What do leaders need to work on in 2023?
In this episode, Sacha Koffman, co-founder of Build Labour, is here to talk all things leadership.
He’ll share his favorite insights on building a vibrant culture, including:
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The importance of knowing yourself
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How leaders can focus on others
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Thoughts on employee lifecycle
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Cultivating courage
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The link between mental health and performance
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And more
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Sacha Koffman: You know, leadership is about a choice. It’s not a title, you have to want to do this. You have to want to serve others. You have to want to elevate others. You have to want to nurture others.
Voiceover: You’re listening to the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast with professional speaker, coach and consultant Nicole Greer.
Nicole Greer: Welcome, everybody to the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer, and they call me the vibrant coach and I am here today with Sacha Koffman. He’s here from halfway around the world in Australia and I am delighted to have him here. Sacha has had a diverse career spanning 25 years working as a business leader, and experienced consultant. He’s a coach, a facilitator, and he has worked with top-tier global consulting firms. He is a two-time founder of two private ventures. One I want to talk about today.
He shared a little bit about it before we got started, Build Labour. And then also he’s worked with diverse audiences, from senior executives to new graduates. And he is at his best when inspiring individuals, teams and organizations to grow. He wants to talk, as he said before we got started, all things leadership. Everything from mindsets, to behaviors to great performance. We’re going to try to cover it all as fast as we can. Please welcome to the show, Sacha. How are you?
Sacha: I’m great. I’m great. Good afternoon to you or good evening. It is 9:20am here in Melbourne. And it’s really great to be with you. Thanks for having me.
Nicole: Yeah, so I had a bucket list trip to Australia. And Melbourne was not one of my stops.
Sacha: Oh that’s a shame.
Nicole: I know! That’s what I say.
Sacha: What time of year did you get down here?
Nicole: We came when it was summertime. And we went to the Whitsundays, did that thing. And then we went to Sydney and then we had to go home. And it was very sad.
Sacha: All you Americans, you come down here and you go to Sydney and those few that come to Melbourne, kind of say, you know what, I don’t know why Melbourne isn’t higher on the agenda. For more people back home. I think it’s the best city in Australia. But of course, I’m biased, right?
Nicole: Well, you are, and get the guestroom ready, because I’m coming. I’m coming to visit you.
Sacha: Love to have you.
Nicole: Oh, that’s great. All right. So one thing I want to talk about is this thing, he did the startup and he right now is acting as a consultant, a coach and working with all sorts of companies. But he did a start-up with one of his buddies, which I think is very cool. And I want you to share that story about Build Labour, and you can find it on Instagram at Build Labour. So we talk about that and how you guys got that going? Because both you and I want to help people be employed and have fabulous careers. We have that in common?
Sacha: Absolutely, yeah, career has been, career management has been a passion of mine. And, you know, it was a passion because I made a number of mistakes early on in my career. And I didn’t have good direction. And I didn’t have good people around me to sort of help and guide me, I lost my mum, when I just graduated from university, and she was probably my biggest inspiration. So that was a huge gap for me. And I stumbled around pretty early on despite, you know, being a great performer at university.
So I’ve always had this deep passion and enthusiasm for you know, what drives people to certain careers. And then how do they get there. Just prior to Build Labour, I think I mentioned before the show that, you know, I started a learning and development consulting firm, all geared around helping people take the educational pathways to take that next step, whether it be up sideways or even out. And Build Labour is something dedicated to the construction industry here in Australia. The blue-collar construction worker, like probably globally, doesn’t have the digital online professional presence, like, you know, us white-collar workers do.
So for them finding work online is really difficult, you know. They don’t typically have resumes and CVs, they’re very reliant on their immediate networks. And that’s a challenge for these guys then to find not only a job, but the right job or the best job. You know, something that you know, really excites them and stimulates them. On the organizational side too you know, they have no problems reaching out through LinkedIn and similar networking sites to find the white collar construction workers. But because of that lack of digital online presence, they couldn’t find the blue-collar.
And so my buddy and I got together. With my passion and experience in career and business and his, you know, 10 plus years working in construction as a project manager, incredibly frustrated at the inability to find and source good labor. We came up with the idea of Build Labour, which is a digital online marketplace dedicated to blue-collar construction workers, where we give them a tool similar to LinkedIn, but much more relevant for them. Smartphone-based, that enables them to create a very simple bio with all their relevant tickets and qualifications and short courses, availability for work locations for work, and then helps organizations find them and connect with them.
And it’s been, it’s been a journey. You know, we sort of started it just before COVID. And you know, being a startup founder is always challenging, but when you have COVID, and the inability to then go to work and connecting with your business partner, it made things are tough. But thankfully, we got some VC backing, and we were able to accelerate, and we went out and tested the market. And, and it’s exciting, it’s exciting about what Build Labour can become. We’re still in the very early stages.
And as I said before we started, I’m not actively working in it. So for me, being a tech CEO, is not where I want to play, I love the idea, and I want that business to grow. But there are better people, there are better leaders who can actually, you know, take that role of a tech CEO and grow the business. My passion is in leadership, consulting, coaching and facilitating. And that’s what that’s what I’m doing. That’s where I spend my time.
Nicole: That’s fantastic. I just love the idea of an app for folks in construction. I just think that’s fantastic. So just think about that everybody listening, that is a major opportunity. Because it’s the same thing here in North Carolina, where I’m at. All right, well, I want to ask you a question. I ask everybody who’s on the show. What is your definition of leadership?
Sacha: Yeah, look, I get asked this probably every day.
Nicole: Well good. You probably have a great answer then. You’ve been practicing.
Sacha: I guess, you know, I guess the staples of my answer always change, but perhaps how I how I say it, and where I focus may differ. But, you know, for me, you know, leadership is about serving others. You know, I have the belief that I win when others when, unlike management, which is about doing things, right. Leadership is doing the right thing. And that’s, that’s a quote that I actually want to reference. That’s Peter Drucker.
Nicole: I’m a Drucker person I love Drucker.
Sacha: Yeah, exactly. So people who know leadership, you know, know, Peter, and he’s one of many of my mentors. It’s a relentless focus on the three O’s. It’s a focus on ourselves. It’s a focus on others, and it’s a focus on outcomes. And last but not least, I think leadership for me is a choice. It’s not a title. People choose to be leaders, if they serve those other aspects that I believe are absolutely critical to leadership.
Nicole: That’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. Okay, so when you sit down with a leader, how do you help them see themselves? You know, Sacha, I’ve got this wonderful, powerful question that I ask leaders I work with. It’s, what is it like to experience you? And it almost stuns some leaders. Because they’re like, I never thought about that. And it’s like, well, you should. So when you’re sitting with leaders, and you’re trying to get them to see how they lead, so that they could see the opportunities, the possibilities for even, you know, bigger, grander, more amazing, more vibrant leadership, how do you help people take a look in the mirror with what’s going on with their leadership?
Sacha: Yeah, it’s a good question. You know, one of the core aspects to being a good leader is curiosity. And I use that word, on a daily basis, it’s probably my most used word. There has to be an openness and a willingness to want to look at, you know, myself and kind of go, you know, who am I? What do I stand for? What do I like? What don’t I like? What am I good at? Where do I still have some development opportunities? All in the hope of, you know, being a better person quite holistically.
So it’s a conversation and, you know, I often use storytelling. So when I’m sitting down in a coaching role, or even facilitating, I do use a lot of stories. And like I said, earlier, you know, I made a lot of mistakes early in my career. And a lot of that was down to, you know, losing mum at a very challenging time. You know, starting your career, post-college or university. And, you know, you’re still young and naive, and you don’t really know what the big, wide world is like. So for me, it’s about that vulnerability, and I can’t ask for vulnerability from someone else unless I show and share my own vulnerability.
