Time to conclude this course. Thank you for staying to the end, well done.

We have talked about finding people where they are, about inner and outer motivation, about more or less control, direction and priorities, monkeys, and how to make sure they stay with their owners. We have talked about change and about psychological safety. There is certainly a lot more to exploring leadership than just telling people what to do.

So, let’s remind ourselves why we are doing this. Exploring leadership encourages employees to level up, to be active participants in developing the company. This is important in times of change and growth when new problems and opportunities keep turning up – too many to be handled by managers alone. In a level up culture, more people are noticing, thinking and doing, which makes NCAB more flexible, more resilient, more creative. We should be able to translate all that into more value for customers.

There are also advantages for you as a leader. When your employees improve their levelling up skills, you may find yourself less involved in day-to-day problem solving, with more room for your own exploring, for strategic thinking, and for cooperating with colleagues around the globe.

I believe that we are also doing something good for our employees with this. Exploring leadership provides an environment where people can learn more, have more influence over their work, and find their inner motivation.

These are big benefits, well worth – in my opinion – the extra level of difficulty. But as with all difficult tasks, it’s tempting to relax the ambitions after a while. Fortunately, there is a simple way of keeping an eye on yourself – the pipeline.

There should always be some exploring in your team’s pipeline. If you don’t have anything now, it’s not likely to start without a nudge from you. Can you do something together with the team, for practice? You can always start with something very small and silly, just to get to know the process. Should you have an office garden gnome? How could you test the idea? What would you evaluate?

We have very high expectations on you and the work you will do in NCAB. Imagine how proud you will be in a couple of years, when you look back at everything you and your team have accomplished.

So, where will you start? Next time we talk, be sure to tell me what’s in your pipeline.