HSBC won our MAD World award earlier this year for its global mindfulness champions programme.
Sean Tolram, Mindfulness Programme Manager at HSBC, tells us how he did it…
1. Find your senior advocates
They can leverage their positions to promote your initiative and ensure long term success. This helps to promote top down culture change, and increase the likelihood of employees taking part. Learn to speak their language, find out what matters to them, and make them wonder where you’ve been all their lives.
2. Shout about your success
As you scale your operation, put modesty aside and intentionally promote the successes you have along the way. This might be uncomfortable for some. But if you want to gain traction, and grab the attention of those senior advocates, you need to send out big, impactful statements to show how well you’re doing. Don’t just press play, turn up the volume!
3. If you have volunteer Champions, reward them
They’re probably taking on extra work that doesn’t directly relate to their business objectives. This basically makes them superheroes, and you should treat them as such. Seek out any internal processes for congratulating or thanking employees, and make sure you spread the love to your Champions as often as possible.
4. Embed into internal processes
It’s much easier to scale if your solution fits in with existing technology, processes and procedures. Otherwise you’ll be like a salmon swimming upstream. You might get there eventually, but you’ll be battered along the way. When designing your initiative, find the path of least resistance so that you can focus more on the people you’re trying to support.
5. Be aware of cultural preferences, and use quality translations
Do you remember when KFC launched in China and translated their slogan “finger lickin’ good” to “Eat your fingers off”. Or when Parker launched a new pen in Mexico, and they translated “It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you” to “It won’t leak in your pocket and make you pregnant”. Some of the world’s biggest brands have made these kinds of mistakes as they tried to scale globally at pace. As you expand into unfamiliar markets, make sure you have access to trusted, knowledgeable advisers who can sense check your content.
