The Heart of High Performance: Can Inclusive, Human Leadership Create High-Performing Organizations?

Healthy, well-functioning work cultures, built around the strength of our people, when done right, can build high-performing workplaces.

In my line of work, I have found that AI is quite poor at creating insightful ideas that can bring true value to my readers.

Most of these ideas are comically unoriginal, perhaps regurgitation from millions of HR Handbooks, hundreds of thousands of training programs by Learning and Development departments, and thousands of books and scientific papers from the academia.

So for me, the best use of generative AI is not to share with my audience the ideas it generates. It’s something else entirely.

Using AI For Human Connection: Organizational Culture and Common Terminology

Despite its shortcomings, I think that the current version of AI is a ground-breaking technology, and I use it extensively in my work.

I am on a quest to find and share ideas that are often groundbreaking in creating human-centered organizations. While many of these ideas are quite commonsense, they sometimes come across as a bit “out there” to some, simply because they are not familiar with them.

So a big part of my work is to find a common ground of communication, perhaps a common language, with my audience. With the help of the concepts they are already familiar with, the seemingly groundbreaking ideas that I share can be better communicated and understood.

With a clearer understanding of these ideas, they can apply them more successfully to produce meaningful results in their world.

With generative AI, I now have access to the commonly accepted collective wisdom in the world of organizational and culture development. Thanks to generative AI, I can now connect better with the people that I want to connect with.

With our shared ideas as a starting point, I could bring them fresh insights that they would normally not get from the pool of wisdom they would access with AI.

The False Assumptions of Generative AI About People-Centric Company Culture

The focus of almost everything I share is built around the idea of humanness in our teams, businesses and organizations. A theory I am always testing is that when we build our organizations with people as the focus, we can create self-sustainable organizations that can stand the test of time.

When AI encounters these ideas, it makes its own connections. These connections are based on the commonly accepted wisdom it has collected from its sources.

AI seems to assume that building a people-centered organization is a transactional give-and-take.

So AI will often throw out the terms such as emotional intelligence, empathy, diversity and inclusion and many such tropes and clichés from the world of organizational development and human resources.

Maybe it’s not AI’s fault altogether. Perhaps that’s how such ideas are presented to it from its sources.

Fair enough.

However, there is a major misconception, at least as I see it, in how it presents these ideas.

It seems to frame the whole argument in moral and ethical terms. It thinks that being good to people and creating a happy workplace is some kind of a moral imperative that every leader should embrace.

It also seems to assume that building a people-centered organization is a transactional give-and-take.

With such transactional framing, it proposes that building people-centered, inclusive work environments means that the leaders have to give up on something.

It seems to think (although I really don’t think it thinks!) that:

• Leaders would have to give up on performance if they wanted to create a supportive workplace.

• Creating a happy workplace is some kind of a charitable giving to the employees with no benefit to the organization.

• Empathy and caring come at the expense of high-performance and stellar results.

• To create an engaged, empowered workplace, you have to give up a little bit of the productivity and performance.

• To have a well-functioning organization, you have to back-away a little from expecting so much from your people.

High-Performance Because of a Human Workplace, Not In Spite Of

In my work, I have found that this is definitely not the case. I have seen and worked with many organizations that did them both well.

It was not even a balance between the two. These organizations achieved high performance because they embraced these ideas and executed from them.

• They were consistently high-performing, because they belonged in a happy workplace.

• Their people were engaged because the leaders made the effort to cultivate a culture of trust, belonging and connectedness.

• They were highly productive because of - not in spite of - great leaderships that built extraordinary work cultures.

The Pinhole Perspective of “Right vs Left”

The argument here is that healthy, well-functioning work culture built around the strength of our people, when done right, can build high-performing workplaces.

This is not an ethical or moral argument.

It’s also not a political argument.

It's a business performance argument.

The singular and extremely narrow perspective of “right vs left” locks us into a trap of our own belief systems. Such a narrow view prevents us from building work cultures that are high-performing and well-functioning.

When we approach all our decisions, all our thinking with a singular political lens, we limit ourselves in a straight-jacket of our own making.

Can a Deeply Human Leadership Create High-Performing Organizations?

When I work with ChaptGPT and other generative AI, I often come across blocks of text that equate building a human, diverse and sustainable work culture as some kind of a moral imperative.

That we should be good to people, as if to get brownie points from an authority of such things. It also implies that trust, empathy, diversity and inclusion are a sort of transactional trade-off.

The volume of such ideas on Generative AI indicates a basic and critical misconception. This misconception is that to build a great place to work, something must give:

• We have to give up a little bit of performance and productivity.

• We have to renege on the idea of excellence in the workplace.

• We have to make some kind of a sacrifice to have a happy, healthy, functional and welcoming workplace.

As a business community and the working population of the world, we pay a price for this misperception.

The price we pay is that we hesitate building such a workplace. If we do commit to such an initiative, out commitment is shaky, and our execution is wishy-washy. So when our efforts come under pressure, we are more likely to back off.

When we build a great work culture not only because it's the right thing to do, but also with the absolute conviction that it's the best thing to do for our business performance, our commitment is stronger.

This is not just a theory or a philosophy. Every day, I come across businesses and organizations that demonstrate such a commitment. They show that a great work culture and high performance are not either-or, they are not mutually exclusive. They are deeply intertwined, where a great work culture is the direct cause of high business performance.

In this article, I bring you two examples of such a workplace.

"Transparent Leadership" with Melanie Cook, Founder and CEO of Veritas Management Group

Summary: Discover how embracing neurodiversity can transform your business into a high-performing company culture from this conversation with Melanie Cook, Founder and CEO of Veritas Management Group.

🏅 What if the key to a high-performing company culture lies in embracing neurodiversity?

In the 19th episode of "The Business Philosopher Within You" podcast, I sit down with Melanie Cook, founder and CEO of Veritas Management Group (VMG). Melanie shares her remarkable journey from overcoming personal challenges with ADD and dyslexia to leading a successful management consulting firm that champions neurodiversity, equity and inclusion.

Learn how Melanie's personal experiences have shaped her leadership style and the culture at VMG. Discover how transparency and empathy play crucial roles in building a supportive and innovative work environment. Explore how embracing neurodiversity can transform challenges into strengths and foster a culture of innovation and resilience.

"Whoever you are, that's how you lead." ~ Melanie Cook, Founder and CEO, Veritas Management Group

Ubuntu: The Heart of Leadership with Mike Ettling, Executive Chairman of SYSPRO and the former CEO of Unit4

Summary: Explore Ubuntu as a transformative business leadership philosophy with Mike Ettling, which emphasizes trust and people dynamics as crucial factors in high-performing organizations.

💗 What if the key to successful leadership lies in embracing the interconnectedness of humanity?

In the 20th episode of "The Business Philosopher Within You" podcast, I sit down with Mike Ettling, Executive Chairman of SYSPRO and the former CEO of Unit4, to explore the profound impact of the Ubuntu philosophy - "I am because you are" - on business leadership.

Mike shares his journey from leading Unit4 to his current role at SYSPRO, emphasizing the importance of people-centric policies and trust in transforming organizational culture.

Throughout the conversation, Mike delves into the challenges and triumphs of his leadership experiences. He discusses the significance of empowering employees, the role of trust in leadership, and the strategies for cultivating a culture of trust in organizations. Mike's insights offer a fresh perspective on how leaders can navigate the complexities of modern business with the philosophical perspective of interconnectedness while executing real-world policies.

"Every leader should have a goal as to how do they make themselves redundant." ~ Mike Ettling, Former CEO, Unit4, Executive Chairman, SYSPRO