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Lead with Thanks
Welcome to Lead with Thanks, the bite-sized interview series where Thankbox Co-Founder Tsvetelina Hinova chats to leaders who put gratitude at the heart of how they lead.
They share stories of their most memorable moments of appreciation, as well as highly practical tools and methods that have worked well throughout their careers.
Ready to lead with thanks? Let's get going!
Lead with Thanks
S2 Ep1: "Stop Choosing Between People and Performance" with David Liddle
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In this episode, Tsvetelina Hinova sits down with David Liddle - a leading voice in people, culture, and leadership transformation.
With over 25 years of experience, David shares why appreciation is not a “soft” concept, but a critical driver of performance, connection, and meaningful work.
They explore why many organisations still struggle to take appreciation seriously -often relying on legacy systems built around control, hierarchy, and metrics - and what needs to shift for businesses to thrive truly.
David introduces the idea of “and, not or” leadership - showing that leaders don’t have to choose between empathy and accountability. The most effective organisations are learning to do both.
The conversation also dives into real-world transformation.
At organisations like the BBC, traditional grievance processes are being replaced with a “resolution-first” approach, focused on dialogue, trust, and early intervention. Managers are trained in “quality conversations” - building skills like active listening, curiosity, and emotional awareness to resolve issues before they escalate.
David also shares examples from his work with organisations such as Aviva and Burberry, where embedding appreciation into leadership and culture has helped shift performance, engagement, and relationships at scale.
If you’re rethinking leadership, culture, or how to build a more human workplace, this episode is full of actionable insights to get you started.
Welcome to Leader Fang. In season one, we explore why appreciation matters away. In season two, we're going a step further. Because believing in appreciation is one thing, but making the case for it inside your organization is another. In each episode, I'm speaking with leaders and practitioners who have to justify appreciation in business terms. Tying it to retention, performance, culture, and real business outcome. If you've ever struggled to get buy-in, budget, or belief from the leadership team, this season is for you. Today I'm really excited to welcome someone whose name will be very familiar to many people in the HR world. David, welcome. I'm so excited to have you on today.
SPEAKER_00Oh, it's Fatalina. I'm so happy to be here.
SPEAKER_03I was actually introduced to you by the amazing Perry Tim, so super grateful to him. And since then, our paths kind of just get crossing in the HR community. You have had an enormous impact on how many of us think about people and culture through your work with the TCM group, through your writing, through your speaking. You've helped push so many key conversations for all of us in HR, and I'm extremely grateful for that. And I should say that I absolutely love your new book. I have it, you can see my notes here as well. I have it here on my desk all the time, and I refer to it in conversations and I talk about it to everyone who would listen. So well done, congratulations. It's it's brilliant. Yeah, so thank you so much for being part of Lead with Thanks and talking about appreciation. And um, yeah, I'll let you introduce yourself and then we can dive into the questions. But tell us about you, um, what your career journey, what are you passionate about, what's next for you?
SPEAKER_00Svetlina, well, if appreciation is about making us feel good and positive. I appreciate your appreciation of my contribution. It means a lot. And I think anyone uh I've I've got a very simple saying, a friend of Perry's is a very good friend of mine. And I've enjoyed I've many, many uh happy years of getting to know Perry, but obviously it's been great getting to know yourself, Svetlina, and the work that you're doing through Thank Box. So thank you for having me this morning. Uh it's great to be here. So uh David Iddall, I am um I run an organization called the TCM Group. I also edit a magazine called The People Leader, and I'm the president of a body called the People and Culture Institute, which is an evidence and data um gathering organization to support the shift from Legacy HR into this uh sort of legacy HR and leadership, I should say, into a more modern and progressive sort of people culture leadership, um, focused organization driven by um a sort of deep emphasis on purposeful workplaces. And I think that's really about how do we appreciate each other and also appreciate our contribution to the purpose, the meaning of work. Um about building values-based systems within our organizations and helping to use our values almost as an alchemy to create gold in our workplaces. And I think that really leads into the work around appreciation. How do we align our behaviors and capabilities to the values of our organizations? And finally, it's around um culture. It's about how do we build really trans, truly transformational cultures. And what I mean by that is how do we build cultures where people thrive, teams flourish, organizations succeed, because we put fairness, inclusion, kindness, uh, sustainability at the heart of our culture, not just because these are the right things to do, Svetalina, and we feel that we can thrive and flourish in those organizations, but because modern progressive people leaders, business leaders recognize that when we put people, culture, leadership together and combine them, that we start to see higher performance for our organizations. And at a time where our financial figures here in the UK are a little bit below where we might want them to be, perhaps just maybe it's time to do things a little bit differently. Maybe a people first agenda will unlock some of the productivity and economic challenges we're facing. So that's the work I do. I've got 25 plus years of working with the most amazing organizations in the UK and globally. And uh yeah, but that's a little bit of me in a nutshell.
