Sam Stevenson

An interview with Bradley Honnor

In this article, MatchFit MD Bradley Honnor talks all things ‘phenomenological’ and how this philosophy is at the very heart of MatchFit and the CLIMB people development programme.

“Phenomenology is about the individual experience that each and every one of us has,” says Bradley. “If we all go to the same party, we will all have a different experience. Everyone might say they enjoyed it, but in reality we’ve each had a different evening to the others that were with us. Everybody thinks and behaves uniquely and phenomenology is the phenomenon of that individuality. It goes beyond the collective experience.”

“In a work context, if MatchFit is delivering to a group, everyone in the group saying they enjoyed the day is not a particularly useful insight, because each person will have had a unique experience,” he continues. “We want to tap into that uniqueness, because that’s where the real value lies for an individual.”

With MatchFit’s CLIMB programme, integrating this uniqueness is inherent in everything that the team does.

“Most leadership programmes work through off-the-shelf content that may or may not fit with each individual in the session,” says Bradley. “It’s fairly typical to be sent on a training programme about delegation, for example. But if an attendee doesn’t have a team, the day becomes irrelevant, and that person won’t engage.”

Every CLIMB is very much about focusing on what each individual needs, even within a group, which is why one-to-one, as well as group work is undertaken.

“We’ll sit down with *John* to look at Mastery, which is all about *John* becoming an expert in what he does. We’ll look at what he needs, his strengths and what development areas are relevant for him specifically,” continues Bradley.

The CLIMB facilitates somebody’s personal learning journey towards their own development. This can often be in a group environment. And when the group is brought together, it’s a collective because the group will have joint goals that it needs to achieve together.

“You can speak to that group as a collective in regard to its collective goals. But each individual will have a unique input and perspective on making those goals happen in their own specific areas. That’s why the CLIMB has always taken a phenomenological approach.

When we talk about changing a culture, for example, what do we actually mean? Because the culture at work is going to be experienced differently by each individual. Some will find it fast-paced and exciting; others will find it high-pressured, oppressive and overwhelming. It’s the same culture externally, but it’s not necessarily the same culture individually. There is a phenomenological element, because of how we each interpret our particular environment in the context of how we’re experiencing it, here and now.” Bradley continues.

MatchFit consultants work with a group around their collective goals, and with individuals in terms of their individual contribution towards those goals. This explores issues such as motivation, and whether attendees actually want to do the type of activity that’s needed in order to deliver those collective goals.

“It’s not an approach that’s unfamiliar in coaching, but it differentiates MatchFit from other companies that deliver leadership programmes. Most leadership programmes provide prescribed content, which is what clients see and buy into. But we don’t have content and we don’t try to sell in that way – which does prove challenging at times!

What we actually want to do is go into a room with a team and a flip chart, pen and a blank piece of paper and ask ‘So what’s going on? What are the goals? What needs to happen to deliver those goals? What are the challenges and barriers?’

It’s a very effective methodology because everyone is identifying their own priorities, what’s important to them and what they want to engage in first. So you’ve got them on board immediately. You don’t have people sitting on the CLIMB wondering why they are there, because everybody has been able to contribute to the reason why they are there,” Bradley continues.

The CLIMB is a dynamic process with priorities often changing and evolving as the needs of the group and individuals within the group change.

“What’s important today might not be so important tomorrow,” Bradley points out. “And that’s okay. We don’t have to finish something purely because it’s been started. We can, and should, pivot very quickly according to need. That’s different to being in the middle of a standard leadership programme module, where you’ve either got to carry on, regardless of whether it’s relevant or not, or drop out and not complete it.

I often cite the example of making a presentation. You’ve prepared all your slides and know what you’re going to say. You’re halfway through your presentation and someone asks a question. In response to that question, you show them something on the flip chart that wasn’t in the presentation and may not even have been even relevant to its content. Then at the end of that day when you ask people what the most impactful part of session was, more often than not, they will say the moment when you discussed what was on the flipchart.

But on the whole, we’re just not used to operating like that. If you went on a leadership course, you’d want to see the content. You’d want to know what you’re covering on day one, when the breaks are, and how long the breaks are. Right from our school days we’ve had structure [a curriculum] and we are fed learning whether we want it or not. And adult learning is very similar.”

Bradley concludes, “This is why CLIMB has been so successful. It is different, because of that core phenomenology that’s fundamental to everything we deliver. And that is really important to MatchFit – because it’s what we know will ultimately deliver the best results for our clients.”

One Step Removed – the Challenges of Leading Remote Teams

MatchFit Methodology /

By Bradley Honnor

With remote and hybrid working set to become normal working practice rather than a temporary emergency fix for some time to come, it’s interesting to note that levels of ‘quiet quitting’ and burnout reported in the workplace have rarely been higher. A Deloitte survey (1) found that 28% of employees either left or were planning to leave their jobs in 2021, with 61% citing poor mental health as the reason.

For many, the opportunity to avoid the commute and arrange work hours around life commitments has proved invaluable. But there’s little doubt that this flexibility can come at a cost, and does not always lead to increased productivity (2). For some remote workers, it’s harder to switch off, and many are reporting working longer hours since working from home (3).

