help your brain to clear some capacity, and free up some brain space. 

When we take these little breaks regularly through the day, when we fuel ourselves too, we are working with our brain and with our bodies, which allows them to serve us better and helps us to perform at our best more often. 

Carry on working beyond your natural limits however, and your performance dips, then nose-dives (depending on just how far you got beyond your natural limits).

All leaders we’ve come across KNOW this instinctively – they KNOW that by 2.30pm if they’ve not taken their lunch or taken a break, they are not being effective. They know that they are not able to give 100% or anywhere near that. But they feel they must plough on in order to get everything done. Work beyond their limits, beyond their contracted hours, work into the night, work through their breaks, to try to get everything done. 

During every leadership programme we run, when we are doing our “smarter working” day, I ask this simple question: 

“Hands up if you feel that you have the time and capacity to get everything that you need to get done, done at the right level and at the right quality WITHIN your normal working hours (ie: your contracted hours).”

We must have asked this question of hundreds of leaders by now. And do you know what?? 

Not ONE single leader in five years has ever put their hands up. 

Isn’t that fascinating? Isn’t that also just a tiny bit scary?? 

So that’s why it’s so important to right now be focussing on clearing and creating the brain capacity to lead in your leaders and in your leadership teams. 

When our brains are full, when they are at capacity, it means that we are unable to perform at our best. We struggle to lead because we just don’t have the brain space to lead. There is a direct link between performance and brain capacity. 

There is a direct link between quality and brain capacity too. When our brains are full we struggle to work at our normal quality level. Most leaders confess to us that, right now, with the work-pressures and time constraints they face, often 60-75% of quality has to do. Think about this for a moment. If quality is at 75%, even, that means that there is a considerable likelihood this will create extra work in the future – it will create the fires of the future, which that same leader gets caught having to try to put out. 

There is a direct link too between creativity, innovation, and brain capacity. In order to be creative, in order to innovate, this requires brain space. We all know that we’re at our most creative when we aren’t on a deadline, when we have a little space and time to properly reflect, process, think and create. 

When we are creative solutions are sustainable. Fixes are long-term, not short-term sticking plasters. When innovation thrives in our organisation, the organisation thrives. 

Leadership requires us to think at many different levels. There’s thinking strategically, there’s thinking short-term, medium-term, and longer-term, there’s thinking broadly and systemically. As a senior leader we also need to rise above the operational, to get that over-arching meta-view to see the whole organisational/business landscape and plot a pathway forward. 

Again, simply put, without capacity none of the incredibly important leadership and organisational stuff above is possible – so creating brain capacity is a no brainer! (Sorry couldn’t resist the pun.) 

So, what to do? As individual leaders we need to reconnect with our brains and our bodies – we need to be working with them, not against them. 

As organisations we need to be equipping our leaders with the tools which enable them to be at their best, we need to be helping them to create the brain capacity to lead. 

Every leader we come across wants to give of their best, they want to be the best leader they can be. Help them to do that, give them the tools they need, and your organisation WILL THRIVE. 

I hope that you’ve found this article useful. This is just a fraction of what we have on leadership and smarter working practices – if you’d like to have a conversation with us about how we can equip your leaders (and staff) with the tools they need to work smarter not harder, if you’d like to chat to us about how we can help your leaders to create the [brain] capacity to lead, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch. 

We have a number of different programmes from a full-blown nine-module leadership team development journey to a three-module smarter working programme, to a single day workshop on creating the brain capacity to lead. 

At Meta we’re passionate about sharing our research and our resources with our Meta family – so please do call on us. It’s part of our mission, our purpose to help you, your leaders, and your organisations, to thrive in the hybrid-era. 

Have a wonderful month,

In peace,

Jo xx

Now the New Year is upon us it’s a perfect time to re-assess what IS and ISN’T working in your working regime. In 2023 we spent a lot of time working in organisations from all sectors and at all levels, especially with leaders and leadership teams. It gives us a privileged insight into current working practices, especially the impact of hybrid working on people’s working patterns and habits.

During the next six months we will be exploring the themes which have directly come out of the work we have been doing in the articles we write. We want to address the issues in common and, in typical Meta style, bring you some easy-to-use, practical tools that you can use to reduce these issues’ impacts on you. 

We’ve all been involved in a global experiment in hybrid working. The pandemic brought forward the need to create a more flexible working model that allowed people to work from home, and there is no doubt that, after the initial challenges, working from home was a rip-roaring success. 

Then, as the restrictions eased, working from home became ‘hybrid-working’ and over the last couple of years, every organisation has experimented with their own model for hybrid working – to varying degrees of success and engagement from their staff. 

As far as we can tell here at Meta, most organisations have a one-four or two-three day split between office and home. Interestingly, it tends to be the larger corporates, or some bigger public sector organisations (for example the NHS), who got rid of much of their office space and have embraced greater home working percentages. 

