Culture is what people do when no one is looking

Doug Williamson

President and C.E.O. at The Beacon Group

For decades, organizations have conducted formal employee surveys and, until recently, these have been geared to measure employee satisfaction and opinions. These types of surveys have helped organizations gauge a number of elements within their organization, however, they were rarely tied back to the organization’s culture. In other words, the questions on these surveys measured the parts, and never the whole.

Today, with increasing appreciation of the importance of culture (and the concept of organizational DNA), the time is right to shift the focus of employee surveys to the health and fitness of the organization. With a tested value set as the foundation, coupled with a desire to develop a strong culture, these sophisticated tools allow leaders to measure trends across a number of key areas affecting their employees, and ultimately, the organization itself.

Here are Some Tips to Getting your Measurement Tool Right:

The survey, and its administration, must be created with purpose, or the results will not be useful.

Content. There are indeed right and wrong questions that can be asked on Organizational Culture surveys. To effectively measure their culture, organizations must spend an extensive period of time crafting their values, and then developing appropriate questions to assess them. Further still, it is important to understand that employees at different levels have different vantage points on the organization, and it is wise to create subsets of questions to be delivered to these targeted groups. This ensures that the survey process gathers as much relevant information as possible from the employee population

Get the right feedback from the right places.

Third-party administration. It is basic human nature to be reluctant to deliver harsh news directly.  Therefore, it is particularly important for organizations to consider the use of a third-party organization to administer the survey, collect the data, and present the comprehensive results. This will not only reassure employees that their views will be kept anonymous, and confidential, but it will allow them to provide truthful, unfiltered feedback.

Maximize the likelihood of full disclosure.

Delivery. The goal of any survey is to get honest and candid feedback from employees. Therefore, ensure your organization embraces technology in any way possible to distribute and collect the surveys in as short a timeframe as possible. Be sure to seek out third-parties who can distribute and collect information from your employee population in a secure and protected manner. And reassure employees, at every step of the process, that their “candid” feedback is what is desired to help grow the organization.

Corporate culture is a powerful force. If an organization is fortunate enough to get it right, and has a culture that promotes effectiveness, and growth, it can move at pace through the challenges of the business world. If, on the other hand, its culture hinders progress and holds the organization back from reaching its true potential, it is critical to be able to turn this around.

Either way, being able to identify where your organization’s culture is, and where you want it to go is an important factor for achieving long term success.

Beware the Silent Killer of Your 2016 Business Plan

Mining for coal is risky business. From cave-ins to machinery or equipment failures and gas explosions to electrocution, dedicated miners face dozens of risks literally every day they clock in and head underground. The greatest danger of all was the build-up of carbon monoxide, a silent killer—because humans can’t really smell it—responsible for the deaths of thousands of workers until modern ventilation systems were introduced in the past 50 years.
The best protection against this silent killer involved bringing a caged canary into the mines. Canaries were the early detection system for dangerous gas. As long as they kept singing, all was well. But a dead canary meant it was time to evacuate—and fast. 

Can You Smell It?
As a business leader, you’re already deep into the first quarter of 2016. The months and weeks you spent planning, designing and presenting business plans for the year are behind you—your strategies are set and your tactics have been carefully adopted. How can you possibly fail?

And yet, year after year, from organization to organization, without regard to industry, size, or competency, we’ve seen business plans fail to generate the returns their leaders so desperately intended.

The most common silent killer: your organization’s culture. 

Why Culture Kills?
Defined simply as “the way your people think and act,” culture has been described by Roger Connors, best selling author of Change The Culture, Change The Game, as having the ability to “eat strategy for lunch.” The fact is, the most brilliant business plans only succeed when the organization’s culture can actually execute on the plan.

So, what’s the equivalent of the canary in the “culture” mine? How can you detect the presence of poisonous gases threatening your success in 2016?

One good early indicator is your measure of employee engagement. And if your organization is like most in the United States—and around the world—there’s undoubtedly work that can be done in this area.

Don’t feel bad; you’re not alone. The Gallup organization recently revealed that 2015 was another disappointing year for employee engagement in the U.S. Just last month, it reported that employee engagement remained stagnant at just 32%—remaining in roughly the same range since first being reported back in 2000. Even more troubling was the fact that 50.3% of employees when polled admitted to being “not engaged” in the work they are doing, and another 16.8% described themselves as being “actively disengaged.” “Actively disengaged?” What does that look like? That means that in the U.S. workforce, nearly one in five workers is going out of their way to undermine, derail, and even sabotage the very plan they are being paid to execute. 

