Posts tagged employees have ability to create impressions

a company of adventurers

Oct 10th

Posted by Bruce in Business Thoughts

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Leadership is a tricky thing.

It is walking a fine line of truth (grounded in what is real as well as ‘not lying’) and aspirational (giving people a glimpse of what they can be).

And, as with anything, this is about some functional practical things and emotional soul searching things.

Oh.  And connecting them.  It is the connection aspect that great leaders do well.

But, ultimately, those leaders who figure it out end up leading high energy, high performance organizations.

And I tend to believe when you see an organization that ‘thinks small’ (or acts small) it is because their leaders do.

Regardless.

Just as I wrote recently about the fact we are in the ‘selling hope’ business I tend to believe great organizational cultures are also grounded on hope. Hope for being better.  Being a better person.  Being better at what you may do daily (even the smallest task). Being part of something that betters the world.

Great organizations, at their core, feed their people’s hope.

And great leaders figure out a way of showing them that hope.

In practical terms and aspirational terms.

All that said that leads to me to some words that made me think about this.

Sam Meek. Sam was the CEO of of the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson in the 50’s/60’s. And the words below were delivered in a 1965 speech.

Within the following words there are little scraps of hope littered throughout for people to pick and choose from. Scraps of the practical. Scraps of aspirational. Scraps of lessons that can be implemented daily in actions. All littered on a ground of a solid attitude focused on the horizon.

These are words that make you feel good about being part of the organization and yet words to challenge every one to be better and work harder (“we are a permanently dissatisfied company”).

I am not above stealing great words and reapplying them.  I use these words all the time and, frankly, I seek to work within organizations that like these words:

When I talk of this company, I am not thinking just of a legal or business entity. I am using the word in the older sense, as in a company of scholars, as a company of adventurers, or a company of voyagers. I think our companionship partakes of all these things.

There had to be something special about this enterprise to attract the talented and venturesome people who have come together to exercise their considerable talents and to derive from it the things that make for full and satisfying life.

Our relationships are subtle and highly sensitive relationships ….

Our job must be to share authority without losing it …

The whole staff must have a proprietary feeling about the company’s work.

We are a permanently dissatisfied company and so far as I can see, we shall not run out of things to be dissatisfied about. I think our work, in most instances, is the best of its kind in the world – and yet not good enough. Not as good as it is going to be. There has not been and there should never be a year when it is not better than the year before.

Our audience is getting more demanding all the time – it is not a question of talking down to them. The problem, the opportunity, is to talk far enough up to them.

Lastly.

I use the quote below all the time.

I am not sure I have ever seen nor heard words from a leader that captured the essence of both functional practical and aspirational better than these.

“We must be dynamic for purposes bigger than ourselves.“

I admit.

I do hate when an organization “thinks small.” That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t think practical but they should think about impact.  What kind of impact, or imprint, do they truly want to make.  And I don’t necessarily mean making people’s lives better.  I mean ‘doing good or great shit.’ Making an impact through what they do and who they are as an organization.  Impacting whatever world they affect. It doesn’t have to be global (like a JWT) but it can be local or even within their own circle of friends & business relationships.

Creating a great organization, a company of adventures, needs leaders who say, who mean, who live, these types of words.

And all words that are said within a truth that it isn’t rhetoric but rather it is the soul of the organization.

Be dynamic.

Whew.

That alone is a great thought.

So go be.

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elephants and leaders

Aug 31st

Posted by Bruce in Business Thoughts

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“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.” – John Kenneth Galbraith, U.S. economist, “The Age of Uncertainty”

So.

I am not sure if this is becoming a characteristic of this generation of business leaders or I never noticed it in the last generation of business leaders. “This” is the inability to deal with the elephant in the room. Or even worse is the ignoring of the “herd of elephants” stalking through the organization.

Yes.

Being a leader of an organization (and size almost becomes irrelevant) is difficult and comes with challenges.

No.