Having worked in all three sectors in 2023, extensively around collaboration, team-communication, re-building resilience and leadership, it’s fair to say that hybrid working has truly changed the way we work, and how we interact and collaborate with colleagues. It’s not easy to have the same (important) non-work conversations, and social interaction – the informal relationship building – that happens when you’re at the office, if you’re at home. 

It’s impacting how teams work together, how they communicate, how they collaborate, and how they build and maintain relationships. It’s also impacting the individual leader or staff team member, as they no longer have that same level of informal support from sitting in an office in amongst their team. And it inevitably affects the efficiency and performance of the teams too. 

Now, many of the bigger corporate organisations have done research into productivity in their teams (are they still getting the output they need from their workforce?) and found that productivity in the hybrid working world is higher than it was pre-pandemic. BUT, and this is a big BUT, it comes at a cost to the individual worker. One of those costs is longer work hours – especially when working from home.

Not having enough time in the day to get everything that needs to get done, is one of the most consistent themes we have seen coming out of our work in recent years. Think about it now for yourself – do you have the time and the brain capacity to get everything that you need to get done, at the right quality level (in keeping with your level within the organisation), in your normal (i.e., contracted) working hours? 

If the answer is YES to that question, then CONGRATULATIONS you are the first person that I have met in the last few years that thinks they can! 

What most people choose to do (because the vast majority of people want to do a good job) is to work through their breaks and work longer hours to try and get everything done. The problem is that there are never enough hours and work is an insatiable beast – it is always hungry for more from you, and the more you give, the more it needs from you. Essentially, you’re on a hiding to nothing.

What’s fascinating to me is that our working patterns are DIFFERENT when we work in the office and when we work at home. When we’re at the office we are more likely to leave on time (or at least we don’t tend to stay as late), because we know we have to commute home, or we have to pick up the kids or take them to a club. 

When we work from home, we tend to work beyond our normal office working times and, more often than not, we will also work through the time that would be our commute home. Our own empirical research at Meta also has shown that people are less likely, now than ever, to take a lunch away from their desk – or even take lunch or eat at all! Never mind take any other breaks in the day. This is something that has absolutely changed in the last 22 years that Meta has been in business. 

So, with the new year upon us it’s important to reclaim your work-life balance, especially when you are working from home – and re-set your boundaries (what you will and will not do) in 2024. And, by the way, this is not only important for us as individuals, but also, for senior leaders reading this, it’s important for your organisation’s success too! 

The obvious benefit is the well-being, mental health, and welfare of your staff, but the less obvious benefit is that, when we are not working so hard or as long, we tend to be more efficient and get more done (yes, even in fewer hours!). The quality of what we do improves too, and the more brain capacity we have, the more innovative and creative we can be. The less stress we feel, the better decisions we make, the more strategic we can be. The less hours we work, the more work-life balance we feel, the less stressed we are – the better we sleep. The better we sleep (and that will be a topic for another article this year, as there is a sleeplessness epidemic going on right now in the UK!) the better our all-round performance and productivity. 

Now to the practical part of the article – let’s look at some simple ways to re-claim some work-life balance back.

ANALYSIS:

The first step is to do your own analysis of your working patterns. How many hours do you actually work in a week? 

It’s really important that you are honest with yourself. More and more people are now re-visiting work in the evenings, more and more people are checking emails on the weekend – every time you look at an email or reply to a text on your work phone you are WORKING, it counts towards your working hours tally. 

Is there a difference between the days you work at home? To when you work at the office? 

Do you take a lunch break? Do you eat your lunch away from your desk? Do you have any other breaks in your work-day? (We will talk another time about just how important it is to be taking your breaks!) 

Once you’ve done the analysis, it’s a case of re-setting your boundaries. 

As I have said earlier in the article, work is an insatiable beast, it always wants more from you, so it is inevitable, having been through the pandemic, that you have ended up doing things you probably wouldn’t have pre-pandemic. Perhaps it was leaving your work phone on in the evening, perhaps it was working through your previous commute-time when you were working from home. Perhaps it was checking your emails or picking up work again after the kids had gone to bed. Maybe it was agreeing to do that evening meeting or accepting meetings that stop you taking lunch. Whatever it is, now is the time, at the beginning of the year, to re-assess and re-set your boundaries. 

Be sensible, if you’re currently working an extra two hours when you work from home, then cut it back by 30minutes or an hour at most at first. If you’re working from home in the evenings now, reclaim a few days off first. If you’ve started checking emails on the weekend or on holidays, make an agreement not to from now on. When you’ve re-set your boundaries, make sure your manager is aware of them too – and your teammates! Then they can support you and you can support them to set and keep their boundaries too! 

Then let’s address the working from home, longer working hours issue. It’s time to re-visit your working from home regime. Does it really work for you? 

Only you can decide how best to work from home in a way that works for you, however, here are some tips from META’s smarter working research that could help.

