Strengths Meets Strategy: Navigating Organizational Change in Africa

Called to Coach Webcast Series -- Season 13, Episode 1

Below are audio and video plus a transcript of the conversation, including time stamps.

In a country in which 40% of the employable labor force is unemployed, it takes more than a compelling vision for an organization to succeed, especially in times of change. That's a discovery CEO Melvin Jones of Proconics has made as he and his organization have sought to navigate significant change in the energy sector in South Africa. How has Melvin leveraged strengths, personally and organizationally, to help Proconics navigate change? How has strengths helped the organization build strong relationships -- internally and externally -- and continue to execute the company's mission? Join Melvin, Yendor Felgate, and Jim Collison and find out how to bring the power of strengths to your changing world.

If this goes right, we are going to materially change the way that South Africa thinks about employment.

Yendor Felgate, 20:58

You can be using your strengths ... to achieve an outcome ... [that] might not naturally appear possible.

Melvin Jones, 30:33

As engineers, we're, at our heart, cynics as well. ... So ... you have to start with establishing credibility before you're going to be invited in. ... But I think we're in a place now where ... people are actively embracing working with strengths.

Melvin Jones, 45:56

Jim Collison:
[0:00] I am Jim Collison, and this is Gallup's Called to Coach, recorded on December 5th, 2024.

Music:
[0:05] Music

Jim Collison:
[0:17] Called to Coach is a resource for those who want to help others discover and use their strengths. We have Gallup experts and Gallup-Certified Strengths Coaches share tactics, insights and strategies to help coaches maximize the talent of individuals, teams and organizations around the world. If you're listening live, love to have your questions there in the live chat or there on LinkedIn. If you're listening after the fact as part of a YouTube or podcast, you can send us your questions: coaching@gallup.com. Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast app or right there on YouTube -- hit that Subscribe button or follow and review, and never miss an episode. Liz Begley is with me today. Liz is the Director of Strategic Licensing for Gallup. And Liz, always great to have you on a podcast and great to have you on Called to Coach. Welcome!

Liz Begley:
[1:00] Thank you, Jim. Great to be here. It's my pleasure today to introduce Yendor Felgate with Being Human Group. BHG is one of Gallup's strategic licensees. We have 12 across the globe. Jim, I'll have you drop that link in the chat. Strategic licensees are companies that Gallup partners with that are reputable training businesses in parts of the world where we may not have a presence. They typically train our Certified Strengths Coaching courses. We've been working with BHG for several years now. In fact, they were one of our very first licensees. And so it's a real pleasure for me to be here today and that we get to hear from one of their clients. So Yendor, I'll go ahead and turn it over to you. Thank you.

Meet Our Guest on This Episode

Yendor Felgate:
[1:43] Fantastic. I appreciate it. And thank you, Liz, for that welcome. We're delighted to be here. And I think we're looking forward to sharing some insights, in terms of some of the work that we've been doing -- and, by way of introduction, the work that one of our clients has been doing -- that I think just so exemplifies what I think strengths is all about and what strengths stands for. So to that end, I'm sort of delighted to be able to introduce one of the CEOs that I have worked with over the last year, who in my mind just exemplifies visionary leadership and decisive execution. He is currently reshaping industry in Africa's frontier economy by introducing transformational energy solutions in what he has come to refer to as "Threading the eye of the needle." We can look forward to an insightful conversation regarding how strengths have influenced his personal leadership journey and the development of Proconics, a journey that requires finding the right path, his Strategic^®, making data-driven decisions, Analytical^®, turning bold ideas into action, Activator^®, and keeping stakeholders inspired about the possibility of such a transition, Futuristic^®. Today, I have the great pleasure in welcoming Melvin Jones, the CEO of Proconics. Melvin?

Melvin Jones:
[3:04] Ah, Yendor, thank you very much. Several kind words in there. I'm looking forward to the conversation. And Jim, thank you very much for setting this up. It's fantastic to be part of this podcast. And yeah, I'm looking forward to the period that we're going to spend together. Looking forward to the explore.

Yendor Felgate:
[3:21] Fantastic. Melvin, thanks for that. I think we're always, always interested to start the conversation, perhaps, on a little bit of a personal note. And I thought it may be useful just to start and get a bit of a sense of your own personal leadership journey and a little bit about how your strengths has played out in that area.

Melvin Jones:
[3:39] Yeah, thanks, Yendor. I think perhaps a place to start is I came to leadership young, and I came to leadership reluctantly. I think, if I think about the first time I was asked to step up and lead a team, I went kicking and screaming and gave my then-line manager, Marinus, a world of hurt, in terms of trying to convince him that I wanted to remain very narrowly focused on kind of specialist technical work. And if I reflect on coming to leadership young, it comes with many pitfalls. As one kind of learns more about yourself, and you discover what the impact of your personality and your leadership style is on others, you go down perhaps an explore path where you are engaging with various psychometric tests, 360 reviews, feedback from your peer group. You kind of pick up how some of your strengths, when they are amped up and dialed up a little bit too far, can actually have, like, very negative effects on the teams that you're leading.

Melvin Jones:
[4:59] And when some of those insights are not presented in the framework of the strengths, the way that the strengths do, and they're done without any training or any kind of formal framework on how to deal with that, you can actually get it very wrong. If I reflect back to, to my late 20s, early 30s, where, where some of the feedback that I was getting was telling me, you know, you're coming across as, as a little bit bombastic; you're coming across as, as arrogant; coming very forcefully. And then, you kind of go back, you do some introspection, and then you dial that way down, right. You get into the workplace, and you find yourself totally ineffectual, right, and you can't understand why. You kind of lose your mojo. And you just can't understand, and you find yourself at sea. And I think, for me, that was a big part of my early leadership journey. And if I sort of juxtapose that to, to the last two or three years with working with yourselves and what we, what we're busy with in our organization at the moment, the Gallup framework really, I think, provides a very different way of thinking about that. How to play to your strengths and how to think about when you're dialing up certain aspects, when you're dialing them down, and how to kind of not only play to your strengths, but also recognize where they leave you flailing. All right, I think, yeah.

