“I was looking at the bins in our school and thought it such a shame that we weren’t doing more to separate our waste. I wondered if there was anything I could do about it. ”

We asked Cillian, a transition year student at CBC Monkstown in Dun Laoghaire if he’d noticed any changes in himself since becoming a LIFT facilitator. Cillian started to tell us a story about his school’s recycling system. The way in which a school separates their waste mightn’t seem like it has much to do with LIFT. However, in this case, it says a lot about personal development, taking action, standing out, and becoming a leader in everyday life. Before we get into that however, let’s get up to speed on Cillian’s story. 

LIFT Facilitator Training 

“I first heard of LIFT through my mother (Cillian’s mother is HR Manager with PREM, a LIFT partner). She was telling me about LIFT and how great it’s been for her and the people at her work. I’d never heard of LIFT before but decided it was something I wanted to try out.

I went along to my first facilitator training session in June (2019) and absolutely loved it. I found the process so simple yet hugely informative. There were people there from all walks of life and all different backgrounds. There were a few students and a lot of businesspeople, the ages ranged from about 14 to 60. Everyone seemed to get a lot out of it. So much of what was being discussed on the day reflected my own core values and I liked how accessible it was to everyone.”

While partaking in his first facilitator training, Cillian examined a LIFT banner which was adorned with signatures of past participants. While examining the banner, Cillian noticed a familiar name – it was one of the teachers. This set in motion Cillian’s effort to bring LIFT to his school. 

“I approached my teacher, Mr. Fitzmaurice about using LIFT’s leadership learning process at our school and he was all for it. The first roundtable I held was between myself and four of my friends. Over the course of eight weeks, we had eight lunchtime sessions together. The feedback was brilliant. Like me, the other students in the group enjoyed the discussions that came from examining the leadership values. The roundtables create a really safe environment where you can voice your opinion about something without it affecting anyone else.”

Sharing his LIFT Story

Having completed his first 8-week LIFT roundtable, Cillian shared his future plans with us. 

“It would be amazing to roll out LIFT to the entire school. I’m currently discussing this with the principal and other teachers. We’re trying to figure out the best approach. I think that all students would benefit hugely from LIFT. However, it’s also difficult to ask students to partake in roundtables during their lunch hour. We all have a lot going on already. For the time being, I am lining up my second roundtable group and I’m writing a piece about LIFT, which I will get to publish in our school’s yearbook. I’m also hoping to get the chance to speak about LIFT at the TY graduation.”

Our Latest Facilitator Story – With Janette

We’ve been blown away by the level of commitment and enthusiasm displayed by our network of LIFT facilitators. The bedrock of LIFT’s leadership learning process are roundtables and it is the facilitators that guide participants through these roundtables. All along, we’ve understood the importance of the role. What we underestimated was the sheer drive, initiative and leadership shown by those involved. No one epitomises this more than Kildare teacher, Janette. Since first getting involved in early 2019, Janette has helped dozens of people to start to look at themselves as leaders. She has become a huge inspiration to us and many others. Recently, we spoke with Janette to hear her story.

“Leadership is Something That’s Already Inside Us”

“I first got involved with LIFT in March of last year and straight away I was hooked. What struck me about the LIFT programme was the accessibility of it. The values or skills of listening, positive attitude and empathy are qualities that we all possess. It’s not some foreign concept. Leadership is something that’s already inside of us, often it’s just that we’re not using it.

Along with another facilitator, I kicked off my first 8-week roundtable in May at the local community centre. Soon after this we organised another one which ran from late September to November. On both occasions we noticed the same trend. Participants often start out a little self-conscious or lacking confidence. However, over the course of the 8 weeks, they develop and grow. Their respect for one another and confidence within themselves goes up a level or two. I love experiencing that learning curve with them.”

Providing Students With Leadership Tools to Overcome Anxiety and Other Everyday Hardships  

It’s not just the participants in Janette’s roundtables that are being impacted by LIFT. Janette is a teacher at Inchicore College of Further Education. She has noticed how LIFT’s principles have helped her in her own career. 

“LIFT has helped me to be a better teacher. I’ve become much more aware of the role that listening, empathy, understanding, and positive thinking play in teaching. I also realised that I can help students develop their own leadership qualities. Take for example ‘accountability’. Before LIFT, I would have felt the need to constantly remind my students to hand in assignments on time. Now however,  I have passed the responsibility back to them and given them the space to hold themselves accountable. This has actually led to more assignments being handed in on time and students taking greater responsibility for their work.” 