1. Make sure you have set working times and keep to them.
2. Make sure you take regular breaks and cook/prepare your lunches in advance, so you definitely get to eat! Take a walk in the garden with a cuppa, take the dog for a walk around the block – get fresh air and morning light if you can (it’ll help you sleep later!).
3. Do question any meeting that you are invited to over lunchtimes – we know you can’t stop everyone, but you can at least have an agreement with your team/directorate colleagues that you don’t do meetings over lunch. 
4. At the end of your work-day spend the last 30minutes or so tying up loose ends, doing admin, preparing your priority list or to-do list for tomorrow, and downloading/writing down anything that’s playing on your mind. 
5. Re-claim your commute-home time – the commute home is actually an important part of your day, it’s an opportunity to start unwinding and de-stressing from your working day. It may sound odd but DO leave your house at the end of your working day and then, as a minimum, walk around the block and come back HOME. This will at least give you the feeling that you’ve left work. This is a good time to take your daily exercise, walk the dog, or go to the gym. 
6. Make a clear distinction between ‘work you’ and ‘home you’ – the lines have blurred now, as work has come into our home. So, at the end of your working day, change out of your work clothes (and make sure you actually have different work clothes) and have an end of workday routine – shower, freshen up, change, sit and have a cuppa. 
7. Create a restorative place to unwind at home – make sure when you’ve finished your workday and come back home, that you take 20minutes at least to download and unwind from your day. Such as a particular chair or outside seating area where you are not bothered by the kids and can escape and unwind properly. Listen to a podcast, have a glass of wine, read a book.

Follow some of these simple tips, do you own analysis, and re-set your own boundaries, and 2024 should be a more balanced work year for you. Remember, there is much more in your control than you think. If you create a working regime that works for you, then it WILL work for your team and your organisation too. If you’re happier and less-stressed, and you feel your life-work balance is more well balanced, then you will be your natural productive, creative, brilliant best more often during the day!

We hope this article has been useful, and we intend to create more of these articles in 2024. We at Meta are genuinely committed to making this experiment in hybrid-working work for all. Be that you an individual, a leader, a team, or an organisational CEO. We truly believe now is the time to change the way we work for good – to create smarter working organisations and high-performing cultures that enable everyone to thrive and excel. 

For more info on the work we can do with your people, your team, your department, your organisation – then just get in touch. We love helping organisations to get the most from their people – we’d love to help you to make your hybrid-working experiment work too! 

Have a great month and we’ll see you here again very soon! 

In peace and with love

Jo

Over the last couple of days there have been thunderstorms, dark, foreboding and epic. Rumbles of thunder interspersed with flashes of lightning, followed by a torrential downpour of rain. 

‘Good for the garden’ – said my mum, and she continued, ‘Won’t have to water the garden for, oh, I reckon three days now, brilliant!’ 

Today, the morning after the storm, it is a beautiful day. The sun is shining in a brilliant blue sky. It’s hot, it’s summery, it’s everything you’d want from an early English summer’s day. 

The combination of sunshine, heat and then the rain, has meant that everything is growing – the wildflowers in my garden beds, the lettuce and chard growing in my vegetable patch, and sadly, the grass which I definitely must cut this weekend!

While I was out today on my daily late morning walk, I noticed that nature was in full bloom, everything seemed to be delighting in the weather, not just me. There were birds busy feeding their fledgling chicks, robins and wrens singing their little hearts out, and squirrels were bouncing across the path and climbing the trees. Trees were swaying in the breeze, their flowery pollen filling the air, and the baby fish in the river were hoovering up the pollen as it landed on the surface of the water. And of course, then there were the flowers, every garden I passed seemed to be a riot of colour, small flowers, big flowers, tropical flowers, wildflowers – all radiantly, brightly coloured, and just beautiful to see.

It reminded me, as I walked, of the everyday saying, ‘Stop to smell the flowers’ – and it prompted me to do precisely that! How often do we stop to smell the flowers as we rush through our busy lives? How often do we actually stop and notice them at all? 

‘Stopping to smell the flowers’ can be taken literally (and by the way I DO encourage you all on your next walk to actually STOP AND SMELL THE FLOWERS YOU SEE, it is such a fuel-tank filler!) – or one can use it as a metaphor. 

In a metaphorical sense, it means that it’s important to stop sometimes and get perspective on what’s going on in our lives. It’s important to realise that, actually, there’s a lot to be grateful for! 

It’s only when we stop and get that perspective that we can get a sense of what is really important, and not get caught in the drama of our lives but instead appreciate all that we have. It’s easy (when we’re busy being busy) to miss or overlook or take for granted the people and things that we love, the things that really matter. 

There has been so much research which highlights that, the happiest, most positive people are those who notice the good things in their lives and take time to be thankful for what they have. 

When was the last time you stopped, I mean really stopped? 

I have to here give credit to a dear friend of mine from New York, Karen. Every day she goes to her local park on Staten Island and sits under a tree. She sits, she watches, she breathes, and she stops. She leans against the tree (with her dog companion Luca) and together they just watch the world go by. She calls her daily visits to the park her ‘tree medicine’, the place she gets her ‘vitamin tree!’. 

