Henry and Maureen are in conversation with Chris McQueen from the Stroke Association. With Happy’s help, Chris and his team developed a set of five principles that drive the decisions the organisation makes, and how they want to work.

The Association is a traditionally hierarchical organisation, but through Happy’s Level 7 Senior Leadership Programme, an MBA-level qualification, they’ve created more interdependence within team-members, with less need for knowledge and instructions to be passed down through the hierarchy.

Chris’ three tips for a happier workplace

• Build a culture of trust.
• Set clear boundaries.
• Create a safe environment where people are willing to try new things.

Links

• The Stroke Association
• Level 7 Senior Leadership Apprenticeship Programme
• Liberating Structures Immersion Workshop

Welcome to session three of the Happy Manifesto podcast.

I'm delighted to have Chris McQueen as our interviewee today.

Chris is on our level seven senior leaders program, or as I

like to call it, the Happy MBA.

And we'll hear from him in a moment, but Maureen, what has

created joy for you at work?

What's created joy for me is actually being able to get into the office.

You know, working from home has been a delight, but I've come in

and I've seen my Happy family.

You know, it's fantastic cuz normally they're just on the

screen on our Zoom meetings.

But to actually see them, it's a totally different energy, you know?

And it?

is, it is.

So I miss it.

One thing I must say is I'm actually really grateful that I know that I have

the choice to ever work from home, but the opportunity also to come into the office.

And just seeing them and being able to give hugs.

Ah, love it.

hugs.

I'm missing the hugs.

That's one of the things that we're really well known for at Happy is

about the hugging, you know, so, ah, so Henry, what's giving you joy?

Well, it's given, well, I, um, I, I've almost finished my book.

Oh wow.

The Creating Joy at Work Nickables.

501 ideas for how to create a happy workplace.

Oh, I love that.

And your happy tip?

My happy tip.

So I was thinking about this happy tip and um, uh, for those who do not

know, I facilitate apprenticeships and actually here at Happy.

We have lots of meetings.

We talk about meetings a lot, and one of the things I thought was a great

share, great tip, will be knowing to start your meetings positively.

Ah, okay.

Because I know, have you ever been, so Henry, have you ever been to meetings

where it feels really hard or heavy?

You know when people are just focusing on what's going wrong?

And we we tend not to do that at Happy though.

We tend,

No.

And hence why, because we start our meetings positively.

So, and it could be really simple, just asking people

like, what's gone well for you?

What are you looking forward to?

And that changes the energy.

You know, they do they also do that at Lego?

Really?

Yeah.

Apparently at Lego they start every meeting with something positive.

See, so everybody needs to get on board, share with us what happens, you

know, how are, what's the difference?

how it goes.

So, uh, my, my idea for happy workplace is we are, um, from last

year we decided, I used to decide the salary pool myself, right?

As the founder of the company, I would decide what was in the salary pool,

you know, how much everyone would get.

But last year and this year, we are generating it from our staff.

So the staff decide how much is in that salary pot.

Um, and I think that's fabulous because some, when, when you discuss, we say,

but won't they just make it huge?

But actually no, because our people, you know, understand the finances,

they understand what's involved in that, and actually they tend

to do about the same as I did.

But it, what it, what it means is it is shared, uh, entirely

and involves everybody.

You know how best a way to be open and transparent about how

well the organization's doing in terms of finances and then getting

everybody have their input on terms of how much their salary would be?

Well, question I have for you, Henry, about that.

How does it feel no longer making that decision?

You know, actually letting go of that decision.

Cause that's quite a big decision to give.

It is a bit nervous.

It is a bit, you know, um, I mean, cuz there is that idea that maybe people

just, you know, put 500,000 or something, but, but they don't, they, they don't.

Um, and that's what happens when you have a work, uh, workforce

that is fully involved in the decisions of the organization.

Yes, yes.

And I can vouch for that.

I mean, I haven't put down a 500,000 extra, um, but it is because

everyone is bought in and they care about the organization and

we all want to prosper together.

So it's a great idea.

Absolutely.

Okay, let's move on to Chris McQueen.

Today I'm interviewing one of our clients.

Chris McQueen from the stroke association who is on, uh, level seven senior leaders.

What I like to call the happy MBA.

So Chris, tell me what ideas have you been putting into practice?

Well, I think the, the big one that stands out for us is when we came to

do our corporate strategy and, uh, we handed over probably one of the

most important parts of the strategy to the organization to develop.