Yendor Felgate:
[6:32] Thanks, Melvin. I think, in our journey with strengths, I think you've just reframed it so nicely around sort of the dialing up and the dialing down and the balance. And, you know, I really get a great sense. If we look at your Top 5, is there any one sort of strength that you sort of have fallen in love with, and you're just so, you know, that's your go-to, as often as you can?

Melvin Jones:
[6:53] Yeah, I think it's a double-edged sword. It's always, I think, with any strength, it's almost, it's wicked. And I think, as a group CEO, my top strengths find themselves very much in that Strategic framework, right? And that's a big advantage. And it's certainly something I play to in many facets of the business. I think it's, I dial up Strategic frequently and I'm very much about the data. So, my undergrad and my postgrad degree were very data analytics-focused, and I dial those up all the time. But getting results, I think, is always important. And so, the Activator strength is one I turn to pretty frequently. And I think one has to be a bit careful, because also when that strength is turned up really high, you, you can become a bit of a micromanager, right. You can kind of be tracking what's going on the whole time, circling around activating and reactivating the whole time, and that that can cause a lot of frustration. So one has to get that balanced, but it is, it is something I turn to when we, when we're wanting to drive results and make sure that we are getting going in the direction that we've set.

Jim Collison:
[8:20] Melvin, I want to, I want to follow up on that, because I think sometimes as leaders, we think that, you know, those, you say you're Activator. I have Activator as well. And I think, again, when I was younger, there may have been some moments where I committed to things too early, too soon, too often, and let people down. But then I, as I've gotten older in my role and in my journey on this, I figured out, How do I turn that overcommitment into a benefit? Into a, how does that -- ? And so I've, as I've, as I've developed, I put myself in roles to be able to say "Yes" to things more often. Do you find, in your journey, taking those things that in the past may have been a liability, not changing the -- what you do, but changing the environment around you to make it more of a benefit? Can you talk a little bit about that?

Melvin Jones:
[9:14] Yeah, I think, Jim, it's, as one, I'm actually going to go and fetch it once again. I came to leadership young, right? And when you come to leadership at the age that I did, especially really senior organizational-level leadership, your insecurities are almost as big of a problem as your strengths, right? And your ability to, as you say, commit to something and then have the faith of your convictions, right, to really carry through that which you have, sort of the path that you know that you need to go down without second-guessing yourself the whole time. I think that's, that's really something that's come later, right? And if I could give a, and it's almost, these things are impossible, right? But if you could kind of give a note to your younger self and say to them, you know, "You know what the right thing is to do. You know that you've committed to the right course of action. Don't doubt yourself at it, and kind of commit and carry through," right? And I found that, especially in the first sort of four or five years of being CEO, yeah, there's some mistakes that I wish I could go back and correct.

Jim Collison:
[10:41] Well, but I don't think, and Yendor, you -- chime in on this too. I don't, I, actually, I think we would short-cut our own development if we could do that. I know we can't, but we need those experiences sometimes to, to imprint, right, on our hearts, like, Oh, I don't want to do that again, or I want to be careful of that. We, if we, if we avoided those experiences, I don't think we -- and I know, Melvin, I know that's not what you meant in that, but.

Melvin Jones:
[11:09] Well, Jim, maybe, I think, and it's by way of, I mean, one sees a lot of examples of iconic leaders, right, successful leaders, that, when they step into a new role, they very quickly identify, you know, Who are the key people I need around me to make this a success, right? And what are the really bold steps I need to take in order to set that up to kind of maximize my chance of success? And that, when you're starting out in your leadership journey, I think you're a lot less decisive on some of that stuff. And you kind of climb in and you muddle through more than I think -- and despite the fact that, I mean, I'm very Analytical, and you study -- theoretically, you know what the right answer is, right. So you know intellectually what it is you should be busy with. But to pull that off as a human being, that's a whole different, that's a whole different thing.

South Africa, Proconics at a Crossroads

Yendor Felgate:
[12:13] And just to loop in here, Melvin, I think, you know, we are talking hindsight, but I think at the moment, what's really stood out in my work with you is that compelling vision you have. You know, that Futuristic for me is just so clear. And I think it's a compelling narrative, where that confidence, I think, now comes through, I think, very clearly. So that would be the sort of the one signpost. And the other one is, you probably don't realize this, but you are very mindful of your impact on others, especially around the Activator. So I'd be just a little bit curious about sort of, you know, how does the Futuristic play in, you know, and how do you moderate the Activator in that sense?

Melvin Jones:
[12:52] So, Yendor, I think Proconics finds itself sort of a -- how can I put it? -- at like a crossroads in the industry, right? A crossroads in the world at the moment. We're, as humanity, going through a once-in-hundred-year energy transition, right, where large parts of our economy are decarbonizing, right? And irrespective of what your view on that is, this is a fact. This is playing out. I mean, economic cycles are driving down the cost of renewables all the time. And Proconics finds itself at the point where, given our project skill set and given kind of the industrial space we work in, we're right at that pivot point. So we're operating right there.