Now I get outside every day, I walk most often up and down the River Severn near me, but what Karen made me realise is, although it’s great to get out into nature and have that exercise and light – I was never actually STOPPING. 

So, one day I took a leaf out of her book and found myself a nice big old tree to sit under and stopped. I have to say it was pretty revelatory! The old oak tree must have been a couple of hundred years old and, as I leant into it, I could feel its age, it’s wisdom. It calmed me down, from the inside, and I felt myself totally relax as I watched the other people whizzing by. Now I know, that probably sounds like woo-woo to some of you, but all I’m gonna say is give it a go! I’m totally hooked now, and when I’m feeling a bit flat, flustered, or stressed, I go get me some vitamin tree! 

It reminded me of one of my teachers who told me that meditation wasn’t sitting cross-legged, bolt upright, breathing deeply. Meditation could be sitting under a tree or lying on the ground watching the clouds as they crossed the infinite sky… it’s definitely meditative and it’s definitely a fuel tank filler! 

So, whether it’s to stop and smell the flowers, or whether it’s stopping to watch the world go by as you’re sitting under a tree – can I recommend that this month (especially now as it’s so summery and beautiful), you do find time to stop, and be grateful for the abundance that is all around you, and be thankful for the beautiful people and things that are in your life. 

And finally, on my way home, after having had the thought and inspiration to write this Meta article, and with the title ‘Stopping to Smell the Flowers’ buzzing around my head, I literally was stopped in my tracks by the smell of these incredible big bunches of lilies on a flower stall in Worcester town centre…

… and guess what? They were reduced to half-price, two bunches for £10! – how’s that for serendipitous!?

So of course, I had to buy them as a treat and a reminder to myself of how important it is to stop and smell the flowers! Don’t you just love how life is sometimes? 

Wishing you all a wonderful month, 

With love

Jo xxx

Just before Christmas, whilst on holiday in Holland with my daughter, I got a call on my phone from one of my Meta family friends.  

I could hear from his voice that something major was up. He was so quiet, solemn, I could feel the weight of the message he was going to have to give me:  ‘There’s no way to say this Jo, so I’m just going to say it – Marty’s gone, Marty’s died’. I was in stunned silence for what felt like an eternity. ‘What??’ I couldn’t believe it. 

I have strong spiritual beliefs that have helped me to come to terms with death over the years. I don’t fear death and I don’t believe that the essence of us dies, I think that love cannot die and lives on, the essence of those we love lives on in us. 

However, I have to confess that Marty’s passing has been particularly challenging to those beliefs. He was just 40 years young, in the prime of his life – It just didn’t make any sense. 

Just a few weeks earlier, I’d been at Marty’s wedding to the love of his life, Rachel and there he’d told me he was the happiest he’d ever been. I feel so fortunate to have been there that night as he told me how much I meant to him and we shared some very close intimate moments together. He was talking animatedly about his upcoming honeymoon to Disneyworld (SOO Marty!) and he promised he’d send me a photo of him with Winnie the Pooh when he found him (those of you who are older Meta family members will understand the reference as we used to read Winnie the Pooh stories at our workshops). He told me he was living his best life and he wanted to thank me for being a part of that life – he hugged me and told me he loved me. It meant the world to me as I was having my own personal issues at the time. 

After returning from his honeymoon (and yes, I did get that photo of Winnie the Pooh!), he went to sleep one night and never woke up. 

Last Friday was Marty’s funeral and the outpouring of love for this man was palpable. So many people came to pay their respects that the chapel overflowed and they had to open the second chapel at the crematorium to get everyone in. It’s the mark of a life well lived, of a man beloved that so many had come. 

What does it mean to ‘Be more Marty?’

Marty was the life and soul of the party. I don’t mean that in a clichéd sense, I mean that if you were with Marty you were bathed in the light, laughter and joy that flowed from him. He was the living embodiment of ‘joie de vivre.’ He lived life to the full, and everything he did, he did with enthusiasm and passion. 

During the beautiful service his best friend Ben and Rupert his brother urged us all to ‘Be more Marty’. It was a phrase that stuck with me, and it inspired me to write this Meta blog in honour of my friend – Marty. 

Don’t worry this isn’t a sad blog, it’s an uplifting one. My friend Marty touched so many people in his life, and the more I reflect the more I realise why he came into my life and what teachings he has for us all – that’s what this blog will be about. His life was his message – and how he was in his life is an inspiring lesson for us all. In order to understand this, I’m going to need to tell you a bit about Marty. 

At Meta we talk about the Meta family. It’s not a gimmick, it’s just that real people who have been our customers often become friends and we are so blessed to have so many (like you reading this!) whom we consider a part of our Meta family. 

Marty was part of our family, an important part and over the years he became a dear friend and brother. 

Marty came on our Journey to Mastery programme in 2018. Some people just instinctively pick up the NLP tools and techniques, and as with everything in his life, Marty gave the programme 100% and got so much in return. He was such a valued member of the group, always quick to help others in the group, so compassionate, so kind and so FUNNY! He also wasn’t afraid to share his own experiences good and bad. Marty was determined to use what he’d learnt in his life and get the most from life. I’d say that in the end he embodied what NLP really is, he was excellence in action.  

Over the years we’ve bonded over DJing (we both were DJs), American Football (Not his fault he was a Patriots fan, I never held it against him :D) and beer. Marty was one of those people who has lots of friends. Everywhere he went he brought the FUN – the laughter, the joy. Everyone loved Marty, everyone loved to be around him and with him. 

He was so much in demand because he was such a lovely guy. Everyone wanted a piece of Marty and Marty made sure that we all felt special when we were with him. He made you feel special, he made you feel great whenever you saw him or heard from him. It felt like for those moments, he was just with you – that’s a rare quality in a person. 

Marty wasn’t afraid to express his emotions, he wasn’t afraid to tell you he loved you and give you one of his big bear hugs! That’s unusual in a man, but Marty was that kind of man, he was kind, generous and loving. 

Marty seemed to manage to cram so much into his life. He was a loving son, brother, uncle and family man. Loving husband, and doggie dad (to Dolly the dog). He was a runner (so proud when he did the Berlin marathon), bon vivant (never willingly without a pint in his hand, including just after his marathons!), great friend and DJ. He worked a full-time job at TSB bank’s HQ, watched every NFL game (well it seemed like he did) and he loved all kind of sports. He was a regular at his local pub ‘The Bottle of Sauce’ in Cheltenham, where he also DJ’d and shared his passion for uplifting dance music! 

At the aforementioned ‘Bottle of Sauce’ pub on Friday at his wake, I reflected with his best friend Ben and we both said that, although we were deeply saddened and struggling to understand why, we couldn’t say that he had not LIVED his life to the full. He crammed so much into the short time he was with us, and it was almost as though he had a different relationship with time because he just got so much into this life. 

I want to honour Marty’s memory, I want to honour his life and his very way of being. I think Marty can be an example to us all, and at the beginning of the year perhaps we all need to: 

BE MORE MARTY.

10 REASONS WE ALL NEED TO BE MORE MARTY

‘Being more Marty’ is about reflecting and looking at your life with a fresh perspective. It’s about grabbing life by the balls and going for it. It’s about not carrying on life as it has been, it’s about asking yourself how you can bring in more joy, more fun, more laughter into your life, and touch more people along the way. 

So what are the lessons I take from Marty? – what will be his legacy to me? I want to be more Marty in my life, and I suspect that you may too, that’s why I’m sharing these 10 reasons we all need to BE MORE MARTY:

1. Marty was the embodiment of fun: I want to be more fun, do more fun things, live life to the fullest. 
2. Marty was spontaneous: I want to do things for the heck of it, and just be spontaneous. Do new things and love every experience. 
3. Marty was joyful: You can’t be half-joyful, and when you were with Marty it was a real joy. I’d like to bring that joy to whatever situation I’m in and bring that sense of joy back into my life. 
4. Marty always gave 100%: Whatever I do, I want to give it my all – be it my work, my job, or something in my life – Marty always gave 100% no matter what it was and always found a way to enjoy it. 
5. Marty was passionate about life and pretty much everything:  Marty had lots of passions in his life from Star Wars, to Disney, to family and loved ones, to NFL, to DJing, to running. When we have passion in our life we just get more out of life, Marty understood that and showed us that a life lived in passion is a wonderful life.
6. Marty was quick to laugh even when things got tough: I want to laugh more, I want to enjoy life to the fullest. Sometimes life gets far too serious and that’s when we all need to be more Marty and lighten things up. 
7. Marty was kind, generous and compassionate to all: Be it a work colleague with an IT issue, a friend in need, a homeless person or the charities that he supported in his many runs. Marty was always looking out for everyone else, if you were in need, Marty was there. How can we be of service to others? Be more kind, generous and compassionate? 
8. Marty was a loving man and not afraid to express that love: Marty  would tell you he loved you, and when you were with him, you knew you were loved. We all need to tell people we love them more often. 
9. Marty was such a great friend, he always made you feel special when you were with him: We all need a Marty in our corner. He was there for me on many occasions as he was for so many. We could all be a bit more Marty and reach out more to our friends. 
10. Marty lived his life to the full: The term ‘joie de vivre’ encapsulates Marty’s life. We all need to re-assess what we want from life and where the joy and spirit is in our lives. It’s what Marty would have wanted. 

I know that Marty came here for a reason, and I am so grateful that Marty chose to be in my life. He was a true gift. I think he will live on in all of us who knew him, if we just choose to ‘be more Marty’. 

Now we don’t have to do everything at once, but I think we’d all agree that to be a ‘bit more Marty’ is something that we can all aspire to be in our lives. And I think we can all agree that these principles are ones that we can all subscribe to. 

I want to thank Marty, for all that he brought into my life. I miss him dearly and I know everyone who knew him and whose life he touched will be missing him dearly too – but I know that his example will live on, through us and with us. 

