May 1, 2024 • 20 mins
Digital Creators were in the early stages of their company and foresaw the need to develop leadership and management skills before scaling to a much bigger size. They undertook the first iteration of The Culture Equation's team coaching program, which were six sessions of leadership training covering a range of modules. Two years later, all managers are still with the team and the company has grown considerably.
To learn more about The Culture Equation including our work with Culture, Leadership, Diversity, and Executive Coaching, or our Culture Canvas program, visit our website or book a Discovery Call with CEO Hiam Sakakini.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:02):
The culture equation.
S2 (00:09):
It was a good opportunity to have the leadership team
all be on the same page and feel really strong
as leaders before we moved into that next phase of growth.
Definitely was a right place, right time thing for me.
Having that experience coming in and then being able to
take that to the next level with the culture equation.
S3 (00:28):
Welcome to stories from the Culture Equation. I'm here. I'm
Sakakini CEO and founder of the Culture Equation. And we
partner with organizations to transform their workplace culture through leadership,
culture and diversity programs. We run catalysts of sorts, which
are tailored workshops and learning programs designed to ignite courageous
(00:49):
conversations that translate into meaningful action. That's all in service
of one key focus helping talent to thrive. The belief
that we all hold dear is that we have an
opportunity to improve quality of life through work. I've seen
amazing results working with clients, which are born from having
(01:09):
those courageous conversations, and I've seen a couple of failures
along the way. When the conditions are right and the
conversations happen, it is just pure magic. In this series,
we'll explore the challenges and subsequent rises of some of
the companies we've worked with. Our clients were generous enough
to share their stories firsthand about how we work together
to shift away from workplaces that are storming to ones
(01:32):
that are performing. Ben and I were mentors on a
accelerator program for disability focused startups. I just started my
own business at the time, and I couldn't get enough
of his exceptional advice, whether it was to do with
pricing or the website, or to do with so many
different things, our products. Shortly after that, he then set
up his own business, Digital Creators, which was about supporting
(01:55):
startups to build their MVP. So he's set up his
business called Digital Creators, that builds products. Essentially, we had
known each other for years, but we had also been
through Covid as a business, and his business was growing
through Covid. As we know, Covid actually accelerated digitizing of products.
(02:15):
We knew that they were moving quickly as an organization,
as a team. They were growing. People went from individual
contributor into a manager role to new managers is not
a big deal. 20 new managers will be a big deal.
Eventually the wheels would fall off. So if you want
to continue scaling and I think that was what Ben
really focused on, we need to learn how to lead
as a leadership team together.
S4 (02:36):
I'm the founder and chief product officer at Digital Creators.
We're a product innovation studio primarily focused around designers and
engineers that help bring new technology ideas to life. In
the spirit of partnership, him and I had spoken about
us going through the leadership program. A lot of companies,
as they grow, are looking to really decentralize leadership away
(02:58):
from just the founder or founding team. And I felt
at the time the company was still very much the
Ben Company, even though we had a really strong culture
and felt it was very inclusive. We had created a new,
fresh leadership team. Some of the roles had been unofficially
in that capacity, but we were giving a name to
it and creating a group around it, and it felt
(03:19):
like just real natural point for all of us to
go through something together and in particular, make a lot
of the unwritten written in around what leadership means in
the organization and how we want to show up as leaders.
And so it was the perfect, like moment in time
for us to do the culture equation.
S3 (03:35):
Because we were, again, going through Covid. I was having
to pivot my products from being mostly in person, workshop
style to now being virtual, much shorter, sharper sessions. So
we broke down basically a lot of our leadership and
manager programs into very small little chunks, 90 minutes on
one particular topic, and I really wanted to know if
(03:56):
this was an effective new format. We did a bit
of a discovery process just to understand this very small
team of four leaders better. What we found during that
discovery process, they had really high levels of psychological safety
with each other, which was great, but they had low
levels of confidence when it came to managing their respective teams.
(04:18):
The key challenge was how to help them lead as
first time managers and then lead together as a leadership team.
