Pioneering company culture amidst Covid
On a somewhat non-descript Spring day — Wednesday 11th March 2020, I recall — our recently formed team of seven descended upon a coworking space in central London. People & Transformational HR had been, up until January 2020 a team of three, but with a growing client list and confirmed projects, Perry Timms, our Chief Energy Officer & Founder, saw the need to expand. The year 2020 looked to be the best yet for our micro-consultancy. ‘Better Business for a Better World’- we now had seven voices championing our mission and our commitment to this was solidified at our first in-person gathering.
With our team of seven travelling into London from Mexico, Romania, Scotland and England, it was apparent how much our work meant to us all. We were also joined by Barbara Thompson, now a PTHR Spiritual Investor, but I shall return to this later. The buzz from our small, rented-out coworking space felt as if it was energising the entirety of the building, and our eight hours of enthusiastic chat was permeating the soundproof walls! Fast-forward nine days and the UK, along with other countries, went into national lockdown to combat the spread of coronavirus.
The challenges with #WFH that many businesses have faced was not a challenge for us, per se. As a globally dispersed team anyway, remote working under self-management is at the core of who we are. We did only have three months experience of working as a team when lockdown struck, so it is fair to say our flow and rhythms as a team were still forming.
Challenge number one, for us, was a heartbreaker, as Perry so poignantly wrote about. We lost an entire quarters worth of work in the space of a week. As a business with significantly greater overheads than before, and thus upsizing reliant on the work in our roster, this was looking crippling for PTHR. Rather than shirk away at the fact our prospects were compromised, Perry, as our leader, addressed this head on. He spoke to us all individually, letting us know the impact this reduction in work may have. The result? We all volunteered (without knowing others had) to reduce our hours, to survive. Through some personal sacrifices by Perry and product reinvention, we against all odds, didn’t have to cut hours. We have actually since become a team of eight with a third working mum, Clare, strengthening our team. We have also set up shop in Australia, with Broch leading our conversations down under. Sure, we have been flexible, call it being agile in our approach to business requirements- but we have to be given that agile ways of working is an area of expertise for us. There is no better time than in the midst of a pandemic to practice what you preach!
We take much inspiration from the genius work of Frederic Laloux in ‘Reinventing Organisations’ and aspire to be ‘TEAL’; with an evolutionary worldview, thus a truly conscious, human and purposeful company. This aspiration has been in motion since PTHR’s inception in 2012, it is something we are still striving toward but meeting ‘teal’ conditions has undoubtedly been accelerated by what Covid thrust upon us. Related to this, the second main challenge for us was maintaining the buzz created at our inaugural-in-person-meet. Working remotely under self-management? We were functioning like this. Putting purpose before profit? Something that is intrinsic to our being (and documented in our Sustainability Strategy). Ensuring transparency and cohesion when there is added financial and personal pressure spurred by lockdowns and restrictions? We had to work on it. I should add that following our London gathering and imminent lockdown, four members of our team were somewhat prisoners of geography. Crystal was stuck in the UK trying to get a flight back to Mexico, the same situation for Cata needing to get home to Romania, Kirsten remained in Scotland with her one year old son but apart from her husband before returning to London in May, and Broch made the brave decision to leave her residence in the UK to be with her family in Australia (and will stay there until otherwise is possible). At this point, the hurdles and other obstacles rolled in.
Our focus on establishing clearer communication channels deep-rooted in transparency have ensured we are a positive group, but a team that can also be real when times get tough. How was this done? Firstly, with a sharp attention to processes in the first half of the year. We set up Friday ‘check-in’ social calls which acted as a sanctuary during the national lockdowns; these have now become a Tuesday thing and the time is used to be more work focused. The need for the social aspect seemed to diminish and so we adapted, and if needed we will adapt again. We established team agreements, making the implicit actions we take, explicit. This enabled us to be super flexible across time-zones/for the working parents amongst us. Into our summer ‘season’ — we operate in seasons rather than traditional ‘quarters’ — we set up business partners amongst the team who would form close relationships, confiding in each other and adding extra support. This, combined with unlimited ‘listening sessions’ with Perry, and an emotional team retrospective led by Matteo, who was kindly helping us during his furlough from his employer, picked us up when times got tough. (Thank you also to Alessia and Geoff who supported us in abundance). Openness, honesty, and a gradual shift toward radical transparency, is seen in our daily written check-ins via Slack. These values are outlined in our People & Operations Strategy that Broch and Cata developed and released — with anticipation — in weekly iterations throughout Summer. I can- hands down — say that I have never felt more connected to a team than I do here at PTHR. This is the foundation of the PTHR culture.