Oh, um, Essentially that meant inviting people from across the organization

to put themselves forward, to be part of a small team that would develop

the strategic principles that are the kind of bedrock of our strategy.

So, uh, this required the courage from our executive team to, to sort

of hand this part of it over and

Wow.

I bet.

Cause you, you normally quite hi organization, is that right?

Yes.

That, that was very much our tradition.

Um, and strategy seen as a top down sort of process.

So we had a good response.

We had about, uh, Four times oversubscribed.

We had 12, 12 places on the team and, um, the people we selected were, were

people with good networks, people who within the organization had, had, had

sort of good networks with, with peers.

And, um, yeah, they started out as this group of diverse, not very experienced

people, all kinds of different roles, administrators, fundraisers, coordinators,

and, um, over a period about 11 weeks, they were supported through a process

of, of visiting other organizations to see how they did things, with some

of the big questions that we were facing as a charity, um, they visited,

um volunteer organizations in the Netherlands, uh, to see very different

models of how organizations could work.

And meantime, the whole organization was kind of channeling thoughts and

ideas about what our priorities, what our principles should be through

Yammer and, and other channels.

And this little group was sort of engaging in conversation with

people all across the organization.

Um, our sort of Yammer traffic doubled during this period.

There's a lot of energy, lot of excitement.

And, um, then at the end, at the end of 11 weeks, this group had to present the,

the principles they'd come up with, to the board of directors and our executive team.

And I was just, I was amazed at the transformation from this disparate group

of, of inexperienced people to this, what emerged with this highly cohesive,

articulate, confident group who presented this, these really well thought through

principles and were able to defend them, and sell them to the organization.

And those principles, five strategic principles have, have

stood the test of time for us.

They, you know, we are using them all the time to really provide the decisions we

make about what kind of organization we want to be and how do we want to work?

So the product was really good, but I was also amazed at the kind of

transformation that, having trusted this group and, and the group had

received high quality support.

They'd been coached, they'd been supported, uh, to capture the

insights that they were having.

And then to sort of consolidate that into a set of five principles, but

it really demonstrated for me the potential, the latent potential in

groups when they're well supported and trusted to produce great things.

And do they work full-time for those 11 weeks or were they

also doing their, their day job?

Yeah, that was, that was an important factor, cuz there was

quite a big time commitment in this.

So, what we tried to do was sort of, allow them, uh, to, to offload some

of their responsibilities to others and to have others covering for them.

It was still highly intensive and I.

That period of time was about the limit of what you could expect someone to.

Um, they were working long hours, but there was also a

tremendous energy, um, as well.

And have they gone on to do other stuff, uh, within the organization.

I think we've seen a number of them rise up the, the, the organization

into, into more senior roles.

Quite a number of them have, have chosen to move on.

And I think in a sense, that's also a signal of how they've grown

in, in confidence and capability.

And you usually, how, how long ago was it that this.

This happened in 2018.

And you're still using these, these five strategic ideas, right?

Absolutely.

Using these principles and actually the further we make our cultural

sort of journey, um, the more relevant these principles become.

And I think in a sense they were a bit ahead of their time in the organization.

One of them, for example, talks about unleashing potential and is all

about, you know, how you can trust people and give them autonomy and,

and they can rise to the challenge.

And and, and we're starting to see the fruit of, of some of

those ways of working, even if it was a bit sort of visionary at

the time to be talking in those.

Okay.

There's more about that.

So how are you, how are you seeing the fruits of that?

Yeah, so when we set up project teams, trying to be clear about the fact that

they have the right to make decisions and trying to help them clarify those

decision rights so that they know what decisions they can take and, and decisions

they should be seeking advice about.

And with trying to purposefully give those teams a greater level of autonomy.

It's a learning process.

But I think, um, yeah, I think we're seeing some encouraging results.

We we're just introducing this thing called the advice process.

Because I think we were finding that, um, it was all very well talking about trust

and empowerment, but people would say some people would start to make decisions

that would, that would tread on other people's toes or, or, or be going too far.

Other people were reluctant to make decisions cuz they were looking for, for

someone higher up to, to decide for them.

And there was some confusion about, you know, what am I entitled to decide?

How do we make decisions well?