Jordan is the chief technology officer at Digital Creators. He
was somebody that I noticed was very methodical, deliberate, questioning, organized.
He definitely on the technical side was exceptional and it
(04:42):
was just about bringing up that leadership skill. Now that
he was leading new people.
S2 (04:46):
I'm the CTO at Digital Creators. I lead the engineering
side of the business, and my role is a mix
of the leadership side of things and also still being
hands on with code and programming, and I like that
I get a mix of both of those. We were
at a phase where we were looking to grow the team,
so it was a good opportunity to have the leadership
(05:07):
team all be on the same page and feel really
strong as leaders. Before we moved into that next phase
of growth, definitely was a right place, right time thing
for me. Having that experience coming in and then being
able to take that to the next level with the
culture equation, what.
S3 (05:21):
I notice, and it's not just with digital creators, it's within.
Number of organizations is. When you have low confidence in managing,
you tend to put off difficult conversations that need to
be had, especially if you move from becoming, again, an
individual contributor. That's like a peer into then becoming that
group's manager, and now you have to almost distance yourself.
(05:43):
It's really a hard step to make from being a
friendly group of peers to then one person within that
group becoming a lead. So Johanna is head of product
design at Digital Creators. I think what I noticed about
all the team is that they were under the pump,
probably being a combination of leading, managing and being on
the tools, and that's very typical for all startups that
(06:05):
are scaling fast. You have to still be on the tools,
but at the same time, you have this hybrid role
now of managing and leading people and slowly handing over
more and more to them.
S5 (06:16):
I'm head of product design at Digital Creators. I have
been working with digital creators for probably about four years now.
When I first started, we were a really small core team,
but then very quickly we actually grew and for me,
like it was awesome to be asked to be part
of the leadership team. But I haven't really had a
(06:36):
leadership role before, so I felt like that was really different.
And all of a sudden I had a team around me,
but they were all individuals, like running their own thing
as well. How do I give them feedback or how
do I build a relationship? How do I actually start
building processes and, you know, bring the team together?
S3 (06:53):
So we set about creating a six part team coaching
program that was focusing on core manager skills and helping
not just with infusing the new methodologies and tools and language,
but also helping them with some on the job experiments
that they could go away after those coaching sessions, actually
(07:13):
practice immediately, and then come back in the next coaching
session and debrief. So we have these 12 modules that
you can literally select six of the six that you
really think your team needs right now. And we build
scenarios that are very specific to your team. And you're even,
you know, job descriptions into that program. And our coaches
(07:34):
meet with your team via zoom every two weeks, go
through a different topic, apply on the job, come back
and debrief. And they seem to love that they can
break out into small little virtual groups. Have deeper discussions,
do some scenario practice. Really get hands on with a
new tool. For example, SBI is a tool around feedback
(07:55):
that we use all the time situation, behavior impact. Just
try it out. It might feel weird at the beginning,
but then you get used to it and before you
know it, you're just using it in your one on
ones and they don't even know you're using this little
tool in the back of your mind.
S4 (08:07):
The leadership program was tailored to us, which we really liked.
We got to decide which order we felt we wanted
to do them in. What was the highest priority. There
was a theory part of it and learning principles, but
the practical side of it are really playing out scenarios
is very important. Do you want the first time you
deal with a curly scenario to be actually when you're
dealing with it, heat of the moment? No you don't.
(08:28):
You want to have thought through how you might approach it.
So we're checking in with each other first on that
human level. So it felt like we were one team
working through it, figuring it out together.
S2 (08:39):
One that really stood out to me was the giving
and receiving feedback module. From that was the SBI framework.
And giving feedback was something that I had naturally been
doing as part of that role. But I think doing
it in a way that could have been more effective.
So the SBI framework was a good example, where I
(08:59):
had a way to think about that in a more
structured manner, and that helped me to give better feedback,
whether it's positive or constructive. And yeah, something that I
took into my day to day in that role, that's
one example, but lots of other examples where there was
something I learned that I could take away and use
as a tool in my day to day as a leader.