Melvin Jones:
[13:41] And what we've said to ourselves as an organization is, this macro trend is playing through. We're well-positioned to ride this wave, and the opportunity of a lifetime must be grabbed in the lifetime of the opportunity, right. So we, we really need to, to dive down; we need to double down. We, we need to be setting ourselves up to, to really maximize what's going to be transitional, right. Once this has played through, and the economy's rejigged itself, that's not going to happen again, right. That's going to happen for a, perhaps a, kind of a decade in our, in our lifetimes, and we're set up to, to knock that out the park. And that, I think, is kind of the Futuristic view, the Strategic view, very sort of forward-looking, in terms of, we've been positioning ourselves for that for the last six or seven years, and now find ourselves at that fulcrum. And taking a company along on that journey has been a lot of fun, right? And as much as that's sort of taken a lot of effort to get to here, I really still feel we're at the beginning of a journey, right? We're not kind of reaching a destination; there's still a lot of road ahead of us.

Yendor Felgate:
[14:56] Yeah. And just for the audience's perspective, Melvin, just bring, just give them a little bit of a context about why this transition or the crossroads that you face is just so important, I think, for the legacy and the impact you want to make and across the industry that you operate and in sort of our continent, the Africa development story.

Melvin Jones:
[15:18] Yeah. So, I mean, South Africa has come now out of a sort of a decade and a half where we've had rolling blackouts. We've, as a country, produced insufficient power to meet the needs of our society and the needs of our industry. And historically, by far and away, the vast majority of power generated in South Africa has come from coal. I mean, even a step up from that, a majority of the fuel that we put in our cars comes from coal as well. So we run some kind of unique technology in South Africa in the way that we produce synthetic crude. And then we refine that synthetic crude into a synthetic gasoline. And Proconics has been servicing that part of the market for the last 30 years. We've been around since '95. And that's where we've really focused our energies, right? But as renewables and this deregulation of the energy market has taken place in South Africa, we've seen private industries step up and really take advantage of the reduction in the unit cost of energy that's coming from renewables. And that's done a number of things, right?

Melvin Jones:
[16:47] That's disrupted kind of incumbents in the market. It's gone a long way to resolving our energy issues. So we have not seen rolling blackouts in almost a year in South Africa. And that's been on the back of that deregulation and that private industry stepping up. And if we look forward, there's a couple of things that are playing through. It's very difficult to grow an economy without power, right? So it's, if you, it's very difficult for entrepreneurs to step up if they don't have just the basic electricity to do what it is that they need to do, right? And so as that problem resolves itself, I think there's a real good-news story that lies ahead for South Africa as we're kind of starting to address the energy problem. And that's going to, I think, unlock a wave of how we can utilize that power.

Jim Collison:
[17:44] Melvin, you said a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Do you -- from, from a business perspective. But for you, personally, and as a, in your own growth, thinking about CliftonStrengths^®, thinking about you working in your own, you know, on your own development, do you think you're at a crossroads moment in, in your leadership journey as well, where you're getting a great opportunity here? It's an opportunity within an opportunity because the market is being changed, because the expectations are being changed. Do you also look at it that way for your own personal development as a leader and maybe even organizationally?

Melvin Jones:
[18:22] I think, Jim, great question. And absolutely. If I reflect on the last, I mean, this journey for us has, has been coming for a bit, and probably about 18 months ago, I started engaging in, in some, some personal coaching -- and not just using a single coach. Yendor's, Yendor's been instrumental in, in that journey as well. And, and self-evaluation, understanding what the different role is that I need to play in the organization as we go forward, right? It's a very different role to the one that I played in the first 10 to 12 years of being a CEO at Proconics. And the role for the next 10 years is going to look quite different, right? And, I mean, if I reflect, I mean, outside of the, sort of my Top 5, Achiever^® and [Competition^®] scores quite high in my makeup as well, right? And this kind of declaration that personal competence and personal achievement and what you are actually bringing to the table is incredibly important to me, personally. And how to kind of pare back on that when you're leading what is a fast-growing organization, yeah, I think you touch an important point there, Jim, on one needs to remake yourself and remake your own leadership style.

Melvin Jones:
[20:01] And I think, Yendor, it's something that we can perhaps delve into. But we've, as an organization, we've embraced CliftonStrengths very broadly, right? So we've sent a very large sort of group or cohort through the CliftonStrengths. My senior teams are working with it actively, and we've really promoted this idea of personal coaching as something which is very important in our leaders, if we're going to be successful in this next phase of growth.

Strengths Coaching and Organizational Change

Yendor Felgate:
[20:42] Yeah, I mean, Melvin, I think you put your finger on something that I think everybody would be interested in, you know, such a compelling vision. And just for context, why we as Ph.D.s are so interested in this is because, in terms of the one-in-a-lifetime opportunity, if this goes right, you know, we are going to materially change the way that South Africa thinks about employment. You know, in our country, unfortunately, we have over 40% of our employable labor force is unemployed. And if we can start to get these dynamics right, it's not just a commercial upside, but I think we're going to lead or leave a lasting legacy. But Melvin, you touched on something that I think is quite important. I mean, you have a very compelling vision in this space, but you've had to make some really tough decisions around transitioning the organization, changing the way that you think about what you do. Give us a little bit of a sense of, you know, the impact around the coaching and how it's helped your leadership team move from what we would call legacy business to really embracing the new business, where perhaps they're not comfortable or as experienced.

Melvin Jones:
[21:48] Yeah, I think there's many facets there, Yendor. I think the one thing is an organization like ours, it starts off by, we're clearly not abandoning a large existing client base, right? And as much as this energy transition is huge, and it's bringing massive growth and potential for the future, the old doesn't go away, right? And the old needs to be evolved into the new. And so we're very focused on that.

