34. On Flourishing at Work in Community & with Experimentation with Amy Bonsall

Overview

In this episode, I’m joined by Amy Bonsall, founder and  CEO of Nau, a business designed to support teams and individuals in flourishing at work.

And in this conversation that’s exactly what we delve into—what does it take to flourish at work? Amy shares three areas she focuses on in her work with organizations and groups around connection, adaptability, and fair potential, pointing out what we as individuals can work on and what needs to be supported by organizations. We talk about the impact of the pandemic and the need to build back boundaries, routines, and rituals into our work norms. Hailing from IDEO, it’s not surprising to hear Amy champion experimentation and prototyping as we step into this new hybrid work environment, its benefit being to de-risk trying solutions and always being open to adapt to what’s not working. And in support of Sustainable Ambition, Amy speaks to the need to build rest and recovery into every day, not just waiting for a vacation.

I love how Amy shares great stories in this episode, pulling from her work experiences, as well as research that supports her counsel and the work she does.

I so enjoyed this conversation with you, Amy! Thank you for the wonderful work you are doing in the world to support people flourishing at work at a time when we all desperately need it.

More about Our Guest

Amy Bonsall is the founder and CEO of Nau, a business designed to support teams and individuals in flourishing at work.

In leading nau, Amy’s been supporting businesses through the pandemic in increasing their connectivity, curiosity, and compassion.Programs are available for teams, organizations, and individuals. Details can be found here.

Prior to this role, Amy was a founder of the venture design practice at IDEO, where she spent a decade leading the creation of new businesses for companies across Europe, Australia, Asia and the US. She also led new ventures at Old Navy where she co-led the creation of a multi-million dollar new business for the company, making Old Navy the first large retailer to offer all of its products in all sizes, for women of all shapes. Amy has lived internationally in multiple cities and in non-pandemic times is a voracious traveler. She earned an MBA from IMD in Switzerland, a master of science from Carnegie Mellon University, and a bachelor’s in engineering from the University of New Hampshire.

Topics Covered

  • We start with Amy sharing what has brought her to her current work focused on helping people flourish at work, and she is vulnerable in telling her story of a failure that, as she notes, always is the start of any new ventures. She shares how her own experience with self-doubt and anxiety as she was “moving up the ladder” led her to discover the power of mindfulness and meditation. She also shares a beautiful story of an experience she had while living and working in Singapore that led her to identify clues to what can help us all unlock more creativity and productivity.

  • Amy shares that to flourish it is important for us to have boundaries, be in community, and practice mindfulness.

  • We talk about how Amy’s work is so needed during this time of the pandemic and how she is working with organizations and teams to re-establish boundaries, build routines, and create rituals, many of which we lost as many of us went into a work-at-home environment.

  • Community is so important, according to Amy. As she shares, are we more likely to exercise alone or with another person? Having that accountability partner, if you will, helps in establishing new norms and staying committed.

  • Amy references a lot of great research in this conversation that backs up what she’s talking about. For example, there is a study conducted by Harvard professors with Boston Consulting Group that demonstrates how coordinating “predictable time off” increased productivity, efficiency, feeling good, and team connectivity.

  • If you are on your own or want to set more boundaries yourself to create more Sustainable Ambition, start modeling new behaviors yourself. Start the movement within your organization! Or, find a partner to create new habits together. If you want to have a bigger influence in your organization, bring statistics to the company to convince them of the power of this work.

  • We delve further into the concepts of flourishing and productivity. Amy talks about the importance of creating favorable environments for flourishing and what there needs to be at work. She’s delved into the research on what’s important for people to flourish in life and has translated that to the work environment. She buckets the elements into 3 areas: 1) connection, 2) adaptability, and 3) fair potential. Individuals can influence connection and adaptability, and organizations will need to further support adaptability and fair potential.

    • For connection, look to build strong relationships and create an environment where people belong.

    • For adaptability, seek to create and hold boundaries and guardrails, have autonomy, and the ability to set one’s own schedule.

  • Amy points to a case study at Best Buy around flexibility and how they made that work for the organization and how it led to many benefits, including increased engagement and retention of its employees. They called it “Results Oriented Work Environment.”

  • As we go into this new hybrid work environment, Amy shares how important it is to embrace an experimentation mindset and prototype new approaches. Approaching these new ways of being in this way gives a lot more permission for people to speak up and offer feedback to make sure our new work environments will work and be successful. It also lowers the risk threshold to encourage experimentation and try things out. An important element when conducting these experiments is to make sure there are regular conversations about what is working and not working and adjusting along the way.

  • We delve a little into the complexity of managing in a hybrid environment; how do you accommodate everyone? Amy points us to the work of Priya Parker and her thinking around The Art of Gathering. Amy shares how in a hybrid environment, Parker suggests having two hosts: one for the in-person gathering and one to manage those participating digitally. She acknowledges this is going to take some work for us to get comfortable with this new environment and have it work for us all.

  • We talk about the opportunity this time affords companies to pause and step back to really think about how work gets done. Amy shares ideas around breaking down ways to work. For example, what can be accomplished via asynchronous communication vs. in-person meetings being for building relationships or discussing how to work better together.

  • For those of us hard workers and everyone really, Amy shares the importance of rest and recovery, not just when we take vacation but every day, and make it part of our routines. Here at Sustainable Ambition, I’ve started to talk about finding ways to sustain yourself each day, week, month, quarter, and year.

  • Amy’s final piece of advice: step back and start by asking, “Why is it important to me to flourish and have sustainable ambition?” Ask yourself “Why?” five times to dig to the essence. Knowing our why for wanting to make these changes helps us to make them and sustain them.

Resources Mentioned

Find Amy:

Other resources Amy mentioned:

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34. On Flourishing at Work in Community & with Experimentation with Amy Bonsall

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