S5 (09:20):
One module was Power of Perception, which is more about
getting to know yourself better and understanding how to interact.
Like what are you think it means versus what does
it actually really mean? And taking that distance as a
leader and not just reacting, but really having this stepping
(09:41):
back and understanding, they would give us an overview of
those concepts. And then after that, we would go in
a role play and really try to practice it. So
she gave us tools of like giving and receiving feedback,
concrete examples. She then explained to us, it's like if
you give someone feedback, you can start by asking, can
(10:04):
I give you feedback? And then you got you already
got the yes or the agreement of the other person
rather than just giving feedback. You don't know if this
other person is ready right there. It could be just
a wrong moment and therefore you feedback is received in
the wrong way. But if the other person has the space,
the mental space, or the. Capacity, emotional capacity to take
(10:27):
on the feedback, then you can go on. So simple
tools like that was really helpful. Also helpful then to
practice within the format of the session, but then also
go out and practice it with a team.
S3 (10:41):
What we also do to complement that is a lot
of one on one coaching. So at that exact level,
we find there is probably nothing that can help a
leader to transform how they lead faster than having a
really good executive coach. Our coaches are so, so important
and they're really matched either at the individual level or
at the team level based on this sort of chemistry
(11:03):
between coach and coach. Some of them come from a
psychology background, others come from more of a corporate background
and have the real experience. So we love to match
them based on those complementary traits. I think the main
thing that our coaches do is they facilitate great conversations,
challenging conversations, sometimes quite scary conversations with ease, and they
(11:23):
make people feel safe and they make people feel supported
throughout that process.
S4 (11:27):
Co facilitation, like the coach equation does, I think works
really well when you've got, say, one person just fully present,
engaged and sense into the team and then you've got
another person capturing as you go, then you've got best
of both worlds. Someone is just there, present with you,
with the team, and someone is making sure that as
you go, you're getting getting things captured, written down, you're
getting value created. You're getting at the end of it,
(11:48):
a reflection back on what they're seeing, but also just
directly what they heard. So you get a you get
a summary as you as you're going through, you're like,
oh okay. Yes. That is that's a very good reflection
of what we individually and collectively. And that's valuable in
its own right as well.
S3 (12:03):
Two of my amazing team of coaches were noticing from
the actual results that there was only a small jump
in increase in psychological safety because they're already super high
in terms of psych safety to begin with, but a
massive leap in terms of what they self described, their
confidence levels in specific areas and the areas that were
(12:24):
lowest were around difficult but constructive conversations. So that jumped massively,
like around a 30% jump in confidence. Another area that
was really, really big in terms of growth was around
supporting their team's personal growth. So again, learning, understanding their
(12:44):
career trajectory, what they wanted to achieve, what motivates them,
how to increase that motivation and increase their skill at
the same time. Another one was around just simple feedback,
giving and receiving feedback. So not just having critical or
crucial conversations, but really just simple feedback and making sure
that that's done regularly, not just held for an end
(13:06):
of quarter or end of month review and then adapting
to different communication styles massively increase. So again, looking at
people from their perspective and adapting to their needs, whether
they are introverted, for example. And then that means they
need a clear agenda before a meeting, or they need
time to prepare answers for a specific question that you have,
(13:27):
or whether they're extroverted and they really like brainstorming, and
they really like you coming to them to get them
involved in things or whatever that might be. So we
looked at the different pairs of preferences and decision making styles,
and how you take in information and how do you
adapt on the fly to different personalities and needs there.
And that massively increased. So we see a huge shift
(13:47):
in all of the core areas of leadership and managing
and pre and post program.
S5 (13:52):
After the course, I did two things. Firstly, I really
wanted to make sure we as the product design team,
we close it together and we give each other more feedback.
