Welcome to Our Newsletter! Be a Leadership R.E.I.G.nmaker

How I Got Here

When I began my career 25 years ago, I was a human resource management consultant specializing in compensation plan design. While my team was often engaged to figure out how to pay people, during the discovery phase it was often apparent that there were other underlying issues that employees were experiencing. I learned early on that people were the foundation of every organization. Obvious right? Well, over the years, I have often been surprised by the fact that this simple truth is often overlooked by many organizations. I know in most cases it is not intentional.

The Journey to Close the Gap

Over time, the desire to “just get it done” can become greater than why it gets done and how it gets done. The negative impact falls on each individual employee. I thought long and hard about this disconnect and believed it was time to develop a holistic approach that creates the conditions for a healthy organization without sacrificing employee wellbeing. I believe that in today’s market, an organization’s long-term success is incumbent upon closing the gap between what it says is important and what happens in practice. Thus, R.E.I.G.n™ was born. After I put my stake in the ground, I came across this thoughtful HBR IdeaCast podcast that reinforced my reason for being.

Just so we are on the same page, I am defining organizational health as one where employees are happily doing their best work in a way that enables engagement, productivity and, ultimately, profitability. The R.E.I.G.n™ model aligns people, purpose, process and outcomes, providing every leader with a clear, consistent approach to confidently impact employee wellbeing and organizational health from any seat. I believe that every employee is a leader, therefore, whether someone is a people manager or an individual contributor, R.E.I.G.n principles can serve as foundational language and practice for creating and sustaining shared values, effective communication and positive action.

Here are the five (5) R.E.I.G.n™ levers that can create awareness, clarity and confidence within every leader and every organization.

1.  Rapport: Center trust and compassion to facilitate effective communication
Benefit: Enhance collaboration

2. Equity: Design and deploy transparent, replicable processes
Benefit: Define and refine expectations

3. Intention: Frame purpose and desired outcomes for all activities
Benefit: Create focus

4. Greatness: Identify strengths at individual, team and organizational levels
Benefit: Leverage talent

5. n = Quantify Impact: Determine success metrics and ownership for all stakeholder groups
Benefit: Measure success

What is a Leadership R.E.I.G.nmaker?

You may be wondering why I titled this newsletter “Be a Leadership R.E.I.G.nmaker”. What does that even mean? A Leadership R.E.I.G.nmaker is a leader whose positive influence can initiate progress or ensure success. The connotation of a rainmaker is typically negative. They are typically viewed as someone who pushes towards the end goal regardless of the collateral damage. The “what” often overshadows the “how” to close that big deal.

My intention is to reclaim what it means to be a rainmaker by expanding the definition to include the “how” and integrating healthy leadership practices to achieve individual, team and organizational goals.

I invite you to go on this journey with me. And I am always happy to have you join our monthly PLC workshops.