SPEAKER_03I I love it. And yes, I totally agree. Maybe, maybe it's time to try something different, something that we've overlooked uh for a very long time. But that's amazing. You obviously have such a vast experience in the field, and um obviously you believe that appreciation is important in the workplace. But I'll start with a simple question: why? Why do you think it's important? And you've touched a little bit on that, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think I mean the first thing is like we we seek meaning as human beings. We seek connection with social animals, we seek meaning in in our lives and in our workplaces, in our in our families. I think the building of appreciation and having appreciation in our workplaces and in our working relationships helps to give our work a sense of meaning and connects us with the people around us and ultimately connects us with our organizations. And all of the research that I've read and seen and on and my own personal experiences, when we feel connected to our organizations, when we feel connected to each other, it's in those moments that we begin to do some of our best work. We can really show up and deliver high performance, productive relationships in our organizations. And I think there's a direct link therefore between appreciation and high performance. And conversely, when we don't feel appreciated, and unfortunately in my work, I've met many people who don't, because of poorly managed change or conflicts or disagreements or silos existing within the organization or disconnect for whatever reason, or they feel they work in a in an unpleasant culture, or even if in worse degrees in a in a toxic culture. My experience is the the the exact opposite is true when people don't feel appreciated and valued and connected. They don't feel that their performance counts. It doesn't matter. It doesn't people don't care about me as a human being and how I show up. And it's in those moments I think, you know, the old phrases of presentedism and all of those terms that we start to see, but just the general malaise at work, I think starts to take effect. So I get excited when I see organizations putting appreciation, deep appreciation in the way that they they work. And there's these four lovely phrases I love to hear when I'm working with managers and leaders. And it's such a powerful set of phrases. And how we come together. So I see you as an employee, I hear you as a colleague. I understand you because I get your needs and goals and motivations. I appreciate you for who you are. And those, when we hear those statements, whether they're a leadership level, managerial level through our HR teams, it's in that moment that we get this incredible, unbreakable bond between people in our workplaces. And so that in my my my life's work is about creating the spaces for those four statements to be made and to be made with authenticity and conviction and sincerity. Wow.
SPEAKER_03It's it's amazing what you're seeing here, and I completely agree. We all crave it, don't we? It doesn't matter whether you admit it or not, it doesn't matter what generation you're part of. You you crave that appreciation and to feel seen and your work matter. We spend such a I mean, most of our life at work, and imagine spending it in a place where you don't think your contribution is valued or you're contributing at all. It's it's it's difficult. And uh yeah, I what I continue to not understand, I guess, in these uh s circumstances is there's so much proof that appreciation matters, but why do organizations continue to see it as soft despite all the all the business impact that we know it has? What what do you think about that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think it's a really important question. Um and it can be frustrating, can't it, as well, if we perceive that appreciation, understanding the people-centered approach feel feels soft. And I think when I've worked with organizations fettily, you know, and I think that's you know, not myself, I see many and many others would have done, the traditional management models and systems and processes around control, measurement, centralized sort of power and authority within the organization. And it was about efficiency, art systems, balance scorecard measurements, objectives and key results, although they do give space for appreciation, okay, but previously KPIs and key performance indicators. So many of the systems and processes in our workplaces are built around, I don't know, hierarchy, command and control, centralized decision making, and leadership. Hegemony. So the idea of emotion, all the stuff that happens here and here and in my gut, relationships, well-being, appreciation, they became, I think, secondary or secondary to the way that we think about the idea of work. I think the smart organizations who are getting this right are recognising that those financial metrics, whilst they're easier to quantify and relational metrics are harder, the organizations who are starting to get this right are now balancing the fiscal or financial with the relational and recognising that through our relationships, how we feel, how we show up, how we are how we relate to one another, how we resolve problems constructively, how we build dialogue, compassion, engagement into our working relationships actually isn't just about good for people. It's showing up in financial consequences and measurable outcomes. And some of that's as productivity and performance as as as we're as we know. Some of it's about attracting customers. You know, as customers, as consumers, people want to put money into organizations where you know they feel that people are being treated properly. People feel a sense of social value and social justice. We're feeling this all the time in the way that our world is working. So we want to work with organizations who share our values and show up and deliver our values. And I think for many investors, they are also wanting to invest money and that private equity venture capitalists. I was interviewing a chief people officer and a CEO last week who was talking about people-first private equity funding. There's always this perception that private equity and investors are looking