Some major challenges fall out of this for leaders – how to guard against employee burnout, and how to keep staff motivated, creative and engaged, when face-to-face contact and those serendipitous ‘ah ha’ moments around the coffee machine have been all but eliminated.

The risk of burnout

It’s a sad fact that most of the organisations MatchFit are working with are talking about burnout to some degree. Many people feel like they, or someone they know, are heading towards a state of physical and emotional exhaustion. They’re using phrases like ‘unsustainable workload’ or ‘high-pressure culture’. Feelings of isolation can also affect mental health. People will be heading towards burnout if these issues aren’t resolved.

If burnout isn’t addressed, it can develop into a mental breakdown. You can often recognise when stress has become a problem by observing behaviours. People withdraw, or interact with others differently. Their behaviour or expression of their personality alters to some degree. It can escalate to the extent that it becomes associated with a culture of bullying, harassment and discrimination, because everyone is under stress, suffering from work pressures and taking it out on their colleagues.

This type of behaviour can become normalised, which means a lot of us are working in a very unhealthy way. Lots of people are working very late without lunch, or aren’t leaving their desk at all, because they’re working from home. They’re spending evenings and weekends working. We work with enough organisations to know that many people think this is normal!

However, there’s a whole continuum of things that happen before that point is reached, which does present an opportunity for intervention. It’s also important to recognise the difference between healthy levels of stress, such as those experienced with an approaching deadline, and the cumulative effects of prolonged stress from which periods of recovery have not been built in.

It’s also quite interesting to recognise that this is the opposite of how younger generations want to work. They are actively seeking—if not demanding—a different way.

So, one of the many challenges for leaders becomes ‘how do we pull apart the entrenched cultural mindset that long days and unhealthy ways of working are necessary evils for career progression, whilst reproducing the environment of creativity, learning and engagement that traditionally arose from office-based personal interactions?’

Engagement is key

As a leader, you have to be smart and flexible, because if you insist that somebody works in a way that they don’t want to work, then they’re not going to stay around for very long. We know that a key motivator is for people to have autonomy and feel that they’re in control of how they work. A leader needs to accommodate this, because if they don’t, it’s going to backfire on them.

There’s plenty of evidence (4) supporting the model that flexibility in the way we’re allowed to work is as—if not more—productive than traditional patterns of long hours in the office with no lunchbreak, not least because that can lead to burnout. Leaders of today need to approach the issue with an open mind and work out how best to incorporate flexible working in a way that benefits both employees, and the business objectives.

However, creating connections and engaging with people working remotely is a different challenge. People do like to work remotely. There’s a ‘back to work’ policy right across the Civil Service now and a lot of people don’t want to come back. A survey (5) by broadband provider Gigabit Networks found that while 83% of businesses wanted their employees to be based in the office for at least three days per working week, only 20% of employees were prepared to do it.

Goals that motivate

Encouraging feelings of engagement with the business and with each other is harder to achieve when people are working remotely, so that isolation factor needs consideration. But motivating someone at home is not so very different to motivating them in the office. It centres around setting goals with a sense of purpose that inspire and stretch people, but not to the extent that they’re overwhelmed.

A sense of purpose and people feeling valued are key to intrinsic motivation. People need to feel important and that they have a voice. That’s one of the fundamental elements of the MatchFit CLIMB programme. Attendees are encouraged to identify and work through issues that are challenging to them, whether that’s a more junior member of staff wanting to be more confident in the workplace or a senior leader wanting to create a more engaged and motivated workforce.

How do you engage people and connect them together?

There is no magic wand. The unavoidable fact is that it takes effort – teams need to be bothered about getting together. We are, though, seeing an increase in teams getting together more from a social perspective. The work may be online, but when the team gets together, it’s actually to socialise.

It’s a given that managers should be asking how people are, and checking in to see how they are doing on a regular basis. But creating well-curated opportunities for people to convene, share ideas and feel a common purpose are also essential. Meetings for the sake of them just won’t cut it anymore, and are a waste of everyone’s time. But not every collaborative event has to have a firm agenda – informal virtual ‘drop-ins’ also have a role to play. They can be an enjoyable, low-pressure, way of fostering relationships, and some organisations have used them very successfully to enhance team cohesion.

And this is really important for creativity and innovation – we need to be bouncing ideas off other people. How many times has a throwaway remark or half-baked idea from one person, actually evolved into something tangible once another mind has engaged with it?

Ultimately, good management—and good corporate responsibility—is really thinking about how you connect people who are working remotely. This is the new world of work, so what is the plan?

References

1) https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/press-releases/articles/poor-mental-health-costs-uk-employers-up-to-pound-56-billion-a-year.html

2) https://www.managementtoday.co.uk/people-productive-home-just-working-longer-hours/hybrid-working/article/1712476

3) https://lawyerfeedhub.com/news/emails-at-2am-and-no-holiday-respite-lawyer-reveals-work-life-struggles-news/

4) https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/digital-workers-say-flexibility-is-key-to-their-productivity#:~:text=Flexible%20work%20hours%20is%20key,them%20to%20be%20more%20productive.

5) https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252528787/Remote-workers-shun-return-to-work

The Phenomenological Core of CLIMB