EX Leadership Newsletter – April 2023

It’s Spring in the UK, which means the bluebells are out and that 2023 is flying by. Here’s my latest newsletter. As always, it contains the best EX articles I’ve come across over the last few months. Let me know if you find them interesting too.


First up, I found this report by Marc Effron very useful. It’s full of detail about trends in performance management, which is such a key topic. I worked with Marc when I was in New York. He’s a great person to follow on LinkedIn for all things talent and performance.


This is a thoughtful paper by Jared Peterson on the importance of understanding context. In essence, he argues that when behaviour change solutions don’t create an impact, it’s really because we haven’t understood the context in which people operate (so don’t rush to blame the “solution” itself). There’s a lot to think about here. Save this one for when you have a big mug of tea to hand.

https://medium.com/behavior-design-hub/the-science-of-context-e6cc50252709


I enjoyed this article by Hanadi El Sayyed on sustainability and employee experience. She looks at the link to purpose, wellbeing, and innovation. It’s an area I’m really interested in, as are lots of my clients, and it’s only going to increase in importance over time. Tapping into the energy of your workforce is really key for climate action.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/power-pairing-sustainability-employee-experience-hanadi-el-sayyed/


Another person I recommend you follow on LinkedIn is Sarah McLellan. Her series on “culture cracks” is a brilliant read as is this short article on what you need to measure in the new world of work. She highlights things like employee vitality, culture health, and purpose & impact. It’s a terrific list.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/new-world-work-measures-success-sarah-mclellan/


I thought this was an interesting analysis of what CEOs talk about on LinkedIn. I’ve not really come across this information before. UK CEOs – and their social media teams – apparently take a relatively personal approach in their posts, including one-to-one interactions with employees and sharing personal career stories.

https://www.kekstcnc.com/insights/kekst-cnc-global-ceo-linkedin-tracker-communicating-in-a-year-of-economic-anxiety-war-in-europe-and-climate-fatigue


This is an interesting paper looking at the manager behaviours that keep people from speaking up and testing some potential (simple and low-cost) interventions. It’s based on work done by Novartis. What it really highlights is the importance of team and individual dialogue.

https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/proven-tactics-for-improving-teams-psychological-safety/


I’m behind on my own writing, but if you’re interested, I have a draft article on “Engagement & Retention” on Medium. If you take a look, let me know what you think.

https://nickl4.medium.com/can-you-have-high-employee-engagement-and-high-turnover-73741a6399f7

I also did a video to mark the 4th anniversary of my book being published. I briefly talk about what’s changed in the world of EX since then. The main thing is that it was a very windy day in London when I did the video.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7055486041247342592/


As always, let me know what you make of these.

Best wishes,

Nick

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *