“Our behaviour is a function of our decisions, not our conditions.” Stephen Covey

With the NZLEAD Unconferences coming up this month in both Wellington and Auckland, I have started to think about how the discussions might go. With a theme of the Humane Workplace, will people embrace the theme and think differently or will they simply reference what they know? I hope they take the opportunity to do the former.

If you are coming, or still thinking of coming, ask yourself the following questions:

• What do you stand for when it comes to people at work?
• What do you value most in work and in life?
• How do you walk your talk?
• How have you failed?
• Where have you succeeded?
• What is the #1 thing you want to facilitate people to achieve for themselves?

Why? People want and expect more. The tide has changed. We want honesty, authenticity, genuine connection, communication. We want our leaders to be human and humane, not aloof and arrogant. People know when they have a raw deal at work and no longer tolerate corporate bullshit. That’s what creating humane workplaces is all about.

I raised a few eyebrows recently when I told a group of HR students that 80% of our profession are mediocre and challenged them to think about how THEY will make a difference and not to go into HR if they can’t.

We all like to think we are making a difference but most of us aren’t and never will. That’s the reality. And that all comes down to the decisions we make. And often, we make decisions at work that don’t reflect how we think and behave out of work. Because we don’t want to challenge the status quo, or things we see that are not consistent with our personal values. We don’t rock the boat.

Well, I hope these events do rock the boat. I hope we go away understanding how:

• we can be more BOLD, more COURAGEOUS
• we can make a real DIFFERENCE right now today
• we can leave a genuine LEGACY in our organisations and in life.

And I’m really looking forward to seeing what comes out of unconferences and the subsequent actions and roads people opt to take towards creating more humane workplaces. There is still time to get among it in Wellington on 14th October and Auckland on 15th October. And if you are in the UK, check out Brighton on 13 November.