I could welcome you back, tell you September is the new January and remind you that Q4 is just around the corner, but your inbox will have plenty of this already!
Instead, I want to offer you a different perspective on what could make a real difference to your performance, and that of your team over the coming months.
Everyone may be back, but they are not returning to the same reality.
Some folk feel refreshed and ready to move, while others have returned to the long-term change fatigue they briefly stepped away from. Most, (including you dear reader!) are likely carrying uncertainty about AI, job security, reduced headcount, frozen budgets and the continued expectation to deliver more with less. It’s a lot!
Those differing realities will also be sitting around your leadership table. The same strategy can feel like an opportunity to one person, a risk to another and wholly unrealistic to a third, yet everyone may still nod along.
What looks like alignment may simply be people saying the right things in the moment, while the real, honest conversation happens afterwards. This is where cultural and business problems start to fester.
So how do you surface and support these different realities before they affect decisions, relationships and results?
Marmite® is a registered trademark of Unilever. This graphic is an illustrative parody and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Marmite/Unilever.
The Marmite Stick
Let me introduce you to one of my tools, The Marmite Stick, a deceptively simple technique I first created for a client in 2018. A founder of a rapidly scaling business wanted his senior leadership team to have permission to speak with greater honesty and impact. But he was missing my speciality: HOW!
It is called The marmite Stick because people tend to love Marmite or hate it. There is no vanilla middle ground.
You can use The Marmite Stick for yourself and your own growth as a leader.
I’m sharing how to use it with your team.
There is however, an important warning: The Marmite Stick is a shortcut to the truth, but i7t is not a shortcut to trust.
Before you go live you must be honest with yourself about whether you are truly ready to hear the answers.
1) Use my REAL Score Test to gauge the level of trust you think you will have in the room out of 10, avoiding 7.
Why no 7? Because 7 is where we hide when we don’t want to commit an honest answer. Anything below 6.5 means you need to work on and build psychological safety before using The Marmite Stick to gain maximum value.
2) Then consider what you would find hardest to hear.
As the senior leader, you must commit to listening without becoming defensive, dismissive or rushing to explain or fix. HOW you respond will show your team whether honesty is genuinely welcome.
If you punish the first brave answer, even subtly or subconsciously, nobody will risk offering you a second.
Using the tool
1) Choose one specific topic
Focus on something that’s important to the team right now. It could be the strategy, a proposed change, the way decisions are being made or anything currently helping or hindering high performance.
Complete this sentence: What do we love and hate about…?
2) Start with what people hate
Pass your Marmite Stick around the table. Each person holds it and shares what they hate about the topic and why.
3) Repeat with what people love
Go round the table again, asking each person to share what they love and why. Removing the safe middle ground means people cannot retreat into everything being ‘fine’ or ‘broadly on track’. They have to name and share what they really think.
This brings the assumptions, concerns and opportunities shaping each person’s view or their subconscious and into the room. Used well, it gives the team access to what I call The Naked Truth: what is really happening under the hood that could either accelerate performance or derail it.
The Marmite Stick is an effective leadership tool to identify what to explore, what to challenge and what to protect. HOW to turn different perspectives into positive action is the deeper work.
I use The marmite Stick and other tools from my High-Stakes Leadership Mentoring® work to help senior leaders and their executive teams surface their Naked Truth, strengthen trust and turn honest conversations into better decisions and results.
Taking The HOW of High Performance to New York!
One of my personal ambitions for my book The HOW of High Performance was to take its ideas and practical tools to leaders around the world. In October, this dream will become a reality when I kick off the first leg of my Global Book Tour in New York.
I will be delivering four keynotes and talks, including events for WICT, The Athena Project (an invitation-only membership community network focused on modern leadership) and IBM, bringing insights and proven methods from The HOW of High Performance to new audiences.
At a time when so many leaders are navigating relentless change and overwhelm, inspiration alone is not enough. People need practical ideas they can take away and use.
