Episode 279 · 26 February 2026 · 45:10
The Leadership Assessment Tool we're ALL using wrong, with Chartered Occupational Psychologist, Juliette Alban-Metcalfe
Featuring Juliette Alban-Metcalfe
The Leadership Assessment Tool we're ALL using wrong, with Chartered Occupational Psychologist, Juliette Alban-Metcalfe
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How good a manager are you, really?
Personality vs. behaviour: why what you do matters more than who you are
interview#personality#behaviour#leadership
Predictive validity: how leadership behaviours predict up to 60% of team motivation
The accidental manager trap: why founders and technical experts struggle
Choosing your reviewers: how to run a 360 that actually works
Psychological safety: using assessments for development, not judgement
Getting real value from a 360 process
interview#360-degree-feedback#value#process
Real-world transformation: what changes when organisations get this right
interview#organizational-change#transformation#leadership-development
A fictitious scenario: how to respond when a leader is struggling
Two things every leader can do today
interview#leadership#actionable-advice#tips
Show notes
The Leadership Assessment Tool We're ALL Using Wrong — with Juliette Alban-Metcalfe
Guest: Juliette Alban-Metcalfe — Chartered Occupational Psychologist and CEO of Real World Group, building on the groundbreaking leadership research of her mother, Professor Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe.
We're obsessed with personality at work. DISC, Myers-Briggs, Enneagrams — we colour-code our colleagues and try to predict who'll be a great leader. But what if we've been looking at the wrong data?
Juliette joins Al and Leanne to argue that personality only explains a tiny fraction of leadership success. The real "magic sauce" is behaviour — the specific, observable actions leaders take to engage their teams. They dig into why founders and technical experts often struggle to transition into leadership, how 360-degree feedback can bridge the gap, and the two simple things every leader can do today to improve team engagement.
Top 3 Takeaways
- Stop assessing personality, start assessing behaviour. Personality tools can be useful for self-awareness and job-person fit, but when it comes to predicting leadership performance, behaviour is what actually moves the needle.
- Get a 360 — but use it for development, not judgement. Choose your own reviewers, keep it purely developmental, and it becomes one of the most powerful tools for bridging the gap between how you see yourself and how others experience you.
- Culture change starts at the very top — and that means you. There's pretty much zero correlation between how leaders rate themselves and how their teams rate them. The only way to know is to ask.
More From Juliette Alban-Metcalfe
- Website: Real World Group — where you can also find the full case study she mentions in the episode
- LinkedIn: Juliette Alban-Metcalfe
(Links as provided in the episode notes.)
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
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Al ElliottQuick question. How good a manager do you think you are out of 10? Whatever number just popped into your head, the science says your team almost certainly disagrees. Not a little bit and not in a few areas, almost completely.
Juliette Alban-MetcalfeThere tends to be pretty much zero correlation between self-perception and that of managers, of peers, of direct reports, colleagues and direct reports. But those people tend to agree actually about their reflection. So they tend to correlate with each other, which suggests that as human beings, we're not very good at being accurate in self-reflection.
Leanne ElliottOur guest today, Juliette Alban-Metcalfe, is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist and CEO of Real World Group. She's spent 25 years helping organisations figure out why good intentions at the top produce terrible results at the bottom.
Al ElliottAnd she's got a very specific problem with the tools that most of us are already using. You know that 360 you did last year? Well, Juliette says it might not be the best way to learn anything useful about you or your people.
Leanne ElliottToday we're asking, what's the one tool that can genuinely transform how your whole organisation behaves? And more importantly, how do we use it correctly? Yes, today we are talking about the 360 review, and Juliette tells us we've been using it all wrong.
Juliette Alban-MetcalfeWrong.
Leanne ElliottWelcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name is Al, I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottAnd we are here to help you simplify the science of work.
Al ElliottNow, here's something I found genuinely uncomfortable preparing for this episode, because I have been a founder. I did at one point have around 30 staff, and I genuinely believed I was a pretty decent manager because I cared about them, I worked hard, I led by example.
Leanne ElliottAnd according to the research Juliette's about to share, my self-assessment was probably wildly inaccurate in ways I couldn't Juliette is CEO of Real World Group and a Chartered Occupational Psychologist, like me, who specialises in using evidence-based assessments to strengthen leadership and culture, all the way from founders with small teams up to executive boards. She follows in the footsteps of her mother, Professor Beverley Alban-Metcalfe, an incredibly influential leadership researcher who founded Real World Group over 25 years ago.