Seeing and Hearing the Hard Things
I spoke with a colleague one time who was so disengaged, he not only hoped that a specific business plan would fail miserably in order to embarrass the leadership team, but he even admitted actually taking personal action to ensure it failed. That kind of disengagement, from the very people leaders are counting on the most to propel a plan to success, is costing American businesses billions of dollars. In fact, Gallup estimates that “actively disengaged” employees cost the U.S. between $450-$550 billion in lost productivity every year. That’s a staggering amount.

Fully understanding what kind of engagement exists in their organizations is critical for leaders when they begin evaluating their culture. Creating a culture where open and honest feedback exists is the easiest and most affordable way to measure engagement. But even in organizations where that practice is common, we recommend that employee sentiment be measured by inexpensive analytical tools. Still, if engagement scores are through the roof, investing in meaningful efforts to improve and enhance your organization’s culture is paramount. 

Making Sure the Lights Are On
The first step in building an enhanced culture, is linked to the creation of clear, distinct, and engaging Key Results. Over the years of partnering with thousands of organizations, our experts report a consistent finding in virtually every company they work with—the lack of clearly defined Key Results communicated effectively throughout the organization.

In the upcoming book, Fix It! Getting Accountability Right (Penguin Publishing, May 2016), authors Roger Connors, Tom Smith, Tracy Skousen, Marcus Nicolls, and Craig Hickman unveil and explore the results of Partners In Leadership’s groundbreaking “Workplace Accountability Study,” which includes data culled from over 40,000 people since 2012. In their study, the authors found to their dismay that most companies only talk about their Key Results—the three or four absolute must-hit goals—during annual planning periods.

Those Key Results might get mentioned. They might even get published. But rarely do even the best companies effectively communicate those Key Results down to every employee in a way that is meaningful, motivational and engaging. In fact, in the Workplace Accountability Study, only 15% of respondents said that company results were “sufficiently defined.” More than 66% of employees stated that priorities changed frequently, creating confusion about what really was most important to their organization. And a mere 7% said that members of their organization effectively aligned their daily work around what was most important to the company. Just 7%! That means that your brilliant business plan, the one you and your leadership team spent months creating, most likely lacks the clarity and cultural support to achieve its true implementation. 

Modernizing Your Cultural Ventilation System
The second step is to systematically and intentionally create a Culture of Accountability where engagement thrives. Every company has its own culture, whether its leader intended it or not. Over the course of the past quarter-century we’ve learned that cultures can be successfully created and that a culture with accountability at its core is the most effective of them all. A Culture of Accountability leads to greater engagement, greater ownership and alignment, and also leads to greater innovation, execution and trust.

Most organizational leaders are well aware of the importance and power of culture. In fact, in 2014, “culture” was the number one business term in the United States. Louis V. Gerstner Jr., former Chairman and CEO of IBM said famously, “I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game—it is the game. In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value.” If that’s so, why do so many leaders spend so little time working on the very thing that is likely undermining their own work?

First of all, they don’t know how. We spend billions of dollars educating and training our future business leaders. They spend years in undergraduate studies, get MBAs, then hone their business acumen and skillsets for years in the business world. They can read finance reports, understand the nuances and challenges of M&A, and are masters of strategic creation, implementation and execution. But we spend little to no real time learning about, understanding and creating workplace culture. In fact, the Workplace Accountability Study found that over 70% of leaders polled admitted that their change management efforts are not supported by a simple and effective model that people at all levels can use—clearly demonstrating the lack of focus leaders are putting on managing culture.

Secondly, they believe it takes too long to implement. One study suggests that it takes on average 2.6 years to fully complete true culture change. They get the need, but they need to deliver on this year’s business plan, not the one in 2018. What that thinking misses, however, is the incremental—virtually immediate!—impact that culture change provides organizations. 