And we have like a culture of like before, we
often everyone was just in their own projects and we
wouldn't share problems so much with our like with the
(14:12):
other team members. But then after the leadership course, I
really thought, like, I want to bring this shared knowledge
or share, like sharing our work and sharing our problems
and having an open discussion where we trust each other
as designers. So what we did was to have like
formal times booked in in our calendars where we would
meet and we would share our projects. And through that,
(14:35):
we obviously gave each other feedback when I realized like, wow,
that was so, so much easier. Now it it's just
what I do like that's naturally I just say that.
I say, can I give you feedback?
S2 (14:48):
So he ran a survey that everyone in DC responded to,
which checked in on some of those questions and got
a pulse check, really, for how the team perceived DC
as a company and the leadership team and how effective
we were being. And that was quite useful as well,
just to get get that feeling and to have it
more formally, one of the biggest areas that the survey
(15:12):
showed that people were really keen to get more feedback.
So that was one that we leaned into, and we
learned a lot about giving good feedback as part of
the program, which was great. So we definitely had. A
shift towards more frequent feedback, more active feedback, and, like
Ben said, more effective feedback. You know, choosing the right
(15:34):
setting and tailoring it to the person and simple things
like asking if they want to receive feedback, you know,
creating the right space for it. And so, yeah, that was,
I think, one of the key learnings from the survey
and something that we were able to improve on from
the leadership program.
S4 (15:51):
The scores were good and we and we came in
with a with a very healthy culture. And I think
that's a key point as well. A lot of times
I feel like organizations do this work when there's crisis
or transformation, which can be very good time to do
it also. But if you're coming in already healthy as well,
it's a chance to build on that and accelerate what
you're doing. And so we came in with some good numbers.
(16:11):
So I wasn't surprised with the numbers afterwards. And that
was a good sign that the numbers were reflecting what
we were feeling and seeing. I think the number of
things that we had implied or implicit or in our heads,
in and around what DC stood for, how we operate,
it was quite impactful to actually go back to the team.
I think it led to a lot more things getting
written down, therefore getting clarity. We want to continue to
(16:35):
build on this idea of decentralized leadership, definitely, and giving
autonomy to the wider organization. And in fact, in the
last six months have spent a lot of time in
around that. So we're early on that journey, but already
are seeing that that's very empowering and liberating to see
how everybody in the organization becomes a leader. Also, I
think our way of seeing that we scale is not
(16:56):
by making the company to be 100 people, but actually
potentially forming these clusters of 15 to 25 people, but
actually having multiple groups of those around Australia and potentially
overseas as well that work together. We're embarking on on
that new chapter for this year.
S5 (17:12):
The Culture Equation team was so awesome because they are small,
they can really tailor all their programs to the different companies.
We also had some homework, so we had a list
of podcast hosts where other leaders talk to certain topics
in relation to the course program, so we could go
away and we would be able to listen different materials
(17:36):
and get different views or techniques. Other leaders in a
whole range of different companies have. And then we came
back and we discussed that, and everyone obviously shared knowledge
and we had a discussion around that. So that was
really good.
S3 (17:51):
So this is very much a story about leadership development
versus culture. They had their culture figured out because again,
this was the core team, but they were poised for
massive growth. This was really about getting that engine check
done before the growth happens. And as I've said before,
you know what we really pride ourselves on in the
(18:12):
culture equation is having courageous conversations. And that is where
the magic happens. It's in those little moments that we
notice light bulbs go off and changes happen. So I'm
very grateful to our amazing team of coaches for doing that.
Huge thanks to Ben Jordan and Johanna for being our
guinea pigs. It's really grateful to digital creators for allowing
(18:35):
us to trial a new product, and for letting us
measure the results, to see if there was an actual
difference in the before and after. They really went through
this whole heartedly knowing that there was no proof that
it had worked in the past. So we are very
grateful to them for giving it a go, but we're
also grateful for all of the support that they've shown
(18:56):
us afterwards, you know, and talking about their story. Thank
you for listening to our series about culture transformation, with
stories from our wonderful clients and the organisations we've worked
with over the years. If any of these conversations sparked
inspiration around culture for you, we'd love to have a chat.