Al ElliottSo after this short break, we'll find out why the review mechanism sitting in your HR toolkit probably isn't doing what you think it is. See you in a second. The dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all. Every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
Al ElliottNice. Check out hopspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. So we are joined here by an incredible woman who is following very much in the footsteps of her mother by producing some incredible stuff. I don't wanna introduce her because I'm gonna make a mess of this. So Juliette, can you tell us who you are and what you do?
Juliette Alban-MetcalfeI'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist, like your lovely wife, and I'm the CEO of Real World Group. And what we do is we create evidence-based assessments and also provide consultancy to help organizations to strengthen leadership culture, team performance, all the way up to board level, and the whole organization culture through applying psychology. Organizational psychology specifically, to create basically a win-win between organizations and the employees. So, the conditions where employees are giving their very best, creating their best performance for the good of the organization, their customers, their stakeholders, but at the same time, the way that the culture is, it's maximized for their benefit too. So, they're maximally well at work, they're maximally motivated, satisfied, fulfilled and so on. So, it's about, essentially, it's about creating that win-win between the organization's aims and the individual's needs and desires.
Al ElliottSo, I wanna talk about the assessments here. I think a lot of people, when they think about assessments, they kind of think of DiSC or Myers-Briggs. This is not what we're talking about, is it?
Juliette Alban-MetcalfeSo, in answer to your question, Al, they are similar in the sense that the application is similar. So, people would apply something like DiSC or Myers-Briggs if they wanted to help leaders understand better how they operate or to help teams understand why individuals in the team behave as they do, which might then help an organization or a team to understand why people behave in certain ways. But what we do is rather than looking at personality, which is what things like DiSC and Myers-Briggs do, we go straight to looking at behavior, which is kind of— it's hard to describe in a podcast without using visuals, but—
Al ElliottYeah.
Juliette Alban-MetcalfeIf you think about what predicts performance that an individual influences, whether they're a leader or whether they're just a non-positional leader, someone in a team, then of course it's useful to understand what their motivations and preferences and values are, which is where the personality bit comes in. Those things that are sort of stable and consistent over time, in us as human beings. But there's another layer between that and performance, and that is then how people actually enact their behavior day to day. So, if you start looking at behavior rather than looking at personality, then what you're doing is you're getting much closer to understanding how this person performs in the job. And that's ultimately what we should be concerned about. Not to say that personality doesn't have its place because—
Al ElliottYeah.
Juliette Alban-MetcalfeIt can be really valuable, but what we're sort of saying is that when it comes to predicting performance, you're going to get much more value from looking at behaviour rather than looking at personality, because there's very little aspects of personality that predict performance in role. It's more about what behaviours you choose regardless of your personality type. It's kind of, like I said, it's a bit easier to explain with a visual, but it's all about predictive validity, basically. Bit of a technical term I threw in.
Al ElliottI love it. I love it. I learn every single day, I learn something from Leanne. And today I've learned this predictive, what was the term you used? Predictive?
Juliette Alban-MetcalfePredictive validity, which is one of the things that, it's a scientific term from the sort of the world of psychometrics and statistics. And what it's saying is that, you know, it's a bit like that old adage, Do you remember that? I think it was a Coupranol or something. They used to have an advertising slogan, which was, does what it says on the tin. And that's a form of predictive validity. It's saying, can you trust that this product will actually achieve the results that you want? And so, a nice way of using that in our world is sort of saying, you can do a nice or an engaging and a colorful personality assessment. And we all As human beings, we tend to enjoy self-reflection and safe self-reflection, obviously. Things like therapy can be uncomfortable, but we tend as human beings to like to do things like complete personality tests. So, this is why we go down internet wormholes when it sort of says, ooh, test your IQ type or test your personality type, or do you have ADHD or whatever it is. People love that sort of thing because we love to be able to—
Al ElliottYeah.
Juliette Alban-Metcalfebasically predict the future. And it's sort of looking at personality and understanding our different preferences and traits and so on is one way of us having a sense of control. So we like doing that sort of thing. And it is quite, it can be really fun. And then you can sort of debate, well, I'm an INTJ. Well, I'm an ENFP. Or I'm a fiery red, or I'm whatever it is. But The problem lies where people overextend their sort of assertions that this understanding of personality will then improve team performance, or it will then improve leadership performance, or it will then make you a better performer in the role. And the bottom line is it won't do that to a great degree. It definitely is useful for things like—
Al ElliottYeah.