Facing the Hard Reality and Overcoming It
Several years ago, while heading up a talented but challenging sales organization, I came to realize that what was holding us back as a company wasn’t the product, marketing deficiencies or excessive competition. What was holding us back was true ownership of the organization’s Key Results as a result of a fractured company culture. The sales professionals were some of the best in the industry, but they had spiraled into a team that spent more time pointing fingers of blame at everyone else rather than embracing the situation and making it better. As a young leader I recognized the problem but didn’t have a clue how to effect the change. Working with a Partners In Leadership consultant we created a plan to inject greater accountability into the organization, clarifying Key Results and introducing simple, effective tools and language into the culture to make the shift easier to make.

I believed the effort would work, but what was surprising to me was how quickly the change took shape. Literally, the day after introducing the language and the tools, I started hearing people using the language and referencing the models. While it’s true that the overall culture shift took many months to complete, the improvements were noticeable immediately and led to record sales that year. Idling on whether or not to implement a change management process can cost your company millions—leaders need to always be working on culture—and sooner rather than later.

To bring it all back, do you remember that coal mine referenced at the beginning of this article? That mine is a metaphor for whatever organization you’re working for, working with, or leading. There is great potential in that organization, potential that your business plan was specifically and painstakingly designed to produce. But without the same level of attention and effort to bolster the culture of your organization, a culture that is always changing and shifting as people come and go and environments change, the true potential of your team, your organization, your company could be in just as much jeopardy as that proverbial canary.

Source: www.ceoworld.biz

Culture eats strategy for breakfast

7 Elements of a Great Company Culture

Build these things into your culture and your rock star talent will take you to the top.

By Marla Tabaka

IMAGE: Getty Images

What does it really mean to build a strong culture? For some entrepreneurs the very word conjures up images of employees dancing on desks, playing pool in the break room, and napping away in comfy, soundproof enclosures. While fun may be one component of a thriving culture, there's so much more to it. 

Build a culture based on your own values, but don't forget these 7 musts.

1. If you want to be trusted, you must trust.

A culture of trust is imperative, especially if you're employing millennials. If you behave like a helicopter parent, overseeing, or worse, taking over every project, it will directly conflict with the building of trust. What if they make a mistake? I think any successful entrepreneur will tell you that there is no mistake from which you cannot recover. Give your employees clear guidelines and let them spread their wings.

2. Give employees the opportunity to get to know one another.

How can people know, like, and trust one another if they don't have the opportunity to play together? An occasional party or outing is not enough to build and maintain these relationships; weave these events into the fabric of your day-to-day company life. Create little rituals at employee meetings, have themes for certain days of the week and holidays, and engage in community projects together. Find quirky ways to celebrate success, no matter how small, and certainly create friendly competition; both work-related and personal. A chili cook-off and a game-filled afternoon at the park are a couple of things to consider. Too much work? Assign a monthly "culture captain" to plan out the month.

3. Create a cool space.

Tossing a few desks in a room doesn't cut it anymore. Our external environment has a significant impact on our internal thought process. Design a creative corner with bean bag chairs, chalk boards, and a lighthearted theme throughout. Allow employees to bring fun decorations to add to their work area. If you can afford it, hire a designer to create your unique space. A creative environment sets the bar for innovation. Creating a "culture of cool" attracts the kind of people who value the kind of culture you're trying to build.

4. Give 'em free stuff.

Everyone loves free stuff! If you can't afford to supply personal computers or tablets, stock options, and grand parties--no worries, those things will come. In the meantime Friday morning breakfasts, afternoon smoothies, fun work tools, and inexpensive merchandise will go a long way. This will contribute to a work-hard, play-hard environment, making for happy, productive, and creative employees.

5. No jerks allowed.

I can't say this often enough: Hiring for skill alone will doom you to misery. Hire nice people who fit in with the intention design of your culture. Hire people who have a proven work ethic and are team players. Hire for creativity and personality. Sure, experience and skill are important, but not nearly enough to take you to the top of your industry.

6. Encourage growth and ownership.

A strong company culture isn't just about fun: it's about encouraging your employees to see their job as more than just a job--to own their job and their ideas. Once you've build this collaborative, trusting environment, your employees will bring ideas to the table. If it's their idea, put them in charge of it! If an employee wants to learn something new, provide the support for them to do it. Today, innovative companies don't hire employees to remain in one job for an eternity; they hire innovators who will contribute to the future of the company in a powerful way.

7. Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Here's where I see entrepreneurs, especially startups, fail most often. When one hand doesn't know what the other is doing you have a recipe for disaster. But communication about processes and workflow aren't enough. Drill your values into your employees with ideas like those above and by demonstrating them in your own behavior. Be authentic and, at times, vulnerable. If an employee isn't performing up to par, don't let your frustration and disappointment grow; engage in thoughtful conversations about it and create a plan for improvement. If an employee has a win, celebrate! 

Building an outstanding culture is not an overnight event, and it's not always easy. You'll hit some bumps in the road. Never forget that your team, not your product, not your bank account, is your number-one asset.

6 Ways Vision Will Inspire Your Employees And Culture

Even as kids, we developed radar on leadership. Consider the classic schoolyard game, Follow the Leader. Everyone has to do exactly what the leader does, or they’re out. Growing up, I remember watching that game dissolve time after time. The leader would start doing scary climbs or huge leaps, and the followers felt put at risk. The leader would make seemingly pointless changes in direction, the followers got frustrated. Finally someone would yell, What are you doing? You’re a terrible leader! And set off a culture mutiny.

Since we left the playground for the workplace, what’s changed? Not much. Though these days, vision’s become a buzzword — to the point where She’s a leader with a real vision can simply mean Nice marketing strategy. But still: effective leadership, particularly at the juncture between the old ways of working and the new, requires far more than a charismatic, alpha personality, and far more than a good PR team.

Here’s how to hone its critical ingredient, Vision, To Stay On Pace With The Future of Work:

1) Vision Is Mission Plus Tech Strategy
True vision involves a clear mission that informs every strategic action and decision. Bring that into a talent management context for a moment. If a CEO’s vision includes attracting the best and the brightest minds to the organization on a global scale, a visionary talent strategy will include a platform that’s social and mobile, agile and timely, shaped with this clear target group in mind. If it doesn’t, the strategy isn’t supporting the vision.



2) Vision Should Come From Within
Consider our iconic leaders. They appear to be so filled with their vision that they’re incandescent with it; lit from within. Steve Jobs is a great example: he lived and breathed his vision; such a part of Apple’s mission that “Think Different” could have had a black turtleneck as a flag. Such distilled strength gives a brand coherency and momentum. But to transmit your vision to others and inspire them, you first have to be filled with it yourself.

 3) Vision Is Creative
What makes a leader stand out is that their ability to conceive of an objective that may not even exist: stores serving nothing but fancy coffee, cars a working family can afford to buy, a system of storing data without physical form or shape, yet nearly infinite capacity and capabilities. Then, when it comes to problem solving, where one person sees a dead end, the leader sees a road ahead. Bolstered by an unshakeable faith in their own vision, leaders see obstacles as opportunities.

4) Vision Takes Tenacity
It takes tenacity to adhere to a vision and defend it against the prospect of failure. But leaders roll up their sleeves and the world throws in behind them. Consider the recent news that insurance giant Aetna and retail mammoth Walmart are both raising wages is bound to cause ripples in the pond, as businesses are forced to similarly act in order to keep pace and attract employees — that’s one of the byproducts of a firmer job market. But the cost of these decisions is immense: Walmart, for once, has 1.3 million U.S. workers. It’s not hard to imagine the resistance such a strategy could come up against within the organization, and how hard fought the battle to get it done.

5) Vision Takes Vision
No, it’s not a typo: vision requires a sense of the big picture and a laser-sharp view of the future. This kind of foresight takes practice, but it’s part of what keeps the train on the track. Leaders need to be able to look at past performances, whether successes or failures, and be able to use that to predict future outcomes. Further, a leader can envision more than one possible outcome, and still have it adhere to their stated objective.

6) Vision Requires Communication
None of this will go anywhere if a leader doesn’t also have the tools to convey that vision to the organization, and inspire them to get the job done. That may also be why marketing has taken such a hold on the term: marketing is about creating the most engaging expression of an idea. Implicit in our ability to convey our vision is that vital compact that leadership needs to have with employees: one of consideration, and inclusion, and respect. Together, we can do it, as the slogan goes. And that, drives employee engagement and helps talent attraction and retention across the board.

Photo Credit: Startup Stock Photos


Meghan M. Biro Contributor

5 tips for building a strong corporate board

Many companies put off the task of assembling an effective board until they run into trouble.