So, you know, learning from other organizations and from this Happy MBA,

um, we've recently introduced the advice process along with a sort of decision

rights tool, which is just a table for documenting the kinds of decisions we

anticipate will need to make in this team, who should be the decision maker, and

what kind of approach to making decisions?

Should we take the small stuff, the detail stuff, people can just get on

and, and decide, but, whether there's an impact on others or whether or others

who have expertise, then we should use the advice process to, to seek advice.

So it works like this.

Basically, within those boundaries of the decision rights, anybody can

make any decision, provided they first seek the advice of anyone who

will be impacted by that decision.

And secondly, by those who have expertise in the matter.

So this process, you know, seeking advice, they're not forced to take the

advice, but they do need to consider it, and then integrate that into their

proposal before they make the decision.

And then we're encouraging a kind of closing of the loop so that when the

decision is made you report back to those you've sought advice from, to

say, this is, thank you for your advice.

This is, you know, what I've decided and why.

and can you give an example of, of when a case where this has happened?

We've got a project that is, um, focusing on how we can increase

the numbers of newly diagnosed stroke survivors that we are able

to reach and offer some support to.

And, uh, it's, it's clear there that to implement positive changes to allow

us to make contact with more people who've, who've recently had a stroke,

there's going to need to be a lot of contact with hospitals, we're going to

have to intercept referral pathways.

And, and so the, the people in our organization who, who are responsible

for that are distributed around the country, in our, in our 10 localities.

So, before the sort of central team decides whether something is viable,

uh, as, as a, as an approach for sort of increasing the number of people we

can reach, we need to seek the advice of those in our various localities

to say, What do you think about this?

We're proposing this, uh, way of intercepting the referral mechanism,

or we're proposing to set up this arrangement in hospital so that people

would have a greater awareness of us.

Would that work in your locality?

And, because those locality teams will, they they have the best knowledge

of, of the situation on the ground, but also they're gonna be affected.

If we, if we implement these approaches, they're the ones

gonna have to carry them out.

So it's really important that we're kind of seeking the advice of these,

uh, key people across the organization.

And you're talking here about frontline staff, not managers, is that right?

I think it's a combination.

Yes.

Frontline staff who, who will be sort of engaging directly with hospitals,

but also, people who, whose role is to influence so that decision makers

within the health and care system can be influenced to, to support us

in this endeavor to make sure more people get the support they need.

Sounds good one.

And, um, anymore, anymore, I, uh, things you've done to create happy workplaces.

Uh, we've been really trying to implement these things called

liberating structures in our meetings.

They're little tools and practices you can apply in a meeting, which

help to give everybody a voice.

And some of them really help you to come at a problem from a different angle

so that you can generate new ideas.

But they're very inclusive in that they make sure that everybody's voice is heard.

And, um, you know, it was through the, the Happy program

that we became aware of these.

And, uh, a few of our other people in the organization have now attended,

uh, liberating, structured courses, and we're seeing them now much more

commonplace within our meetings.

Something called 1, 2, 4, all is a very quick way to get people thinking about

a question or an idea in a very short space of time, get them warmed up, sharing

perspectives, thinking individually, sharing with a, with a, with a partner

and then opening up to a group of four before sharing back to everybody.

So little tools, very quick, uh, very easy to implement, but they give a

lot of life to, to, to a meeting.

Yeah.

It, it absolutely involves everybody.

Doesn't it?

It's, that's the great thing about it.

It does.

And you've got, um, an idea on, on coaching, not managing haven't you?

That's right.

We've we're very much particularly with these frontline staff, we're focusing

on coaching rather than managing, so helping ask good questions that, that

help the, the person of a team to retain ownership of their work and,

and of the issues they're facing.

I think it's so easy for someone unintentionally to step in with advice.

And all of a sudden the ownership has gone as has come back to them.

The person or the team are now looking to them for the solution

rather than benefiting from working at the solution out for themselves,

which may well be a better solution.

Anyway.

And again, have you got an example of that?

I guess the day to day ones are within the, um, the delivery

of our frontline services.

So if, if people have issues that they're facing with a particular,

uh, client, questions about what we may or may not be able to offer them,

those kinds of, of, of questions.

I think we're encouraging the coaches to connect those people with other people

who might have the answer or else.

Help them work through what might be an appropriate response for themselves.

So in the past, would that have been a manager telling people this is what you

should do with this client and, and now it's now it's approach supporting them?

Yeah.

In the past, it would've been coordinator simply passing it back to

the manager and waiting for the answer.

