224. The Power of People: Unlocking Human Success for Business Growth with Mick Spiers

Unlock the secrets to collective success with insights from Rasmus Holst, CEO of Zensai, as we shift the focus from individual achievements to empowering teams. Learn how the "human success platform" can drive both business and customer success through the guiding principles of "Learn, Perform, Engage." Discover the crucial role of psychological safety in team dynamics and how leaders can foster an environment where open dialogue and collaboration thrive. We'll discuss practical strategies like embracing continuous feedback and aligning purpose with performance, ensuring your team feels inspired and motivated to excel.

As we conclude this enlightening conversation, get ready to explore the future of leadership and adaptability in our next episode. We'll be joined by Adeline Tia, an experienced executive coach, to discuss the evolving landscape of leadership and the vital role adaptability plays in the future of work. This is essential listening for those eager to reinvent their leadership approach and stay ahead in an ever-changing environment. If you find value in our discussions, we would love to hear your thoughts and appreciate your rating and review on your preferred podcast platform.

Chapters

• 0:00 Shifting to Human Success Platform
• 12:00 Future of Leadership and Adaptability

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:00

Over the past decade, we've seen a distinct shift in the way we think about customers. We've shifted from business centric to customer centric to the term customer success. What if we took the same approach with our people? We shifted from human resources to being people first to being human success in today's episode of the leadership project, I share my reflections on the wonderful conversation with Rasmus Holst, CEO of Sensei, and his concept of the human Success Platform. Welcome back to The Leadership Project. In our last episode, we had the privilege of speaking with Rasmus Holst, CEO of sensai. Rasmus shared with us his transformative concept of the human Success Platform. Today, I want to take you deeper into the ideas he shared and explore how they apply to leadership, workplace culture and personal growth. Let's unpack these concepts together and discuss actionable strategies to implement them in your own life and your own work. As mentioned, we've seen a massive shift in customer mindset, customer focus and the move to what we call Customer Success. And the idea here is that our business success is driven from our customer success. Well, Rasmus challenges us to think about our people in the same way to think about that if we make our people successful, they will in turn make our customers successful, and that will in turn make our business successful. And I think he's onto something here. Rasmus introduced us to sensize guiding framework, learn, perform, engage. These three words represent the foundation of their human Success Platform and offer a roadmap for thriving organizations. But what does it mean? Well, let's look at learn. Lifelong Learning is not a luxury. It's a necessity. The most effective leaders create environments where learning is continuous and curiosity is encouraged. Research by Dr. Carol Dweck on the growth mindset shows that when people believe their abilities can grow with effort, they embrace challenges and persevere through setbacks. As a leader, ask yourself, are you fostering a culture where people feel safe to learn from failure and experiment with new ideas. The second pillar perform. High performance isn't about working harder. It's about working smarter and aligning efforts with purpose, as Timothy galways formula for performance puts it performance is equal to potential minus interference, and this reminds us that reducing obstacles like fear doubt or unclear expectations is what unlocks true potential. So as a leader, what are you doing to clear these barriers for your team? What are you doing to bring clarity of expectation and helping them overcome their own doubts and build their own confidence and courage. The third was engage. This is the secret sauce, according to Gallup, highly engaged teams are 21% more productive and experience significantly lower turnover. Engagement starts with trust, with recognition and with having meaningful relationships with our people. So as a leader, are you investing in authentic connections with your team members? The other really interesting part in Rasmus interview was the shift from individual success to collective success. He challenged us to think beyond the traditional definition of success as per personal achievement and to focus on enabling success for everyone in the organization. This reminded me of the discussion we had in Episode 211 with Jason and where we talked about how the employee experience drives the customer experience. When our people feel supported, valued and empowered, it creates a ripple effect that impacts the entire organization. So the key question here, as a leader, are you measuring success only by individual outputs, or are you looking at how well your team collaborates and grows together? Are they supporting each other? Do they support each other's learning and growth? Are they co creating? Something greater than the sum of the individual parts. This is where great success happens. Another critical theme we explored with Rasmus was psychological safety. Leaders set the tone for their teams, and when people feel safe to voice ideas without fear of judgment, they contribute their very best work. Research from Amy Edmondson at Harvard highlights how psychological safety correlates directly with team performance. Here's a practical exercise you can try at your next team meeting open with this prompt, what's one idea you've been holding back that could make a big impact, reinforce that all contributions are valued, and model your own vulnerability