Читать книгу Manage to Engage - Pamela Hackett - Страница 9

Both the firsthand business impact and the impact on my health allowed me to realize the empathy you needed during this time for your own people but also for your clients and customers. It also made me focus on the big picture – I needed my teams to feel as safe as they could, and we as a business needed them to remain engaged. This would not be something to navigate through alone. We doubled down on something we call HeadsUp and 1.5.30, a simple but meaningful global movement we kicked off with a rallying cry of “great things happen at the intersection of people and technology,” to remind people to prioritize human connection as a way to better engage with their teams, their communities, and society. 1.5.30 is a quick, once-a-day check-in (1), a once-a-week progress chat (5), and a once-a-month development and coaching conversation (30). HeadsUp refers to people lifting their heads from their devices to actively engage and focus on people. At the time we launched HeadsUp, we had no idea a global pandemic would slam the world's doors shut and create a societal need for a HeadsUp movement. As a backstory, we picked the unusual launchpad of Singapore in 2019 to unveil HeadsUp. After all, Singapore is one of the most digitally fluent and innovative countries on the planet, but also, according to a recent Qualtrics study, was one of the laggards in employee engagement.¹ When COVID-19 hit and much of the world went home, HeadsUp was more than relevant. We knew we needed to all remain HeadsUp. We needed to ensure that people lifted their noses out of their technology and connected with other people, albeit through technology when they went remote. But while it is labeled remote, feeling remote was the last thing people wanted during this time. After all, remember what you don't do when you work from home: you don't commute. You don't stop and grab coffee on the way to work. You don't stop and say hi to your colleagues at the office kitchen, in the locker room, or on the shop floor. You don't get the human contact you previously enjoyed. You may also be working on your kitchen table, balancing your laptop on one knee while bouncing your baby on the other knee. It's different. After the novelty wore off, we needed to be prepared for the new routine of the new reality. People saw that they needed to better engage. HeadsUp became a vehicle.

Fast forward past the height of the global pandemic, and HeadsUp becomes a mindset dedicated to encouraging better leadership at every level, irrespective of where people work. It's about developing leaders who prioritize connecting with people and human interaction in order to achieve their aspirations and build extraordinary businesses and communities. Great leaders know how to leverage technology to do that. This is a global need in the workplace, at home, and in society in general. HeadsUp is one of many tools that enable you to manage to engage.

Today, HeadsUp is both a business and a social movement. How effectively we do this now will determine how effectively our people, teams, and organizations not only come out of this period but how they show up in the future. Our wellness will depend on it. Our next-generation leaders will follow on from it. Our engagement will hinge on it.