Behind every great CEO is a great board, and I’ve noticed that startup founders tend to put off the task of building strong boards. Consider successful tech companies like Amazon and Google that built their boards early on. They’re more an exception than the rule, however; more often than not, companies find that there are few, if any, consequences until they run into trouble.

Many boards have gotten into trouble when they think they answer only to the CEO.

After years of advising startups on board management and executive search, I believe that the only true role of the board is to hire and fire the CEO. After all, great boards understand that they are accountable to each other and to company shareholders. Also, great boards are diverse – in thought, background, and perspectives. The statistics bear repeating: Just 10% of Silicon Valley directors are women, and the percentage of VC-backed startups with a female founder or CEO is even lower.

So here are some practical tips for assembling a great board.

Know the company’s vision. Where do you want the company to go? Define what you need the board to do to achieve those goals. Keep that in mind as you consider and define the attributes, skills, and experiences that you need of your board members.

Seek the right skills. Create a simple grid combining attributes that actually exist in the market. Draft a table with all the desired aspects of a “final” board. Fill in the table with prospective ideas for each director, ranking each in terms of depth or fit and whether that person can be recruited. Keep this list current, fresh, and ongoing, and make it an active item of discussion at board meetings.

Develop role and responsibilities for members. As Jim Collins says, “Do you have the right people in the right seats on the bus?” It’s never too early to have committees or key areas of responsibility. Do you have the best head of audit, compensation etc.? Who are the lead directors that you as CEO can rely on in each critical area?

Build a culture and invite debate. Foster a culture of open feedback and independence. You want different opinions and perspectives to help you consider alternatives. Consider the culture and interaction you want from your board: passionate and intense debate, or cerebral and deliberative? You want to recruit a board that pushes you, makes you uncomfortable and challenges conventional wisdom. At the same time, you want a board and not an operating committee – so setting boundaries is important.

Break through your comfort zone. Boards tend to reach for what’s familiar and comfortable, which results in homogeneity. Knowing that, you should strive for diversity of opinion and not be afraid to go against the grain. Keeping that top of mind will help you be open-minded to alternatives you would not have considered in the first place.

Juliet de Baubigny

Leading People Older Than You

Regardless of how you got to your management position, eventually you will find yourself managing people older than you.

I met one manager last week who is the youngest person in her department. That situation is pretty common these days, and it is a scary one for many leaders, especially those who are not well seasoned.

Here are ten tips that will help you be successful at gaining the necessary respect to lead more senior people effectively.

1. The first few days matter most
Actually, the first few hours or minutes are incredibly important because that is when you plant the seeds of confidence or doubt in your abilities.

Be authentic and do not play head games with people. Show immediate interest in and respect for the people who will be working for you.

Get to know them personally as quickly as you can. Every small gesture of interest in them and their thoughts will transform into credibility for you.

2. Be observant before you try to transform
Many leaders, especially those with little experience, figure they need to impress people with their power or brilliance to get respect. That approach usually backfires.

Before you seek to influence how things should be done in the future, you must first understand and appreciate how things have been done in the past. Do not spout out theories you learned in school in an attempt to snow people into respecting your knowledge.

3. Ask lots of questions
Many new leaders make a lot of statements and expect the workers to listen or take notes.

Instead, ask a lot of questions. The best approach is not knowing the right answers; it is knowing the right questions and using them wisely.


4. Put the age issue out to pasture quickly
People really do not care if their leader is older or younger than them. What they want is competence, compassion, and integrity. When you show those three things and respect people for their knowledge, then they will quickly forget that you are 20-30 years younger than they are.

5. Be genuine
Head games are for losers. Be genuine and real.

Try to figure out what matters and pay attention to those things.

Do not make the mistake of trying to be popular all the time, but also don’t be a jerk.

Think about the behaviors that you respect in a leader and emulate those. Respect people older than you for the experiences they have lived through, and listen to their stories with interest. Avoid doing a “one-up” on an experience that one of your reports conveys to you.

6. Begin to work on the culture
It is the culture of the work group that governs the quality of work life most of all. Work to figure out what is already working well and support that.

Where things need improvement, ask for advice about what people think would work. You do not need to do everything suggested, but you need to let people have a voice.