A third challenge which I would like to highlight is the relevance and viability of our product. Before Covid (BC), the majority of our work would be delivered in-person, on site at client premises, or it would see Perry stand on a stage addressing hundreds of delegates. The business world did us a favour in pivoting toward virtual events and summits; but what about the core of our business which sees all of us deliver? What about our hackathons or our agile squad workshops? The direction was clear, this clarity unquestionable with Perry’s gentle nudge.
This direction was that we would now — regardless of if and when covid was gone — favour and embrace remote methods of delivery. From this acorn, we collectively developed our ‘Business Reinvention Labs’ offering, which in a nutshell is our new ‘core’ offering. It feels, to us, relevant, flexible and immersive in a digital world. Our clients, to our delight, agree. Hours and hours of passion, belief and joy was put into getting Labs ready to launch. This project alone brought us together with even more intensity. A real sense of collective purpose. Our ‘Covid’ baby you could say. Our pride in this work has been championed by our marketing mindset, led by Emily, of which you can see in our individual writing, and strengthened by Jess’ focus on maintaining and establishing meaningful partnerships. We could not have gotten through this year had it not been for our loyal and growing community of clients and partners.
Aside from strategizing to create a winning culture, to ensure our sustainable future; or developing labs and delivering labs, we have put learning and sharing insight at the heart of our team of eight. Only a month ago, we all joined the inspirational Menlo Innovations for a virtual tour and have since moulded our internal communications to include open Google ‘Hangout’ sessions as an ode to Menlo. We embrace the notion of a growth mindset at PTHR, and we have had to have this more than ever to spot opportunities. We spot opportunities through being open minded, through acquiring knowledge and how to best harness it. This is something Perry has encouraged and supported, and during the covid-era of PTHR, we have put learning as a priority rather than a nice-to-have: Broch’s learning on remote working practices; Cata’s completion of a course on self-management; Jess’ mental health first aid qualification; Kirsten & Perry’s proxy learning experiment during “Leading from Love”; and Broch, Emily, Cata and Crystal’s undertaking of “Dare to Lead”. We are never too wise to learn yet we must be wise enough to embrace learning. Perry’s prioritisation of learning has made it feel OK to take time out for self-development in these challenging times. Self-reflection is also massively encouraged.
Noticing we were all getting tired after our intense Labs building sprints, Perry introduced an entirely radical shift into our working week: a 4-day Operating Week (4DOW). We now have 14 or more Wellness Wednesdays under our belt. Where we are not operating as a business and can paint, do yoga, read, learn, walk, whatever is good for the soul. OK since introducing it a little client hijacking has taken Perry away from entire Wednesday’s off duty, but as a team, we’ve found ourselves nourished by a punctuation to an otherwise repetitive and zapping time in front of our screens. So much was this admired, it was featured in People Management online and several other articles, podcasts and webinars.
Twenty-twenty has been a year the world will not forget. It is certainly one many will wish to forget, but I hope it is one that we accept and learn from. It does not feel right to complete this piece without acknowledging the upsurgence of the #BlackLivesMatter movement as a response to unacceptable, abhorrent, systemic racism. Now more than ever, we must truly embrace and begin to understand the differences amongst us. This understanding is crucial to diminish and one day eradicate prejudices based on colour, creed or religion in our workplaces and wider society. I mentioned Barbara Thompson in the introduction. Barbara is now one of six ‘Investors’ sitting on our virtual ‘Spiritual Investors Board’. We are thrilled to have this diverse group of talented, skilled and soulful individuals guiding us and helping to open our minds as we strive to be a more understanding and inclusive organisation.
The set of conditions our world constrains us by continues to evolve. We are proud of where we are now but yet we must continue to adapt. An example of this flex is the amendment to some of our roles during the Autumn season. Crystal’s focus is now around product management and we know our Business Reinvention Labs ‘baby’ is safe in her hands. Crystal is also helping to develop and deploy some beautiful design work with Emily, and Clare is heading up our performance and data driven analytics to ensure we are hitting the mark- if we are not, we will adjust. Only in a culture that is truly psychology safe can these changes be made, implemented but also questioned (and believe me, during this trying year, we have definitely done the latter). With openness in our hearts there is no fear of retribution.
Better Business for a Better World. To us, both of these aspirations in our mission statement are unequivocally needed more than ever. So long as we believe it and can maintain our culture of radical honesty, openness and collaboration, which is deep-rooted in our leaders’ unfaltering belief and determination in us, we will be resilient.
This brings me back to our in-person-gathering seven months ago. As a team, we often reflect on this day with such happy memories and ask, when will we be able to do this again? Like everyone right now, we do not know the answer. We have decided not to long for this, nor crave it but rather to look forward to it. We are proud of where we have got to as a micro-consultancy with a culture we have all shaped and embraced. And so our journey will continue. Stay safe everyone.
