Is it time to drop the C bomb?

We’re done with it. We aren’t even going to talk about it. Here are five other C bombs that you could drop in your 2022 strategy meetings this month and next.

Culture

Unless you’ve put any sort of work into your culture over the last few weeks or months, there’s no denying that your work culture will have seen sweeping changes since the start of 2020. If you haven’t thought about this or done any sort of discovery work around your culture, then you really need to do so in 2022. If your teams are trying to maintain a pre-pandemic working culture, they’re probably struggling right now.

Start with a culture SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) and dig deep into the Ws and Ts. Remember to involve your teams in the parts that aren’t going so well, as they’ll be the ones living any cultural changes you do decide to implement.

Take a look at the cultural web and really think about the individual components that make a good culture. You’ll likely spot more than a few holes.

Cohesion

Are you doing anything proactive to ensure going back to Zoom calls isn’t going to start building those walls back up? Teamwork is going to be massive in 2022 as we aim to rebuild the economy, despite any crystal ball work going on right now. Figuring out how to make it happen if we are away from our desks is the challenge.

This is where Patrick Lencioni’s Five Behaviours model could be a great solution. The elements of the model are trust, conflict, commitment, accountability and results. Rather than focusing on the results and asking your potentially concerned, potentially demoralised, potentially distanced teams to crack on, start digging into those vulnerabilities and create a safe space where they can be discussed. It’s hard to force cohesion if there isn’t, for example, trust.

Candour

You may have heard the term ‘radical candour’ before. Simply put, this is just the way we speak to and treat each other, mainly around delivering honesty in the correct way — and it’s surprising how many of us are getting it wrong.

It’s so easy to get tied up in projects and deadlines that you suddenly become something of an android. To you, firing off orders via email or letting someone know their work didn’t meet the mark at 10pm may be the norm, but for those on the receiving end, it could be causing them sleepless nights.

Candour is all about delivery. You can still be direct with your feedback, but give it in a way that reinforces the positives and leaves the person feeling motivated to make the changes. Instead of picking faults, explain what went wrong and provide a solution that follows SMART principles.

Ask yourself if you’re giving plenty of constructive feedback and checking in on how your teams are feeling more often than you usually would too. You may be seeing 2022 as a massive opportunity to hit growth targets and wipe the slate clean, but that may seem like a daunting task to your people.

This is where your candour could make the real difference. Just by tweaking the way you communicate, you could get much better results than defaulting to the ‘panic mode’ we’ve all probably been guilty of in 2021.

Take a look at this article that explains radical candour in depth.

Collaboration

This is massive for 2022. The key to success for organisations in the upcoming period of rapid growth will be making sure the different parts of the machine are all pulling in the right direction. But how are you going to get teams and departments, possibly full of new people, to work on stuff if they’re nowhere near each other?

Similar to cohesion, collaboration relies massively on understanding and communication, which, again, may be tough on video calls. Really question if you’re giving teams and departments to get aligned before they kick off work and look out for the potential blockers and barriers that come with asking two different areas to suddenly merge on a project or strategy.

Think about appointing collaboration champions who are there to question whether everyone understands what’s going on. Get them to break the ice too, and act as facilitators when conflict does arise. Push for open and honest communications and drive that accountability.

Communication

Probably the most important one on the list. During crises, communication is often the difference between hiding and waiting for things to blow over, or standing tall and meeting challenges head on.

But in 2022, communication is probably going to be the defining factor as we see our economy climbing back up the hill

Take some time to check your internal comms and see what the calendar looks like. Build in opportunities to share the good news and point out the sharp bends and forks in the road ahead. Make sure your vision and strategy has been communicated clearly and that everyone has understood it.

The great news is that there’s a bigger national communication strategy that has put us in a much better position than last year. Use this optimism in your own comms and really focus on the Spring and Summer, highlighting the bright horizons and how you’ll benefit from them as an organisation. Don’t fall in line with the doom and gloom caused by the media right now — stand out from the crowd with positive messaging.

Bonus: Christmas

Come on, it’s the best time of the year, right!? Park all of this stuff until January, log onto the Christmas Zoom quiz and do another big C — chill out. You need to rest before smashing it next year, so keep your notifications off and take some time for yourself.

Are you ready to drop a different kind of C bomb? Let us know by getting in touch on LinkedIn or Twitter.