This time of year is always a time for trends, predictions and ideas of what’s on the horizon from pundits, researchers and big consultancies. This year, there’s lots of coverage around new tech innovations and AI, climate action and talent attraction and retention among other themes.
I’ll be sharing some of these themes in future posts here and over on LinkedIn but in the meantime, I wanted to share just four things I’ve got on my wish list for 2024, based on conversations I’ve had and work I’ve done with clients throughout 2023. If we could make even a little progress on these, it feels like we could really accelerate change for the better.
Image: Eric Prouzet, unsplash
1. Start before you start, slow down and simplify
I’ve had a couple of experiences over the last few months that have perfectly demonstrated how unnecessarily complicated organisations can make processes and systems and where no humans appear to have been involved.
From a high street bank that managed to close my business account (along with hundreds of others) without any notice and were unable to reinstate it, to a local company that didn’t know when an order of wood was due to be delivered. The system had sent an email telling us to expect delivery on Christmas Day without any way to speak to anyone about what was going on. As I type this on 3rd January, we’re still waiting. And the human beings involved still can’t tell us exactly when it’s going to arrive.
If you’re going to establish different processes and introduce systems that affect people – customers, partners, suppliers or your own teams – start before you start introducing new stuff, and slow down. Be really clear about the process you’re designing before you go anywhere near getting any technology to support it. Meet the brief, get people involved right from the start and don’t try to be too clever. You’ll waste time and money or in the worst case, lose customers and even employees.
2. Time, boundaries and respect
I had so many conversations in 2023 around time – too many meetings (and often poorly managed) that sucked up time and leaders having to squeeze in their thinking before or after their ‘working’ day started or finished. A lack of clarity about priorities and strategy also created friction about where focus needs to be. Not useful in helping organisations meet their goals and definitely not good for anyone’s mental health and wellbeing. I had too many conversations with people who were near burnout.
Leaders set the tone. Start small with yourself and your own team by being more intentional about time at an individual and team level. When you’ve got this working, start pushing for this to happen at a wider organisational level and make it part of ‘how we do things around here’. When you’re working together across an organisation, following a similar rhythm and with similar boundaries in place and similar respect for each other’s time, makes it easier to deliver against goals, drive change forward and maintain mutual respect.
I really hope I have fewer of these types of conversations in 2024.
3. Recognise the power of collaboration
Throughout 2023, I saw the power of collaboration in action, through work I did with teams who are at the forefront of driving change. The biggest impacts and shifts I saw happened when a really diverse range of people came together for workshops and other collaborative sessions. They had the space to get a better understanding of an issue and build their own solutions. Importantly, they got to know each other better.
This improved how they worked together outside formal sessions, sharing ideas and avoiding reinventing the wheel and time-wasting. This has led to faster progress and better results, working together over the longer-term.
4. Keep prioritising people
I’ve been seeing lots of discussion in the ‘trend’ reports for 2024 about ‘human-centric’ leadership. If this really means putting people first – especially as we’re seeing a rapid increase in tech and AI shifts and uptakes – this can only be a good thing. I’m keen to see how human-centric leadership will manifest during 2024.
In the meantime, I’ll be banging the same old drum - we need to put people at the heart of workplaces and especially when there are changes afoot. Avoiding getting carried away with the shiny things of rolling out lots of new technology systems and ways of doing things, will be the key. People-first is the only way that any change will deliver the promised benefits.
So what’s on your wish list for 2024?
If you’re keen to make change better in your organisation in any of these areas, let me know.