And so that is talking about not only my triumphs and my big wins of which I’m blessed. And I’ve, I’ve had quite a few. But it is also about talking about the challenges that I’ve been through. And helping people relate and see me as a person. I come from the belief that we are all imperfect, and we will always, always be imperfect. So, you know, the never stop learning mantra is very, very real to me. But I can’t ask that of others unless I show and share myself. So, you know, I’m quite an open person, happy to be vulnerable, and talk about my most challenging times.
But also then from the learnings, you know, what did I get out of those, those challenging times? And where did I grow? And I believe that most of our growth comes from the dark times, you know, we become complacent when things are just always good and always fine, right? We don’t sit, we don’t reflect, we don’t really think we don’t talk to our friends, our mentors, our family when things are just going great. But hopefully we do when things aren’t. So for me, that’s where the learning comes in. So yeah, that’s pretty much my approach in coaching and facilitation.
Nicole: Yeah, so don’t miss what he said, everybody. The first thing was, if you want to be a fantastic leader, you’re going to first of all have to get curious. And the first person you get curious about is the first O, ourselves. Yourself, the leader, himself or herself. right. And then I love what you said about stories. In fact, I love stories, too. I’m right there with you. And I think that leaders have 10 stories, they need to get straight. And they also need to pull in the people that work for them, and say, these are the stories we’re gonna tell.
So I love what do you said there. The third thing that you said, was to share, you know, just not the successes, but like, not have such a big fat ego, that you can’t share the vulnerable stuff. Like, oh, my gosh, I totally messed up with this. Let me tell you what I did, and I’m never doing that again. You know, we love a leader who is relatable. So I love your approach to getting leaders to open up. So three nuggets right there. Thank you Sacha for that. All right. So, leaders have to focus on others, all right.
So how, I swear to you, I have a lot of leaders, they’re very good at like their trade or their job description. But like the communication piece, the really taking good care of their people part, it’s a struggle. Because their numbers usually get to the C suite, you’re, you know, you got the numbers and the P&L and the budget and the CFO, and then whatever. KPIs, all these, this is all really important stuff. But none of that stuff, you know, is fantastic without great people. So you gotta love on your people. So how do you help leaders, or what is your advice to leaders to focus on others? What do they need to be doing?
Sacha: Yeah. Again, it starts with a focus first on ourselves. So the first O. You know, if we don’t know ourselves, like intimately and through the knowledge and feedback from others, that we know, like, trust, work with, etc, it is very hard for us to be able to focus on others in a really authentic way. So that time spent understanding self is absolutely critical before then you can you can spend time understanding and working with others. You know, it’s interesting hearing you talk about leaders who are great at their trade. I come back to my definition of leadership as well or Peter Drucker’s definition of the difference between management and leadership.
You know, where management is, people who can do things, right. They can execute their trade really well. Leadership is doing the right thing. It’s making the tough calls. It’s helping to serve others, to lift others up, to nurture others and so forth. This also gives me a sort of a flashback to my role, I worked with one of Australia’s major top four banks some time ago as their global head of talent. And, you know, we were promoting really good bankers into massive leadership positions. And exactly as you said, you know, these guys and girls were incredible at their trade.
They were fantastic institutional bankers. And through that great performance in that role, they were elevated into roles that then suddenly they inherited, you know, teams of 50, 100, 200 people, and were expected to perform similarly well. And the bank had a huge issue, like many organizations are seeing today around talent retention. You know, these guys were so great and loved and we’re passionate about their role, but leading others was not what they wanted to do. They were transactors, they weren’t necessarily people leaders, and there is a huge difference.
Like I said, you know, leadership is about a choice, it’s not a title. You have to want to do this, you have to want to serve others, you have to want to elevate others, you have to want to nurture others. And that often means that you’re not doing a lot of the executing. In fact, you shouldn’t be doing much of the executing yourself. You should be reliant on really good people, often even smarter people than you, who are experts in their subject area, to be doing a lot about execution.