Melvin Jones:
[22:18] But at the same time, we need to step up for kind of being ready to tackle problems which look quite different to the ones that we had to solve in the traditional part of our business. And that has, that has been tough, right? It's -- people are very invested in their careers. And if you've, if you've spent 30 years developing a skill set and developing a set of networks, a set of relationships, a way of working, and, and you're called upon to, to go through an upheaval around that, I think the fact that that comes with some emotion and some pushback, that's very human; that's very natural. And that's been, that's been very real for us, as we've, as we've gone through this restructuring and this, the setting up for the future. But I think, some of our, our executives are actually using the, the Gallup strengths very proactively, in terms of that, right. And I think that's been the theme of some of the coaching that, that you've been involved in with some of my, my executive as well, right, is to understand the way that their team dynamics work around strengths.

Melvin Jones:
[23:34] Understanding, I mean, and for the audience, just to perhaps reflect back a little bit on what it is that Proconics, as a group, we do, right? We're an industrial projects company, right? So we execute large-scale infrastructure projects. We work with heavy industry there, where people often don't want to go, where it's smelly and there are flares going and there's large machinery. That's where we work. And the nature of big projects is they're inherently set up for conflict, right? Conflict between yourself and the client, yourself and suppliers, subcontractors that are working for you, where money is tight and schedule is tight and people are being pushed. Conflicts are kind of, they're there all the time.

Melvin Jones:
[24:29] And, I mean, we've got teams that score high on Harmony^®, right? And if you score high on Harmony in a world where conflict is part of your everyday, just how you deal with that, right? How you are setting things up to play to that strength. Obviously, you want to have your client really satisfied with the work that you're doing. But at the same time, if you aren't calling conflict, sometimes conflict is really important, right? You need to call conflict so that it can be resolved. And if you don't call conflict and resolve the conflict, then, arguably, you're setting yourself up for failure. And sort of working with teams that don't do that instinctively or don't do that well instinctively, I think there's been fantastic insight for us there working with Gallup and the CliftonStrengths.

Proactive vs. Reactive Coaching, Collaboration

Jim Collison:
[25:22] Melvin, what I love, what I hear about you saying, sometimes we come at this from a very reactive perspective. In other words, we, you know you're going to have conflict, but you'll wait to see where the conflict's going to happen to, before you address it. As opposed to, we have teams high in Harmony, we better keep an eye on that in advance, and actually, maybe even have the discussion with -- they're very, very talented in this area of conflict. They may be able to prevent it before it happens. How do we deploy them in ways early to prevent it, right? It becomes more preventative than it does reactionary.

Melvin Jones:
[25:57] 100%, right. And I mean, it's, even if, and I remarked sort of in preparation for the podcast a bit, that as an organization, you would think a project organization, the whole set of Influencing and Activator-type strengths would be something that, as an organization, we kind of are off the chart at. Nothing could be further from the truth, right? And so, that's interesting, because in a schedule and kind of high-performance environment, how our teams are sort of adapting and leveraging their other strengths to generate results, I mean, there's a fascinating case study in and of itself there. Yeah, I think -- .

Yendor Felgate:
[26:45] Yeah. So, Melvin and Jim, you just really, you know, triggered, I think, two examples here that I think is useful. When Melvin talks about the leadership team and the transition, you know, the leadership team is, like much of the organization, very strong on Execution, which is, I think, where Proconics has built its reputation and Strategic Thinking. And what's been quite useful in the coaching is to help people go, one, transition is tough, so let's think it through. And historically, they've leaned into Execution more than the Thinking side of it. And so we spent quite a lot of time in the coaching to go, How do we do this smartly? You know, just using the mean of smart. You know, thinking is real work. Let's start to think through about transition. Let's start to think about how we can support our teams and bring our teams with.

Yendor Felgate:
[27:35] And so that's been a really big part of, I think, the one-to-one leadership coaching. And I'd like to think we're starting to see some results there. The second thing around Harmony is exactly right. And we've been working a lot with some of the teams. Now, you can imagine, gumboots, hard hat, and a reputation for blunt speaking. But we've really reframed Harmony around, How do we approach different stakeholders in ways that make sense to them? So how we reach consensus with third-party contractors would be different to how we reach consensus in a meaningful way with clients, with other areas of Proconics, and collaborating with other project teams. And that conversation, I think, has really eased, I think, some of the transitional aspects or challenges that I think we've been seeing. And it's been fascinating, because everybody really embraces Execution or Strategic Thinking. You know, that's like a DNA or hard-wiring, and everybody, you know, that resonates. But yet we've discovered the underlying relationship need that's been quite useful to highlight during the transition, so that the guys can start to think a little bit about managing some of the fears and the emotions and the frustrations. And, you know, it's OK -- not everything's going to go right all the time. Melvin, I don't know if you've seen some of that come through?

Melvin Jones:
[28:53] No, very loudly. You know, and I think -- I mean, so we're in an engineering sector and a technical sector. And I think people find themselves drawn to this space, typically because they don't want to work with people. I mean, it's, you find yourself drawn to kind of the hardcore engineering space. It's really because that's not where your instinct lies. But in business, and as we've been restructuring and kind of setting ourselves up is, people work with people, right? And kind of none of our society works without strong relationships. It's just, it's impossible. And to find a workforce, which, I mean, is obviously very skewed towards kind of, as you say, Execution and Strategic Thinking.

Melvin Jones:
[29:54] But getting teams to work together and getting teams to be able to develop strong relationships with our clients -- I mean, ultimately, we're in a business where repeat projects are very important for us, right? We need to be executing today's project successfully, so that our client's going to trust us to execute for them again tomorrow. And so, you have to have that relationship dialed up really high. And I think that's been also a fascination for sort of the training that we've gone through with your company, Yendor, is that, how you can be using your strengths to kind of, I don't know, “manipulate” is the wrong word, right? But to achieve an outcome using your strengths, which might not naturally appear possible, right? So you can, I mean, I don't have a single Relationship strength in my Top 10. And yet, if you wake me up at 2:00 in the morning, I'd say, "I think I've got great relationships." But how you're compensating with your strengths, how you're dialing certain things up at the right time, how you're achieving that outcome using your strengths, I think that's been a big part of the training, right? And how you have to understand that it's essential in our kind of business to have strong relationships.