Juliette Alban-Metcalfeunderstanding job-person fit. So, it can be really good for helping people to understand, am I in the right role? Do I have a good alignment of what is required of me professionally and competently to do this job well? It can help with things like interpersonal relationships. A lot of people don't understand or don't fully grasp that we all see the world very differently. And so, if you explore a personality, For example, in a team, and it can help us to start to build that level of understanding of the very different perspectives we come from. Or it can also help us to understand, well, now I can understand why Dave behaves in this kind of way when I approach him with something, or I can understand why Carly likes to work in this sort of way. And that's where personality can be really, really useful. There are some great tools as well that explore things like, do you have a a style under pressure as a leader that is more or less likely to derail you, basically. Because of course our behavior could be quite different under pressure. That's all the good stuff. And there is lots and lots of good stuff about the personality approach. The challenge is around, like I said, the overpromise of predictive validity, because people will run whole leadership programs around personality tools with the mistaken belief that that will then enable them to develop the leaders and they won't need any other type of introspection. What then, what they're doing is that they are looking at some aspects of what makes a good leader. We need to understand, do I actually want to lead people? Do I actually want to influence in this particular way? Is this a good role for me fundamentally? But a very, very large proportion of what it takes to be a good leader. And just to sort of give you a sense of how much, sort of 85% or more is not explained by personality. Whereas if you look at things like aspects of leadership behavior, they can predict like 60 or more percent of how much people feel motivated in their role, how much they feel satisfied, how much they feel fulfilled. Yeah. So in other words, it helps to predict critical parts of leadership, which is all about how do I influence and motivate and engage my people so that we can really get the job done? This predictability is really, really important. You need to know it's about the right tool for the job, basically. That's what it comes down to. And being able to show that what you're looking at really does have an impact rather than just feeling nice or being fun or enjoyable.
Al ElliottSo we've just heard Juliette explain why personality tools like DiSC and Myers-Briggs aren't great in measuring behaviour. In fact, I think Leanne would go so far as to say they're not really useful at all in the modern workplace. And I'll be honest, I think Juliette was being quite diplomatic and polite there.
Leanne ElliottShe was much more polite than, than I am when I talk about said, said assessment tools. But the thing is, as Juliette says, 85% or more of what makes somebody an effective leader is simply not explained by personality. And that's not a small gap. That's most of the picture.
Al ElliottSo let's go back to Juliette and talk about real-world scenarios, no pun intended. I think this is the bit that every founder and leader needs to hear before anything else. So imagine I'm a founder, I've got like 25 people, I've built this business, and I don't really know what I'm doing with my people. I've just— I know how to build a business, but now I'm an accidental manager. Firstly, what tool in the Real World Group do you think that I should go through? And secondly, What would the actual results look like for this fictional founder?
Juliette Alban-MetcalfeThe interesting thing about founders is that they've got lots of obviously fantastic things going for them. They've got, presumably they're entrepreneurial, they're probably, they're likely to be very passionate about what they do. They might have a deep technical knowledge, although that's not always necessarily critical for a leadership role, but of course it'll be probably important for the product or service that they're providing. They've got loads going for them. But what the sort of the big gap probably is in self-awareness around how their behavior is impacting on other people. Sometimes what founders, you know, get challenged by is not understanding when they're being appropriately demanding or overly demanding of other people. Or for example, when they are, you know, involving them appropriately or not involving them. So, you know, people might feel sort of disenfranchised because the founder's making all the decisions. So, that's just a couple of examples. In essence, what's really, really critical for an organization when it moves into further phases of growth is, do the leaders, especially the most senior leaders in the organization, understand the impact they're having on other people? And are they truly bringing them with them rather than just continuing with this single-minded vision of what they want the organization to be?
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Juliette Alban-MetcalfeSo, in answer to your question, I would suggest that they would look at a 360, like the TLQ 360, which measures engaging leadership. Because what that will allow the person to do is to get feedback from stakeholders around them. So, they might have, for example, they might be so bold as to invite investors to give them feedback in how they lead. But certainly, the most important thing will be to do is to invite people from inside the organization to give them feedback about how they lead and the influence that they're having. Yeah. Because that will enable them to make more of what they have, basically. The bottom line is if people, if leaders carry on doing whatever they're doing, however successful it is at that point, without gathering feedback from other people, then things might not go horribly wrong. Things might continue to grow exponentially, but they're missing out on a huge amount of potential and further possibility for innovation, for productivity, for all those things that comes with effective leadership. So, it's about gathering 360 feedback, learning from it, understanding what it is that you're doing really well that people love about your passion and your enthusiasm. And you might be already appropriately caring, all those kind of involving, all those sorts of things so that you don't stop doing those things. as things get bigger and more complex and more demanding. And then of course, learning from the areas where you might be falling short for people so that you can actually address that and therefore continue to maximise or start to further maximise the potential of your people.
