Once or twice a week I get pinged on LinkedIn for job’s that fit my profile. Though I rarely apply for a job, I like to look at them sometimes just to see what companies are looking for, the competencies they request and how they incorporate their cultural values or attributes. It’s interesting.
 
Sometimes I can see an organization intentionally leading with their culture and strategy. Companies like Apple, Salesforces and Microsoft do this very well. But what I am most struck by when I read position descriptions is how overwhelming many of them look. I can almost see the hiring manager offloading as much of their job as they possibly can. Sometimes the position description looks like it requires a person capable of scaling tall buildings in a cape. 
 
Then I see posts from academics and leadership influencers about the importance of balance, rest, not overworking, etc. Like this most recent one I saw from Adam Grant on Twitter:
 
“In toxic cultures time off is a reward earned by working to exhaustion. Burnout is proof of commitment, and vacations are required to recover. In healthy cultures, time off is a right granted to everyone. Well-being is top priority and vacations are encouraged to rejuvenate.”
 
And most of us love these posts! What’s not to love? But, is this realistic all the time in many jobs? And does such a workplace really exist outside of Denmark? Or unless you are a tenured academic?
 
I imagine it can be daunting when you are looking for your next move. Because it's what companies are not including in the position descriptions that is more important to most of us than the actual responsibilities of the role. Of course, organizations and potential employees need to find a skills, experience and responsibilities match. But what makes us actually love or hate a job is harder to assess from reading a position description.
 
As I think back on my many jobs, these are the attributes at the top of my list of “most loved”:

• My role allowed me to stretch and grow my skills. There was a lot of variety. The role had challenges but they were interesting and just scary enough to keep me on the edge of my learning. I was able to hone my craft. 
• My boss and superiors really listened to me. When I was leading the project, they included me early, at the design phase. They would include my team and I when were responsible for implementation. I was clear on my accountability. The responsibilities came with commensurate authority. My boss didn’t second guess me. They didn’t always take my recommendations, but we had robust debate about their decision and what I felt might be at risk with their approach.
• I worked with committed and smart colleagues who challenged and supported me in equal measure. We had difficult conversations. We made each other better. We worked actively to build trust.
• My boss enabled me to build the team I needed to deliver. She/he challenged me to make sure I gave folks I inherited a chance to “reset”, develop and grow. But trusted me to make the final decision on team members.
• My immediate boss wanted to do the right thing. They were ethical. They weren’t paragons of courage. I have that in spades. But they had my back when it really mattered. 
• I had a best friend at work. We celebrated each other’s wins and lifted each other up when things looked bleak or didn’t go our way. We kept each other’s confidences.
• And finally, my boss and superiors didn’t care where I worked as long as my team and I delivered on our key objectives. I need to work from home at least two days a week and probably 3 some weeks. This is where I do my best, most creative work. I need quiet time to think and strategize. I have always been this way. 

 
When I see this list, I feel elated and excited! If I had ever had a role with all these attributes, aligned my skills, experience and work I enjoy, it would have been amazing. But I never had that job. I had a few of these attributes at several different jobs, but never all of them. And there is a final “attribute” I didn’t include. I am a person who loves work. I am intense and prone to burnout and I needed a boss to say, “That was great, your team did an amazing job! Now I want you to take time off to recharge. I insist. I don’t want to hear from you for a week!” I never had a boss say that. I needed that more than anything. 
 
No job is perfect and it doesn’t need to be. But you need to create your list. Factor yourself in. Be really clear about what is essential, your “must haves” and “nice to haves”. Don’t compromise on your “must haves”. From your list you can create questions that will allow you to focus on the things that matter to you most. I am certain this will lead to a happier work life. 
   
Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners 21 years ago to collaborate with leaders, teams and organizations to create more productive, effective, and human people systems and practices. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you! 
 
 

In 2019 I began a two-year program to become a certified mindfulness meditation teacher. I had used mindfulness with clients and their teams for many years. I started a meditation practice when I was 20. I hadn’t studied with teachers in a while. But I have always committed to my own development and it seemed a good time to focus on building greater “internal capacity”. With COVID lockdowns starting in the second year of the program, little did I know how important building greater internal capacity would become! It was a great program. It was long. A lot of work. At times it was really difficult to keep up. And it profoundly changed not only my meditation practice, but how I work.
 