After seeing the impact that LIFT had on participants in her local community, Janette decided that her students could also benefit from LIFT. At the time of writing, the College has introduced a pilot programme. A group of first year students are currently taking part. Janette’s vision is that LIFT will be embedded into the course and become a permanent fixture. Janette filled us on how they were getting on so far.

“The pilot programme started in January so it’s still only early days. However, there’s been a lot of positive signs so far. The students and teachers have been taking part in roundtable discussions together. This has already led to a greater respect and appreciation for one another. I’ve had students tell me that partaking in LIFT has helped with their confidence and made them better listeners. Some students found that they were being overly hard on themselves before and it was affecting their studies. Some have been suffering from anxiety and now feel like they have the tools to overcome it.

Building an “Inclusive Culture of Continued Development”

RSA is one of the world’s leading multinational insurance groups. Today, RSA employs over 12,500 people, serving 9 million customers in over 100 countries. The company has a long-standing reputation within Ireland too, and has been providing insurance solutions to the Irish market since 1721. RSA Ireland has teams in Dublin, Belfast and Galway. RSA also supports their customers through their affinity and broker channels as well as through its direct arm, 123.ie.

RSA Ireland is one of LIFT’s Founding Partners. Since 2018, the team at RSA has been rolling out LIFT’s leadership learning process and championing LIFT’s positive leadership values with its people. To find out more about their experience, we sat down with RSA Insurance Ireland’s Head of Culture, Communication and Engagement, Louise Lombard. As a LIFT Founding Partner, RSA has been an incredible ambassador and Louise has experienced the power of LIFT both in work and beyond. 

As Head of Culture at the RSA, Louise is responsible for “helping to develop a strong company culture, which encourages and supports our people in becoming the very best versions of themselves. The main aim for Louise is to build “an inclusive culture of continued development, with our people at the very heart of it; employees and customers.” Within RSA itself, their ‘Your Best U’ philosophy reflects their cultural aspiration to have everyone bring the very best version of themselves to work everyday.

‘We Didn’t Think We Had the Bandwidth to Become a LIFT Partner’

With RSA’s commitment and emphasis on building an inclusive culture for its people to flourish, the company is a perfect fit for LIFT’s leadership learning process. However, as Louise explains, initially RSA didn’t know if they had the capacity to adopt the LIFT process, let alone become a Founding Partner. 

“When we were contacted by LIFT, Joanne came into our office to meet our CEO and Director of People Success, Noelle Burke. We really didn’t think we’d have the time or the bandwidth to become a LIFT partner. We already had so much going on in our business. But the moment Joanne started to share the concept of LIFT, the positive leadership values it’s based upon and its simplicity, we were in. Since then we’ve trained a number of Facilitators across our business, we’ve held leadership roundtables in Dublin, Belfast and Galway and our Director of People Success Noelle Burke has joined the LIFT Advisory Board. We’re so delighted we got involved!” 

Integrating LIFT With RSA’s Own Values

LIFT’s leadership learning process is based on an eight week programme with a weekly focus on one of the eight key values of Listening, Positive Attitude, Respect, Competence, Dedication & Determination, Empathy & Understanding, Accountability, and Honesty & Integrity. While RSA champions the eight core values, they didn’t want to lose sight of their own. 

“LIFT’s 8 leadership values are incredibly powerful. But we also have four of our own here at RSA that form part of our ‘Be Your Best U’ philosophy – ‘Boundless Ambition’, ‘Be Better Everyday’, ‘Do the Right Thing’, and ‘Love Simplicity’. At RSA we have integrated both sets to form a combined group of twelve learnings. Combining the LIFT and RSA values has worked really well for us. The approach has helped us to take our values off pages and walls and bring them to life for our people. You can feel the difference that LIFT is making in our culture. All new members of the RSA team are introduced to LIFT through our Induction programme, where we watch one of our LIFT videos. All new recruits are auto-enrolled in an upcoming LIFT leadership roundtable. Of course everyone has the choice to opt out, although nobody has done so yet.

LIFT Ireland collaborated with RSA to turn LIFT’s 8 Leadership Values into a 12 part programme. Working together, creative teams at LIFT and RSA developed four new articles and learning materials which corresponding with the usual LIFT roundtable format. 

We encourage everyone across our organisation to get involved in LIFT. To date more than 50% of our ‘People Leaders’ have experienced LIFT. Introducing our leaders is a great way to spread the positive effect, given that they are the daily touch points for our people. Our overall ambition is that we double the number of those LIFTing in our Irish business in the short term.”