Al ElliottI founded a couple of companies before, and there was one where I had about 30 staff and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. And I know that I, I know that I expected them to put, to care as much as I did. I'd worked, you know, 17 hours a day and I couldn't believe why, why they'd want to go home at 5 o'clock. 'Cause they're like, there's still cool things to do. So this is, I think what's cool about this is it's, it, I would learn then what's, what I'm doing well and what I'm doing badly, which a personality test wouldn't tell me. Juliette, would other, other tests—
Juliette Alban-MetcalfeYeah.
Al ElliottIs it just me who should do this? as a founder should do this assessment, or are there other assessments that perhaps I could do with some of my other teams or leaders?
Juliette Alban-MetcalfeOne of the things, you know, as you've probably gathered from what I've just said in response to the previous question, one of the things that is consistently found in research around what is, you know, correlated with effective leadership is self-awareness. And that is because as human beings, we tend not to be particularly self-aware. When you look at data or large-scale data around how people tend to rate themselves in terms of their leadership approach and how other people rate them, there tends to be pretty much zero correlation between self-perception and that of managers, of peers, of direct reports, so colleagues and direct reports. But those people tend to agree actually about their reflection. So, they tend to correlate with each other, which suggests that as human beings, we're not very good at being self-aware. accurate in self-reflection. That said, doesn't mean that, of course, we naturally think, well, does that mean that I'm worse than other people think I am? And the answer is not always no. It tends to be a mix of areas where you underrate yourself and areas where you overrate yourself. So, all leaders need to be reflecting about how they're having an impact on other people. And when we talk about leadership at Real World Group, we don't just mean leadership in positional power. We also mean That everybody in an organization is a leader of some kind, because all of us are representing the organization. All of us have a role to play. And we want ideally everyone to be sufficiently engaged with our organization that they feel responsible for supporting the right kind of culture, serving our customers or our service users in the right kind of way. So, we want everybody ideally to be taking, to see themselves as as a leader of some form or another. So, in answer to your question, all leaders in organizations need to be undertaking a 360 at some point in their— well, ideally at some point in the year. You don't want to overdo 360. So, you don't want to do it more than once every, say, 12 to 18 months. But all organizations should be doing it at all levels. If you take organizations like You know, the fire service. There are fire services that we are working with. Most people in the UK will probably be familiar with the Wilshire Report, which was looking into, you know, bullying and sexism and racism and all kinds of, you know, inappropriate behavior in the fire service that was holding back, you know, the mission, which was to save lives and prevent accidents. So, in response to that, the Wilshire Report says, you know, that all fire services must-have 360 for leaders in the organisation. Some of the most forward-thinking fire services that we work with have gone so far as to not only provide it for all the leaders in their organisation, but also frontline. So, we've created 360 tools that are for— I mean, to be fair, we've had these for years, but we've adapted them as well, specifically for fire service, that are not only for people in positional leadership roles. That's what, you know, it should absolutely be rolled out. to all leaders so they understand how they impact positively and negatively, but also people in every role. So, it's about getting a 360 perspective, obviously less extensive and less sophisticated as the leaders that are on the strategic roles, but still, everybody ideally needs to get feedback on how are they contributing to the mission? How are they contributing to the positive culture in the team, which is mission critical? Everything we do in organisations, is mission critical. And if it isn't, then we shouldn't be doing it. So if we take the point, if we take the perspective that what everybody does is mission critical, then everybody should be provided with an opportunity to reflect on their behavior. So starting with something like that is key. And then you can look at how teams work and you can sort of extend it further.
Al ElliottI want to go into the teams in a second because I think that's interesting. I think it's on the lips of most people who lead. But before I do that, what happens if I do this 360 and I don't like the results? Is that likely that I'm not gonna like all the results from it?
Juliette Alban-MetcalfeIt wouldn't necessarily be a comfortable experience for a lot of people. I think people, what we find, we've been doing this for 25 years in all different countries, all around the world, in all different sectors. We've got tons of experience of this. What we find is that the thought of 360 is much scarier than the reality, because people think, oh my gosh, this is so exposing. How's it going to feel? Do I really want to hear from people about how they feel? One of the things that we've put in place as a really important, well, I'd say rule more than even guidance, is people who are at the center of the 360. Now, the technical term for someone who's having a 360 done to them is called the target manager.
