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recent years as businesses realize the direct impact that leadership can have on the overall culture and performance Here are just a few reasons why executive coaching is critical to workplace culture and performance: Improved Performance: A key responsibilities of executives is to manage the performance of their teams Executive coaching is critical to workplace culture and performance because it helps leaders develop the skills they need to communicate effectively, make better decisions, manage performance more effectively

CULTURE and the Curated Conversationalists

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Regular workplace culture check-ins and performance reviews are wonderful ways of collecting parts of

And is it worth the investment of time and money? I'm often asked what is executive coaching, as there are so many people these days that refer to themselves as a coach, so let's start with a definition. We view Executive Coaching as holding a safe space for someone to challenge themselves and their perspectives to build personal insights that lead to positive outcomes and behavioural change, that aligns with their goals and objectives. Executive coaching is a development pathway, it is anchored to a leaders goals, and at the center is a belief that the leader has the answers within them. You, the coach, are a guide. Understanding what it isn't also helps further define executive coaching - it's not advising, mentoring, consulting, telling, selling, training, managing, leading, educating, counselling. Whilst these are all necessary in any development pathway, a coaching relationship is one where your coach acts as a guide by being present, listening beyond the words and asking questions that guide you to positive behavioural change. The main role is to Listen and Ask. As executive coaching is a personalised form of development, and therefore targeted, it has greater buy-in and therefore change. Coaching is for the counterpart (or coachee). The spotlight is on them, not on the coach. An Executive coach will bring some structure. For example, you begin with a goal for the coaching, your one up and your organisation may be involved in this. There is a formal contract, there is structure to how often and how long, there is a measure at the start and later on which helps visualise the change, there is regular assessment of your coach! And regular check in with your one up to ensure the coaching is achieving it's desired outcome. There are many reasons why you would engage an executive coach and here are some questions you can ask yourself to see if this is a development pathway for you; Are you wanting to make a positive change at work? Do you want to grow your perspective? Do you prefer guidance rather than telling? Are you wanting to do more to engage your teams? Are you struggling with communication or conflict? Are you prepared to re-examine yourself and shift what is needed? Are you looking for ways to navigate your challenges? Do you want to challenge your thinking to grow your understanding? Have you experienced significant change recently? Has your motivation shifted as a result of this change? Do you find you are second guessing yourself ? Do you at times suffer from imposter syndrome? Are you finding that "being busy" has meant no time for professional/personal growth? Do you feel your development has stifled? Is your confidence waning? Do you like being held accountability? Are you finding it lonely in your new leadership role? Do you need a safe space to unpack challenges at work? If you answered YES to 7 or more of these questions, it's an opportunity to get in touch for a no obligation consultation. Mention this article, and we will also include an emotional intelligence and strengths profile with any coaching engagement. Melina is an IECL certified coach to the highest level, ICF member, Emotional Intelligence, Heartmath & Conversational Intelligence practitioner and spent two decades+ in senior leadership roles before starting PeopleQ to become an Executive Coach.

What not to do Part 1 Employee engagement and culture survey tools are a great way to invite and collate feedback from your employees in a meaningful way. The insights generated from this collection of data is useful not only to quickly gauge team and employee sentiment but also to empower leaders and organisations to identify where and how they can improve. The more transparent and action oriented the engagement tool, the better the outcomes, given transparency builds trust and actions naturally propel us forward. Whilst these tools are a game changer to how we design, measure and manage workplace culture, there are some potential pitfalls that leaders need to be aware of. Even the very best leaders can easily become caught up in one or more of these challenging scenarios. The good news is that with a bit of troubleshooting and practice, we can overcome pitfalls. Feedback that disappears into the metaverse This is the most common and detrimental pitfall. There is nothing worse than asking for feedback and for the organisation and leader to never make mention of the survey or results again. Without the right follow up to discuss results, you can be sure to erode trust. Employees naturally perceive the organisation and leader don’t take workplace culture improvement seriously. This also applies to inconsistent engagement with your culture tool by leaders. The end result? Overtime response rates drop, productivity may also drop and you may even notice an increase in staff turnover. Missed opportunity: The aim of most culture tools is to promote productive and focused team conversations. These discussions generate new questions, insights and ideas. It’s predicted that bringing teams together regularly to brainstorm enhances the sense of connection, improving engagement and morale. Practice: scheduling team meetings in advance as a show of commitment to prioritise, share and follow up on feedback as a way to build trust and team rituals. Score tunnel vision Setting goals and utilising your culture tool as a mechanism to measure your progress is a great way to help you and your team stay on track and drive continuous improvement. While culture and engagement tools are designed for leaders to pay close attention to survey scores, it can sometimes cause leaders to have tunnel vision which in turn can create some unintended behaviours. Missed opportunity: If you’re focused on simply attaining a particular score then you are at risk of missing the point of employee engagement. Culture tools should encourage leaders, teams and organisations to think deeply about what the team wants to achieve together and how they will get there. Practice: Nurture what’s in your control by prioritising productive team conversations. Through productive and genuine conversations and follow through on actions, scores will naturally follow. Hopefully we’ve given you some ideas that you can implement today ! And if a culture tool is on your list of ideas, speak to us about PQfactor, our thriving cultures tool powered by Teamgage! Look out for part 2 coming your way soon!

Hands down my favourite subject was economics. I was fascinated by opportunity cost and those unseen yet powerful forces like Adam Smith’s invisible hand; a metaphor describing a free market economy. Later on I noticed unseen forces alive at work, this time in the context of culture. I was part of both dysfunctional and thriving teams and often team members were unchanged. I wanted to understand how this could be? And if we could experience moments of thriving together, how we could find a way to sustain this ideal? Or at least create the momentum needed to move towards it. So as many leaders do, I asked my teams the big sweeping question about how they’re feeling at work and combined this with intuition and productivity to predict where culture might sit on a spectrum of terrible to amazing. But this was always a guess influenced by one’s perspective. And a single perspective is almost always flawed given we see the world as we are and not for what it is, unless you’ve mastered the art of holding many perspectives at once? In more recent times, as the world increasingly digitizes, we’ve asked teams to convert their responses into a rating using anonymous survey tools. How good is that!? Leaders and organisations now have the opportunity to use technology to collect feedback which allows for a more objective and accurate view of team culture rather than rely on intuition alone ! Contemporary leaders will love that those previously elusive elements of culture are finally brought into plain sight and quantified. These tools and their results now even feature more prominently in board reporting as well as elevating employer brand and that’s a positive, given how widely culture is talked about in the public arena without any data to back it up. Now you’ve got the data to back it up! Employee engagement and survey tools have the best of intentions; they simply are not all created equal. Many tools boast multiple functions from allowing you to customise questions and even integrating reward systems. This is great, but make no mistake; the work to achieve and maintain a thriving culture does not come from the tool or a recognition platform, it comes when leaders and teams take shared responsibility and work together to create change. The moral of this story? The tool alone is not the answer, it's how leaders are supported to work with their teams and the tool to enact change. Creating space for team members to have continuous deeper conversations, checking in, sharing new ideas, discussing challenges, celebrating wins and driving actionable change is what will move the dialler on employee engagement and workplace culture. Taking action goes a long way towards the pursuit of a thriving culture. The tool is just that, a tool. And whilst it’s now best practice to have a people measure in place; the real gift is feedback and guidance as to where leaders should focus their energy to achieve a thriving workplace culture. The outcome: a much more inspired workplace. Assess your workplace culture with our complimentary assessment tool or better still check out our culture tool PQfactor, powered by Teamgage and let us support your journey from good to great. Contact us today and let's schedule a coffee meeting. suria@peopleq.com.au

their authenticity compromised in certain conversations, particularly when they relate to conflict or performance