But your role is to guide them, to lead them, to nurture them. So organizations and many that I work with, we see this same thing happening today, that was many years ago at the bank. But it’s still happening today, you know, kind of really good managers, but being put into the leadership role with the organization’s misunderstanding of really what it takes to make a great leader.
Nicole: And so this is what I just heard you say is that you got to, again, go back to the first O, which is take a look at yourself. Are you leading or are you managing, and getting really clear. Go rewind this and go listen to what Sacha said about the difference. Get you a good Peter Drucker book, and do this, get yourself to the Drucker Institute. Sometime Peter Drucker has popped off the planet, but he wrote, I think he wrote 56 books after he was 66, or something like that. Yeah, it’s a it’s an enormous thing. You’re like, amazing. Anyway.
Sacha: I know, I’ve read a lot of them. I don’t know if it’s 50 or 60. He’s great. He’s great. You know, he’s one of one of many fantastic leaders, but also great authors too. You know, again, it’s two different skill sets, being a leader and being an author. And, you know, I’ve I’ve seen and heard some great leaders and watch them coach and facilitate, but I didn’t kind of buy into some of the books. And then again, you know, there are some amazing leaders who also have the gift of being great authors in storytelling. And you know, I think for me anyway, Brene Brown is one of those.
Nicole: And everybody loves the Brene. Yeah. Brene.Brown, go check out her new book. It’s really good. I think it’s about a year old, actually. But anyway, alright, so the second thing you said about others, and I just want everybody make sure they didn’t miss what Sacha said. He says, you have to have this desire to serve. And so this idea of like, servant leadership is absolutely huge. So I didn’t want you to miss that. And then you mentioned that you said this word that always triggers me. So I just want to hold it up for everybody to hear again, and you’ve heard this before, if you listen to the podcast, on the regular.
This concept of willingness. And to me, and here’s the definition I use for willingness. The ability to do what needs to be done without reservation, refusal or judgment. And so leaders, I mean, like they have to go first, you know, that’s the Simon Sinek thing. So I totally agree with all that. Okay, so that’s two O’s. That’s ourselves, that’s others. So talk about outcomes for a moment. So how do leaders get positive outcomes? What are some strategies that you try to put in their toolbox? This will get you a better outcome?
Sacha: Yeah, great question. I get this, too. And when I say, you know, leadership has a relentless focus on the three O’s, on ourselves, others and outcomes, really, the way I see it is it’s almost an equation. So outcomes are dependent on our focus on ourselves and others, right? It doesn’t matter what industry you are in, it could be, you know, incredibly technical, and digital, and so forth. But people still remain absolutely critical. So, to achieve the outcomes, you know, people play a huge role. And that’s the focus on ourselves and others, also, is, is absolutely critical.
Too often, where I am in coaching situations, you know, leaders are so driven at the outcomes piece that they don’t realize the variables that they are missing. So they’re either not self-aware, or they’re not just sort of helping nurturing their team of people around them. So you know, the outcomes piece is incredibly dependent on our own self-awareness. Again, what we’re good at, what we’re not good at. When do we need to put our hands up and say, hey, I need your help. Where can we park our own ego and say, hey, I don’t need to know everything. I shouldn’t be expected to know everything.
I should be able to put up my hand and say, I need help. I’m struggling. How can you help me and who can help me? And it’s the same thing for others, you know, how do you elevate others? How do you motivate them? How do you inspire them such that their performance increases, meaning that organizationally, the performance increases, and you get the outcomes ultimately, that you want? So, yeah, it comes back to the three O’s. But for me, it’s very dependent. Outcome is dependent on ourselves and others. I hope that makes sense.
Nicole: It totally made sense. Yeah. So I love what he said. He said, it’s a formula. So it’s O plus O equals O. So that is fantastic. So if you didn’t catch that rewind, listen, again. We don’t get things the first time. That’s so important.
Sacha: My math algebra brain goes hang on a second, O plus O is two O. But it really is, you know, like, you know, I can’t emphasize enough, the focus on the people aspect is where you get performance uplift at the individual level and organizationally, such that, you know, the outcomes that you want are met, and some hopefully.