Al ElliottOkay.
Juliette Alban-MetcalfeOf course, that term is, it's an old-fashioned term. It's kind of been in the parlance in this sector for years. But of course, it will just be a target person if it's someone who's not in a managerial role. So, the target manager must be able to choose their own reviewers. And that might seem counterintuitive to getting honest feedback. But the bottom line is, we've got to work with, we're working with human beings here. Like everything in organisations, we've got to be aware of what are the ways that we as human beings respond to stimulus. And in the case of things like feedback, even just hearing the word feedback, most people's hackles rise. They kind of like, they get to a, they start with a little threat response in their brains rather than an opportunity response. We need to be aware that because we're working with human beings, we can lead a horse to water, but we can't make it drink. That sounds a bit weird, doesn't it? Saying human beings and then using a horse analogy. But I hope you get what I mean. We need to accept that we are working with people and we can present it with all the data in the world, the way that our brains work is that we will naturally go to ego protection. That's just how we work. That's how our brains work. Now, what that means is that if I was to say, for example, present you with data, Al, that I'd collected from colleagues of yours that you didn't necessarily, you might not even know who they were. It might be a random selection. Or it could be, you know who they are, But you didn't get a say in who I chose. And I might have gone, well, actually, do you know, I think Al needs some feedback on how he works with some of the stakeholders. So I'm going to ask the ones that I know he has a more challenging relationship with to give him feedback. There's all kinds of different ways in which people might select who's going to give you feedback. But all of the ways in which I do it and you don't get a say in it gives you more and more excuses to say, Well, actually, they don't know me, or they don't value me, or actually they've got an agenda that is not actually in the best interests of me or the company. Or they could say, you could say to yourself things like, well, they've got it in for me. We've never got on. There's all kinds of cognitive resources you can use to actually reject the feedback. And that's what your brain will do if it doesn't like what it's seeing. So, we need to start a 360 process by saying, look, first of all, we will make it a safe process, in inverted commas, which means that we won't use the 360 for performance appraisal. We would strongly advise it doesn't get used for things like remuneration committees. Because when you know that it's safe, that it's for development only, which is how 360 should only really be used, when it's for development only, then you will feel much safer inviting people that you need to hear from that aren't necessarily your best pals or the ones that you get on best with, and that will give you some feedback that might be more challenging than you might get if you, for example, were doing it for remuneration or for performance appraisal or something like that. So, we create the conditions where it's sort of safe, and we say, look, it's really critical. If you want people to actually take on board the feedback, then you must let them choose their reviewers. So, you know it's safe. So, then you choose your reviewers. And then when the feedback comes back and it's not that favorable, there are some things that, you know, there'll be lots of positives because hopefully lots of positive things that you do do as a leader. But when there are things that you need to learn from, we've created the conditions where you can actually take it on. You can actually accept that feedback. It might feel a bit confronting, but you might, you'll eventually accept it and you'll be able to work with it. Whereas if you don't put those conditions in place, and hopefully I've explained the reasons why, as human beings, we will find it really difficult to accept. We'll put it into the too difficult, too affronting box in our brains. And we might go through the motions of, yeah, yeah, no, that's interesting. Yeah, no, I'll learn from that. Yeah. But secretly we're thinking, you know, what a load of rubbish, you know, or what do they know? Or whatever else we want to use to protect our ego. And it'll be pointless.
Al ElliottYeah.
Juliette Alban-MetcalfeSo it's about, if you want to get value from a 360 process, you've got to use it in the right way. And if you do that, you can achieve huge transformational change in organizations. We've worked with organizations that have really transformed their cultures because they've approached things like 360 and that wider support in a way that is not affronting, and it's a way that enables people to take it on board. Any kind of Forced behaviour change doesn't, you know, in that kind of way, doesn't happen. Now, I'm not saying that people should be allowed to behave how they want to behave, but if you want to force behaviour change, 360 is not the tool to do it with.
Leanne ElliottOkay. So, let me just reiterate what we've just heard, because I think it's so, so important. A 360 only works if the person at the centre of it genuinely believes the feedback is safe, development-focused, and comes from people they trust. Get any of those conditions wrong, and your brain will reject it, which is very human, but also means most 360s done badly are basically a waste of everybody's time.
