Blue Mercury - Leadership

Nothing says 'let’s talk about emotional culture' quite like freezing on Zoom in the middle of facilitating a session about emotional culture.

Look at that hand action! The Passion, The Energy, The Footwork.... Classic Too-Much Kayleigh... Perfect timing, really.

There I was, working with a community group, trying to create a useful conversation about how people feel, what they experience, and what we unintentionally leave behind in the room.

And then my laptop decided to become a still life. But me, internally, not frozen at all.

But the group were awesome - They waited. They laughed. They went with it. They made the moment feel human, not awkward. Thanks team!!

Because emotional culture is not just what we write on the wall, or a charter, or values statement, or when everyone and everything is behaving beautifully.

It is what people experience when things go a bit wrong too...

𝗜 𝗴𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘀, 𝗜'𝗺 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆... 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗱𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗴𝗼 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻?

The book.

There is a special kind of panic that happens when you are setting yourself up for a workshop, feeling reasonably professional, reasonably prepared, reasonably like the person who is about to hold space for other humans, and then you realise the thing you have accidentally projected onto the giant screen is not the beautiful, polished workshop deck, but the draft of your own book.

The book of challenges, grief, stubbornness, questionable life choices, small wins, big lessons, and all the bits of myself I am slowly trying to wrangle into sentences that make sense....

For a brief moment, my private writing world was sitting there in full screen...

Just thought it was a reminder that the things we are building quietly in the background have a funny way of asking to be seen sometimes!!!

I was talking with a group the other day about values, and how we take them from words on a page into the way we actually show up.

Because it’s easy to say we value courage, trust, growth, kindness, legacy.

It’s much harder to ask... but realistically, how would someone know?

- What would they see?
- What would they hear?

One of my values is LEGACY.

Not in a grand, build-a-statue-in-my-honour kind of way. More in the quiet, practical sense of wanting the work I do to leave something useful behind.

That the work I do builds a little more confidence, a little more language, perhaps some more trust.

Working with The Rees Hotel over the last three years has been such a beautiful reminder of that.

I’ve watched their team grow through their teamwork development, and now move into the leadership phase of their journey.

I’ve seen people find their voice, think more intentionally about how they work together and I'm starting to see that confidence build, not through one big shiny moment, but through steady conversations, reflection, practice, and commitment.

And honestly, it’s a real joy.

It’s why I do what I do.
(And why my mum did what she did too...)

Because legacy isn’t always something we leave at the end.
Sometimes it’s something we build in the room, one conversation at a time.

There’s something lovely about marking the end of hard work.
We really do work better when we acknowledge visual progress.

I was invited to long lunch to celebrate the end of harvest, and it was such a pleasure to be in the room.

Not because it was fancy, although let’s be honest, good food and good wine never hurt anyone... *(apart from the Sunday hangover...)

It was awesome, tp look around and acknowledge the people, the graft, the early starts, the long days, the problem solving, the weather watching, the teamwork, the tired bodies, and the commitment that sits behind a finished wine season.

We don’t always do that very well in New Zealand, do we?

We are pretty good at getting on with it, head down, bum up, job done....
Straight into the next thing.

But there is something really powerful about creating a moment that says:

That mattered.
You mattered.
This took effort.

Celebration matters.

Not the forced, awkward, let’s-all-clap-because-the-agenda-says-so kind of celebration. The genuine kind.

The kind where people can exhale.
Where the end of one chapter is properly acknowledged before the next one begins.
Where hard work is seen, not just expected.

Watching that harvest celebration reminded me that rituals don’t have to be complicated, to be meaningful.

Sometimes it’s a long table, shared food, a few words of thanks, and the simple act of saying...

Well done.
We got here.

Sometimes we need a face mask and a 90/00s band T-shirt.

We don't need another strategy session, or a five-step plan, or another productivity hack dressed up as self-care.

Just a blimmen reset, and a salad.

I’ve been thinking about how often we make wellbeing sound gosh darn complicated.

As if looking after ourselves needs to be perfectly scheduled, beautifully photographed, and backed by a new morning routine that starts at 5am and involves lemon water, journalling, and becoming a completely different person.

Sometimes it’s much simpler than that.

A face mask, a band T-shirt, a cuppa tea, an early night, a walk around the block, or a moment where nobody needs anything from you....

In leadership work, we talk a lot about resilience - but resilience is not just muscling through.

It is knowing when to pause., noticing when our battery is low, and giving ourselves permission to do something small, ordinary and useful before we hit the wall.

The small things count, because they remind us we are human.
And, you know what? Humans need recovery too, not just performance.

So if today has been a lot, this is your gentle nudge...
You do not need to completely overhaul your life.

You might just need a face mask, an oversized t-shirt and 20 minutes where the world can sort itself out... (you don't need to intervene!)

Is it better to learn faster, or let it stick?

I run leadership programmes in a couple of different formats.

- Sometimes it’s one day a month over six months.

- Sometimes it’s two days at a time over three months.

And I’ve been thinking about the trade-off...

Because on paper, the shorter format is often more practical - it gives us less disruption, fewer calendar holds, less time 'out of the business'.

And I get it. Operationally, that totally matters, and makes sense.

But when we are talking about leadership development, culture, communication, trust, emotional intelligence, teamwork, values and accountability, speed isn’t always the best measure...

The magic often happens in the space between sessions.

Someone tries a different conversation, they notice an old habit, they come back with a real example. They realise the framework was not just a nice idea on a workbook page, but something they can actually use on a Tuesday afternoon when things are gross or messy.

So maybe the question isn’t:

“How quickly can we get through the content?”

Maybe it’s - What rhythm gives this the best chance of making a difference?
Convenient and effective are not always the same thing.

I'm interested... How do you balance practicality with giving learning enough time to actually stick????

Customer experience is not a department….It’s a feeling.

I get the pleasure of delivering a course at the , and every time I walk in, I’m reminded what great customer experience actually looks like.

Not the ‘we have a customer journey map in a folder somewhere’ kind, the real genuine human kind.

The team are exceptional - they welcome me personally, they remember my coffee order (even when it has been months between check-ins). They are kind, thoughtful and generous in the small moments that would be very easy to overlook… Also they always tell me how good (or glamorous) I look!!!

When you are delivering a full day programme, arriving into a space where people make you feel known, creates trust before the work even begins.

I now recommend them to others, not because they asked me to, not because there was a referral strategy, or a glossy brochure.
But because I consistently have a great experience...

THAT IS THE POWER OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE!!! (I put it in capitals so you would actually read it!!!)

When people feel genuinely looked after, they remember it, they talk about it, they come back and they send others your way.

You can tell me you value care, service, manaakitanga, excellence or generosity... But I believe it when I feel it...

And at Crowne Plaza Christchurch, I feel it every time.

A beautiful reminder that the best customer experiences are rarely accidental, they are created by people who care.

Thanks Team!