And then implementing the answer, but our managers were, became

overwhelmed with just, you know, answering these kinds of things.

And, you know, we felt that our coordinators had a lot of potential, you

know, they have a lot of knowledge, a lot of experience, and capability to come up

with good solutions for themselves, but were never really encouraged or rarely

encouraged to do so in the old system.

And so what, how are those people finding it now, then?

There's a mixture?

I think some are flourishing in this environment.

Some are questioning some, I think appreciated the comfort of just being

able to pass things back and in the sense for it to be someone else's problem.

So we're just having to work through those things.

With our coaches, there's a lot of unlearning to do as well because some

of our coaches were former managers.

They derive value from providing the answer, and so it's very easy for them

to step into a managing role there.

So we, we are working it through and I think the key thing is that we're,

we're having conversations where the coaches themselves are working together

within a kind of peer support group.

We're trying to, to work in an open fashion where the issues that the

challenges that we're seeing can be surfaced and we can talk about how best to

resolve them and, and, and groups that are seeing some progress and, and, and seeing

some exciting results are able to share what they're doing with, with others.

I'm quite impressed by you all you've done there.

So the drug actually quite a large organization, isn't how many people employ

Yes.

Up somewhere near 700, probably two thirds of those being these frontline

stroke delivery coordinators.

So, so you've managed for quite an impact there.

I think so it's, it's obviously been a process we've been on for some time.

Yeah.

I think the happy MBA has given.

And a real impetus to it because, there's been an opportunity to, to

learn from experienced practitioners and, and speak directly with them.

Learn from peers.

Um, each.

Month.

We have a workshop where we are sort of, um, we we're covering a particular

aspect of, of happy workplaces.

And, and we're able to then apply that learning into the organization.

So I've, I've found this sort of being on this course as sort of driving me

a bit to, to, to experiment and to engage with people who are showing an

interest and say, why don't we try this?

Recently, for example, we were thinking, how can we help teams to, if we want

them to be a bit more autonomous, how can we help them to manage or monitor their

performance a little bit more effectively?

So we'd, we'd heard a talk from, from a lady called Helen Sanderson who has

implemented, uh, a number of practices in the teams in her organization.

And we reached out to her and, and we're doing a small piece of work.

We're on a small scale, just with two teams.

We are learning these practices, things, things called confirmation practices.

And we're trying it out on a small scale first.

Okay.

Tell us about confirmation practices.

Do you have, do you have one yourself?

I do.

I, I I'm I'm my team is one of the two teams that are, are trying this.

Essentially.

We're starting by thinking about our roles as individuals.

So there's an individual confirmation practice process and it starts by thing.

What, what, what roles do I perform in, in my job?

And what, what do I think good looks like if I was performing that role to

a high standard, what would I be doing?

And, and how would I know that, that I was doing that role well?

What, how would I know that I, I could be pleased

and that's something they define themselves rather than asking

a manager or peer to do, yeah?

Yeah, that's right.

It's something you develop yourself.

Our, our established practice tends to focus more on, on objectives.

And so looking at roles is an Interestingly different perspective

that I found quite a lot of value.

And it's helping identify some of those things that are on the important, but not

urgent list that sometimes get crowded out by a focus just on objectives.

And the objectives tend to draw your, your focus.

How do I deliver this?

How do I deliver this?

And not, how do I develop these long term things that, that, that

probably just as important for the organization, but, uh, don't get.

And do you have a complimentary statement yourself?

What I've got, I suppose is.

Is a set of, um, six roles with, with an understanding of what good looks like.

So, so strategy facilitator, I'm I'm, I'm trying to encourage project teams

to think strategically about what they're doing and to facilitate, help

them see how, what they're doing can sort of contribute to our purpose.

I'm a culture champion.

So I'm all this happy stuff.

I'm, I'm really trying to promote and role model and, and champion

this shift of our culture.

And you have a definition of what, what goes at what level on, on each of those?

Yeah.

So I, I firstly, for each of these roles, I say, why what's the purpose?

Why, why, why am I doing this role?

What does good look like?

And then how would I know, what would I measure?

And what does good look like in culture champion?

So culture champion is where I am, I I'm engaged broadly across the

organization with people to help them understand different ways of doing

things culturally, behaviorally.

And where I'm seeing evidence that, that these ideas are taking

root in the organization that people are starting to implement,

um, these things for themselves.

