15 business principles on leadership, building brand confidence, followership and the new Workorder.
Linda Hamman is the CEO of Talk2Us, an agency that specialises in internal communication and building brands. A Civitas team member sat down with Linda to discuss how she started Talk2Us, leadership, managing people and doing meaningful work.
Summary of the best ideas from the discussion:
- Remuneration has become a hygiene factor, necessary, but not inspiring.
- Take your people on the journey with and share your stage when you get there.People buy people - your people are at the core of you having a successful brand.
- Expectation setting is a two way street - have you ever stopped to find out what your employees expectations are, what their deal-breakers may be?
- A leader must be able to articulate a narrative that creates a sense of mission and purpose for those in the business.
- People not buildings, machinery, technology is what builds confidence in a brand, invest in your people and people practices.
Leadership principles to live by
- Remuneration has become a hygiene factor, necessary, but not inspiring. People won't follow you just because you pay them. If you have that mindset it will hinder your ability to get ideas off the ground and create a culture of innovation.
- Take your people on the journey with and share your stage when you get there. Your messaging should be built around your purpose. Purpose provides meaning and meaning evokes involvement.
- Don’t underestimate the value of a well structured internal communication strategy and the skills leaders require to build confidence in your people.
Building brand confidence
- Building a brand is creating a personality that people have confidence and want to cuddle up to.
- Confidence gets followers. Followers build your reach and ensure you remain relevant. Get that right and the outcome will be increased market share.
- Before developing your messaging consider: A. What is my purpose? B. What value does our purpose provide? C. Why does it matter?
- Consider the cost of getting your message out vs the return from closing business
Doing meaningful work
- If all your success metrics are based on income your people will adopt the same attitude - don’t reward me, I don’t work. Meaning trumps Money.
- Talented individuals work hard at building identity capital, it’s MEANS a lot - if they can’t build it working with your organisation they won’t stay. Help them build their identity capital and they’ll build confidence in your brand.
Business success
- Success is when opportunity meets preparation. Explore opportunities, keep moving - you can’t stumble across the next best thing is you’re standing still.
- Courage up - tenacity and audacity = courage.
Followers - how to get and keep them
- Be authentic - authenticity is not a cookie cutter model of what business texts reckon you should be. It’s your identity capital - a set of beliefs driven by values evident through your behaviours, actions and words all wrapped up in a healthy dose of consistency.
- Public acknowledgement builds confidence - define success and recognise it, as often as possible.
The new workorder
- IR 4.0 means absolutely nothing unless you look at human digitisation. Society 5.0 is on our doorstep if your people aren’t ready neither is your business.
- The pandemic has been a reflection point for what a new Workorder - build your strategy around your people not your offices.