Clients, even when they don’t necessarily like it (especially at first), will often tell me how much they appreciate a moment to stand back from the drama, from all the meetings and constant activity. I am intentional about sharing these practices with clients, almost all senior level leaders. Now more than ever, leaders and their workplaces need reflection time. Responding with greater clarity and equanimity is more important than ever. Our gut reactions aren’t always skillful. They don’t create the outcomes we intended. When clients take a moment to stand back and breathe, take care of themselves and their own needs, they can respond with greater choice and skill. 
 
When I ask clients to practice reflection or some other form of meditation, they often tell me that it is very difficult. I understand this. There were times I dropped my meditation practice when things were really busy or difficult (or both) in my life. Of course, these were the exact moments where meditation would have been even more helpful than normal. And I was aware that part of the constant activity, the fear of standing still, was that I might really feel what was going on and I didn’t want to do that.
 
This is why mediation can be so hard at times for me and so many of us. If we sit or stand, or walk with the intention of sustaining moment to moment awareness, we open our attention to whatever is there. The thoughts, emotions and body states that we notice may be familiar. They can be pleasant. They may also be very uncomfortable. Paying attention, on purpose, can open the door to the cognition, the feelings, and memories they spark that we would prefer to ignore, deny or actively push away. Yet whatever is there, is still there, sometimes roiling just below the surface of our awareness and often doesn’t go away until we “sit still” with it, acknowledge and accept it, just as it is.
 
Jon Kabat-Zin, Professor Emeritus of the University of Massachusetts’s Medical School defines mindfulness as:
 
“Awareness, cultivated by paying attention in a sustained and particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.” 
 
This last part, “nonjudgmentally” has been the game changer for me. For most of us, what makes meditation difficult is that we often have a judgement of what we think and feel. “Good, bad, weak strong”, we add a constant stream of opinions about our own experience. Learning to simply accept what we observe and notice, can be fraught with danger or at the least, discomfort. Especially if we think of these judgments as the truth, backed up by years of repeating them and then acting on them (whether we know it or not). They create a kind of “neural groove” constructed from what we have made up about the world. And this can limit choice in how we respond. 
 
Letting go of the judgment of what I notice, letting it be, just as it is, I am able to recognize that none of this internal data is inherently good or bad. But I don’t know this until I allow it more fully into my awareness. 
 
The thoughts and emotions are often linked to memories or stories I tell about myself and my life. And when I become more fully aware of these I can finally decide if replaying them is useful or if they are or were ever true. And if my clinging to them, is supporting my life and work or not. If not, I can finally let them go. I have a choice. And with life and work, especially the work of leadership, choice is key. This is even more important when you are responsible for running a city, a corporation, or a country. 

This is why I say each time I meditate, I die a little. But what dies, what I let go of, is flawed thinking based upon old, worn-out ideas about myself, my relationships and my work. I am letting go of the belief that I have to have all the answers, that I might be less worthy, or not smart enough or the fear that I really don’t belong. This realization allows me to be more intentional about how I behave. To act more aligned with my values, goals and the creative spark that lives in me and all of us. Even as some belief or idea I held about myself is dying, some more effective, skillful, compassionate and generative notion is being born.  
 
Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners 21 years ago to collaborate with leaders, teams and organizations to create more productive, effective, and human people systems and practices. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you! 

I hear so much about the growing importance of purpose and meaning at work. With the “great resignation”, or more accurately, the “great attraction” to record high job openings, it makes sense that organizations are paying more attention to this. Creating more purpose and meaning at work is complicated. But will create a worthwhile return on investment by increasing engagement and discretionary effort.
 
When I work with clients to improve their employee engagement, we usually need to start by enhancing purpose and meaning. At the macro level, the company needs to be clear and transparent about the organization’s actual value proposition or “lived mission”, and how this value proposition is aligned with their work. Then they need to make sure that their jobs are structured to create as much autonomy, mastery and purpose (see Daniel Pink’s excellent book Drive) as possible.  
 
Once a client is clear on their value proposition, then they can create their talent acquisition and retention strategy. According to the Hogan Personality Assessment, there are 10 motives, values, and preferences that contribute to engagement, suitability and happiness with an organization and role. They are: recognition, power, hedonism, altruism, affiliation, tradition, security, commerce, aesthetics and science. 
 