(19:19):
Head to the culture Creation.com where you can find out
more about our work in leadership, culture and diversity. You
can book a call there with us, or you can
find me personally on LinkedIn and follow us on Spotify
and Apple Podcasts. To be part of future conversations.
S1 (19:41):
The culture equation.
The culture equation.
S2 (00:09):
It was a good opportunity to have the leadership team
all be on the same page and feel really strong
as leaders before we moved into that next phase of growth.
Definitely was a right place, right time thing for me.
Having that experience coming in and then being able to
take that to the next level with the culture equation.
S3 (00:28):
Welcome to stories from the Culture Equation. I'm here. I'm
Sakakini CEO and founder of the Culture Equation. And we
partner with organizations to transform their workplace culture through leadership,
culture and diversity programs. We run catalysts of sorts, which
are tailored workshops and learning programs designed to ignite courageous
(00:49):
conversations that translate into meaningful action. That's all in service
of one key focus helping talent to thrive. The belief
that we all hold dear is that we have an
opportunity to improve quality of life through work. I've seen
amazing results working with clients, which are born from having
(01:09):
those courageous conversations, and I've seen a couple of failures
along the way. When the conditions are right and the
conversations happen, it is just pure magic. In this series,
we'll explore the challenges and subsequent rises of some of
the companies we've worked with. Our clients were generous enough
to share their stories firsthand about how we work together
to shift away from workplaces that are storming to ones
(01:32):
that are performing. Ben and I were mentors on a
accelerator program for disability focused startups. I just started my
own business at the time, and I couldn't get enough
of his exceptional advice, whether it was to do with
pricing or the website, or to do with so many
different things, our products. Shortly after that, he then set
up his own business, Digital Creators, which was about supporting
(01:55):
startups to build their MVP. So he's set up his
business called Digital Creators, that builds products. Essentially, we had
known each other for years, but we had also been
through Covid as a business, and his business was growing
through Covid. As we know, Covid actually accelerated digitizing of products.
(02:15):
We knew that they were moving quickly as an organization,
as a team. They were growing. People went from individual
contributor into a manager role to new managers is not
a big deal. 20 new managers will be a big deal.
Eventually the wheels would fall off. So if you want
to continue scaling and I think that was what Ben
really focused on, we need to learn how to lead
as a leadership team together.
S4 (02:36):
I'm the founder and chief product officer at Digital Creators.
We're a product innovation studio primarily focused around designers and
engineers that help bring new technology ideas to life. In
the spirit of partnership, him and I had spoken about
us going through the leadership program. A lot of companies,
as they grow, are looking to really decentralize leadership away
(02:58):
from just the founder or founding team. And I felt
at the time the company was still very much the
Ben Company, even though we had a really strong culture
and felt it was very inclusive. We had created a new,
fresh leadership team. Some of the roles had been unofficially
in that capacity, but we were giving a name to
it and creating a group around it, and it felt
(03:19):
like just real natural point for all of us to
go through something together and in particular, make a lot
of the unwritten written in around what leadership means in
the organization and how we want to show up as leaders.
And so it was the perfect, like moment in time
for us to do the culture equation.
S3 (03:35):
Because we were, again, going through Covid. I was having
to pivot my products from being mostly in person, workshop
style to now being virtual, much shorter, sharper sessions. So
we broke down basically a lot of our leadership and
manager programs into very small little chunks, 90 minutes on
one particular topic, and I really wanted to know if
(03:56):
this was an effective new format. We did a bit
of a discovery process just to understand this very small
team of four leaders better. What we found during that
discovery process, they had really high levels of psychological safety
with each other, which was great, but they had low
levels of confidence when it came to managing their respective teams.
(04:18):
The key challenge was how to help them lead as
first time managers and then lead together as a leadership team.
Jordan is the chief technology officer at Digital Creators. He
was somebody that I noticed was very methodical, deliberate, questioning, organized.
He definitely on the technical side was exceptional and it
(04:42):
was just about bringing up that leadership skill. Now that
he was leading new people.