Al ElliottAnd what I think is really cool about Juliette's approach is that this isn't just theory. She's seen organisations genuinely transform by doing this properly. So after this short break, we're going to rejoin Juliette where I ask her to walk us through what that actually looks like in practice, anonymously, of course.
Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number 1 management podcast, that's us, by the way, and the UK's number 1 marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network.
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking. And you're not gonna say which. Fel, host of Nudge, UK's number 1 marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in 3s— the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Leanne ElliottThe audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottSeamless. Seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. Uh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Juliette Alban-MetcalfeIt is.
Leanne ElliottIt's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
Juliette Alban-MetcalfeIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?
Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back. Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this.
Juliette Alban-MetcalfeSo come back. I've got Keep that in.
Al ElliottJuliette, you just mentioned there that you've seen some massive changes in organizations after using 360s. Now, I'm pretty sure that you can't name anyone, but speaking anonymously, can you give us an example of a situation where an organization did use a 360 and changed dramatically for the better?
Juliette Alban-MetcalfeSo, we work with organizations that are, you know, really challenged and ones that are doing really well. And both can be really, really stressful because either you're doing really badly and people are on your back, or you're doing really well and where else is there to go apart from down? So, they can be equally challenging situations. But if you focus on the ones that have been really, really challenging, and like you said, obviously it's a bit sensitive. We can't really name names in this, although we do have case studies and things on our website where we can where we do talk about organizations and they've given their permission to have shared. But anyway, what's critical in any culture change is that the top team recognize that they are part of the problem. One of the biggest barriers to culture change in any organization is the top team, because those are the people that we know as organizational behavior experts or OD practitioners and so on, or even just from our day-to-day experience as people in organisations, we know that culture lies with the top teams so, so very much. So, it's the things that they do or don't do that get replicated throughout the organisation. And when you look at the research around why culture change programmes or leadership development programmes and so on fail to have the desired effect, the core reasons tend to be the behaviour of the board or the executive team or equivalent. In thinking that they're not, in not understanding that they are part of the problem, in not recognizing just how powerful their behavior is, or for example, thinking that their behavior isn't noticed or isn't observed. They think the decisions they take behind closed doors remain behind closed doors. They don't realize that they have these effects in, let's say that they institute a change in things, And people at the bottom, all the way at the frontline of the organization, will be saying, whose idea was this? And why weren't we consulted? And don't they realize there's knock-on effects? And that's just one small example of how the behavior at the top of the organization influences all the way through. So, to create effective culture change, you've got to start at that point, and you've got to talk to those people and persuade them that they are key. Well, they are a fundamental part of why the organization is as it is now, but that they have the keys to transforming the situation from the top of the organization, from how they behave day to day. And it's simple common sense stuff. It doesn't have to be incredibly complex. It doesn't have to be about introducing a whole new strategy. You don't need to overcomplicate it. It's about First of all, it comes back to understanding the impact they're having. So what we do with these kinds of organisations where we help to transform their performance, we start by saying to the executive team or board, undertake a 360 as a team, get feedback. Again, same as with an individual 360, they choose their reviewers. They need to believe in the feedback that's coming back, but get some feedback from, if there's a governance body of some kind above you, get feedback from them. If there are partners, strategic partners that you work with, or JV partners, whatever it is, get feedback from them on how you are leading and how you're consulting, building shared vision with them, whether you're honest and consistent in the way that you behave. All those things that are fundamental to any stakeholder on an executive team. Certainly get feedback from direct reports to the board or the executive team about how you lead and the kind of behaviours that you enact and the kind of behaviours that you encourage. For example, boards often, and executive teams equally, often say to us, well, we've told people to be innovative. We've asked, we've said to them, we want your ideas and suggestions and to do things differently. Why aren't they doing it? And then you do something like a Board 360 or Exec Team 360, and you realise that the reason is because they've created a culture where when things go wrong, They shoot first and ask questions later. That is coming directly from their behavior, fully in their control, but having a huge impact on the wider organization. So, that's just one small example again. So, starting by then getting stakeholder feedback from people in the organization and outside the organization, reflecting on that in the context of their strategy, their priorities, their challenges, all those external pressures that they have. And then working to address that, working to adapt their behaviour, whether they're lacking certain competencies in leading or whether it's the behaviours that need to change or whether it's how they work as a team or not. Because of course, one of the big challenges to performance is silo working, isn't it? And that starts from the top too. So for example, it might be about them becoming a stronger team. So those are the 3 things that we look at. We look at engaging leadership, governance competencies, high-performing team behaviours of those top teams. When they've done that work and worked out how they need to lead better and differently together, they then do individual 360, whether they're a non-exec or an exec. And that is really, really critical. Sorry, I don't want to go off on a tangent, but non-execs need to understand that they have as much influence, not as