by sharing a challenge or a mistake that you've recently faced. When we role model that humility, when we role model that we don't have all the answers. It makes other people feel safe to stick up their hand and share their ideas, or even to stick up their hand and ask for help when they need it. So human success does start with psychological safety, and you need to be the role model of that, and you need to celebrate and reward every time you see someone having the courage to speak up, remember that there's no such thing as fearless. And when someone does speak up, it's because they perceive that the benefit of speaking up outweighs any fear they have of doing so. And these are key moments that you have as a leader. How are you going to react when someone sticks up their hand and shares an idea, that key moment will determine whether they share another idea in the future, or the other people around them feel comfortable to also share their ideas. So how can you as a leader put some of these ideas into action, let's explore a few strategies. Embrace continuous feedback. Feedback should flow both ways. In Episode 212 we reflected on the importance of leaders actively seeking input from their teams create regular opportunities for Open dialog and ensure feedback is a two way street. Ask people what it's like to experience you as a leader and show them that it's okay to give that feedback align purpose with performance. People perform best when their work connects to a greater purpose. Take the time to articulate the why behind the work your team does, as Simon Sinek reminds us in Start With Why, clarity of purpose inspires action, and people don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it. When we think about articulating the why, I like to think about it in two ways, the macro why we exist? Why does this organization exist? Why does this team exist? What is the impact that we're having on the world? And then a micro why? Why are we doing this task? What makes this task important? What does this task enable other people to do? And what makes the deadline important? When people understand with clarity, they'll do almost any task as long as they understand why they're doing it. Micro why also applies to decisions as leaders, sometimes we make tough decisions, if we're able to articulate the rationale behind the decision, people can usually live with that decision, even if they don't fully agree with it. They want to know that there's a rationale and a why behind that decision. And finally, celebrate progress, not perfection, celebrate small wins and recognize effort, not just outcomes. This reinforces a culture of a growth mindset and helps maintain momentum during challenging times. The opposite is also true. If all we do is celebrate success, it actually reinforces the fixed mindset where people feel that I'm either good at this or I'm not. So what we need to do is celebrate the progress and celebrate the effort. Even if they succeed, celebrate the effort that it took to succeed, the obstacles that they overcome, and if they failed, celebrate the effort and ask them what they learnt from it and what they'll do differently next time these type of questions and these celebrations reinforce a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset. Rasmus work with sensei also raises an important point about the role. Of technology and leadership. While technology can't replace human connection, it can enhance how we engage, learn and perform. For example, AI driven platforms can provide personalized learning paths data analytics can help leaders identify patterns in team performance and engagement and virtual collaboration tools can foster connection in remote or hybrid teams. So how do we use technology as an augmentation of our leadership, not a replacement, not a replacement of human connection, but an augmentation of our existence as leaders, it's our responsibility to use technology as an enabler, not a crutch. So as we wrap up, let me leave you with three reflection questions to guide you this week. What actions can you take this week to foster a culture of learning, performance and engagement in your team. How are you creating psychological safety in your team? And what does human success look like for you and your team? And how might you enable it? Remember, leadership is not a destination. It's a growth journey of growth, connection and intentionality, every step you take towards empowering your team brings you closer to creating an environment where human success is not just possible but inevitable. Our role as a leader isn't to be the doer to do everything. It's to be a multiplier and create the environment where other people can do their very best work, and when we set them up for human success, they will, in turn, then create success for our customers, and that success will translate into business success. So that's it for this episode of The Leadership Project. In the next episode, I'll be joined by Adeline Tiah. Adeline is an executive coach, and she's going to talk about reinventing leadership and adaptability in the future of work. This is an episode you don't want to miss. If you're getting great value from our content, we would love it if you would leave us a rating and review on Apple podcast or your preferred podcast service. You can also subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel, where we bring you video podcasts, weekly curated videos and our live stream show, all designed to help you become the leader that you wish you always had. Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project mickspiers.com a huge call out to Faris Sedek for his video editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at TLP. Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo and my amazing wife Sei Spiers, I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Now, in the meantime, please do take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.