S2 (04:46):
I'm the CTO at Digital Creators. I lead the engineering
side of the business, and my role is a mix
of the leadership side of things and also still being
hands on with code and programming, and I like that
I get a mix of both of those. We were
at a phase where we were looking to grow the team,
so it was a good opportunity to have the leadership
(05:07):
team all be on the same page and feel really
strong as leaders. Before we moved into that next phase
of growth, definitely was a right place, right time thing
for me. Having that experience coming in and then being
able to take that to the next level with the
culture equation, what.
S3 (05:21):
I notice, and it's not just with digital creators, it's within.
Number of organizations is. When you have low confidence in managing,
you tend to put off difficult conversations that need to
be had, especially if you move from becoming, again, an
individual contributor. That's like a peer into then becoming that
group's manager, and now you have to almost distance yourself.
(05:43):
It's really a hard step to make from being a
friendly group of peers to then one person within that
group becoming a lead. So Johanna is head of product
design at Digital Creators. I think what I noticed about
all the team is that they were under the pump,
probably being a combination of leading, managing and being on
the tools, and that's very typical for all startups that
(06:05):
are scaling fast. You have to still be on the tools,
but at the same time, you have this hybrid role
now of managing and leading people and slowly handing over
more and more to them.
S5 (06:16):
I'm head of product design at Digital Creators. I have
been working with digital creators for probably about four years now.
When I first started, we were a really small core team,
but then very quickly we actually grew and for me,
like it was awesome to be asked to be part
of the leadership team. But I haven't really had a
(06:36):
leadership role before, so I felt like that was really different.
And all of a sudden I had a team around me,
but they were all individuals, like running their own thing
as well. How do I give them feedback or how
do I build a relationship? How do I actually start
building processes and, you know, bring the team together?
S3 (06:53):
So we set about creating a six part team coaching
program that was focusing on core manager skills and helping
not just with infusing the new methodologies and tools and language,
but also helping them with some on the job experiments
that they could go away after those coaching sessions, actually
(07:13):
practice immediately, and then come back in the next coaching
session and debrief. So we have these 12 modules that
you can literally select six of the six that you
really think your team needs right now. And we build
scenarios that are very specific to your team. And you're even,
you know, job descriptions into that program. And our coaches
(07:34):
meet with your team via zoom every two weeks, go
through a different topic, apply on the job, come back
and debrief. And they seem to love that they can
break out into small little virtual groups. Have deeper discussions,
do some scenario practice. Really get hands on with a
new tool. For example, SBI is a tool around feedback
(07:55):
that we use all the time situation, behavior impact. Just
try it out. It might feel weird at the beginning,
but then you get used to it and before you
know it, you're just using it in your one on
ones and they don't even know you're using this little
tool in the back of your mind.
S4 (08:07):
The leadership program was tailored to us, which we really liked.
We got to decide which order we felt we wanted
to do them in. What was the highest priority. There
was a theory part of it and learning principles, but
the practical side of it are really playing out scenarios
is very important. Do you want the first time you
deal with a curly scenario to be actually when you're
dealing with it, heat of the moment? No you don't.
(08:28):
You want to have thought through how you might approach it.
So we're checking in with each other first on that
human level. So it felt like we were one team
working through it, figuring it out together.
S2 (08:39):
One that really stood out to me was the giving
and receiving feedback module. From that was the SBI framework.
And giving feedback was something that I had naturally been
doing as part of that role. But I think doing
it in a way that could have been more effective.
So the SBI framework was a good example, where I
(08:59):
had a way to think about that in a more
structured manner, and that helped me to give better feedback,
whether it's positive or constructive. And yeah, something that I
took into my day to day in that role, that's
one example, but lots of other examples where there was
something I learned that I could take away and use
as a tool in my day to day as a leader.
S5 (09:20):
One module was Power of Perception, which is more about
getting to know yourself better and understanding how to interact.