much influence, but they do have a significant influence on the culture. Even if they are non-exec. We did some work for the Australian Institute of Company Directors a few years ago, and they asked us to help create an assessment for their boards. And in Australia, boards are 90% non-executives. You might have a chief exec on the board, but they would be, typically they would be invited as opposed to a permanent member. And the Australian Institute recognized that the non-executives have such a powerful influence on the culture, which is why they asked us to work with them on this piece of work. But that's Really, really important for organizations to understand. And then what you do is you would then, you would want to take a culture survey of the whole organization in one way or another. What is it that people experience from their leaders? What do they experience from their day-to-day leader? What do they experience from their— how do they experience the executive team or board, even if they don't even know who they are? Because we can be impacted by the top team without even knowing who their face is. We wouldn't recognize them if we tripped over them in the corridor. And that, of course, is part of the problem often. But the point is they still have an influence. So understanding they're not doing a blanket approach to development, but truly understanding and engaging the whole organization in saying, this is how you feel. This is what you've told us how you feel about your part of the organization. What is it that needs to change? So galvanizing their ideas, their suggestions, really listening to people. And finding out what is it that will help them to achieve the mission. Not just about serving their needs, but what will help them help the organization. It's kind of a no-brainer. And these are not high-cost initiatives at all. These are low-cost initiatives that basically realize so much potential in an organization. So you've got your 360, you've got your individual 360, you've got your leadership culture survey, then you're fully engaged in the workforce and helping to find solutions. And we use things like appreciative inquiry and other techniques to really help to not just problem solve, but go further than that and help to create the possibilities in an organization, to really, really help them maximize their potential. That's in a nutshell what we do. And that tends to be different, whether it's a high-performing team— High-performing organization, sorry. Or a low-performing organization, that tends to be what's not been happening. And then that can have such a transformative effect on performance and people and sickness and all those things that are affected by culture when it's right or when it's wrong.
Al ElliottFabulous answer. And I think it totally explains everything. Can I give you a fictitious situation? So imagine we have someone who's got a creative agency. They have They're very— they've started it because they love creative, you know, creative, digital creative. They started it. They're now up to about sort of 30, 40 employees. And they find that they're doing— they're answering more emails than creating stuff. They're basically just a CEO rather than someone who started that agency. They want to escape. They either want to go back to doing the creative stuff or they might want to go and start another agency. They just basically don't want this anymore. So if they came to you and said, I've got a budget, I want to do it. What would be the plan to help them to get a bit more freedom from the, just the, what they see as the daily grind, boring stuff of dealing with emails and HR?
Juliette Alban-MetcalfeOne of the things that we would be wanting to explore with them, the first thing, you know, not to not answer your question now, but the first thing is every organization and every leader is really unique. And that is why the way that we approach using diagnostics and assessments is starting by truly understanding that particular context and situation. Because the answer for that sort of person might be, actually, I don't have the right people around me or working to me to take on more of the stuff that I don't want to do or that I don't need to do. Or it could be, I'm not letting them because of how I'm behaving, not realizing it probably. Or it's gotta be a question of like, why isn't that person? If there are things that he or she or they're doing that aren't, that they don't need to do, that somebody else can do, the why might be a complex mixture of not the right people, don't trust them, not used to it, don't have the confidence to do it, or they don't have the confidence to do it. It could be a— Yeah. Myriad factors, perhaps not myriad factors, but there'll be a number of factors as to why that is a situation. And we wouldn't sort of be able to go in with a formula around, this is what they need to do. But it never sort of fails to surprise me just how common it is that leaders or executive teams, even in much, much larger organizations, are still doing the job of the people that they've employed at the next level. Because that's where their comfort zone is. And actually, they don't necessarily have the confidence to take themselves out of the weeds into the bigger picture. And it can also, and like I said, it can be because of a mixture of concern about competence or effectiveness or trusting the people that work to them. But there's always a solution. There's always a solution, whether it is upskilling those people further, whether it's coaching and mentoring them to take over parts of the CEO role that the CEO doesn't need to do, or whether it's a question of helping them to find the right role for them and moving somebody else into that role. And of course, that might mean exit. But the point is though, that if the CEO of that creative agency is not happy, Then that's not sustainable for the organization, and they need to fix that issue one way or the other. So, it might, in certain cases, and these tend to be more of the further end of what's needed, it might be about changing the people that work to you. But more often than not, it's about letting go. Yeah. And fixing whatever it is that's stopping you from letting go. Like I said, whether it's confidence or competence or whatever it is. So, that's what I would suggest. And then of course, every organization needs to always be thinking about talent, talent development and growth. So, it's about exploring in your organization as a whole, how much do you have a leadership culture that is empowering and supportive and developmental? Are there things happening that are stopping that happening? Do people think that actually we haven't got time for this because we're so busy? Well, then it might be a question of looking at how people value or prioritize time with their teams versus fighting fires. Ultimately, to get off the treadmill in that way, at the very top of the organization, might require supporting people to get off the treadmill at the other levels of the organization.