Leaders shouldn’t ignore the elephant in the room or the herds of elephants wandering the hallways.

Elephants?

There are so many to choose from I couldn’t list them all. And no leader in their right mind will do an “employee survey” and expect to uncover the elephants that are seemingly walking invisibly through the hallways and offices of their company. No one trusts internal surveys any more.

Anyway.

Here are the ‘big 3’ elephants I see leaders kind of having their head up there ass on:

-          Senior manager flaws.

For some reason leaders are becoming blind to their semi-peer flaws. I don’t know if it’s the “kinder gentler” management of this generation or if they are just focused on what is being done well because it is one less thing to worry about. I don’t care what it is but it is elephant numero uno.

Here’s the deal. People have higher expectations the bigger the title. And they should. A bigger title means a higher standard to live/work by. A leader HAS to set his management team to a higher standard. They cannot be expected to play by the same rules as the rest of the organization. Oddly (having been in so many executive meetings I am surprised I haven’t had a natural lobotomy) leaders want to set up a standard of stricter rules for junior people and more flexible standards for senior.

It’s wacky. Senior people are supposed to be role models. The trickledown effect if you permit senior people with obvious ‘flaws’ is lack of respect, a belief that management is flawed, and a belief that anyone can be a senior manager (which isn’t true) and, well, confusion on how “they” (employees) can see something that should be obvious to a leader.

-          Making specialists generalists.

The way today’s business seems to work is no matter what your responsibility is in your ‘growth’ stages you get promoted (assuming you do well) and get rewarded with a generalist management role.

Look. I am not suggesting specialist cannot become generalist nor am I suggesting that a specialist cannot assume some responsibilities as executive leaders, but I do see organization leaders permitting the title/responsibility role reward based on merit not on ability to do the reward.

And the trickle down to those decisions (beyond the obvious that many just don’t deserve that role and mismanage) is that the organization staff see it and get confused (and join the herd of elephants wandering the hallways)

-          Inability to deal with younger employee dissatisfaction.

Whew. This one is a humdinger these days. This elephant isn’t even invisible and it gets ignored. In fact, many leaders just stare at the elephant and shake their head and go “oh well, there’s that damn elephant but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

It’s crazy. I have written about this before and, yes, I am going to generalize … but … this doesn’t have anything to do with “this generation’s work ethic” or “young kids just don’t have the same attitude as we did” (gosh, anyone reading that I would hope would feel old if they know they have said it themselves) … this is about leadership.

It’s not about being cool or wearing flip flops to work to show you ‘relate’ to the generation.

In fact, dear leader, they don’t want you to relate … they want you to lead.

A leader doesn’t have to be a ‘giant’ like I have written about before but they have to be a leader. Employees don’t have to like you (although it helps) they have to respect you. And that crosses any generation at any time with any age employee.  Being a leader (and however that particular leader utilizes leadership-like charisma) will overcome 90+% generational issues (flip flops in the office should take care of the rest).

Those are just three.

But I would imagine the point here is that I tend to see a diminishing ability in leadership to effectively deal with the elephants within their organizations. They are either oblivious, ignore them or accept them. Any of the three are unacceptable.

Ah. The biggest argument I get from senior people? I have other things more important at the moment, I am simply prioritizing.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm ….

I have a tendency to want to point out that an elephant is … well … an elephant. And they are big.

Deal with it.

Anyway.

This is just a trend I seem to be seeing these days.

One last thought (because some of the elephants live outside the office building but come in attached to employees when they come to work every day):

Brian Dyson, CEO of Coca Cola Enterprises from 1959-1994
“Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling five balls in the air. You name them – work, family, health, friends, and spirit – and you’re keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls – family, health, friends, and spirit are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged, or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life.”

Nice way of looking at it if you ask me.

Okay. My advice to leaders? Go elephant hunting.

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architects of fate

Aug 19th

Posted by Bruce in Business Thoughts

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I don’t really believe in fate. And it appears good ole HW Longfellow didn’t believe in it either.