Like what are you think it means versus what does
it actually really mean? And taking that distance as a
leader and not just reacting, but really having this stepping
(09:41):
back and understanding, they would give us an overview of
those concepts. And then after that, we would go in
a role play and really try to practice it. So
she gave us tools of like giving and receiving feedback,
concrete examples. She then explained to us, it's like if
you give someone feedback, you can start by asking, can
(10:04):
I give you feedback? And then you got you already
got the yes or the agreement of the other person
rather than just giving feedback. You don't know if this
other person is ready right there. It could be just
a wrong moment and therefore you feedback is received in
the wrong way. But if the other person has the space,
the mental space, or the. Capacity, emotional capacity to take
(10:27):
on the feedback, then you can go on. So simple
tools like that was really helpful. Also helpful then to
practice within the format of the session, but then also
go out and practice it with a team.
S3 (10:41):
What we also do to complement that is a lot
of one on one coaching. So at that exact level,
we find there is probably nothing that can help a
leader to transform how they lead faster than having a
really good executive coach. Our coaches are so, so important
and they're really matched either at the individual level or
at the team level based on this sort of chemistry
(11:03):
between coach and coach. Some of them come from a
psychology background, others come from more of a corporate background
and have the real experience. So we love to match
them based on those complementary traits. I think the main
thing that our coaches do is they facilitate great conversations,
challenging conversations, sometimes quite scary conversations with ease, and they
(11:23):
make people feel safe and they make people feel supported
throughout that process.
S4 (11:27):
Co facilitation, like the coach equation does, I think works
really well when you've got, say, one person just fully present,
engaged and sense into the team and then you've got
another person capturing as you go, then you've got best
of both worlds. Someone is just there, present with you,
with the team, and someone is making sure that as
you go, you're getting getting things captured, written down, you're
getting value created. You're getting at the end of it,
(11:48):
a reflection back on what they're seeing, but also just
directly what they heard. So you get a you get
a summary as you as you're going through, you're like,
oh okay. Yes. That is that's a very good reflection
of what we individually and collectively. And that's valuable in
its own right as well.
S3 (12:03):
Two of my amazing team of coaches were noticing from
the actual results that there was only a small jump
in increase in psychological safety because they're already super high
in terms of psych safety to begin with, but a
massive leap in terms of what they self described, their
confidence levels in specific areas and the areas that were
(12:24):
lowest were around difficult but constructive conversations. So that jumped massively,
like around a 30% jump in confidence. Another area that
was really, really big in terms of growth was around
supporting their team's personal growth. So again, learning, understanding their
(12:44):
career trajectory, what they wanted to achieve, what motivates them,
how to increase that motivation and increase their skill at
the same time. Another one was around just simple feedback,
giving and receiving feedback. So not just having critical or
crucial conversations, but really just simple feedback and making sure
that that's done regularly, not just held for an end
(13:06):
of quarter or end of month review and then adapting
to different communication styles massively increase. So again, looking at
people from their perspective and adapting to their needs, whether
they are introverted, for example. And then that means they
need a clear agenda before a meeting, or they need
time to prepare answers for a specific question that you have,
(13:27):
or whether they're extroverted and they really like brainstorming, and
they really like you coming to them to get them
involved in things or whatever that might be. So we
looked at the different pairs of preferences and decision making styles,
and how you take in information and how do you
adapt on the fly to different personalities and needs there.
And that massively increased. So we see a huge shift
(13:47):
in all of the core areas of leadership and managing
and pre and post program.
S5 (13:52):
After the course, I did two things. Firstly, I really
wanted to make sure we as the product design team,
we close it together and we give each other more feedback.
And we have like a culture of like before, we
often everyone was just in their own projects and we
wouldn't share problems so much with our like with the
(14:12):
other team members. But then after the leadership course, I
really thought, like, I want to bring this shared knowledge
or share, like sharing our work and sharing our problems
and having an open discussion where we trust each other
as designers. So what we did was to have like
formal times booked in in our calendars where we would
meet and we would share our projects. And through that,
(14:35):
we obviously gave each other feedback when I realized like, wow,
that was so, so much easier. Now it it's just
what I do like that's naturally I just say that.