In 2014 I ran the NYM raising $30K for charity. I spent 12 months preparing and, in this picture, I'm running through Harlem. Why New York and the marathon changed my life. This was the moment I was awoken to leading a purposeful life, focusing on contribution rather than gain. Nine weeks before the marathon I had a level 2 tear to my calf muscle and was told it would be near impossible to run. Determined, my physio and I worked intensely through a program that had me back up and running. Three weeks out, I did it again. That’s when he announced through my uncontrollable sobbing, there would be no marathon! But when we landed, New York lifted me, I knew I had to give it a shot even if I didn’t go the full 42 kms. It was a goal I had intensely trained all year for, and I was used to pushing towards my goals no matter the personal cost. I had also committed to a lot of people who donated, and that key factor got me through, shifting my perspective forever. It would be the start of a new journey and future, leading to PeopleQ in 2018. We started over the bridge from Staten Island waiting in freezing conditions from 4am. The wait stressed the importance of timing and structure, and as I was running alone, I met many strangers, listening to their stories which broadened my perspective and compassion for humanity. I grew to understand the gift of conversations with strangers. I ran through Brooklyn immersing myself in the views of Manhattan and the energy of the 1000s of people around me to propel me forward. When we fully immerse ourselves in the moment, we stop thinking about what’s left to do. We ran by a church filled with soul singers and whilst everyone else kept running, I was compelled to pause my goal for a moment and show appreciation for the beauty in their voices. Their soulful voices carried me for the next few kms washing over the pain that was building with a vengeance. How often in the workplace do we focus on what’s to be done rather than pausing to express appreciation for the value of someone’s contribution? As I reached the bridge to cross over to Manhattan I slowed to a crawl, the Tylenol was wearing off and my back almost frozen in place. I limped to the medical tent at the halfway point, they strapped me with ice, dosed me with more Tylenol and suggested the run was over. I was there 30+ minutes when my husband rang (intuitively knowing what had happened), he told me they were waiting for me in Harlem (12 kms away), and that the kids wanted to see me run by - he strategically picked the spot knowing if he got me there, I would do the rest. He was right. That call lifted me and it's when I truly comprehended the role others can play in your most difficult moments, to lean on them for support, as prior to this I thought asking for help was a sign of incompetence. I also realised that breaking goals down helped minimise overwhelm as our minds work better when we break it into parts. And how a desire to be a role-model for others helps you dive head first into challenges. And, all this combined builds resilience. This is my husband taking a photo of me as I reached them in Harlem. Shortly after I was back in the medical tent begging and crying for more Tylenol even though I had reached my quota. Persistence pays and it's amazing how words filled with genuine emotion might influence others. I was on the home stretch, a few kms left, I had to focus forward. Having lost my father at a young age and suffering through an abusive first marriage in my 20s I was no stranger to the power of mindset, story telling, self-belief and determination in navigating challenging times. My marathon experience was on a different level, perhaps because in my 20s I was living behind a mask, whereas now I was living into who I knew I was meant to be. The stories I told myself to get to the finish line became character building moments and the critical role people played whilst I was in the thick of it changed how I leaned on others forever. I also didn’t want to let people down who had donated money to a worthy cause, The Little Heroes Foundation, they expected me to finish. So I anchored to this story. I was in agony crossing the finish line, yet experienced a sense of joy and accomplishment like never before, my energy lifting (I still had an 8km walk to my hotel) and I knew in this moment life needed to be about something more than personal gain, and that was going to fill my cup. Being purposeful blasted through me like a tornado. I love New York, it's a glorious state and I'll never forget how this marathon was the start of a more purposeful life and journey. These experiences inform the person I am when working with our clients to deliver powerful leadership programs that support leaders to inform their own journey.

Organisations struggle with performance uplift, let alone achieving a high-performance culture. business performance. uplift. It limits their habitual thinking and facilitates improved decision making for performance uplift. financial performance, it promotes the development and growth of the Mindful Leader.

innovation fuelled, loyalty cultivated, and financial return positively impacted when elements of high performance And the future of business relies on innovation and financial uplift. an employee pulse tool focused on the intangible elements of an organisation that cultivate a high performance

For me, its about culture, communication, trust, customers, belonging, appreciation, passion and performance uplift. Leaders are custodian's of culture, leader's cultivate belonging and appreciation to lift performance Check in, measure culture and performance with pulse checks. Over an extended period, these translate to shifts in performance, from good to great.