purely for return on investment. And I've done three through my people leader platform and Transforming Work Videocasts, I've done three interviews, consecutive interviews, with chief people CEOs in private equity-backed organizations. And they've all told me that actually our stereotypical view of PE is well it might be true in some quarters, but what they've all said to me is the private equity does not put pressure on the organization to just get hard financial measures. They all work with private equity backers who are about compassion, dialogue, and people first agenda. So it's seeing this now through PE and venture capitalism, that there's also a driver towards a people first approach because they understand that if we don't appreciate each other and show up and resolve issues constructively, effectively, appreciate each other through the line, then actually that has a negative impact on future financial return on investment. So it's harder to measure, isn't it? Let's be honest. If I say thank you, Svetlina, what is that as impactful as me putting a£10,000 investment and a new piece of digital tech? It's harder to quantify, but the best organizations are starting to do it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Wow. Do you know that's a that's a really big shift if private equity firms are starting to put this in their center of making decisions? It's incredible, and it just shows um you know the path that we've all walked to understand the importance of appreciation and um you know saying thank you. And I completely agree. It's really difficult to to quantify it. And I guess that's why we continue to get pushback sometimes, or HR leaders continue to get pushback from their senior uh team um about when they want to introduce uh an appreciation program or a platform or etc. Is is this one of the biggest uh objections that you hear from senior leaders when it when it comes to appreciation?
SPEAKER_00I think so. I mean there were there there are there's I don't necessarily get an objection per se from senior leaders. What I get is a sense of I hadn't really thought about it. So appreciation is quite a deep element. So as a as a someone who works in mediation, competent resolution and change, cultural change, I'm a big believer in the concept of appreciative inquiry. So about assuming positive intent on the part of the others and and seeking seeking a strength, a deeper understanding of our our strengths as human beings and our strengths within the system. And as a for example, I don't hear an objection to strength-based approach or people-centered approaches. What I hear is organizations, and this is a very common issue for for organizations that I work with, they'll say to me, as a manager or as a people, HR business partner or people partner to give them a sort of more modern moniker, what they're saying to me is I need to drive accountability and have a system in place in order to be able to hold people to account and be able to prevent them to be some sort of a risk down the line, all financial, legal risks, and so on and so forth. And they kind of get that. They kind of develop systems and processes. And where I come in as a challenge is say, okay, well, let's just look at what impact does this have on our people. Does it pull them out or does it bring them together? Does it kind of create spaces for dialogue? When we're managing performance, are we simply managing performance, for example, based on what went wrong or what went well 12 months ago? Or are we focusing on the strengths and skills that the person brings to the team and how we can build on that for the future and then create collaborative systems within our workplaces, not whereby we are not just working collaboratively, but appreciating each appreciating each other's skills and contributions to that workplace. And my experience of management and leadership is that it's not that they don't get that or that they are in some way opposed to that. It's what they do is they scratch their head and say to me, but we've never looked at it like that before. We've never thought about the future of work. So what that requires in that way, in in in that sort of appreciative, empathetic, compassionate way. And what I see is a sort of false dichotomy in our organizations. We have there's either appreciation or accountability, either compassion or compliance, there's either performance or or retribution and when things are going wrong. And actually, so many of the organization systems that we've developed that I see operating work in these sort of binary systems or oppositional systems. So the work I do with people leaders and and business leaders is to say actually, it doesn't have to be oppositional either or, it can be and both. So you can be appreciative and hold people to account. You can be empathetic and have strong, robust systems that drive performance. You can be values-based and appreciative and still give difficult feedback. You doesn't, it doesn't have to be one or the other. And one of the um areas that I I find exciting is when I do work around systems and structure and culture, is building in this, what I call it, a how you can have your cake and eat it, Svetelina. You can you can do both. You can be tough and tender. You can be future focused and draw from the past. So when we start to have the conversations with managers and people professionals and people leaders about this and both, and looking at the nature of the system, which has become intrinsically binary and reductive and drives a fixed mindset. And instead saying, actually, how do we build systems where we can have both of these things? And you, as a manager and people partner and an enabler through dialogue and coaching and building systems which promote um connection and appreciation, you can have all of the things, you can have both of them. And that's one of my driving features in terms of organizations, is not seeing them as a resistance to change, it's that there's very little understanding in my experience because we've become uh wedded to these habitually destructive, binary, oppositional, and reductive mindsets, languages, behaviors, and processes. And that is changing, and it's so exciting to see that change.