Work to build higher trust by making it safe for people to tell you what they really feel. In most areas that have morale problems, it is because people are afraid or feel disrespected.

Be approachable and be willing to listen deeply to the opinions of others. Make up your own mind what to do, but only after you have internalized and considered the ideas of others.

7. Be sincere, but not overly lavish, with your praise
People can smell a phony a mile away, and they will have no respect if you just try to butter them up in an effort to gain control.

Make sure that 100% of your reinforcement comes from your heart. People will know by the look in your eyes if you mean it or if you are just saying it. Mean it!

8. Create a positive culture
Motivation comes from within a person. If you try to manipulate the situation by providing perks in order to motivate the workers, you will fall flat on your face.

“Motivate” is not something you can do to another person; rather it is something a person does alone. Work to create the kind of environment where the workers decide this is a better place to work than before. They will motivate themselves in short order.

9. Be humble
People do not warm up to a braggart. Trying to impress them with your Harvard MBA will set you back several years in terms of ability to lead.

People relate to someone who is genuine and willing to learn from them. That attitude is far more effective than trying to win them over with your own prestigious background.

10. Care
There is an old saying that “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” It sounds trite to say it, but that is really the secret to effective leadership of people who are older than you in years and experience.

Once you have built confidence in you as a leader, the issue of age goes away quickly, and you have overcome a stumbling block that trips many bright young leaders.

I grant that it is possible to muscle in and force your way to compliance with an older population. The problem is that compliance is another word for mediocrity. What you need from people is brilliant engagement, and that is what you will get if you follow the ten tips above.
 

Bob Whipple

Family businesses a ‘good news story’ in the Canadian economy

85 per cent of Canadian family businesses projecting growth over next five years, according to PwC survey.

TORONTO—Family-owned and operated businesses are a “good news story” in the Canadian economy but face challenges attracting and retaining talent, according to a new report.

The 2014 PwC Global Family Business Survey found that family businesses in Canada are growing.

About 67 per cent of respondents achieved top line growth in the last year, and an even larger portion—85 per cent, according to PwC—are projecting growth over the next five years.

The firm said strength and confidence in family business in Canada “is likely a result of expected continued economic recovery, as well as the ability private family companies have to remain agile amidst economic uncertainty.”

“Family businesses are making the most of the economic recovery and are pushing forward in their plans for growth,” Saul Plener, national private company services leader with PwC Canada, said in a statement.

“While they remain cautious about investing in international markets, they continue to have a strong sense of confidence and optimism towards the road ahead.”

However confident family businesses are, they continue to face challenges when it comes to attracting and retaining talent, according to the survey.

Some 71 per cent of business surveyed cited the talent gap as their top concern over the next five years.

“Family-owned companies tend to require sophisticated leadership and a diversity of skill sets, but aren’t always able to provide market-competitive compensation,” the firm said. “These challenges highlight a need for family businesses to professionalize.”

Despite the need, the PwC survey found it is on the radar for only 21 per cent of Canadian respondents over the next five years.

“Furthermore, there is a significant demographic shift occurring in Canada—baby boomers are retiring, creating a skills gap in the workforce and putting a squeeze on family businesses,” PwC said.

“This is particularly challenging for the 27 per cent of respondents looking to sell or float their companies—the aging workforce will create a highly competitive buyer’s market between 2018 and 2025, meaning that succession planning will be particularly crucial for those seeking to exit.”

Despite this, the firm said family businesses bring “considerable benefit” Canada’s workforce and economy that extends beyond compensation and demographics.

“For example, 80 per cent of Canadian respondents state that they measure success beyond just profitability, and that they are committed to retaining staff even in bad times,” PwC said. “They agree their culture and values are stronger (75 per cent), they are more entrepreneurial (71 per cent), make decisions faster (73 per cent) and take a longer term approach to setting strategy (65 per cent) than non-family businesses.”

“Family businesses add a dynamic, robust and often complex layer to the general business community, and their operational models often reflect the agility needed to survive in today’s environment,” said Sharon Duguid, director of PwC’s Center for Entrepreneurs and Family Enterprise.

“Their sense of responsibility and community spirit lends itself well to a harsh and competitive market, and if they can invest in capacity and capability, bringing in the right people with the right skills, they’ll continue to be a key pillar of the Canadian economy.”