Culture, Emotions and Employee Experience
A year ago, I was introduced to the Emotional Culture Deck. I was so excited when I got a spot on the masterclass with Jeremy Dean, founder and creator. Such a special human.
For those unfamiliar, the emotional culture deck is “an insanely simple card based tool for structured conversations about culture, emotions and employee experience.”1
I was inspired post masterclass and applied to participate in his mentorship program, which has been equally amazing.
I had no idea how pivotal the emotional culture deck would be to the way I work with clients, shaping human centric cultures and conversations.
Feelings and emotions are something we often don’t consider and yet are pivotal to success, positive culture and employee experience.
Key learnings from using the culture deck workshops over the year
Lesson One
Given the opportunity to talk about feelings and emotions as part of a team is pivotal for enhanced team dynamics, growth and employee engagement. We are innately impacted by those we work for and with both positively and negatively, emotions are contagious.
We are social creatures, this is hard wired into our neurobiology. We are not designed to work in isolated pods with only technology as our BFF. Loneliness epidemic anyone?
Lesson Two
We need to feel included. FEEL.
Lesson Three
We want to feel involved and supported. No one wants to feel unwelcome or alone.
Time and again these have appeared in each workshop I have facilitated.
How do you lead to ensure that your teams feel involved and supported and they do not feel unwelcome or alone?
““Leadership today is about unlearning management and relearning being human.” ”
— Javier Pladevall, CEO Volkswagen Retail Spain 2
Change can be simple if you pause and take time out to reflect on how you want your teams, founders, co-founders, investors, colleagues to feel small changes can bring big results. We often think it takes grand gestures and lots of planning to shift cultures and increase employee engagement, not always, small gestures go a long way.
Lesson Four
Be More Human
Human leadership lies in our ability to form personal and meaningful relationships with the people we lead.
We are all leaders, we all have peers and we all have responsibility. Is senior leadership important of course but being human is all our responsibility. Leadership lies across the organisation, it is not just top-down.
We want to be seen, heard, given support to do meaningful work and have a human connection.
McKinsey & Co reported that when employees are intrinsically motivated they are 32% more committed and 46% more satisfied with their job and perform 16% better. 2
How do you engage with your team? Colleagues? Bosses?
Take a moment and ask yourself the following questions
Do I listen to people? Really listen?
How do I welcome colleagues each and every day?
What role can I play to support a sense of purpose and engagement?
How do we connect as a team?
By creating an environment that supports and provides meaning, happiness, and human connection you are on the path of human leadership.
Supporting people to belong is good for business, increases job performance and reduces turnover and people feel good, happy, engaged, purpose-driven and have higher wellbeing. We all want this right?
As already mentioned the four themes that consistently appeared using the deck where Supported, Involved, Unwelcome and Alone. Some simple learnings on how to enhance these.
Lesson Five
Ways to enhance your emotional culture
Supported
People feel supported when you listen! Active listening helps people feel supported and seen. Try putting your phone away when you are having a conversation, put phones in a basket during meetings and notice the difference in the flow and conversation.
Research has shown that even having a phone on the desk or table distracts people and makes them feel they are not being heard.
Involved
How often do you make decisions without consulting anyone? Before making decisions take a beat and move your thinking from tactical to emotional. Put yourself in the shoes of your people and imagine they are friends or family and consider involving them in this decision. 2
Bring others into your decisions and ask for help and not from the same people all the time, rotate and get some different thinking, you may be unconsciously biased about who you are choosing to support you.
Leaders often live in an unintentional bubble due to the pressure and short turnaround times but by pausing, taking a breath, better decisions are often made and people feel involved and valued.
Unwelcome
Do you smile and say good morning?
You would be amazed at the number of leaders who forget this simple pleasantry as they are caught in the “must get my inbox to zero” mindset or merely grunt an acknowledgment. I know I have done it, or speak at people without even saying hello. Notice today if you catch yourself say “where is …..” before you say hi.
Say hello, smile, walk the floor, sit with people at lunch, show genuine interest. This simple gesture can enhance social belonging.
Let’s talk a little more about smiling
Smiling is contagious, it is impossible to frown and smile at the same time!
Smiling makes us feel better.
Smiling modifies the neural processing of emotional content in the brain, in a way that makes us feel better when we smile.
Smiling can reduce stress hormones and enhance mood-enhancing hormones. 3
Smile more!