SPEAKER_03Change in mindset. Like for so for so long, we thought that emotions and being compassionate and kind are weakness of a leader, right? Like you have to be tough, you have to know exactly what you want, everyone needs to follow it. Um, and I think there's a there's a massive shift that's happening right now, as exactly as you say, understanding, or it needs to happen more of understanding that you can be both. And actually, a good leader needs to be both.
SPEAKER_00And I was I was with the British Army yesterday, uh doing the training through the um Army Advanced Development Program. I had two wonderful uh colleagues from from my organization, TCM, um, David and Andy, doing training with the um sort of sort of senior military leaders. Um, and what we were looking at there was about emotional intelligence and how emotional intelligence and an understanding of ourselves and of other can then help to re-improve the situation or the sort of SOS, self-buther and situation. Appreciation as well. And it's really it was a really interesting point yesterday working with these very senior military uh leaders, and I've seen it in other organizations across sectors, is sometimes the appreciation isn't just an outward appreciation of other, it's also a deeper inward appreciation of self and understanding how I feel, why I feel the these emotions, what impact do they have in me, and what are they telling me about myself? And what I loved in the conversation we were having yesterday was the emotion becomes a communicating medium. It's telling me something about what's going on for me. So appreciation isn't just I appreciate you because I hear you, I see you, I understand you, I appreciate you. We can then bring that into myself and say, okay, how am I feeling and why am I feeling this? I appreciate my feelings. I understand and see that and hear that, and that helps me to connect me to myself. And it's a really interesting aspect of leadership and management about connecting to self, to appreciate myself, and then build appreciation of other through empathy and connection. And that takes a little bit of work on ourselves, Fettalina. And this is the kind of coaching, mentoring spaces that we need to see much more in our organizations so we can work on ourselves as well as working on those important relationships.
SPEAKER_03That's such a shift in mindset, and I love you're saying that because you know, I'm so focused on appreciating others and appreciating people the right way, the way they want to be appreciated. And I keep thinking around how can we make sure that people know how other people like to be appreciated because it can backfire. If you use the wrong way towards them, it can really backfire. But you're absolutely right. It all starts with those people knowing how they like to be appreciated, knowing what they they appreciate about themselves, and and it's yeah, it's uh it's such an important point to understand yourself first with before you're ready to give appreciation to anybody else.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, absolutely. And also you you'll learn what the appreciation does is it's it's not just about the sort of if we see feeling not appreciated as a sort of as a as a threat, so we get that sort of um that that that fly to or fight response, the cortisol adrenaline response. That we're very familiar with, we've all felt that in our in our tummies and felt that feeling and that almost the hollowing out for us.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So if appreciation is about shifting the dial and actually saying, okay, well, let's move into you kind of have a bit more of a positive feeling. And that's that's a chemical. There's dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphin. So you you we I feel a little better, I feel a little bit happier. I'm more likely to have a high growth rather than a fixed mindset. I'm more likely to listen to you to understand what you're saying than listening to you to defend. And what that does and appreciation is doing is because it's unlocking this sort of inner shift in our in our heads and our hearts and our guts, and I'm moving from fixed mindset to high growth mindset. What the appreciation does is it almost turns on a key. It's a key to learning. So as I'm learning, I can learn about who I am. And what what what do I need as a leader or a manager or a colleague? And also what it does, it enables you to switch the switch on around inner learning and understand your own needs and motivations. And then when you understand what your needs and motivations are, and I do, and we're having a conversation because we appreciate one another and it feels safe and supported and it's in that space. We suddenly feel like realise, Svetalina, that what you need is similar to me. We see convergence in in narrative and convergence in need. And when we see convergence in need, and it's something I Said at the very start of this podcast, it's about building then that sort of sense of common purpose and alignment to meaning. Well, that alignment to meaning is triggered, or the key to that is the appreciation, which then unlocks the learning and the understanding of need to drive convergence. So there's a really powerful the appreciation itself is useful. Of course, being feeling appreciated is is is is meaningful and useful. But actually, we we want to go beyond this. We want to see actually well, what is the appreciation unlocking in terms of creating these connections between human beings at times of change or crisis or just wanting to do better work?