May we all be more Marty, I certainly intend to be. 

In peace and love
Jo xxx

Recently I’ve been doing a lot of workshops with leadership teams in organisations (from all sectors) and one of the recurrent themes which is coming through is about how hybrid working has meant that, for many, they feel they must be ‘permanently on’ and that, actually, work has now fully invaded most people’s home lives and there is very little distinction between ‘home’ and ‘work’ anymore. It’s something I felt was important to address in this month’s Meta blog, and I give you a practical Meta exercise to do around it! 

During the pandemic, we all learnt to embrace a new way of working. We now, for example, use virtual technology like MS Teams or Zoom or Google hangouts – no matter what size or sector our organisation is from. We all will spend some of our time (there is tremendous variation in how much time, depending on your organisation) working from home and much less time working at the office. The hybrid model is very much in full flow, and many organisations have already gotten rid of office space and have re-purposed the space they have for ‘collaborative working’ only. With this pandemic, most people working from home are thinking of having sound absorbing wall panels for their home office to create a quiet place where they can do Zoom meetings and everything related to work.

This means that more of the responsibility falls on us to manage our workloads, manage our teams, and manage our working days. The problem is that, for many of us, we are still working as if we are in the pandemic, there is always a new urgent thing to be done, the tide and pace of work is relentless, and the amount of work seemingly unending! 

Now in our experience at Meta, almost everyone we come into contact with in organisations wants to give of their best, they want to do a good job, and get what needs to be done, done. So, in order to do that, they have to put the hours in. As I’ve mentioned many times before, we are ALL working longer hours than we used to – in the pandemic, research showed that we were working, on average, an extra 4hours per week above the average for 2019. From our own empirical research here at Meta with our own leadership network, we believe this has not returned to pre-pandemic levels, just because we are now out of the pandemic. 

Most people are still working incredibly hard to get it all done and the danger is, if we’re not careful, that we normalise the extreme working practices which were necessary during the pandemic. 

I can remember, 21 years ago, working at Virgin Mobile and the then Director of IT showing me the ‘future of technology’ – a Blackberry phone. He proudly told me this was ‘a game changer in the world of work’ – and he was right, but not for the reasons he stated. It meant that now work could follow you home, the office could reach you, and emails could chase you wherever you were! 

Email checking on the weekend or turning laptops back on of an evening to do a bit of catching up with work, USED to only be done by senior executives and leaders, but now almost every manager does at almost every level, to varying degrees. 

Many senior leaders complain to me that they’re often spending most of their workday in back-to-back MS Teams meetings, and actually the only way they can get their ‘day-job tasks’ done is by turning their laptops back on at home, once most people’s working day is done. 

For most organisations, now the worst effects of the pandemic are over or are at the very least relenting somewhat. It’s time for us all to stop working ourselves at an unsustainable pace, one that ultimately could have a significant effect on our mental and physical health. It’s also time for organisations to stop and re-assess HOW they want to work going forwards. Is the hybrid model REALLY WORKING for your staff? Is it really enabling the organisation to get the best from their people? 

Look, there is no doubt that you will have done amazing things during the pandemic period and gone way beyond the call of duty, often so as to get what needs to get done – done. However, now we are out of the pandemic, it’s time to re-assess our work-life balance – get it back into some kind of balance – and one of the key ways we can do that is to re-set and re-establish our own personal boundaries. 

We can quite often let work impinge on our home life, on our personal lives. Why? Because we don’t keep it in check. As more is needed of us, we put more time in, especially now when we’re working from home often. The tide of work has slowly seeped in, and because we didn’t set boundaries or define what IS ok and what is NOT ok, the extended working hours we did because we were working from home during Covid, or because we didn’t have enough staff in our team, or because we were working on that special project – have become our new normal. Before we know it, we have no balance in our life, it is just work, work-work. 

Think to your own current work practices. Do you have set work times to your day (and keep to them?), or do you work until you’ve done your to-do list? Even if that means working beyond your normal working hours? Do you take your lunch break? Do you take breaks between your virtual meetings? Or do you end up having back-to-back meetings and struggle to find time to take the breaks that you know you should be taking?

Now is a good time to reset the boundaries, to say what IS and ISN’T right for you. Of course, we are all individuals, some of us don’t mind answering emails on the train home or turning our laptops back on in the evenings, some of us like to get in early or start early (*but do we really GO HOME or FINISH early??).

Now, more than ever, it is important to get that balance back, to re-establish boundaries. Not harsh ones but sensible ones. If you’ve lost your commute home time because you’re working from home, now is the time to re-establish that boundary. If you don’t have a set working time to your working day, now is the time to re-establish and agree a sensible working day for you. What about NOT taking your laptop home for the weekend? Or putting it away out of sight at the end of your working day? How about making sure you always have your lunch break and morning/afternoon breaks? Or get a walk/exercise/fresh air each day?

