MaineHousing Visits Hancock Lumber for Shared Leadership Workshop with Kevin Hancock

Earlier this October, Hancock Lumber welcomed eight senior leaders from Augusta-based MaineHousing for a day-long shared leadership workshop hosted by Kevin Hancock. Having connected with Kevin Hancock during a Leadership Maine tour at Hancock Lumber several years prior, MaineHousing Director, Dan Brennan, knew he wanted to find time for his leadership team to learn more about shared leadership and see what they might bring back to their organization after being exposed to some of Hancock Lumber's philosophies. MaineHousing is an independent state agency that bridges public and private housing finance, combining them to benefit Maine's low and moderate-income residents. MaineHousing acts as a bank (but with no deposits!) to bring millions of new private and federal housing funds to invest in Maine to help create safe, affordable, and warm housing.

MaineHousing's Director Dan Brennan and his 'inner circle' of senior leaders-Adam Krea, Ashley Carson, Erik Jorgensen, Jamie Johnson, Jane Whitley, Karen Lawlor, and Lauren Bustard-joined Kevin Hancock for the day who was accompanied by Team Hancock's Chief Marketing Officer, Erin Plummer, and HR Business Manager, John Muzzy.

Kevin Hancock kicked off the program by explaining the four key steps that led to Hancock Lumber's transformation:

• Inside Out Change. Kevin Hancock personally became inspired to become something different and change-to lead differently and use his platform to help others have a stronger voice. He looked inward first-as Ghandi would say, "to become the change he wished to see".
• Organizational Change. New thinking required an updated mission statement and metrics. If making work meaningful and focusing on the human experience at work was a top priority, the company needed to modernize its mission statement and add employee engagement as a key metric and build systems to measure it.
• Learning to Listen. Everyone in the company needed to do more listening-real listening. The goal when listening is to understand, not to judge. Systems for listening and feedback loops were created-it was critical to create places where all employees felt safe to say what they actually were thinking, with no consequences. This built trust over time and more people were responding with things like, "thanks for sharing" and "tell me more". The information gathered during these huddles becomes the "answers to the test", providing a roadmap for next steps. TRUST + TRANSPARENCY = IDEA SHARING.
• Sticking to It. Consistency created clarity-everyone knew this was what we were doing and would be doing indefinitely. It was clear the mission and goals were not changing-the momentum kept building and powerful performance results followed year-over-year.

Throughout the day-long program Kevin Hancock discussed the core beliefs and principles of shared leadership, what it truly means to feel respected, trusted, valued, and heard, and how to bring all those elements into a workplace culture. Participants also had the opportunity to tour the Yarmouth location, chat with team members, and hear from two employee-led focus groups to better understand how shared leadership plays out first-hand.

The day ended with nothing but smiles, happy tears, and warm embraces! Thank you for joining us MaineHousing-we look forward to hearing more about your organization's shared leadership journey in the future!

For more information about MaineHousing, click here.

For more information about Kevin Hancock's mission, and The Business of Shared Leadership, click here.