Nicole: Yeah, exactly, exactly. All right. So tell me what you see out there in terms of trends. You know, I’m declaring COVID, over in my own life. I know other people have remnants of COVID. I’m not disrespecting that, I’m just saying, I want to move on. I want to move forward and go to a new normal. I don’t know that we’ll have the old normal back. But I’d like to go to a new normal. So if if we’re moving forward into 2023, because, gosh, it’s just February. What do you see ahead? What, what do you think leaders need to be working on in 2023?
Sacha: Look, I don’t know if COVID is over, but even if COVID isn’t over, there’ll be something else, right. Just on the health side of things, you know, there’ll be some new virus and thing that I’m sure will catch us off guard at some point. I think just touching on COVID for a moment. You know, I think COVID for most people, wherever you were certainly in Melbourne, right? Remember Melbourne too was the most locked-down city in the world, right. It was nasty. We had a total of, I think six official lockdowns over the two-year period.
I can’t even remember the number of days it was but it was, it was a hell of a lot. And it was a struggle. It was really, really challenging. And going into COVID, you know, no one was expecting it. No one, no one saw it coming. And no one was prepared for it. But I think what came from COVID is the work that you and I love doing. The focus on people and leadership and great careers, really elevated. You know, people kind of had to through a forced choice, stop, reflect and think about, you know, what, what is actually important to them, what they want to do.
And, you know, we see, you know, workplace flexibility and hybrid working becoming hugely important. You know, now, while you say COVID, may be over, is hybrid working, or are those future ways of working over? No, absolutely not. Why? Because people voted with their feet. And organizations have realized that, you know, giving people empowering people trusting people with, you know, doing their job, and it may just not be on site. They’ve seen, you know, performance uplift, there’s a phenomenal global study at the moment around the four-day workweek, where people are being paid as if they’re working five days, but they’re compressing it into four.
And all the early signs are amazing. You know, we’re seeing reduced absenteeism, and we’re seeing improvements in mental health. We’re seeing increased retention rates, and ultimately, we’re seeing, you know, huge up shifts in performance. And I think that speaks volumes too. So organizations that really embrace this future ways of working, the ones that are going to remain competitive, be incredibly attractive for talent, for new talent and retain really good talent. Which then takes me to the original question around, you know, what are some of these biggest challenges?
I think navigating uncertainty is always one. COVID was a huge challenge in that uncertainty realm. And we learned a lot and are still learning from COVID. But the other agenda that I talked to CEOs and C-suite executives all the time about is talent management. From the talent attraction, how do we find and attract the best people to how do we retain them. And so much of that depends on great leaders in an organization.
Nicole: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. Yeah, one of the things that we do inside of Build a Vibrant Culture is we do some recruiting. And one of the leftovers I think from COVID is like, you know, people have a belief. There’s no good people out there. It’s hard to find good people. Don’t you wish you had $1 Sacha, for every time you heard that?
Sacha: Absolutely.
Nicole: We wouldn’t even have to be podcasting, we’d just be sitting on the beach somewhere. But the truth of the matter is, there are excellent, amazing people out there. And there could be even more amazing, excellent people out there if there was a process to develop them. So take me through kind of what you think the ideal employee lifecycle is. How do you see a company instilling a process that would help them have like what I like to call a vibrant employee or a five-star employee? What would you do if you’re brought in to kind of overhaul their process so that they would have amazing people? Because that’s just you need to build a vibrant culture.
Sacha: Yeah. Look, it’s a tricky question. And I often have some polarizing views on, you know, employee lifecycle, and you know, what that means, and, you know, what’s the right amount of years to stay at an organization. I think it’s such a case-by-case thing. And, you know, it comes back to the old saying, you know, people don’t really leave organizations, they leave their managers or leaders. So again, you know, the role of one’s manager and or leader plays such critical roles in, again, the attraction piece, but definitely in the retention piece.