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's that's so that's just amazing. Sorry, I'm in a bit of an oh, and it makes such good sense. And I guess the next thing that comes to mind is how do you relate this magic that can happen from simple appreciation? How do you relate this to the leadership team? And what have you seen working well and clicking with them? Because what I find personally sometimes um there's a lot of focus on the financials, and you said that that the financials are driven to an extent by how we feel emotionally. Um, how do you relate all this positive impact that appreciation and feeling good can have on the organization to the leadership team?
SPEAKER_00That's a great question. So if all if organizations, not all organizations are going through this, but many organizations are going through a sort of rethink about the concept of leadership. So we're starting to see a shift away from autocracy and hierarchy as the primary systems for leadership to a more distributed model of leadership. I call it integrative leadership. Some people call it situational leadership. It goes by many names, it's all very similar, but integrative leadership to me, the way I define integrative leadership, I should say, is transformational, the leader as a role model, as a visionary, as an engagement, an enabler. Um servant leadership, it's about serving the needs of others and serving the needs of the teams. And inclusive leadership is about including all voices and providing spaces where we can show up as our best version of ourselves. So integrative leadership is transformational, servant, and inclusive combined. It's not completely new, but it's a maybe a new way of thinking. What it does then is shifts the sort of the structure of our organization from autocratic, command and control, hierarchical, and uh to this model. Appreciation provides one of the enablers to enable that to happen. So if a leader is wanting to build a high trust, high communication, connected environment within their organization, the challenge that they'll face is if there is, oh, those things don't exist. So, how do I build appreciation as a driver of trust, engagement, connection, a sense of, again, building performance and productivity? So the question that I ask to leaders it is, yeah, what's the business case? What are the fiscal benefits? What are the financial measures? How will this show up on your dashboard? So on and so forth. But also, what's keeping you awake at night as a leader who's trying to shift the dial on leadership? What are the challenges that you're facing? Where do you see these issues breaking down around trust and compliance and relationship and so on and so forth? Because you're a human being too, as a leader. And when we start to think of ourselves in that sort of sense of leadership as a sort of a human expression, and also this is where I love this word with leaders, because then we can start to say, as a leader, what's your purpose as a leader? And this is where we get to the really interesting stuff. Because what I believe, and I speak to so many leaders, they believe, they tell me the role of the leader is to engender leadership in others. It's I no longer possess leadership as a competitive advantage. I possess my leadership as an opportunity to be able to enable others. There's almost a sort of an aggregation of leadership across the organization. And within that is a level of appreciation because we all bring something different to the table. Sometimes we want to follow, sometimes we want to be in the front, sometimes we want to teach, sometimes we want to learn. So it can be all of these things. And sitting within that is an appreciation of myself, of my other, of others, and of the situation. So, what you know, business benefits and dashboards and KPIs and you know, efficiencies, we can build all of those things in for leaders. And I think this is where the the people function needs to show up and help leaders together these build these dashboards. But for leaders, I think where I find the real transformational change around appreciation and having a more values and people-centered approach is about how do you show up as a leader and what challenges do you face when you're trying to change and shift the dial from sitting in an eighth-floor executive office to being a function to serve and support the organization. What does that actually look like? And what does it feel like? And that's where I see some of the biggest transformational change. Um yeah, in in in the way that I think can work with about leaders with leaders.
SPEAKER_03I I love that. Two things that you said. The first one that you're kind of changing the perception of, you know, nice to have, but what would break if you don't have it, if you don't have that that trust, what will break and where would it break, which I think is super key because it it changes your understanding or the way you look at it to an actual risk for the organization instead of you know, you're actually pro solving a problem that's about to come if you don't fix the trust or the appreciation um feeling in the business. And then the second thing is actually turning it towards the leader. So it's not even just for the employees, but it's about the leader and how they want to show up as a leader, which which is an incredible shift as well.