He wrote a beautiful poem called The Builders (see below) suggesting that we, the people, are architects of fate.

In fact.

The beauty of what he writes (and this is a truly awesome thought) is that everyone does something, no matter how small or how large, that builds the structure of life.

That each and every one of plays some role. That is a really nice thought. And a nice reminder that no matter how inconsequential we may feel or the things we do …. We play a part in the tapestry of life.

Now.

I am a business guy.

And a business guy with a long history in the service side of the business world.

The side of the world that you often feel helpless and moving about at the whim of someone else and often not really doing anything important.

And I have used this poem several times with companies to remind us, employees, that our actions have consequences.

Even the smallest actions.

Each action contributes to the structure of who we are as a company and what we do.

It is a valuable thought in every organizational behavior or culture sense.

It is a valuable thought in encouraging each employee to understand that their actions contribute to the architecture of the fate of the organization (no matter how inconsequential they may actually feel buried down in the mailroom or the bottomless pit of account receivables department or the office manager ordering heavy stock paper for the copier because someone is bitching).

And (as my good friend Luke Sullivan points out in his book “hey whipple squeeze this”) this also pertains to output. Actual things we do for customers or actions we take in front of customers. Each action is a part of the overall tapestry of the architecture of the company. He also points out that each action often begets another action (in that once you have done something once it begins to feel more ‘okay’ to do it again … I would call that a slippery slope discussion).

Anyway.

As we hustle our way through each day trying to make sure we cross off everything on our to do lists and make our bosses happy and answer customer’s questions and requests it is nice to remind ourselves we are truly architects of fate.

Our company.

Personal life.

Life in general.

Go build.

The Builders

All are architects of Fate,

Working in these walls of Time;

Some with massive deeds and great,

Some with ornaments of rhyme.

Nothing useless is, or low;

Each thing in its place is best;

And what seems but idle show

Strengthens and supports the rest.

For the structure that we raise,

Time is with materials filled;

Our to-days and yesterdays

Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these;

Leave no yawning gaps between;

Think not, because no man sees,

Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of Art,

Builders wrought with greatest care

Each minute and unseen part;

For the Gods see everywhere.

Let us do out work as well,

Both the unseen and the seen;

Make the house, where Gods may dwell,

Beautiful, entire, and clean.

Else our lives are incomplete,

Standing in these walls of Time,

Broken stairways, where the feet

Stumble as they seek to climb.

Build to-day, then, strong and sure,

With a firm and ample base;

And ascending and secure

Shall to-morrow find its place.

Thus alone can we attain

To those turrets, where the eye

Sees the world as one vast plain,

And one boundless reach of sky.

-          Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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charging to learn corporate culture

Jun 2nd

Posted by Bruce in Business Thoughts

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So. I just heard the craziest thing I have heard in awhile (it may not be true but it’s worth ranting about).

I heard Zappos is charging people to come in and do a 3 day seminar (visit, exploration, whatever) on their culture and building a culture.

Okay.

What’s up with that?

Seriously.

Who would pay to do that?

Maybe more importantly … why would you pay to do that?

Ok. Look. I get the fact that it’s different world today when trying to make your company (or products or services) into a “brand.” With internet connecting everyone with every minute tidbit of information companies have to become a little more transparent whether they like it or not. An unhappy customer or a disgruntled employee can spread a bad experience faster than ever before.

I guess the good news is that the reverse is true as well. A great experience with a company can be read by millions of people almost instantaneously as well.

But, c’mon, the fundamentals are exactly the same as in the past. The best brand names were always the ones who emanated from the internal culture of the company. And by “best” I mean the ones that have lasted and passed the tests of time. Everyone knows that. Heck. Everyone knew that.