And I just go back to my role at ANZ in that global head of talent role. You know, we experienced an extraordinary, extraordinarily high attrition rate for quite a period, and it was a CEO transitional time as well. So we had an incoming CEO who was culturally in polarizingly different to the outgoing CEO. And my view is not in a positive way, in terms of the incumbent. You know, he was one who was purely focused about outcomes, and just didn’t get, or didn’t understand the focus on himself, and certainly, in others. It was outcomes, outcomes, outcomes at all costs.
And, you know, no surprises to me, we had a huge attrition rate. People were leaving in droves and going to the competitors. And, you know, it was fundamentally around, we just lost the culture that bank was so well known for, and was such an attractive piece. In fact, you know, the culture of I can name the bank was ANZ, Australia and New Zealand banking group, was a global case study, because it was way before its time around this concept of bringing your whole self to work. Don’t leave the cool part, the fun part, the interesting part of you at home, but bring your whole self to work.
And so it became an incredibly attractive place to be a great place to work. But then through the new CEO, who was just so numbers-focused on old school, sort of English banker, by history, he just disrupted what was such an incredible culture and still a high-performing bank, right? We’re not saying that, you know, performance wasn’t there, the performance was there. And that was, of course, critical for shareholders and investors, and also employees, and customers. But this new CEO came in and disrupted the culture.
So organizations have a huge role, to make the culture a place where people want to come to work. You know, back to your amazing definition of willingness, I think that that holds true here. You know, people have to want to go to work, people have to be motivated, people have to see it as a safe place. You know, we talk about psychological safety all the time. That’s in the workplace, that’s whether you’re working remotely. But creating a place where people can be themselves where they can express themselves, where they can be heard, where their ideas are shared, where they are given really good nurturing, great feedback, real feedback.
You know, that Brene Brown, clear is kind type stuff. That’s the important thing that organizations need to focus on. And then I think employee lifecycle takes care of itself. You know, if those things are happening and happening, well, then employees want to stay and they want to hang around and they want to give their all. If those things aren’t happening, employee lifecycle is pretty poor, and possibly short. And you have this revolving door around people coming in, and people leaving pretty quickly.
Nicole: Yeah, and I love this part about bringing your whole self to the process. So I’m gonna go look up that case study. I’m gonna try to find that.
Sacha: Yeah, it’s called breakout. Yeah breakout. So there was a whole, there was a whole internal consulting team who were the breakout team and the breakout coaches and facilitators. And, you know, they just embedded phenomenal workshops around, you know, understanding self and embracing our individuality and bringing our whole selves to work.
And being the musician or the artist that we are, and bringing that into the workplace in some way, shape, or form. And that was championed so well by for the then CEO. And it just shows the role that culture plays in, you know, being led and demonstrated through behaviors from the top. Because when the new guy came in, it was it was gone, it was gone.
Nicole: Yeah. And to two little stories on this side of the world came into my mind. There was a gentleman that came into a company here in Charlotte, and they had instituted casual Fridays, which I mean that’s nothing new. And lots of companies allow you to wear your blue jeans to work on Friday, even at the bank or the credit union or, you know, wherever. And he came back, and he said, nope, put your suits back on for Friday. Oh my gosh, everyone, talk about upsetting people. And it’s just, it’s what pants you put on in the morning. But people are like, you’re taking this away from me? Oh, my gosh, so, so terrible.
Sacha: It sounds stupid, right? It’s something so simple, but it’s actually really soul-destroying when you take that individual expression away from people. And, you know, I can’t tell you the last time I put on a suit. It was probably to a wedding or to a funeral. But absolutely, absolutely not in the workplace. I do all my coaching, facilitating even to you know, banking executives who are in suits, I’m in my T-shirt and jeans or shorts, if it’s a nice sunny day. You know, that’s, that’s who I am. It’s how I feel comfortable. And I don’t think it’s about how I dress, as opposed to you know, kind of what sort of insights I’m there to share.