Yendor Felgate:
[31:25] Melvin, just to build on that, I mean, it was fascinating when we started engaging around the Harmony. So the first, mostly, the teams would go, "Yeah, that resonates with me." But what they were shying away with is because, you know, in the convention around Harmony, it says something, often, it sort of defaults into, you know, shies away from conflicts, and so forth. And nobody wanted to embrace that, because they were all quite in that environment quite much. Of course, we embrace conflict, and we can deal with this, and all that other good stuff. And we always had to give them permission to say, it's not shying away from conflict. You know, it doesn't imply weakness or anything like that. What it means, actually, is we find conflict unproductive. And the minute we switch the language to unproductive, the guys go, "Yeah, absolutely, man. You know, it, the lack of productivity around conflict doesn't work. We'd much rather reach proper agreement."

Yendor Felgate:
[32:20] And then we were in that sort of application phase, which is, How do you deal with an aggressive client or an unreasonable client (which seems to be quite common), to start to go, right, so how do I reach agreement in a way that's good for both? A win-win conversation? And that language was quite powerful for the teams. How do we create win-win? Because historically, often, they, you know, client would bash, client would vent, client would bully and, you know, they would then sort of acquiesce to that, which they found a little bit unhelpful, right?

Melvin Jones:
[32:55] No, absolutely right. And I think it's very interesting when the leader of a team sort of is scoring really, really low on that strength. Right. And that language usage and finding the commonality, I think, has been very helpful in the coaching for the teams, Yendor. I think that's a powerful insight.

Yendor Felgate:
[33:17] Yeah, it just takes, you know, what I'm starting to see, which I really appreciate, is people are starting to give each other very different types of feedback, you know, starting to understand a little bit about why some people would frustrate them, right? And naturally so. And give them a language to start to go, "You know what? That's unhelpful. Let's rather reframe or retread and reconnect around something else." But we still have the same vision. We're still trying to collaborate. We're still trying to get things going. And I don't pretend that it always works, because, you know, the transitions are, and the ambiguity around it are difficult things. But I'm starting to see that language come through, which I think is a great testament to, I think, what your leadership team is doing there, Melvin.

Melvin Jones:
[33:59] Yeah, and I think also, you know, some of the ways that we've applied it is if we are sort of setting up for a big project, to get that project team around the table, to engage in some strengths exchange and some strengths standing that, right up front, where you, I mean, a project team is a team which is together only for the period of the project, right? So it's not necessarily guys that you've got a long-term relationship with. And then, to set that team dynamic up right from the front, using the strengths and using some strengths training that the team can immerse themselves in, it really shortcuts, I think, quality of engagement between team members, resolves conflicts and sets up for more sort of constructive engagements amongst the team members, which has been really helpful.

Yendor Felgate:
[34:47] And Melvin, we talked recently about the example when we, when you put that, the joint team together for some of your new fields projects. And, just for everybody's context, we ran a new project workshop using people's strengths, and we really spent a lot of time talking about collaboration and having great strengths-based partnership discussions. And what was fascinating is the two project leads that had to colead this both had Activator. So we called them the Activator twins. And it was fascinating to see how that played out, because the two sort of got joined at the hip and said, Right! We're going to leap off tall buildings in one step. And the Execution, Deliberative^® guys were coming and going, OK, yeah, we can, but talk to us a little bit more about how. Who's involved? How do we build this, the engine room, and so forth? And as you know, Melvin, one of the quite senior managers actually decided that that project was not good for them, and they stepped out of it, which I thought was quite an interesting set of dynamics.

Melvin Jones:
[35:51] No, I think a powerful example that you talked to there, Yendor. And I think, doing more of that for us at the beginning of a project is going to be really, really important, right? Just a little bit of context for the audience as well, Jim, is that we kind of have two big companies within the group. The one is a sort of construction execution company, right? So think blue-collar guys that are out there in the field, working with their hands. And then we've got this engineering-driven, white-collar, very kind of cerebral part of the business. And on some of our biggest projects, these two really need to get grinding together and working really closely. And that's the setup that Yendor's talking to, right? And, yeah, we were able to create, I think, a really good dynamic there.

Establishing Psychological Safety

Jim Collison:
[36:37] Melvin, to do that, though, there has to be a certain amount of psychological safety that has to be established between, you know, Yendor, you just talked about, for someone having the ability to step off of a project, some people, their heart started beating really fast when they thought, Can I do that? Can, will I survive? Will my career end if I -- ? You have to, I think you have to develop a certain amount of psychological safety, right, in, in the workplace to allow some of those things to happen. Melvin, in that, how have you worked with folks? Because there's, there's some disclosure that has to happen in this, in this context. When you are Deliberative, you say, "I am going to bring up some things that we need to think about, right?" Thoughts on, on creating an environment of safety in there, where people feel OK to say those kinds of things?

Melvin Jones:
[37:29] Yeah, and, and Jim, I'm not going to pretend that we've, that we've got a destination there, right; this is still very much, for us, a, a work in progress, right. But, I think, you talk about psychological safety. I mean, that has to be a concept that people are familiar with, right. I think it starts there, that people have to be familiar with what that means, right. And then, and then, interestingly, one actually needs to create a team where there is enough common purpose and enough common value set for that psychological safety to really establish itself, right? So, in some cases, that actually means that, you know, you do need to remodel the team a bit, right? You do need to actually eject potentially some people who are not finding psychological safety with this team, are not aligned with the purpose, and that's negatively affecting other people's psychological safety as well. And that's been a big part of our process as well is, actually, you know, we have to create a team where we are committed to the same objective. We are holding each other to account. We're having those difficult conversations. But we really believe deeply in where it is we're going. And if members of the team don't, then, ultimately, you're never going to achieve that psychological safety, right? So that's something that one needs to declare up front as well.