SPEAKER_00It really is. And it's but it but you know, I think it helps leaders be if so as we move further up the organizational hierarchy, it's it's tough at the top, and it can become a very lonely experience, very difficult experience. We love boss bashing in in the UK, it's a it's a national pastime. Um, so we kind of you know we look for the leader to fail. So the leader's always senses my name's above the door, failure can have an existential threat on my career, it can be lonelier and further up the top we go. So it's a tough, I'm not, you know, I'm not I'm not trying to excuse poor leadership behaviours and bad behaviour on our leadership and and be overly um you know hugely sympathetic to those points, but I am sympathetic to the challenges that leaders face. So I think if we try and humanize the concept of leadership and support leaders as they make the shift from those old models of leadership, of I said, autocracy, compliance, command and control, to this more distributed model of integrative leadership, we it's important, nay critical to the process of transformation, that the leader is being given the opportunity to show up as a human being. And we can say to our leaders, I hear you, I see you, I understand you, I appreciate you. Because if we don't do that, there's a schism and a disconnect, and that generates not cognitive dissonance, although it is, but also organizational dissonance. And that dissonance is where we then find ourselves having to work and plug it with systems and policies and processes. And one final point of a canar and leaders, you cannot do this, and then when things go wrong, rely on a disciplinary process or a grievance procedure or some sort of an old-style capability policy. Modern leaders, the kind I'm working with at the BBC, at Next, the Burbia, these big organizations now across the world, are starting to say to achieve this, the frameworks within our organizations, they also need to shift. Because we cannot just take people through a formal, rigid, retributive adversarial process when things go wrong, because that in itself is planting the seeds of division and fear and harm and hurt into our organization. So there also has to be more of a systems-based view, and that's where we call on our people leaders to say, look, listen to what's going on and design systems and processes that are aligned to an appreciative organization, not a retributive adversary and a confrontational. And I love the sound of a grievance procedure being shredded, because that says that the organization for at last, thank you, at last, is now listening to its people, be that managers, leaders, or employees, and doing something better and doing something differently.
SPEAKER_03It's the signal, isn't it? What signal are you sending to your organization? Is it a signal that if you make a mistake, you know, there's consequences, or if you make a mistake, we're gonna fix it together because I trust you and you trust me, and we've got each other's back, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely right. 100% and I think that's the message, but then the policies and frameworks and systems, they also need to reinforce that, not be the antithesis of that. So yeah, correct, exactly right.
SPEAKER_03And I think uh you made a really key point there as well, that appreciation is not just manager down to their employees, it goes from the employees to the manager as well. And I think it's time we shred this, like the manager is a bad person, or the leader is uh we're we're looking for their mistakes. We need to show them appreciation as well.
SPEAKER_00And yes, absolutely. And and it's kind of if we're not doing that, then it creates dissonance and disconnect, and that creates friction. Friction creates conflict, and then we just spend our entire lives in conflict, and we know how badly organizations manage conflicts, Fatalina. So, you know, so if all we're doing is creating these gaps and schisms and dissonance, then all we're doing is is is solving conflict, and that just means that we we're wasting an inordinate amount of time resolving the issues because we haven't designed the system sufficiently to build trust, appreciation, compassion, dialogue and recognition. And that almost gives roles meaning. It's like I my role is to solve the conflict. Well, design those destructive conflicts out and design in constructive dialogue and meaning and appreciation rather than we all we're all walking around very busy, spending a lot of time and money putting out all of these fires, you know, and then we throw stones at the fire engines when they arrive. It's actually let's go in and put sprinkler systems into our organizations and and prevent these things, or even better still, have really good fire safety training for our managers to prevent the fires occurring in the first place. And that's again a a big part of the work I'm doing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, very, very key. Don't wait until it's uh burn everything's burning to fix things, right? Anticipate what could go wrong and back to the trust, like where could it break? Can you give us an example of uh a place where you or an organization where they've introduced uh appreciation and they've managed to scale it and what impact it had for them or changed their policies around including more appreciation and trust in them?