When I work with an executive who is unhappy in her/his role, if it is not due to dissatisfaction with the boss relationship, it is often a misalignment between their main motivators and the company’s mission. For instance, if the executive’s highest motivators are commerce, security and recognition, working in a commercially focused, high paying, for-profit organization is likely to be fulfilling and feel purposeful. If, however, their main motivators are altruism, affiliation and science, they would likely be happier in an organization that has a more human-centric mission (e.g., that exists to improve people’s lives).
 
Sometimes, the organization is doing a good job aligning their mission with their talent acquisition strategy, easily attracts talent, but can’t retain it. In this instance I recommend they conduct a climate audit to assess the leadership and roles. It’s important to design roles with as much autonomy (agency), opportunities to develop (to build mastery), and purpose as possible. And then ensuring that leaders know how to create a work climate that nurtures this, will improve retention. 
 
A couple years ago I was working with a client and as part of the engagement project, I suggested that we conduct “stay interviews” to see why employees choose to stay at the company. We found that the top motivators included: it was a fun place to work where employees could build strong relationships, including friendships and be well compensated for the work they do. When we shared the data with the CEO, he was a little disappointed. I wasn’t surprised or disappointed. The data made total sense to me. I could see that the affiliation, commerce and hedonism (which mostly means "enjoys having fun") motivators were common attractors for their employee population. Many employees felt it was a fun place to work and stayed due to the meaningful friendships they made. You could do  a lot worse!
 
The bottom line: when organizations are clear and truthful on why they exist, operate aligned with their values, communicate their value proposition honestly to their employees and prospective employees, and strive to make their jobs as rich as possible, they are much more likely to attract and retain aligned and energized, “best-fit” employees.  
 
Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners 21 years ago to collaborate with leaders, teams and organizations to create more productive, effective, and human people systems and practices. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you! 
 

The last couple of years I have been exploring design, particularly architecture and product design. I am motivated to learn more because I can see how it can guide and improve my work with organizational people systems. In this post I want to explore a few of Dieter Rams design principles and how they might apply to designing people systems. 
 
Dieter Rams is a German industrial designer and academic. He was chief of design at Braun for 40 years, and for the furniture company, Vitsoe. I was introduced to his work when my husband installed Vitsoe cabinets and shelves in his home office about 12 years ago. They are so simple, beautiful and well designed. They are extremely well made and functional. Even though they are wall mounted, when you move, you take your Vitsoe with you. 
 
I think of Rams as the best kind of visionary because he is practical. He started thinking about the environmental impact of products long before it was fashionable. He didn’t want products to need to be replaced because he understood how wasteful it is. One of his principles is that products should be designed to last. Though I find all of Rams ten design principles relevant to my work in organization development, I will start with a few and perhaps do a follow up post on a few more. 

• Good design makes a product useful.
• Good design is aesthetic.
• Good design makes a product understandable.

 
When I work with a team or an individual, I want to make their job easier, to make an impact on their performance and their business success. They are taking precious time away from their day-to-day work for an hour, a day or more, and what we do together must be useful to them. This requires a lot of collaboration and planning up front to figure out what they really need, which may be very different than what they say they want in our first meeting. 
 
Rams believes that the aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness. However, only “well executed products can be beautiful”, so quality really matters.  For my work this means that the organization design, process or practice needs to be thoughtfully introduced, explained and implemented. It needs to appeal enough to the participants that they take the risk to engage in using it. When they do practice, they have the requisite coaching and support to get started, and it works as promised. They are motivated to keep practicing.
 
One specific example from my work is designing performance management systems. I have collaborated with many clients to create or update their system and process. Performance management too often involves complicated, long, detailed processes and forms. Most are automated and connected to the HRIS system. But it’s not uncommon for managers and employees to be frustrated with them. They can easily become a “check the box” exercise. If they are complicated and time consuming, the focus becomes about completing them and turning them in. It’s easy to miss the real point of this important organizational ritual.
 
The main goal of a performance management system is to ensure that the organization is fully acknowledging the value creation and enablement of all its employees. If well designed and executed it serves as a structured, equitable process for recognizing and rewarding the contribution of all employees, based upon qualitative and quantitative data. It can better align compensation with contribution, and help identify employee’s development needs. If your system is working well, managers and employees use it because they see how it benefits them and the organization. And it allows them to celebrate, in a more formal way, all of their contributions. 
 
I see more innovation and improvement with performance management systems. When I work with a client on this type of process, I want whatever approach they choose to align with their expectations and outcomes. And I want the system to be well thought out, meaningful to managers and employees alike, easy to use and worth the effort.
 