This is something that we at Meta do as part of our “working smarter not harder” workshops with leaders, teams and organisations, and it’s an exercise that we think EVERYONE should be doing now. So, that’s why we felt it was important to share with you this exercise. It’s something that of course will benefit YOU, but it’s also something that is worth SHARING and DOING with your team if you’re a leader. 

RE-ESTABLISHING BOUNDARIES EXERCISE:

EX – Have a think about your current working practice. Be honest with yourself, what IS working and what is NOT working about your working practice at the moment? You know what would work best for you, you know where you’ve let your boundaries slip. So, what boundary/boundaries would you like to set up in your work/home life? – Make them realistic and see if you can stick to them. 

I hope you’ll use this month’s blog as an excuse to reassess your hybrid working practice, and I hope that by re-establishing your boundaries you’ll get a greater sense of work-life balance in your life! 

Have a wonderful month everyone!

In peace, Joe x

There is no doubt that the last couple of years have been pretty tough on most businesses. Costs have had to be saved, efficiencies made in order to stay afloat and get through this challenging time. Investment was limited to that which was quantifiably justifiable to the business needs and frankly not much else. For more information about how to invest safely and successfully, visit https://skrumble.com.

If you’re investing in gold, the majority of those who work in the gold industry are moral. However, a few scammers ruin the group’s reputation as a whole. And to protect yourself from scammers, you must check out this gold ira scams page here to be informed of all the different types and how they operate as investors.

Now, however, for the first time in a long time, the future is looking a little brighter and, as we start a new financial year, we look at what to invest in as businesses, as leaders (and, indeed, as individuals!). If you’re a business owner, you should hire an insolvency practitioner to upskill your knowledge and give you guidelines if you ever experience difficulty in your business. Some business owners need to learn things like, I want to close my business and walk away; what’s the next step that should be taken after this? In this way, an expert already gives you knowledge about operating your own business.

What will get us the best value for money? 

What will give us the biggest return on our investments? 

What will serve our organisation best? 

How can we make savings, efficiencies AND improve our performance? 

Here’s where I want to introduce a radical concept: 

Investing in your people. 

(And if you’re reading this as an individual, investing in YOU!)

It’s not just the pandemic that has prevented people’s development and leadership development within organisations. I’d strongly argue that there’s been very little investment in people in most organisations for many years previous to that. In fact, my belief is that it can all be traced back to the financial recession in 2008-9. 

Since the recession, organisations have radically changed their organisational structures, flattening and streamlining, reducing headcount, cutting costs, finding savings and ‘efficiencies’ in the traditional ways, through restructuring, process and system improvements. And, in newer more modish ways, by changing business models or operating models. As a result, you’ll probably find that you are doing the role that was once done by two or more people. The role hasn’t got any smaller and, in most cases, it’ll probably have had its remit and responsibilities increased! And you will be expected in most (not all) organisations to just get on with it. 

I want you to do your own empirical research here, while you read this article. I want you to think about your own experience in this time (not just take my word for it).

In the 12 years since the recession: 

1. How many development or training programmes have you personally been funded to go on in your organisation? (Not a team away-day, an actual development or training programme where you have learnt new things). 
2. How many promotions (either internally or by changing jobs) have you had in that time? 

And if you’re reading this as an individual:

3. When was the last time you really invested in your own training and development? 

Research shows that the average person will have been promoted two-three times during those 12 years, which means that a frontline staff member may well now be a manager in charge of a team, or indeed a head of service. That’s a big shift in responsibility but it also requires a whole different set of skills, not least managing and leading your people. 

Now in the past, almost every organisation would have given training when you got a new role. As a minimum you’d have had a decent month-long handover from the person you were replacing and, in most organisations, you’d have had management training or leadership development once you hit a certain level of organisational responsibility. 

However, if you think to your own experience, your own history – did you?

At Meta we’re really fortunate in that our customers are from all sectors and, over time, become our friends. We are regularly in touch with our Meta family (as we like to call it) and as a result we often get to hear of people’s good news, their promotions, their new roles etc. We love to celebrate with our friends. However, all too often the new promotion, the next pay grade or newly created role in a restructure, comes with increased responsibilities but very rarely comes with training and development too. When you get your new role nowadays you’re expected to ‘hit the ground running’ and find out how to actually do the job and what it actually entails, ‘on the job’. 

I was speaking to one of our dear Meta family just this week, and she’d moved organisations recently. It was a good move she told me (not least as her last organisation was pretty toxic), but she was still ‘finding her feet in the new structure and organisation’ she was in. She’d been in role three months and still she was finding her way and figuring out how best to fulfil her role. 

On the flip side of this, organisations are hiring more ‘experts’ than ever to fill skill and knowledge gaps within their organisation. It used to be just the corporate sector that hired consultants and got in contractors to run projects or fill an area of expertise quickly. Exploring this page, https://commercial-painting.co.uk/, can be a great option for you to find the best contractor. However, both public and 3^rd sector organisations now often will hire people in to do the work that used to be done in-house by skilled internal staff members. 