I say, can I give you feedback?
S2 (14:48):
So he ran a survey that everyone in DC responded to,
which checked in on some of those questions and got
a pulse check, really, for how the team perceived DC
as a company and the leadership team and how effective
we were being. And that was quite useful as well,
just to get get that feeling and to have it
more formally, one of the biggest areas that the survey
(15:12):
showed that people were really keen to get more feedback.
So that was one that we leaned into, and we
learned a lot about giving good feedback as part of
the program, which was great. So we definitely had. A
shift towards more frequent feedback, more active feedback, and, like
Ben said, more effective feedback. You know, choosing the right
(15:34):
setting and tailoring it to the person and simple things
like asking if they want to receive feedback, you know,
creating the right space for it. And so, yeah, that was,
I think, one of the key learnings from the survey
and something that we were able to improve on from
the leadership program.
S4 (15:51):
The scores were good and we and we came in
with a with a very healthy culture. And I think
that's a key point as well. A lot of times
I feel like organizations do this work when there's crisis
or transformation, which can be very good time to do
it also. But if you're coming in already healthy as well,
it's a chance to build on that and accelerate what
you're doing. And so we came in with some good numbers.
(16:11):
So I wasn't surprised with the numbers afterwards. And that
was a good sign that the numbers were reflecting what
we were feeling and seeing. I think the number of
things that we had implied or implicit or in our heads,
in and around what DC stood for, how we operate,
it was quite impactful to actually go back to the team.
I think it led to a lot more things getting
written down, therefore getting clarity. We want to continue to
(16:35):
build on this idea of decentralized leadership, definitely, and giving
autonomy to the wider organization. And in fact, in the
last six months have spent a lot of time in
around that. So we're early on that journey, but already
are seeing that that's very empowering and liberating to see
how everybody in the organization becomes a leader. Also, I
think our way of seeing that we scale is not
(16:56):
by making the company to be 100 people, but actually
potentially forming these clusters of 15 to 25 people, but
actually having multiple groups of those around Australia and potentially
overseas as well that work together. We're embarking on on
that new chapter for this year.
S5 (17:12):
The Culture Equation team was so awesome because they are small,
they can really tailor all their programs to the different companies.
We also had some homework, so we had a list
of podcast hosts where other leaders talk to certain topics
in relation to the course program, so we could go
away and we would be able to listen different materials
(17:36):
and get different views or techniques. Other leaders in a
whole range of different companies have. And then we came
back and we discussed that, and everyone obviously shared knowledge
and we had a discussion around that. So that was
really good.
S3 (17:51):
So this is very much a story about leadership development
versus culture. They had their culture figured out because again,
this was the core team, but they were poised for
massive growth. This was really about getting that engine check
done before the growth happens. And as I've said before,
you know what we really pride ourselves on in the
(18:12):
culture equation is having courageous conversations. And that is where
the magic happens. It's in those little moments that we
notice light bulbs go off and changes happen. So I'm
very grateful to our amazing team of coaches for doing that.
Huge thanks to Ben Jordan and Johanna for being our
guinea pigs. It's really grateful to digital creators for allowing
(18:35):
us to trial a new product, and for letting us
measure the results, to see if there was an actual
difference in the before and after. They really went through
this whole heartedly knowing that there was no proof that
it had worked in the past. So we are very
grateful to them for giving it a go, but we're
also grateful for all of the support that they've shown
(18:56):
us afterwards, you know, and talking about their story. Thank
you for listening to our series about culture transformation, with
stories from our wonderful clients and the organisations we've worked
with over the years. If any of these conversations sparked
inspiration around culture for you, we'd love to have a chat.
(19:19):
Head to the culture Creation.com where you can find out
more about our work in leadership, culture and diversity. You
can book a call there with us, or you can
find me personally on LinkedIn and follow us on Spotify
and Apple Podcasts. To be part of future conversations.
S1 (19:41):
The culture equation.
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