Top Takeaways Tuesday: The Human-Centred Future of Work
The Knowing Self Knowing Others Podcast, Ep. 66 with Matt Dunsmoor
Hello KSKOers
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Especially or all Amazon.com users, my eBook, ‘THE SELF-AWARENESS SUPERHIGHWAY: CHARTING YOUR LEADERSHIP JOURNEY’ will be $0.99 for 24 hours, 8am PST to 11pm PST on 4th June to celebrate it’s 2nd month bookiversary! Tell all of your friends, family and colleagues!
It was great to finally have a conversation with the very wise Matt Dunsmoor, after having first come across him in 2021 at a training event. We talked about octopy, recruitment, leadership and self-awareness. Here are my top takeaways from our conversations
1. Value-Driven Leadership: We discuss the crucial role of leadership commitment in driving ‘value’ initiatives within organisations. Matt highlights that initiatives spearheaded by C-suite executives, which I refer to as strategic level managers, often have a more substantial impact compared to those led by passionate individuals. This underscores the importance of top-level buy-in and active involvement in championing values and initiatives across the organisation. This absolutely reinforces my ideas that leaders need to model the behaviour they want to see in their organisation.
Reflection Question: How can your organisation create an environment that fosters leadership commitment to values?
2. Purpose Beyond Profit: Our discussion explores the concepts of value washing and purpose washing in companies, emphasising the need for clear guidance in implementing purpose-driven strategies. Notably, public sector organisation tend to make more progress in adopting purpose-driven values compared to private companies, largely due to reduced influence from shareholders. This raises the question of how companies can strike a balance between meeting shareholder demands and pursuing meaningful purpose-driven initiatives.
Reflection Question: How can your organisation authentically integrate purpose-driven values into the way you work while still meeting the financial expectations of stakeholders or investors?
3. Self-Aware Leadership: Our conversation reinforces the significance of self-aware leadership, emphasising the role that genuine curiosity plays as the starting point for self-discovery. Matt talks about how we feel when we receive feedback from others and sometimes how we can feel hurt by it. But, when we’re curious instead of defensive, we tap into the more helpful growth mindset, over the fixed mindset. We advocate for introspection as well as understanding how others perceive you as key components of self-awareness, i.e. reflection and recognition.
Reflection Question: How can you actively cultivate a deeper sense of self-awareness, and what strategies can you employ to integrate feedback from others into your self-improvement journey?
“…bouncing between curiosity and self awareness, they're so interconnected. And so for me, self awareness starts with genuine curiosity about yourself.”
4. Future of Work: Our conversation explores the shifting dynamics of work towards a more human-centric approach. We discuss the vital role of values as the guiding principles in workplace interactions and decision-making. We talks about the need for organisations to be adaptable to ensure a people-first approach in the ever-evolving landscape of work. We acknowledge that this isn’t an easy balance to strike when companies do need to make a profit to satisfy shareholders and investors. But we recognise that greater employee centricity means organisations are going to have to work it out to survive.
Reflection Question: In what ways can your company (or is your company) proactively cultivating a culture that prioritises the well-being and growth of employees while staying competitive in an increasingly digitised environment?
5. Cultivating Diversity and Inclusion: Matt advocates for diversity in recruitment practices and embracing cognitive diversity within teams. He suggested actively recruiting people from different places and backgrounds. Recruiting from one Ivy League university is likely to mean hiring from homogenous groups who hold similar ideas. We need to challenge traditional hiring norms to foster a more inclusive work environment. We highlight the need for companies to actively promote diversity and inclusion to harness effective problem solving, innovation and drive success.
Reflection Question: How can your organisations implement strategies to attract diverse talent?
These top takeaways and reflective questions aim to provide you with actionable insights from our conversation to support you to build your self-aware leadership skills.
How can you use these top takeaways and reflection questions (TTRQ)?
Pick one of the TTRQs
Share it with you team
Ask for their thoughts and views. Reflect, discuss and debate
Get to know your own thoughts better. Help others to know their thoughts better. Get to know each other better.
Share your thoughts here with us on what you’ve discovered and learned.
Hope you enjoy the episode and find that these TTRQs generate interesting and awareness raising discussions!