Good design is needed everywhere. And it is even more important when organizations are trying to evolve, improve, change or transform an institutional system. Any change is difficult enough. Good, well executed design has the potential to make change efforts more successful. Well designed and implemented people systems and processes can help create more productive and meaningful workplaces, and ultimately improve organization performance.  

Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners 21 years ago to collaborate with leaders, teams and organizations to create more productive, effective, and human people systems and practices. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you! 

​“Being fully present to what is, without judging or evaluating or wanting something different, is the most basic act of love.”   C.W. Huntington, Jr.
 
All of my work, whether at the individual, team or enterprise-wide, whole system level, is about change, growth and development. It’s exciting and at times, daunting work. Each of us human beings have our own orientation to change. According to personality data, many of us don’t welcome or enjoy change, especially when it is goes hand in hand, as it often does, with an ambiguous future state. 
 
There are a few folks who are wired for change. They welcome it, and sometimes pursue it because they actually relish it (even, when it isn’t necessary). But in research, this shows up as a minority of our species.
 
When I think about accepting things as they are, I think of it as a vital part of any change that can’t be skipped. And when I invite clients to become more fully aware of the current reality, it is because I don’t think any real change happens without a full understanding of what we are really, already in the middle of. Through accepting the present moment, I am not advocating that we surrender, accept our fate or give up. In fact, for me, accepting reality, being open to what is really happening in any system, is the first step to any worthwhile change or development journey, from quitting a bad habit (smoking) to transforming an organization, or any other large, complex system.
 
When confronted with the need for change, the most difficult thing for most of a us to do is to allow ourselves to accept reality, what is actually happening in the fullest sense. Instead, we often spend a lot of energy “defending the fortress” (e.g., strategy, products, structure, talent choices), especially if we had a big part in deciding or creating them. And this “fortress”, whether still effective or not, has become “institutionalized” in myriad organizational habits of how we think, decide and communicate. 
 
If we are not completely aware of what it feels like to be fully present to “what is”, it is often much more difficult to accurately assess and then creatively envision a more successful future. 
 
Some of us ignore the need for change or shut down. A few brave souls, a.k.a., “change agents” spend a lot of energy battling the fortress. But in their frustration (“fighting” against systems is exhausting!), the way they go about it, can be ineffective. This is because their communication about the need for change is full of, subtle and not so subtle, judgement and blame. This can be experienced by others as arrogant, even when the change agent is motivated by deep care and a strong sense of responsibility (as they often are). Because we over-identify with the systems we have had a hand in creating, when a change agent boldly questions our work, it can feel insulting or like a personal attack.
 
This same process can also apply to our individual growth and development. We all hang on to some of our habits of leadership even when they may no longer be effective in our current lives. Many of our leadership mental models were formed early, growing up in our family systems. Though constructed when we were young, they still show up in our leadership decisions and behaviors many years later.  Standing back to soak in reality, here and now, can be quite a revelation, if we let it in. And from this more open, accepting place, we can decide if some of our habits of mind and behavior are effective and productive in our current context.  
 
At the team or organization level this process is more time consuming. You have to create a psychologically safe space where people can tell the powers that be what is happening. This step requires leaders pause the action, sit still, quiet the critic, allow, and even “accept” what they are learning. In this way, “being fully present to what is”, allows for deeper listening and understanding. At this phase, we have to suspend judgement and evaluation, and the yearning for something to be different (easier, simpler, more as we would like it to be). To really listen, you have to be open and curious and when practicing this, judgement and evaluation will only diminish the safety required to tell the truth.
 
Finding a way to accept fully what is, in this present moment, is absolutely an act of love. It says, without blame, or judgement, I accept you, I accept me, this situation, this difficulty, this mistake, and this joy of full awareness, in the midst of all of it, just as it is. And from this more generative space, the seeds of change are nourished and true creative transformation may flourish. 
 
C.W. Huntington, Jr. (1949-2020) was a translator and interpreter of Sanskrit and Tibetan Buddhist literature. He was Chair of Department of Religious Studies at Hartwick College. His most recent book, What I Don’t Know about Death, was published this year posthumously,

Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners 21 years ago to collaborate with leaders, teams and organizations to create more productive, effective, and human people systems and practices. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you! 

