Introducing sociocratic development talks
Impetus to the project
The marketing management team was under high performance pressure and at the same time, managing its employees exclusively from remote for more than a year. While under a high workload only doing what was absolutely necessary in order to keep up operations, at some point we lost the connection to the team members and how they perceived the management team and their work.
The goal of the project was to take a step back and look calmly at the "HOW" in leading and collaborating, and to become aware of one's strengths and areas for improvement.
At the same time, we aimed at expanding the feedback culture within the organizational unit.
What we did
Initially the idea was to collect anonymous leadership feedback from the ranks of the entire team, which should then to be used for individual development. However, we were able to convince key stakeholders to introduce "sociocratic development talks".
The sociocratic development talk integrates the cross-level perspectives of several process partners of the feedback recipient and clearly focuses on strengths and opportunities for further development.
Experience and result
All members of the MLT (Management Leadership Team) had a 1.5 hours feedback talk. It was definitely challenging for the managers receiving the feedback directly in a personal conversation, in the presence of people of different hierarchical levels, and to then openly reflect on the feedback and their strengths and weaknesses.
We were very proud that the leader of the leadership team noticeably changed from being a critic to a supporter of the sociocratic development talk. She had realized how much personal energy people will release when others around them devote their time and attention to strengthen them in their roles.
What our client says
Working with subject:RESOUL has played such an instrumental role in securing the health of the team and has strengthened each leader’s understanding of their strengths and areas of improvement as we continue to work in a virtual environment going forward into 2021. It was initially difficult to carve out time for reflection because we have so many competing priorities, product launches, and marketplace events that impact our daily work life. However, the time we took to examine our culture, unspoken and spoken working norms and identify gaps that we wanted to overcome, was completely worth it.
The feedback we have received has been overwhelmingly positive. Individuals have told me personally that they feel like their voice is heard and recognize that as a leadership team, our number one priority is them.
I highly recommend partnership with subject:RESOUL to identify ways to overcome the challenges you face on your team or within your organization. The ideas we started with completely morphed based on their expertise and I’m incredibly grateful.
Monica Perez, Senior Marketing Director Breast Cancer