Now of course there are financial reasons for some organisations to get in contractors or consultants, or perhaps it’s easier to get a contractor in to do a project rather than go out to market to employ someone full time – there are bona fide business reasons for doing that. However, often it’s ALSO because they are lacking particular skills or knowledge within their workforce – they haven’t got the skills they need in the leaders and staff they employ. 

Now, we think at Meta, that it’s time to change that story. 

It’s time to INVEST IN YOUR PEOPLE and TO INVEST IN YOU

Why?

Because it’s the best investment you will make this year – it’s not a short-term investment (although it is financially), it’s a long-term investment and one that will keep on giving you returns year after year. 

One of the key factors that people measure an organisation by is whether they feel valued. The other is that their workplace creates a culture where they feel they can learn and grow – they can progress and get development along the way. And these are measurables that most organisations, right now, will not measure well against! 

What’s that old proverb used to great effect in an old Oxfam advert? 

‘Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day – teach the man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.’

It’s about making sure that we give people (and ourselves) the tools, the skills, and the development they need to do more than survive and instead, thrive. In an organisational setting it’s about giving your people the skills they and the organisation need. Note here that this is not only an altruistic thing to be doing, but it also makes SOUNDS BUSINESS SENSE. If you are training and developing your people, they will be more loyal, are less likely to be absent, will be more motivated, more efficient and yes, more productive! 

Right now, people are working incredibly hard. They are working longer hours than ever trying admirably to get what was once done by two or more people done by just one. They’ve been working really hard all through the pandemic, they’ve given their all, to help get your organisation through probably one of the hardest and most challenging times of its entire history. But they’re run out, they’re exhausted and, as a result, their productivity, quality and creativity will inevitably suffer. That hard work culture has meant that the UK consistently has one of the lowest productivity levels within Europe and across the developed world – and most people we come across will admit that they’re not being as effective as they’d like to be. 

So, here’s where you can have a real WIN-WIN. You invest in your people and in return you get a happy, more effective and more skilled workforce. They get a return on their time and investment into their work, into your organisation. They get a return on all the hard work they’ve put in; they start to feel valued and, yes, appreciated again. 

Now the reason most organisations don’t invest in the development of their staff is that they think the cost will be too much. But actually, it’s a lot LESS than you think. It’s certainly less than getting in a contractor or consultant for a month or two, and much less than going through a complete restructuring exercise, replacing a system, or getting in fancy consultants to change your operating model. 

An organisation can only be as good as the people in it. An organisation is a living system, and the living bit is your people. The system (your organisation)’s success depends on those people’s capabilities, strengths, skills and knowledge. 

It’s time to invest in your people and, if you’re reading this as an individual, it’s time to INVEST IN YOU. 

At Meta we can help develop and train your people. We can help your organisation to develop a real people strategy (one that gets the best out of your people). We can train your staff in smarter working techniques that can help them to be more efficient and yes, more productive. We can train teams to be more effective, and help directorates work collaboratively across team boundaries. We can help you to develop exciting and practically useful leadership development programmes that use real live operational issues as the basis for live ‘on the job’ implementation of the learning.

We can coach and mentor individual leaders or create a talent development programme for the stars of the future within your organisation. You need a ready-to-go well-being strategy or help developing a well-being culture in your organisation? – We’ve done all the research, so you don’t have to. You need to improve communication and collaboration in your organisation? – We can help. You need to help people to maximise their performance in the new hybrid ways of working – we’ve got you covered! 

We have worked with numerous Sunday Times Top 100 organisations; we have been researching how to help people and organisations to be the best they can be for a very long time now. We have the knowledge and skills that can help you to get the best value for money for your investment – AND the best return on that investment. 

Many people think that we just train and develop people in organisations, and yes that is our bread and butter as an organisation, but we LOVE to work with individuals too! 

Think about it, when was the last time you really invested in YOU and YOUR DEVELOPMENT? There is no better type of development than self-development. If your organisation won’t fund you, why not consider investing in your own development? 

We love helping anyone to be the best that they can be, be that through individual coaching or mentoring or, indeed, developing a personalised training package just for you – you could have 1-1 time with Jo or Di and get personally mentored and trained in the areas where you feel you need a little extra help.

Or you could sign yourself to join our flagship personal development programme ‘Journey to Mastery’, now in its 20^th year. We also run numerous Meta Masterclasses (one has just been announced on June 23^rd), and Leaders Network events each year that anyone is welcome to join us on, and have a very affordable cost indeed. 

So, if you take this blog to heart, and DO decide that 2022 is the year to really invest in your people or, indeed, in your SELF, then do get in touch, sign up to one of our events, or just have a chat with Di or Jo. We love helping people to shine, to be the best they can be – it’s what Meta is all about. 

We’d love to help support you in developing and investing in your people and in you, that’s what we’re in business to do! And we promise you, it’ll cost a lot less than you think. 

Contact Jo and have a chat about what we can do for you, your team, your leaders, and your organisation – jo@metapositive.com

Have a wonderful month and make 2022 the year where you put the time and investment where it matters most – in you and your people! 

In peace,
Jo xx