 
 

In many recent client conversations, they express the desire to continue to work from home or go to a hybrid schedule. They also share that most of their teams don’t want to go back to the office. Executive clients universally express a desire to get back to the office in person, at least part-time. Many clients have delayed going back to the office or are phasing in their new hybrid schedule and trying to motivate folks to return at least a few days a week.
 
On LinkedIn and Twitter, I see countless articles pointing out that most knowledge workers really don’t want to go back or want to go back on a limited basis. This matches what I am hearing anecdotally from almost all my clients. 
 
But what to do if you are a leader of a team that must be in the office due to your industry or their roles? 
 
Before I answer this, I’ll share a story from what feels like ancient, pre-covid times (3 years ago). I was visiting a client on a Friday afternoon. At some point in our meeting she said, “I have to come in on Fridays because otherwise it’s the ‘completely empty management wall’ on most floors.” I looked at her quizzically. She proceeded to tell me that her team (and many others) were expected to be in on Fridays but most of the managers worked from home on Fridays. All the leaders’ offices were on the exterior wall of the building. The cubicles were spread on the internal parts of the floor. Yes, it’s kind of awful, but it’s still pretty common. The Friday I was visiting, all the offices on her floor were empty, except for hers. 
 
She didn’t like the message it sent. She worked for a large global company. Working from home was not possible for most of their work force and she thought it sent the wrong message that rank and file needed to show up, but the management didn’t. She felt it looked like a double standard. I agreed.
 
If everyone can work from anywhere in your organization – great. But if some roles need to be on site and you are an organizational leader, especially at a senior level, you should be present for them, in person, at least part of the work week. Your presence sends the message that they matter to you, that you care about them enough to show up and that even though you may not need to be there, because they are, you want to be.
 
We are living in unpresented times. Equity in corporate practices and policies is being carefully watched by many of your employees (and it probably always was). So how you structure your return to work really matters. Extra attention, care and communication in crafting your remote or hybrid work policies will pay dividends. One of the worst things you could do it create yet one more policy that smacks of privilege, especially for those who have the privilege of leading others. 
 
As you decide your return to work, make sure you don’t have an empty “management suite” or wall or whatever. Your presence is required to inspire and motivate the teams upon which your business depends. 

Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners 21 years ago to collaborate with leaders, teams and organizations to create more productive, effective, and human people systems and practices. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you! 

I have wanted to change my business structure to an LLC for a couple years. Other work and life priorities gave me the excuse to procrastinate. But last year, amid all the pandemic interruptions and delays, I finally got it done. This of course created a series of other changes I needed to make to all sorts of related things. Updating my logo was a priority and a dear friend (who is an amazing editor) gave a me a referral. She told me that she was young, but so talented and that she completely trusts her instincts. I hired her after our first conversation.
 
So, we engaged and she proceeded to ask me questions about my business, my clients and how I work. We talked about my mission, vision and passion for the work I do. She asked me to send her colors and objects I love. She also reviewed some of my writing and did all the things you would expect a professional designer to do. 
 
When she sent me the first logo it was nothing I would have imagined. And she included this note:
 
“This logo represents both you and your company. It communicates that there are various parts that make up an organization and they intersect and work together to form one structure. The arrangement of the shapes has a very “architecture” feel which communicates how your work is foundational and is an essential building block for efficient and effective change. Another interesting aesthetic that this logo achieves is that organizations can be complex and implementing change even more so. The shapes in the logo represent the different moving parts of a company but are placed and represented to show harmony and stillness, which is the effect of your services. I also like the idea of using these unique shapes because it is very human. Too often in corporate logos we see stiff, bland, safe images because it shows “professionalism”, but it is actually cold, dense, and relatively meaningless. This logo has a very human-centered feel and is clean and concise which makes it professional. It shows that creativity and human emotion make up a huge part of a company’s culture and are essential elements of the employees and how they work. My favorite thing about you is that you are not afraid to use creative practices and acknowledge human emotion, while maintaining a high level of professionalism and effectiveness. I think this logo communicates just that.”
 
When I saw the first logo and read her note, I felt emotional. It was clear that in a relatively short time, that the designer had really listened to and heard me. In my experience, this is kind of rare. I showed it to my husband and he said, “Wow. I love it! You can tell her creativity hasn’t been ruined yet by corporate America.” I agreed.
 
Still, I asked her to come up with another option. And then we tried out various changes to both options. After some back and forth I knew that with one small change, her first logo was really perfect. I told her I was making her first design worse not better!

