nørma
Our story

From leaders, for leaders.

Between us, we’ve spent decades leading teams and working alongside the people who run organisations. We’ve seen what brings people to work at their best, and what quietly wears them down.

nørma comes out of that experience. It’s built for the leaders doing that job now.

Ian Williams speaking to a room of business leaders
Ian Williams, founder of The Artistry of Humanity
Where it starts

Most problems at work start with a cluttered mind.

Disengagement, poor productivity, good people running on empty. We’ve seen all of it up close, and it nearly always leads back to the same place: a person who isn’t firing on all cylinders.

That person usually has a cluttered mind. Everything competes for their attention, the same thoughts run round and round, and there’s no room left to notice what is actually going on inside them. Underneath it sits a lack of awareness and a lack of presence.

At the root of suffering is a lack of awareness and a lack of presence. We become the emotion, which we are not. When you’re aware and present, you can helicopter out of that loop.
Ian Williams
ROUND AND ROUNDAWARE AND PRESENT
A responsibility

The greatest gift an organisation can give its people is access to themselves.

PULLED IN EVERY DIRECTIONBACK TO THEMSELVES

Most of our waking hours go to work, and work often comes home with us in our heads. By the nature of the work people do for us, we take them away from themselves.

Giving that back isn’t a nice-to-have. We see it as a responsibility every organisation carries.

So here’s our gift back to our people: a system of awareness. And then everybody wins.
Ian Williams
A system of awareness

Awareness, on both sides.

nørma gives that awareness to your people and to you. Each side sees what it needs to, and nothing more.

For your people

Where their life is at.

Their own app. A three-minute monthly check-in shows where they stand across five pillars of life, and the app helps them act on it. It all stays theirs.

Meet the app
For you

Where your culture is at.

A dashboard for the organisation, each department and each team, from groups of five or more. Where to look, what to try, and whether it worked.

See the dashboard

Your people get access to themselves. You get a clear view of your culture. That’s what we mean by everybody wins.

Shared awareness, accountability and language

Both sides, on the same page.

Awareness only moves things when both sides can talk about it, and both sides own their part.

Your people
  • Health
  • Internal
  • Love
  • Social
  • Work
  • Culture
You

Shared awareness.

Your people check in on the five pillars: Health, Internal, Love, Social and Work. You see the same five on your dashboard, plus whether people feel heard, valued and safe to speak. Both sides are looking at the same picture.

Shared accountability.

Each side owns its part. Your people own their wellbeing, and the app helps them work on it. You own the culture they work in, and the dashboard shows where it needs attention and whether what you tried has worked.

Shared language.

The pillars don’t stay in the app. People start using them in one-to-ones, in team meetings, over coffee. Over time it’s simply how your organisation talks about how people are going, and it becomes part of your culture.

Ian Williams
Meet Ian

Leading people since he was seventeen.

Ian Williams stepped into his first leadership role at seventeen, growing up in Liverpool. Since then he has spent more than thirty years leading teams in some of the world’s largest organisations, across three continents.

Today he’s the founder and CEO of The Artistry of Humanity, the team behind nørma, and works with leadership teams as a consultant, facilitator and speaker. The thinking on this page is what he brings into those rooms.

Where the name comes from

Three things came together in one word.

The carpenter’s square

In Latin, norma is the carpenter’s square, the tool that shows whether a corner is true. It’s where the word norm comes from. nørma does the same for people: it shows them where they truly stand.

A line through the norm

The ø puts a line through the norm. In German it’s also the sign for an average. Busy, distracted and running on empty has become normal at work, and we don’t accept that as the standard.

Norma

nørma is also named after a real person: Ian’s mum, Norma. She’s the most resilient person he knows, and a real inspiration for the values that shape everything nørma stands for.

Give your people access to themselves.

Thirty minutes with the team behind nørma. We’ll show you the app your people use and the dashboard you’d use alongside it.