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean it worked with so many organizations. So, I mean, I I'll pick on one or two that are kind of maybe have won awards because they they're really nice kind of examples where it's also being appreciated. And, you know, I can speak to the work we've done at Aviva, the insurance company, at Burberry. I uh I think I mentioned at next at the Metropolitan Police, we've done some really interesting work, and we're also working very, very closely with colleagues across the BBC at the moment. So we're running out programs. I mean, the BBC is really an interesting organization, um, and and they've spoken about their work very, very publicly at the BBC because I think they're very proud of what they're doing. So within the BBC, what we've created is what we've created, what they've created, I suppose, and we've partnered with them, is what they call a resolution-first approach within the BBC. So the BBC, like many, many organizations, has old systems of management, legacy HR processes, and many of the old style approaches, discipline and grievance, and so on and so forth. And of course, the BBC's been in the in the news many for many times for some of the problems they've experienced. But they wanted to do something differently. They wanted to build appreciation, dialogue, they wanted to build listening into the way that our the organization worked. So we undertook a deep diagnostic, a really deep dive into the nature of issues resolution and conflict and change management, and we went and listened and listened very deeply to colleagues across, as it was then, in BBC Scotland, and then that's rolled out more widely. And what people were saying to us with one voice is they realized that the old systems weren't there and imposed on them because they were trying to cause harm, is because no one had really stopped and said, does this build really strong relationships? So the BBC took a very courageous step and removed in Scotland, and then latterly in news, and now across the whole of the corporation, removed those grievance processes and those old legacy systems. And we're on site at the moment, even today, training managers in a program we call quality conversations. And quality conversation is just one aspect of a resolution-first approach. Removing the grievance procedure, building a resolution center within the BBC, a focus on appreciative inquiry and positive psychology as drivers of change rather than retribution, blame, and compliance-driven approaches. But quality conversations, I love the phrase, because quality conversations is about how, as a manager, do I use the tools I have to be able to create a really great conversation between myself and my colleague. And the tools we carry with us every day, Svetalina, they are there for us all the time. They don't have to, we don't have to get onto a PowerPoint slide deck or go onto onto the internet because they are firmly stuck right there. And what we're saying to managers is there they are. You've got the tools, they're firmly attached to your head. How do you actively listen? How do you show curiosity? Yeah, how do we ask questions rather than tell them? How do we invite people to share their feelings of work? How do you feel the emotions? How do we reframe some of those emotions? So I hear you're feeling frustrated today. I see you, I hear you, I appreciate you, I understand you, I understand it's frustrating. What do you need in order to be able to address the frustration and turn that frustration into a more enjoyable work in a relationship? So we're developing skills around reframing language and helping people move away from more rigid positions. And quite so quality conversations is built on those foundations of appreciation. But it's more than a thank you conversation. I'm not saying that appreciation is seen as a thank you conversation. It's a deeper, I talked earlier about it's the key to turning these things on. So the quality conversations that we're running across the BBC and so many organizations are about giving managers the skills to activate these and not feel fearful of having a conversation. If I ask you how you're feeling and you get upset, I know how to be empathetic. I know how to manage strong emotions because those are the skills. And you asked me earlier about sort of soft sort of soft skills and soft capabilities. These are core skills, these are core capabilities. The idea that they're somehow soft versus hard skills is anathema. These are the core skills for the work of today, but they're the core skills of the future of work. And the reason I say that as well is because if you ask someone how they're feeling and they tell you they're frustrated or upset or angry or worried or uncertain, all of the things that we might say. I think you ask them what they need in order to be able to feel those things. Well, that does is it moves us from today. I I appreciate where you're today. What do you need for tomorrow? I understand what you're looking for for tomorrow. That creates a gap today to tomorrow. And in the gap, we can introduce innovation, creativity, learning, and insight. Innovation, creativity, learning, and insight. World of work, which is so changing so fast and with AI sort of playing such an important role, how we as human beings engender that innovation, creativity, learning, and insight becomes the defining feature of the human experience at work. So suddenly, appreciation of where you are now and an understanding of where you want to be tomorrow and closing the gap through innovation, creativity, learning, and insight then becomes the currency or the fuel of the future of work. So this is where it starts to become really powerful. And these are not soft skills, these are core, core capabilities.