Yendor Felgate:
[38:57] So just to add, Jim, I mean, from the outside, when I work with Proconics, a couple of things strike me also, linking to what you're saying, is -- and Melvin's perhaps being a bit tough on himself. Proconics, whilst it is a heavy industry, and it is white collar, blue collar, and there's some tough things to make, there's a deep, deep caring about the people that work there. And that's not always obvious, but it is very much part of, I think, the Proconics culture. And genuinely, if you're not where you need to be, you can put your hand up. So I think that does sort of play into that. And I think that the power is, you don't know what you don't know, right? So everybody arrived at the joint workshop going, Man, this is the best project. This is where I want to be. But in that powerful conversation, the power of 2, what really came up is people started to go, "You know what? I buy the vision, but this is not the best fit for me." And I thought that was, A) brave, but I also think it is absolutely the right place to be, because there were a couple of people that went, you know, "I came in here, and I thought you guys were smoking your socks. I didn't think that this would all be possible, but I can see where we're going."

Jim Collison:
[40:13] And as a follow-up to that, is the opposite, then, Melvin, also true? Can folks, as they see opportunities where they may fit better, to also raise their hand, not just to say, "This isn't great," but to say, "This would be great for me to be involved in something like this." Do those, are there also opportunities like that sometimes as well?

Melvin Jones:
[40:36] I think, Jim, we're a highly intrapreneurial business, right? So we, the business today looks vastly different to what it did 10 years ago. And there are a number of examples of guys inside our business who I'd almost say have started many businesses inside our business, right? So have identified an opportunity, have said, you know, "This is something I'm really passionate about, something I want to run with. It's aligned broadly to what the business is all about," and have gone on to sort of establish sort of teams within the business and are being sort of hugely successful today. And I mean, arguably, that, to a large degree is how we find ourselves where we are. So our ability to be operating at this fulcrum of the just-energy transition is because one of our team members stuck up his hand, and he said, "You know what? My life mission is about the energy transition. That's what I'm all about. And I want to go and establish a part of the business that's going to be doing projects in that space." And we set up the environment where that was possible. And the rest is history. So I think very true.

Yendor Felgate:
[41:54] Jim, we always joke with the Proconics guys, "Be careful of asking; you may get."

Proconics: A Look Ahead

Jim Collison:
[42:00] Yes, yes, that is, Be careful what you ask for, right? It often blends in. Although I love that, Melvin, I love that, because it has to go, I think oftentimes it has to go both ways. If you're going to be a strengths-based organization, you both have to allow for folks to opt in and opt out. It can't be an only an opt-in culture or only an opt-out culture or, you know, however you want to phrase that, whatever fits the company culture from that standpoint. Melvin, how have you, how have you, as you think about your strengths rollout and the work with BHG and implementing that into the culture, what, as you look ahead a little bit, what are you, what are you looking most forward to, as far as things coming up? Or what are some, what are some opportunities, right, that could be there?

Melvin Jones:
[42:49] Yeah, so it's actually, it's a nice time to talk about this. Just yesterday, we've launched a brand refresh. So just looking at our brand identity, looking at the way we're projecting ourselves into the market, our current brand as it is, is something that we've lived with for the last 15 years. And we're going through quite a major refresh of that. And it's our intent in the first 6 months of next year to really combine that change in the way that we look to the market with an introspection and a redefinition of what it is our culture is all about. And we want to be very deliberate in, firstly, articulating, What is our desired culture at Proconics? What is it that we want to be all about? And to do that in such a way that it's measurable, right? That we can go and sort of say, To what degree are we achieving this desired culture, right?

Melvin Jones:
[43:52] And I think with the strengths-based leadership, right, and sort of that articulation of what it is that we're all about, how it is we want to lead this organization, what it is that we stand for, and to be applying some feedback to that, yeah, I'm really excited about what the next 6 months are going to be all about, Jim. I think it's kind of a redeclaration of how we do things around here, right? What is it that we're all about? What would we like the brand and the organization to stand for? How are we going to be making people feel welcome? How are we going to be achieving results? So, yeah, I'm excited about that. And alongside that, I mean, that's kind of sort of touchy-feely stuff, right? That's, there's kind of a hard-core growth ambition that sits behind that as well. There's a wave of industrial work coming in South Africa. And we're kind of running as fast as we can to be set up to be able to execute on that wave. And that's coming with a lot of real hard-core organizational challenges. Yeah.

Yendor Felgate:
[45:08] So, Jim, I'm just mindful. It's just triggered in my mind a great example of how a Team Dynamics Workshop goes at Proconics. Because you spend the first hour in engineering terminology proving that CliftonStrengths is reliable, valid, scientific and all that good stuff. And then you spend the next hour saying, "This may lead to hugging, but you don't have to hug each other, but we're going to have some great conversation." And everybody goes, "No hugging, but I can talk." And then we're in, right?

Jim Collison:
[45:39] Sorry, I had to laugh out loud. "This might lead to hugging" was a great comment. But one of, I mean, we are relational creatures, right, in that sense, and we have to account for that in our work environment as well. I don't know. Melvin, you want to add anything to that?

Melvin Jones:
[45:54] Yeah, well, I mean, and as engineers, we're, at our heart, cynics as well, right? So, I mean, Yendor started this with, you have to kind of start with establishing credibility before kind of you're going to be invited in. And I can think of a couple of sessions, Yendor, where you've kind of had to feel some really rude one kind of feedback on establishing the credibility of the framework. But I think we're in a place now where we've cracked that, right, and people are actively embracing working with strengths.