I was so glad I figured this out pretty quickly. And it also reminded me that if you want creativity to truly flourish in your organization, you have to create spaces, free from too much direction and criticism so that it’s safe for the best ideas to emerge. You don’t ever really “manage” creative people. You nurture a climate where they can thrive and then you need to get out of the way.   

Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners 21 years ago to collaborate with leaders, teams and organizations to create more productive, effective, and human people systems and practices. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you! 
 
 

Almost every conversation I have lately with clients includes a discussion on if and how they will get “back to their offices”. Depending upon your life stage, home set up and family, working remotely (mostly from “home”) has been great, good or tolerable. But from recent surveys, it’s clear the majority of employees want to work from home at least part of the time. 
 
According to a Harris Poll survey of 2,063 adults conducted May 14-16, “Forty percent of Americans prefer to work from home full-time, compared with 35% who seek a home-office hybrid and 25% who want to go back to the office full-time” 
 
In contrast, “68% of executives say a typical employee should be in the office at least three days a week to maintain a distinct company culture”, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey late last year.
 
Ultimately, because their success relies on it, I am confident that most organizations will figure out a balance that works best for their employees considering their industry, strategy, and customers. I am less confident that they will redesign important talent management processes and practices to optimize for the new hybrid office models they will be adopting (and surely adapting over time). 
 
For example, consider performance management. With greater adoption of matrix management models and the growing reliance on deeper collaboration, how effective employees are working with their stakeholders has become ever more important. And even though I have been recommending that clients add stakeholder feedback as a standard part of their performance management process for years, few have adopted this practice. With teams still working remotely at least part of the time, how they communicate with each other, their responsiveness, and how they plan and organize their work, has become a much bigger differentiator of performance.
 
During the last 18 months I have facilitated quite a few leader and team launches and integrations. I have always loved this work. When the pandemic started I wasn’t sure how I would manage the facilitation virtually. It felt rocky the first few times, but clients have been very positive in our post-meeting reviews. One thing I have noticed, and at first, I thought it was just luck, is that engagement in these sessions matches or exceeds many prior team facilitations I have done (and I have facilitated a lot of team meetings). 
 
This surprised me a bit until I thought about how I was feeling and what I was doing to manage my own anxiety with virtual facilitation. It’s clear that we lose some perspective with virtual platforms, like somatic cues and the natural energy from sharing a physical space. Due to this, I have been taking more time to experiment with the meeting design and structure to make sure everyone feels included in the sessions and safe to contribute their best. For example, I am being even more rigorous with pre-session expectations and assignments and creating collective ground rules during the sessions. 
 
With my experience growing, I realize how important it is to help leaders and teams adapt their ways of working for their virtual workplaces. Processes like talent acquisition, onboarding, goal setting, and performance management will need to be updated for the hybrid workplaces in which many of us will continue to work. Our success virtually depends upon how well we rethink, shift and sharpen our approach to meet the reality of our more varied workspaces.
 
Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners 21 years ago to collaborate with leaders, teams and organizations to create more productive, effective, and human people systems and practices. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you! 
  

My husband is a martial arts teacher. He teaches Hapkido, a very challenging Korean Martial art. He has a father and daughter who faithfully attend his Saturday morning class. For a couple months the daughter kept asking her father for an official Hapkido uniform. Due to her size, she is just 10 and petite, it would need to be ordered and due to COVID and shipping, etc. it would take my husband many attempts to get a response from the official organization. Last week she wore her new uniform to class. The response from her classmates was unanimous: she looked great! My husband said that the joy she exuded during the class was priceless.
 
This story is about belonging. Where ever we humans go, we seek a felt sense that we belong, we are a member of the tribe. I am sure at some point in our long evolution, it was strongly linked to survival and safety. Belonging, and the cooperation of a tribe meant back up if trouble arose and that we were more likely to live to see another day. The roots of belonging are deep and when we forget that in organizations, it creates all sorts of problems, and sometimes contributes to deadly consequences.
 
Yet we forget it all the time. We forget that we need to be intentional about building systems and organizational rituals that make it easier and more likely that people we invite in, feel as if they really belong.
 
Inclusion is so different than belonging. It’s also important but I am more and more skeptical of inclusion because it means that someone else creates, or has the power to include us, or not. I am completely up for creating inclusive systems and structures. But I am not okay with it being up to someone else to include me, because by my very presence, I already belong. Whether I feel that or not, is more complicated because it’s largely based upon my own life experiences and needs.
 