SPEAKER_03I couldn't agree more. I think people are still afraid of emotions to an extent. Like when they see someone someone else get emotional or frustrated and they fear that reaction, they just don't know what to do with it. And I completely understand that, but I agree, like if you're managing well at in any situation, really, we need to learn how to deal with those emotions. And and they're that they're okay. It doesn't mean that you're bad at your job or that you can't cope with difficult situations, that sometimes we all go through those emotions, and it's uh bringing you know, uh bridging the gap between how we feel and that separation and what can they do for us and what we can do for ourselves when we feel in those situations. I love that. I wish you know when I was in employment, I wish my managers understood that. But um and last question, that's been incredible. My head's absolutely buzzing. Um but last question is like if somebody is wanting to start proving that appreciation is needed in their organization and to start thinking about implementation, uh implementation, where should they start? What should their first steps be?
SPEAKER_00So I think um some some of the work I I really enjoy doing and I think is really powerful. So it most organizations, nay, all organizations, will have a values framework or values, fatal in uh um respect, excellence, integrity, customer service, and so on and so forth. And those those words, those which sit nicely on posters, they are sort of adjectives oftentimes. Well, we need to turn them into sort of doing words, verbs. And the way that we do that is we sort of frame them as behaviors. So the work that I see a lot of organizations doing is they maintain their values, which are a powerful expression of how they deliver their purpose. And then they create behavioral frameworks around those. And the behavioral frameworks are really key because what we can ask in our organizations is what behaviors are aligned to our values? So when we're having a good day, how do we show up? And how do we show we're delivering those values? And that's a really powerful part of the conversation. What do that, what are the aligned behaviors? And a really important part of that conversation is what are the behaviors that we might say we're having a less than good day, a bad day in the office? What are the misaligned behaviors? What are the behaviors that we really don't want to see? And organizations often miss those. They do values and behaviors, and the values are XYZ, and the behaviors are already positive outward, but we don't have the conversation about what are the behaviors we don't want to see. So start off by taking your values, create a value, then some behaviors around alignment and misalignment. And then what we see between those is some skills gaps. Well, if I'm a manager, what skills do I need to be able to turn a misaligned behavior, maybe being rude to a customer, turning up late to a meeting, um, whatever the behavior is that we've established that we don't want to say, what skills do I need in order to be able to nudge you from a misaligned behavior? I use the word nudge deliberately, nudge you from a misaligned to aligned behavior. Now hitting you over the head with a disciplinary procedure or just ignoring it, neither of those are going to really work. But having a conversation to talk about impact and consequences, to give you feedback, to maybe ask you a question, why did that happen? To invite you to think about how you would like to be able to show up so that you deliver our values because we're something which we hold in common. So using the values and behaviors framework can be a starting point, a really powerful starting point for a big conversation, a big listening exercise, and also starting to shape our leadership and managerial capabilities to reinforce and reward and support the aligned values through Thankbox and other systems to be able to say, look, thank you for showing up and demonstrating our values, and then having the skills to realign the misaligned behaviors. And I think if we have those, that that sort of structure, within that structure, it opens up so many amazing conversations with leaders, employees, unions, other partners, and other stakeholders. So there are other elements, but that to me is a really great starting point. And if colleagues who are listening to the podcast have already got a values and behaviors framework, or they've maybe got the aligned behaviors, expand that out. Or another question I'll be asking is okay, how are people now showing up and what role are they playing in helping to deliver that? And that can then feed into bigger listening exercises, lunch and learns, bigger conversations between um you know people, professionals, managers, and and employees. So using that as a starting point, I think, can be really powerful. That's always the one I would go to as my as my starter for time.
SPEAKER_03I I love that. And it actually ties really closely with uh what we do and what we see our clients sometimes use standbox for. Um they they focus on one value per quarter and they really celebrate the behaviors that support this value, and they celebrate it in various ways, like one-to-one celebration or group celebration. It doesn't really matter as long as you really put the focus on this is what it means to live this value instead of just a poster on the wall. I love that. That's that's been an incredible conversation. So many great insights and advice on how we can change the way we think and restructure our policies and just make it a bit more acceptive of who we are and how um how we like to be treated. I'm super grateful for your time, honestly. Really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00Svetlina, I've really enjoyed it as well. So thank you very much for giving me this opportunity. And I hope it's useful, and I hope people find the conversation useful and delivering some of those practical, actionable um changes in their own organizations. But uh thank you, Svetlina. It's been a pleasure.
SPEAKER_03I hope this episode gave you some practical ideas on how to turn appreciation from a nice to have into a business priority. If you like the episode, please reach out and share your thoughts with me. If you have any feedback, I'd love to hear it too. Thank you for listening and don't forget to share appreciation.