Jim Collison:
[46:31] Yendor, we have a spot where we can take a few questions. You had a thought. Finish that thought, and then we'll take a question.

Yendor Felgate:
[46:37] Yeah, and I think that what we're able to do is, I think, intrigue people and pique their curiosity. You know, that real thinking stuff can come through. But, you know, even engineers have feelings, and I say that stereotypically for a little bit of, sort of to add some input here. But it's that relational need that sits behind Proconics that I think is just so useful to understand. And once people get it, they go, "Oh, I didn't realize that, but I can see that." And that's really where we want the guys to be.

Rolling Out Strengths in a Diverse Organization

Jim Collison:
[47:10] Melvin, we see in a lot of cultures, in a lot of work cultures, you know, we think about embedding CliftonStrengths or being a strengths-based organization. And we've got some guidelines around that. Oftentimes we say, you know, everyone in the organization has the opportunity to take CliftonStrengths. And then we also say, leadership buy-in or buy-off or support from that. And your organization, it sounds like, has both. Justin asked a question from the chat. He said, What's the uptake of CliftonStrengths amongst the teams out there doing the building and construction stuff? And I think what he's saying, you know, Do you see a difference between, we talked about blue and white collar, And I hate to put people in those kinds of boxes. But as we think about, from an organizational standpoint, do you see some areas that may naturally pick up to it a little faster? Or talk a little bit about the cultural rollout, so to speak, and how that's working inside a diverse, very diverse organization.

Melvin Jones:
[48:10] Yeah, I mean, it's perhaps a bit counterintuitive, Jim, and I think it does come down to the leadership. So in our construction part of the business, if anything, takeup, I think, has been more enthusiastic, embraced more wholeheartedly than it has in the engineering space, right? I think -- Justin uses the words, "the engineers who work at their desks," but the white-collar space, kind of you, through the course of your career, I don't want to say get spoiled, but you do get confronted with kind of culture and psychometric-type interventions pretty early on in your career and often pretty frequently, right? There'll be various culture-type interventions. Where, I think, in kind of the construction field-based side of artisanal and execution-based work, that's a lot less common. And our uptake there, I think, has been incredibly enthusiastic from the leadership team there, and that tells. Yeah, I think, I don't know what you think, Yendor, but I think that perhaps most actively used in our construction business.

Yendor Felgate:
[49:30] I think that's absolutely spot on. And I, you know, what I've been fascinated and really pleased to see is the construction teams, the guys at the coalface, really appreciate the practicality of strengths. So the strengths report is great. They look at that. But once they start to see and they start to appreciate the practical language it gives them, then those examples come. "How do I deal with this person on this site? He's driving me crazy." "OK, well, what is he doing? What do you think is coming? What is the trigger?" And so on. And man, they just have a very practical nuts-and- bolts way of using strengths that is quite powerful because, and I think it's because we're reframing it in a positive sense. So we're not trying to fix things. We're not trying to change people. What we're saying is, How do we really connect in a way that makes sense to each other? Man, that message, I think, has really flown. And they've created their own sort of, I think, translation of what strengths means for them. So they're often not very technical in strengths usage, but hey, that's cool. But man, if you go to any of that section of the business, and you say "Harmony," they'll start laughing, because they know what's coming next.

Jim Collison:
[50:44] Well, and Yendor, you, I mean, you, you, you said the words --it gives them some practical application to be able to have a language in which to quickly get to the point; you know, you don't have to kind of dance around it. Right. You have this framework to say, Hey, we all understand what we're talking about here. And Melvin, you, you kind of mentioned, too, in this, coming at it from a perspective of not, What needs to be fixed? but, How do we do more of what we're already -- ? I mean, a lot of folks, I think the magic in, in strengths-based methodology is that we already know oftentimes those things that are there. They just maybe have not been brought out in us, or we have not been given the opportunity to do that. And so when you say to a person, "Hey, I actually want more, I want more of that!" I know in the past, maybe it's been, you know, we always talk about dialing down things. And I always kind of say, "No, leave it at 11, and let's find you a role where 11 works really, really well." Right. Melvin, you're shaking your head. Do you want to add anything to that?

Melvin Jones:
[51:45] No. I think one of my colleagues, he talks about, as you go through your career, you need to build a dense kind of wire frame or structure on which to hang ideas, right? And hang ideas in a structured manner. And I think that's exactly what you're talking to is that the CliftonStrengths framework gives us a framework in which to talk about exactly what you're saying, right? Is, How can I identify those things in you that, when they're dialed up to an 11, are going to cause disproportionate-type results, and then find that space where you can play to that strength. But it starts with having the sort of the conceptual framework to be able to interact with that idea, with that concept. And in the absence of that wire frame or that structure, it's really difficult, right? Cause everyone's using different languages to kind of try and explain what they think is a very clear picture in their minds, but it's not creating that clear picture in other people's heads.

Jim Collison:
[52:44] Yeah, speeds up that conversation. Gets us -- it eliminates the old Tower of Babel concept, where we're all speaking different languages, right? And we can get there very, very quickly. Yendor, you want to add anything to that?

Yendor Felgate:
[52:57] Yeah, I also think a lot of the teams are starting to get to grips with what motivates them, what their strengths needs are. So there are times when it's absolutely legitimate to be the helling about something, because it hasn't gone well, and somebody's annoying you. But we don't want you to act out on that in a negative way, but how do we then begin to understand what people need from us? And I think it moves also from what I want and what I have to have to, how do we create that win-win situation, which I think is a much better way of framing some of that difference and perhaps some of that emotion that comes with it.