My observations are that inclusion puts the power to invite in someone else’s hands. Belonging is something that we all have the power to nurture and create together.  However, belonging requires that I feel safe to express what I need and that my manager, team and organization create space and the safety for this to happen. When done right, it’s messy and can be uncomfortable and I expect it to be so. Because sometimes to create a space where others feel like they belong, I have to give up or adjust some practice, ritual or language that I enjoy and that makes me feel like I belong. 
 
Markers that evoke a sense of belonging in each of us are grounded in culture, family, traditions, rituals, and even our biology. I am thinking of the recent research that found stress and anxiety experienced by a mother during pregnancy is associated with short- and longer-term consequences for the health of her child (see the links at the bottom of this article for more information). 
 
And if an organization wants to work on creating a greater, more shared sense of belonging, then they have to teach and facilitate practices for compassion and forgiveness. And you have to be equally rigorous about this because people will make mistakes. They will say and do the wrong thing. This is a part of the process and you have to plan for it. The moment someone gets blamed, demoted or fired for trying, and offending someone or making a mistake, then you will create a space where no one will speak up or try because it is too dangerous.
 
From my work with so many teams, I have lots of stories about belonging. If you listen, you probably hear them all the time too. A new member of an all-male (yes, there are still plenty of these) executive team I was working with was invited to their annual retreat. He told me that during the retreat, there was a lot of drinking and that the discussions about women were extremely uncomfortable. As a married man with a young daughter, the client told me he found the interactions offensive and uncomfortable. He pointedly asked, “I am a heterosexual white man and I find it uncomfortable. Can you imagine how someone who didn’t immediately fit in would feel?” Yes, as it turns out, I absolutely can! This is a blatant example but there are many more subtle examples. Most of the time they are not intentionally trying to be offensive. But that is no longer an excuse if it ever really was one. If you want more people to feel a sense of belonging, you have to include them in creating a place where that is possible.
 
This is the only way it happens. And there are no short cuts. 

Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners 21 years ago to collaborate with leaders, teams and organizations to create more productive, effective, and human people systems and practices. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you! 
 
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/09/418491/maternal-stress-during-pregnancy-linked-infant-illness
 
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25174703/
 

​Recently a client asked me how to spark more innovation on his teams and projects. I understand why businesses so often say that they want to be more innovative – it is a highly prized set of skills and has the ability to elevate an average product to a great one. A lot of folks subscribe to the idea that to be innovative, you have to be born with a certain personality, under a bright star, or be super smart. Though certain personality types have been shown to demonstrate more creativity, I don’t subscribe to the trait or “gifted” theory of innovation.
 
Everyone can be more innovative if they work in a climate where ideas can flourish, be expressed and listened to, and people aren’t afraid to make mistakes. 
 
The kiss of death for innovation is a climate grounded in control. But a climate without any supportive structure can also be problematic for innovation.
 
A couple years ago a leader I know well was frustrated that her employees didn’t seem to know how to innovate. I asked her if they didn’t know or they were afraid. She pushed back and told me how she had set up a strong team of smart people and told them they had “free rein” to design the project. She promised that she would not interfere and really wanted them to come up with the best, most innovative ideas and solutions. The team struggled, missed the deadline and asked for help.
 
In talking with the team members, it became clear that they had not taken the time to set up many team processes or structure. They just started working on the project. Their organization had team resources, but they thought too much corporate oversight would squash their creativity. When I met with them it was clear that they hadn’t established the processes or agreements on team behaviors they all needed to feel safe and like they truly belonged. 
 
What I would say is that all teams need the right structure and clear boundaries from management for them to flourish. The team structure must be self-determined by the team members. They need to take the time to identify the norms and processes that will support everyone feeling safe and supported to bring their best. There are almost always going to be expectations for some sort of outcome from a team. I find teams are comfortable with boundaries from management if they are clearly communicated before the team starts working. If possible, the expectations and boundaries shouldn’t change or be moving targets. That is a set-up and will most likely limit the team’s effectiveness. 
 
You don’t need a magic wand to create more innovation in your company. With the right structure and climate, every organization can be more innovative.  

Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners 21 years ago to collaborate with leaders, teams and organizations to create more productive, effective, and human people systems and practices. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you!