Performance focus as a driver for good mental health

In a typical engineering firm, the term performance usually relates to billable hours, or how efficiently an engineering system works.

Pritchard Francis, an award-winning Australian engineering firm, have taken a wider view of performance centered around team engagement. This focus led to the appointment of a Chief Performance Officer (CPO), who’s primary objective is team roles and engagement. Pioneering this new role is Chris Tyler.

In his nearly twenty years with the firm he has become not only a Principal and Executive Group member but an award winner, an industry exemplar, and a highly respected mentor and leader. As CPO, Tyler is responsible for ensuring there is alignment between how employees are feeling and how they are performing.

In discussing the inception of the role, Chris said “When we were discussing a chief officer role there was a temptation to create a “Chief People Officer” role, as a number of companies have. However, this title implies that one person will focus on people, and the rest focus on delivering, which is an approach doomed to failure. Engaging, empowering and giving clarity to people is the key to performance and fulfillment, as such we strongly believe that Performance is where our focus should be. The results have spoken for themselves, with strong results on mental health, retention and engagement measures aligning with a period where the team is working hard and delivering excellent commercial and technical results”.

One of Tyler’s biggest inspirations over the years has been Mihaly Csikszentmihaly and his work on happiness. Csikszentmihaly developed the term flow, a concept describing the moments you are completely engaged in a challenging task. Often referred to as being ‘in the zone’, it is those moments when your performance excels as the work simply flows out without conscious effort.

Chris Tyler presenting at Dare to Lead training.

Csikszentmihaly came to understand people were their most creative, productive, and happy when in a state of flow.

It is these concepts around engagement and performance that motivated the firm's initiative for personalised roles. Pritchard Francis encourage employees to talk about the aspects of their role they find most fulfilling, and then tailor their specific role to align with those aspects. “People are often hesitant to ‘cherry pick’ the tasks they like, as it feels like they will be leaving their colleagues with all the boring tasks. The great thing about this approach is that what everyone perceives as boring is different, and often quite the opposite. This allows a good leader to set the roles in such a way that they are all engaged with”, said Tyler.

Tyler says whilst they have regular conversations around role personalisation, it is very much a long-term process, and is not as simple as imagining your dream role.

“Figuring out how to get engagement, or what you personally find engaging, is a hard process - it requires a lot of work, a lot of self understanding, and a lot of understanding of others“, he said.

To provide their team with the skills to achieve this, Pritchard Francis recently began Dare to Lead training. Developed by one of the world’s leaders in positive psychology, Brene Brown, the ethos behind Dare to Lead is about developing brave leaders and courageous cultures.

Julie Loveny facilitating Dare to Lead training at Pritchard Francis.

The training was run by Julie Loveny, a lecturer at The University of Western Australia, and Certified Dare to Lead Facilitator, one of only a select few in Australia certified to deliver the program.

Speaking on the value of the program Loveny says, “We can all be leaders, and when we’ve got the skills to be able to do that, we are creating much better teams and positive work practices, and we're creating psychological safety as well. We spend a lot of time at work and we need to have the ability to navigate that and to make them good places to work, and these are the skills that really make for thriving workplaces.”

Twenty-five Pritchard Francis employees attended the course, which ran for two uninterrupted days, and focused on developing the skills to build an authentic and engaging leadership presence.

Loveny’s feedback noted some unique elements. As well as being one of the first engineering firms in Western Australia to undertake the training, the high number of senior leadership people in attendance was uncommon, as was the number of males truly engaging with the content.

Julie said, “I was a little curious about how it would land, but it was absolutely awesome. I was just blown away by the commitment, the interest, and openness to the learning”.

Meghan Levett, Marketing and Communications Lead | Pritchard Francis