Tag Archives: corporate culture

BIV Boardroom Strategy: Candid realities about business’ dirty little secret

In an effort to avoid conflict, leaders and team members often conceal their true feelings, withhold their opinions or outwardly agree and go along with the crowd while inside they are vehemently opposed.

For some, this lack of candour also extends to hoarding information or avoiding communicating with others entirely, in an effort to save face or get and stay ahead of the pack.

Strength of the strategic plan and the ability for executives to collaborate cross-silo with their teams depends considerably on trust and respect within and between teams. The willingness to come forward with authenticity and transparency is key to building up that trust and respect.

In Jack Welch’s book Winning, he describes a lack of candour as businesses’ “dirty little secret.” Continue reading

Leadership Minute: Healthy Conflict

Corporate Culture: The Clover Food Lab Story

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Influencing Corporate Culture

I’ve spoken to a number of executives lately who are concerned about their corporate culture and who want to know the key areas for leveraging change. Here are four areas that influence culture directly and are in your control as an executive team:

  1. What behaviours we allow (we teach people what okay and not okay)
  2. What we reward (monetarily or through praise, promotion, and recognition)
  3. Who we hire, what we look for when we hire, and who we help “exit” the business
  4. The visible behaviours of the executive team we demonstrate to the rest of the company

Road to Respect: Path to Profit by Erica Pinsky

It is no secret that the world we work in has changed dramatically in the last few decades – the way we work, the type of people we want to work with and the type of work culture that drives positive results.

With all of these changes, Erica Pinsky points out in her book Road to Respect: Path to Profit that the one thing that hasn’t changed is that employers still hold the ultimate power in the workplace; with that power comes an even greater responsibility to build a culture based on respect as the key to sustainable profitability. Studies show that money is not the main factor keeping employees in a job any more; people stay because of workplace culture and relationships.  Therefore, with the shifting demographic and opportunities available in the new millennium it is imperative that organizations are aware of the dramatic effect their workplace culture has on the bottom line.

Through case studies and stories about what the top Employers of Choice are doing right, Pinsky encourages us to evaluate the current state of our work environment and empowers leaders to be proactive in building the kind of respectful work culture where the link between culture, job performance and profit is appreciated.  The Road-to-Respect: Path to Profit offers key insights and calls to action that change the way we view respect in the workplace.

Part 1 takes us through what respect is and what it looks like as a core competency in the workplace.  Part 2 dives into how to create a value-based culture where respect is one of the most important core values.  Pairing examples of how some of the most well-respected and successful organizations in Canada are doing this with impressive statistics, we are shown how things like embracing diversity, aligning people and processes with core values, having respectful collective leadership and promoting coaching throughout the organization can transform an organization into an Employer of Choice that attracts and retains the top talent. Part 3 is where the course is really charted. While every organization will find its own path, Pinsky, provides tools on how to assess and evaluate respect in your current culture starting with questioning and information gathering as the foundation.

This easy to read book paints a clear and vivid picture of what the many facets of respect looks like in a thriving organization.  Through numerous ‘respectful practices’ we are not just told, but shown how to move toward a culture where respect is a living a core value and success and profitability are the outcomes.  It is the “roadmap” to respect and path to profit.

Definitely worth the read.

Great example of corporate culture

Leadership: people don’t buy “what” you do, they buy “why” you do it.

Key lesson: people don’t buy what you do, they buy “why” you do it.

Strategic Planning: 200 ft above Grouse Mountain

A few days ago I had the unique experience of being able to run a portion of a strategic planning for a client 200 ft in the area above the Peak of Grouse Mountain, suspended in a viewing platform on the Eye of the Wind, wind turbine.

My friend Sarah McNeill recorded a guest post video on my blog a few months back where she spoke about the importance of taking your team away from the day-to-day environment to re-energize the team, be in a creative mindset, and set the plan for the future. I’m not sure this is what she meant!

If you haven’t experienced the difference between strategic planning on-site and off-site know that it’s certainly worth the investment. Not that you have to be 200 ft in the air above the highest point in Vancouver!

Some quick facts on Eye of the Wind:

Tower

  • Overall height: 65 metres, 215 feet
  • Made of structural steel in three sections
  • Weight: 133,946 kg/285,300 lbs (145 tons)

viewPOD™

  • Diameter: 7 metres, 23 feet
  • Height: 5.5.metres, 18 feet
  • Weight: 13,600 kg/30,000 lbs (15 tons)
  • Capacity: 36 people
  • Framework: Structural steel and glass
  • Glass: Tempered 2.5 cms/.5 inches thick
  • Viewing Area: 360 degrees (all points on the compass)
  • Elevation: 57 metres (187 feet)

Guest post: Sarah McNeill on Corporate Culture

The quickest way to measure your corporate culture.

[read time: 2 mins]

One of the biggest challenges in corporate culture is finding ways to effectively measure and gauge the strength of your culture. Over the past decade companies have used various survey methodologies in an attempt to uncover the truth about their cultures with the most popular one being an Employee Engagement Survey. The problem is that these surveys are time consuming, difficulty to analyze without outside support, and require a fair investment to implement.

The answer for companies who aren’t ready to take the plunge into instituting a full-blown employee engagement survey actually comes from the world of customer experience. By combining two questions together you can create an easy to use survey that’s fast and efficient, and so simple to complete that your response level will also be considerably higher (important with any type of survey).

First, we need to talk about the The Net Promoter Score (NPS). NPS was designed to measure how likely clients are to recommend a product or service to a friend. Satmetrix Systems, the company behind NPS, researched companies that experienced above average profitable growth and their research showed that customers who answered one simple question with a 9 or 10, are promoters of your business, customers who answer 7-8 are passive, and anyone that ranks your company 6 or less is actually a detractor – they are highly likely to actively recommend that people not do business with you. The question, “How likely are you to recommend our product or service to a friend or colleague?”

Here’s how to modify the NPS for a simple corporate culture survey: take the Net Promoter Score question and alter it slightly to focus on your employees’ perception of your business instead of your customers:
1. On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend to friend or family member that they come work at our company?
2. If you gave a score of 8 or less, what would need to change in order for your answer to be a 9 or 10?

Using these two questions you can rapidly put a corporate culture survey in place. Although this will not give you the richness of a full Employee Engagement Survey, these two questions will provide you valuable insight into the core areas that you need to pay attention to now.

*If you’re interested in learning more about Net Promoter Score, Harvard Business Review has a fantastic article that summarizes the entire concept entitled, “The Only Number You Need to Grow” (www.hbr.org).

[original post at mcnakblog.com]