So I'm measuring myself on am I, am I engaging sufficiently broadly and with

the right, with a mix of people, and then are those engagements leading to

any evidence of change of people picking stuff up, or if people able to move

forward in what they're trying to do?

And how is that different from objective?

The objective system as we currently have, it would say by the end of the year, I'd

like to have achieved this kind of change in, in this, in the space of culture.

And then perhaps on a quarterly process, I'll check in on that and, and see how,

how, whether I think I'm progressing.

To be honest, I don't think culture often features as a major objective.

Often, often the objectives are delivery of this project or that,

and, and so, um, but the difference with confirmation practices is,

is the heartbeat is more rapid.

So every couple of weeks I'm looking through my roles and saying, Which of

these is the am I least happy about mm-hmm if I was to sort of measure

myself, what score would I give myself on each of these six roles and for the

lowest one or the one that's causing me most concern, what might be one thing

in the next two weeks that I could do to, to try and move that score up so

I'm happier with the role I'm playing?

So it's, it's continuous.

And I do it with a peer.

So a peer is there asking me questions, Chris, you know, what have

you scored yourself on your roles?

And which would, which is the one that's giving you most concern?

And that's a peer rather than a manager.

It's a peer.

Right.

And that's another big difference.

So, we've been trying this in teams and, and actually what it's revealed I

think is not only is it strengthening our relationships within teams, but

some of my colleagues who are doing this are saying, we are learning.

We thought we were okay in this.

And actually this process is surfacing issues that need to be attended to

that, that our previous process wasn't.

So, oh, really?

So we're learning new, new things about how we can be improving

the roles we play and, and, you know, the effectiveness of them.

So I think it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's asking questions in a different way with a

peer on a more rapid frequency and itself, you know, it's me assessing myself.

Sounds good.

Sounds good.

Yeah, that sounds some great ideas.

So, so my, my last point is what are your three tips for workplace happiness?

It's a bit obvious, but I don't think you can achieve workplace happiness

without a sort of culture of trust where fundamentally you are, you, you are,

you're believing the best in people.

You're believing that people fundamentally wanna do a good job and

that they're capable of rising to the challenge when trusted and supported.

So I think, yeah, whether it's policies, processes, things that demonstrate trust.

secondly though, I think you have to.

Clear boundaries.

People need to know the space in which they can innovate,

create and make decisions.

So I think that kind of clarity of decision, rights, boundaries,

guidelines, what's expected of them.

The third one, I, I, I think is about.

Encouragement.

I, I, I think there's tremendous power in encouraging people when

you see something they're doing that is, that is good, that is, um,

valuable particularly in the moment.

But I, I, I think you need to have a culture that is really focusing on, on,

on, on what's happening that's good.

I think that's, that's a very powerful way actually, to improve people's confidence,

motivation, and, and performance and, and the culture in which you can try

things and it's not, uh, you're not afraid if they, if they don't work out.

So trying to get away from this culture of fear.

And a willingness to try things, recognizing that they weren't

all work, but that's fine.

We, we learn and move on.

What I really liked about that Maureen was that, that involving

the frontline staff in the strategy.

So, and that really enables them to take, take leadership, not just in the strategy,

but uh, leadership on a wider level.

Oh, no, totally.

I mean.

I know most organizations are like top down, you know, and for the fact,

and I love the words that he used.

It's like being courageous, you know, and then seeing the results.

At the end of the day of that this changed people's lives, not just for

them, but also for the organization

Because of course, you know when you are working for the stroke association,

you do change people's lives.

I, I love it.

And, but most importantly for me was that it wasn't just a tick box exercise.

It was about making sure that everyone felt well supported, and you used that

well supported all the way through.

Not only were they supported internally, but externally and given coaching,

so all the ingredients for success.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I, we, I think we'll look at, look at them carefully.

How they, how they develop, won't we?

Yeah.

Exciting.

You know, imagine I've, I've got other organizations took that approach as well,

Wouldn't it?

Wouldn't it be fabulous?

But of course those involved in the level seven, our Happy

MBA, they are all doing that.

Um, they are all transforming their organizations and we'll, we'll speak to

some more of them in the coming weeks.

Don't they?

That's it.

You know, organizations can transform and create that joy at work.

And that is what it's all about, isn't it?

Creating joy at work.

Yes, and listen.

We will see you next time on a podcast speaking to another expert,