Nicole: That’s right, that’s right. And then the other kind of story, and I’m sure you’re familiar with it is Zappos. One of their core values is be a little weird. And so you know, that’s a little bit different than bring your whole self but like, I love the fact that they’re one of their core values is be a little weird. And they want you to decorate your cubicle and be crazy, and all this kind of stuff. And people so enjoy that. We’re all made so uniquely, it’s amazing.
Sacha: Embracing and nurturing people’s individuality in the workplace and making it safe to do so I think is just incredibly important. And creates a culture of hey, you know, this is such a cool place to be, you know, I am, I’m not judged for, you know, who I am or what I wear or how my cubicle is set up. You know, I’m actually encouraged to bring that to work. And I think that’s, I think that’s again, such a small little thing. But you know, when you add it up over hundreds or 1000s, or 10s of 1000s of employees, it makes a difference.
Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I know everybody is loving hearing your thoughts and your insights on leadership and coaching, facilitating, employee development, talent management, all these things. But we’re at the top of the hour. But I want you to just download one more nugget. I mean, they’re like no have him tell us one more nugget. We want to nugget. So tell me one more thing that you think leaders should think about as they continue to develop themselves as leaders and try like, try like all get out to build a vibrant culture. What would you suggest?
Sacha: Yeah, um, look, I go back to one of the gurus I mentioned, you know, Brene Brown. And I think courage is everything. So courage in the clear is kind sense. So, you know, that’s about ourselves. So what am I good at, but what am I not good at, let’s be really real about it. And let’s share that with the people that I’m working with. Talk about it openly. I’m good at this. This is something that I’m just not good at. And I need help. That vulnerability is, is just so important.
Again, you know, if you’re in a leadership role, forget your title, it is a choice. And you really have to be vested in that choice. I want to serve others, I want to lift others I want to elevate others in order to get great outcomes. So that’s what my gift is. And that’s what I love doing. And that sort of stems on to kindness too. You know, I think there is a lot of crap and bad things going on in the world. And of course, that always takes the media’s attention for some reason. I’d love to see more kindness.
Kindness can go such a long way. And last but by no means least, and particularly for me during COVID, which was a personally really challenging time. You know, our focus and relentless focus on mental health and well-being, which I haven’t somehow touched on throughout this whole conversation is unbelievably important. We need to be in a good state of mind, in order to be in our role, which is serving others.
So being mentally healthy, is super important. And whatever that may involve. You know, that could be physical exercise, it could be meditation, it could be taking more breaks, it could be getting away. It could be speaking to counselors, mentors, friends, but that mental health and well-being is intrinsically linked to performance. So if mental health and well-being is low, performance will definitely be low, if not immediately, certainly over a sustained period of time.
Nicole: I love what you’re saying. Yeah. So one of the things that I share with leaders is you know, you got to do check-ins, you got to do one on ones. You got to cool your jets on all of your third O, outcome meetings, and just have some meetings with people. See how they’re doing right? Check-in and love on them a little bit. It will go so, so far for you. All right, this has been the wisdom downloaded from Melbourne, Australia from Sacha Koffman. I’m so grateful that you are on the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. If somebody’s like, well, how do I get a hold of him? How would we get a hold of you?
Sacha: Look, you can share my LinkedIn. I’d love to love to talk to anyone. And I do try and make time, so please reach out. I will do my best to get a hold of you. But thank you so much for having me. Thanks for doing what you’re doing and you know, kind of getting some great other guests onto your podcasts and sharing these really important messages about great leadership and great living.
Nicole: Now that’s right. Okay. So just reach out to him. It’s Sacha Koffman. Let me spell it for you. S a c h a Koffman K o f f m a n, and he is over there on the LinkedIn. And if you can’t find him, I’m a first relationship with him. I’ll hook you up. All right. It’s been great to have you everybody. Have a great day. Please like and subscribe the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast, and we’ll talk to you next time.
Voiceover: Ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with her strategies, systems and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy and results. Your organization will get lit from within. Email Nicole@nicolegreer.com. And be sure to check out Nicole’s TEDx talk at nicolegreer.com.
