Perhaps the simplest and most potent management advice I have to offer is this.
Treat people like responsible adults.
Sadly, the legacy of traditional management practices we inherited doesn’t always do this.
Case in point: the dress code.
For most of my career, I’ve railed against dress codes as insulting and mostly unnecessary.
Our role as leaders is to create an experience of work that cultivates performance–one where employees are willing and able to do their best work.
I fail to see how controlling how someone dresses when they work has ANYTHING to do with that.
As we emerge from the pandemic, now is the ideal time to kill the dress code and the command-and-control approach it represents.
In this video, I take the dress code to task. It’s time for us to move on and let adults dress themselves.
People will often rise to your expectations of them when you give them the chance to do so.
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