The Power of I Bring, I Need

Jim Collison:
[53:32] Yeah, we've spent a lot of time thinking about and have a brand new tool in Access that's around I bring and I need. And it's amazing how, in a conversation, even among the three of us, we could sit together and say, "Hey, we're doing this project together. Here's what I'm going to bring to this. But here is what I need." And I think that's the important part in this is, here's what I need, so that you, I'm hoping one of the two of you, if we were going to do a project together, could say, "Oh, you know what? I actually, I do that really well." And that's what I want to hear, right? Because I, and again, starting with, I have to, I have to be in a safe environment to be able to openly say, "I need these things," right? And develop in that. So, Yendor?

Yendor Felgate:
[54:13] So, Jim, what's been very valuable around kick-starting those conversations is the Personal Insights page that we create for individuals and their teams. And that just kick-starts the conversation. And the psychology around it is wonderful, in the sense that, if you can imagine your Top 5 that has a multidimensional layer or different ways of thinking about your strengths, everybody automatically dives into the barrier label, the hindrance stuff. And we have a bit of fun with that. And then I say, "Well, look, that's one line, but you have 10 other lines of great stuff that you can bring to the table. What does that mean to you?" And, you know, not many folk want to read the 23-page report, but they love the personal insights. They start scribbling. They start to go, "I'm going to show my partner, my spouse, and I know why I shouldn't annoy Jim before the third cup of coffee on a Monday" type of story. Yeah.

Jim Collison:
[55:03] Yeah, indeed. Yendor, as we think we're bringing this in for a landing (we could probably talk about this -- between the three of us, we could probably spend a good chunk of the day). It's the end of your day and the beginning of ours. So we'll need to get, kind of wrap this up. Yendor, any final thoughts? And then thank Melvin for coming here as well and joining us.

Yendor Felgate:
[55:19] Yeah. So, Jim, as a great sort of passionate advocate for strengths, I think what I'm mindful of and really appreciative of about this type of session where we can share is strengths really needs a second -- in other words, leaders that are open, that can see the future and really can see the, and are committed to developing the potential and future of their people. You know, without that type of nurturing environment, it's very difficult. And I just want to really sort of, the shout-out to Melvin and his leadership team is they are really on a wonderful journey to do that. And it comes from, in my mind, whilst they are engineers and hard-wiring, from a deep sense of caring and, you know, they're our type of client, right?

Jim Collison:
[56:05] Melvin, you'll get the last word in on this. Final thoughts. One, thank you for joining us today. A very fascinating discussion. Those in chat have found great value in it and have given us some instant feedback. So thank you guys for that. But, Melvin, final words from you on this journey. It's just beginning, it sounds like, for you, in a lot of ways. Lots of years ahead of transforming South Africa's energy infrastructure and economy. Final thoughts from you.

Melvin Jones:
[56:34] Yeah, I think, Jim, firstly to you and to Gallup, thank you for putting together the platform. Thank you for inviting me. It's been fun. We're obviously continuing to work with Yendor, so, as much as it's been great spending time with him, I'm going to get lots more time to spend time with Yendor and picking his brain. Yeah, but I think that it's like you say -- this is not a destination. I think the insights one gets as a leadership team and as an organization on how to achieve results and to know better in order to do better. And that's what I think the strengths framework is giving us. But it's clearly, it's not a destination, right? I think it's a part of a journey. So yeah, up there, strength No. 3 is [Learner^®]. And I think we are a learning organization, and that's what we're busy doing.

Jim Collison:
[57:25] Great, Melvin, thank you for coming along. Yendor, thank you for the work that you do there in South Africa. If folks were interested -- certainly, hopefully, we'll have some folks listening to this that live and work in that region -- how do they get in touch with you, if they've got questions around CliftonStrengths or CliftonStrengths engagements?

Yendor Felgate:
[57:44] Yeah, fantastic. Thanks, Jim. They can get a hold of us either via email, which is info@bhg.africa, or they can go to our webpage, which is www.bhgroup.africa.

Jim Collison:
[57:59] Awesome. Thank you for joining us again. One of the privileges for me in the role that I've gotten to do here at Gallup in this is to see all these great things happening around the world. And just imagining, I can only imagine it here from Omaha, Nebraska, but real things, real, real work is being done there in South Africa. And so thanks, thank you to both of you for caring about people and just doing great work down there as well.

Jim Collison:
[58:25] With that, we'll remind everyone to take full advantage of all the resources we do have available in Gallup Access. I mentioned it a little bit earlier. If you've, if you've got your CliftonStrengths, maybe it's time to log back in and see those again. Check it out today: my.gallup.com. If you need help, we've got a chat widget there as well to get you logged in. And, and maybe it's time to review those results. For coaching, master coaching, become a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach, Yendor mentioned how you would do that. They offer that, available in South Africa. We have that available all around the world. If you didn't write down that email address, it's OK. Send us an email: coaching@gallup.com. We'll get you connected to them as well. And stay up to date on all our future webcasts. You can join our Facebook groups or LinkedIn groups or whatever. Just search "CliftonStrengths" on any social platform. We are there. Well, most of them, I think we are there. And if you can, Like it, Subscribe and Share. We appreciate that as well. Thanks for listening today. Thanks for coming out. Thanks again to the two of you for joining me today. And with that, we'll say, Goodbye, everybody.

Yendor Felgate's Top 5 CliftonStrengths are Achiever, Deliberative, Strategic, Learner and Ideation.

Melvin Jones' Top 5 CliftonStrengths are Strategic, Analytical, Learner, Activator and Futuristic.

Gallup^®, CliftonStrengths^® and each of the 34 CliftonStrengths theme names are trademarks of Gallup. Copyright © 2000 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.