How Agreeing Ways of Working Stops Team Friction Before It Starts

When my team and I were putting together the Ways of Working (WoW) program we wanted to create something really impactful, cost-effective and that worked around the busy schedules of teams who were spread all over the world. The result? We honestly think it's the best program available which focuses on helping teams to:

• Build trust and psychological safety
• Connect and communicate more effectively
• Reduce burnout and increase resilience
• Drive a culture of performance with people at the centre

The WoW Programme Structure

1. A pre-programme assessment and debrief
2. 3 x WoW training modules: Adopt, Accelerate, and Sustain
3. Ongoing self-paced learning and practice mechanisms for all participants built in
4. 3 x Reflect and Learn sessions to reflect and integrate learning in shared groups
5. Coaching and mentoring for all programme staff and also on offer to all participants
6. A post-programme follow-up assessment and debrief

We have designed each learning element of the programme to be a standalone "recipe" that can be delivered in-person, or virtually, in one-day modules or "chunked down" to 2 to 4-hour blocks, depending on your circumstances. We do recommend giving your teams good chunks of time together to connect and communicate. The total investment of time for a team is just under 4 days over a 4 to 6 month period. For context, that is 4 days out of 120 to 180 days.

Why Is It Effective?

We built the type of programme we would want to attend. We made the core topics the ones that really NEED to be talked about. And we make the learning conversation not lecture-based and contextually customised to you.

We focus on situating all the conversations around business talk, not fluffy stuff, and making sure they are relevant to what’s happening in your business today and tomorrow.

Modules are designed around creating insights and letting teams explore and challenge their existing ideas based on their own context. We share frameworks and tools to explain concepts but it is less about content and more about conversations.

It is less about content and more about conversations.

More Than Just Workshops

After working in this field for nearly 20 years and developing learning programmes for some of the largest and most successful companies in their industries, I have seen that doing workshops and then going back to work is great initially, but it doesn’t provide the maximum learning impact that can be achieved.

We wrap around the formal training element of the programme with support and accountability mechanisms which provide the opportunity for participants to try and learn from what we discussed during sessions, back in their jobs.

We also create coaching capability amongst leaders of the programme and sponsors to help them provide support to participants. We choose coaches from previous cohorts to help their "fellow participants" learn from the inside out.

Finally, we created a social community for participants in the same organisations where they get to share their learnings with each other, which further accelerates the learning that’s happening.

Results From Our Clients

• 88% of participants said the programme made a difference or significant difference to their performance at work.
• 94% of participants felt the programme improved their engagement and well-being at work, reducing the risk of burnout.
• 3.6 hours of productive time per week participants gained through applying what they learned in the programme.
• 6.4 hours increase in manager and leader time regained to focus on higher priority tasks.

If this sounds like your week

Your managers are not the problem. They are where the problem is stuck.

When your last leadership spend was signed off, did anyone go back to those managers' bosses and ask what changed? That question is the JBL Outcome Standard, and it is how I work.

• Find the friction. A short diagnostic that shows which decisions are stalling, and at what level.
• Am I the bottleneck? Ten questions on where your week is actually going.
• How I work with GMs. Six weeks, one hour a week, up to twelve of your managers, scored by their own bosses.
• Beat Burnout, Boost Performance. The book.
• The High Performance Leader podcast.

Managers I work with reclaim around four hours a week, and their bosses score the change 8.75 out of 10. Would it be a crazy idea to find out how we did this? Book a scoping call.