Al ElliottYeah.
Juliette Alban-Metcalfe2, so that, you know, more potential can be realized and those benefits can flow up the organization.
Al ElliottI think, Juliette, we need a part 2 on this because we're gonna— this has just been brilliant. I'm very respectful of your time. I know we've only got a couple of minutes left. So, I suppose I want to ask you where people can find you. But before I do that, if our listeners could take just one thing from all the amazing things you've said, Do one thing over the next sort of 6 months, what would you recommend it would be?
Juliette Alban-MetcalfeCan I have 2? Can I? You can't really say no, can you? Sorry, right, 2. There's 2 things that I think are really critical. The first thing is connection. And, you know, and part of that is feedback. So, it's sort of saying, you know, asking yourself, Are you really having those conversations about other people's needs, or are most of the conversations you're having about just the job in hand? Because as we get busier and busier, we forget to have conversations about, how are you? What's going on for you? And linked to that is my second thing, which is about appreciation. So, are you having these connective conversations where you're saying to people at different parts of your organization, how are you? How's it going?
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Juliette Alban-MetcalfeAnd noticing what they're doing well, trying to find out so you can say thank you and say, I noticed that you worked really hard last week. I'd like to say thanks for that. I noticed that you managed to pull off that really tough deal, or at least you got us the best outcome you could have done. Thank you for that. I really appreciate it. Because you cannot, it's not possible to overemphasize just how much thanks motivates people. And gets them to continue giving in the organization. So, first of all, make sure that you're having those human connections. Is there anything I can do for you to support you? That's all part of that human connection bit. And then the second bit is in that, take all the opportunities you can to thank people for what they're doing well. There might be things that need to be addressed. So, I've got to stop at 2, so I won't go on further. But yeah, so notice having those human connections and making sure that you show appreciation. Those are the 2 things that I think when we're as busy leaders, we've got to keep an eye on.
Al ElliottIf someone's listening and they think, yep, Real World Group is for me, where's the best place for them to go?
Juliette Alban-MetcalfeWell, the best place to go would be to our website, which is realworld-group.com. And I would be just conscious that there are a few companies called Real World out there. They, they can seem like us, but they're not us. And we are realworld-group.com.
Al ElliottThat was Juliette Alban-Metcalfe from the Real World Group. And I came into this episode, I'll be honest, Leanne, thinking I knew what a 360 was. I did not.
Leanne ElliottWell, I'm glad you learned something today, Al. And I think these are the 3 takeaways I would recommend any leader puts in their, puts in their little pocket of knowledge. An obvious one, stop using personality tests as your main leadership tool. If you are running leadership development programmes built entirely around personality tools, you're working with the wrong data. You should be measuring behaviours, not personalities.
Al ElliottLesson 2, get a 360. Specifically, get one where you choose your reviewers. It's used purely for development, not pay or performance review, and make sure you have a proper debrief to make sense of it. The research is pretty clear. You and your team almost certainly see your leadership very differently. And that gap is probably costing you.
Leanne ElliottAnd number 3, culture change starts at the very top, and that means you. Juliette made this point brilliantly. The things leaders do behind closed doors aren't actually behind closed doors. Your team replicates whatever they see from you, the good stuff and the stuff you don't even know you're doing.
Al ElliottYou can find Juliette and the full case study she mentions at realworld-group.com. She was really clear. There are other companies called Real World out there, so make sure it is realworld-group.com. The link is in the show notes. That's the safest place to go.
Leanne ElliottThis is Truth, Lies and Work. We will see you next week.