I don’t care if there are a zillion touchpoints today versus something less than a zillion before. The fundamental issue was always the same. You should attempt to make each touchpoint be positive. And each touchpoint should be a reflection of your character (or company culture).  Because then (which makes it sound as if it was sometime prehistoric) you couldn’t anticipate problems just as you cannot today. Truly the only thing you could, and can, control is who you are and what you are selling (or offering).
In addition. We have always known the power of the employees in the marketplace (managing perceptions or ‘brand’ if you want to use that word). I know for a fact even in my ancient past in my first job it was important that even when I wasn’t “on the clock” I was always “on the clock” with regard to the company I worked for. Sure. I may have bitched some but in every instance I knew I represented the company in some form or fashion.

Would that stop me from getting shitfaced and dancing on a bar? Nope.

Would it stop me from denigrating the company, our clients, their products and what we (I) did for a living? Yup.

We didn’t need handbooks to talk about culture in those days.

We understood it.

We knew every employee had the ability to create a positive or negative impression.
We also knew that culture wasn’t just about whatever it was we were selling. It was an attitude. It was a character. We weren’t cloned but it was certainly a culture. And, sure, there were aspects of our culture that bled into “customer service” or “customer experience” but they were simply aspects of an overall culture.

Okay. Getting to the point of this post.
So. If you think going someplace to see someone else’s corporate culture and copying it (or copying how it is implemented) is going to work, well, get another job.

  1. You cannot copy someone’s culture. Period. That’s like saying you want to be someone other than who you are. Your company is made up of your people. Unless you can hire away their people and their management (and management possibly being the most important) you ain’t never gonna be them.  So why would I pay to see their culture?
  2. If you cannot copy their culture you cannot copy how they implement (or the stuff they do to cultivate their culture) the stuff they do within their culture. No can do. Why? Because your culture begets the stuff you do to cultivate it. So if I took all the whiz bang Zappo’s internal things and applied it to my own personality/character/culture … well … some may not come naturally. Because it’s someone else. All that internal culture stuff bubbles out of who you are. Unless you want to try and clone forget it.
    some culture chart i wanted to include because i have no clue what is says but its about corporate culture

    some culture chart i wanted to include because i have no clue what is says but its about corporate culture

So. In their words … “At Zappos, our belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff — like great customer service, or building a great long-term brand, or passionate employees and customers — will happen naturally on its own.”

Do I disagree with them? Shit no.

Do I believe it I some epiphany? Shit no.

Sure. Some companies “lose their way” on his issue (heck. I worked at one of the world’s greatest agencies who had the culture mojo and lost their way by losing sight of its importance). But. I cannot imagine one viable well run company’s leader (or group of leaders) who doesn’t know this and does it in their own way. Every one of us who has ever held a C level position knows that your “brand” is, and should be, simply an extension of your culture (because if it’s not you are screwed if not in the short term definitely in the long term).

Zappos certainly is an excellent example of “how to do it the right way” tactically (I don’t debate that):

-          Hiring with an eye on culture first

-          Training aspects on what is important to culture (historical knowledge and functional aspects)

-          Employee empowerment tactics

-          A willingness to hire & fire based on cultural fit (this is actually a biggie)

They are clear in stating their values (although I am not a big fan of the “10 core value list”) and it helps them, within their character, to put a stake in the ground organizationally to measure everyone and provide a north star for actions and decisions and commitment to ‘something’ organizationally:

1) Deliver WOW Through Service
2) Embrace and Drive Change
3) Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4) Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5) Pursue Growth and Learning
6) Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7) Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8) Do More With Less
9) Be Passionate and Determined
10) Be Humble

By the way, before all this ‘brand ambassador” and “corporate brand” stuff we used to call it the “DNA of the company”. Just connecting with the company “DNA” which was its’ roots, management/leadership style and personality traits.

Oh. But that was probably developed in the 40’s or 50’s so that was no good.

Anyway.

Visiting some company and paying to learn their culture and how they implement it just seems wacky to me (and an odd way to spend money).

I don’t think you can “learn to build a culture” from someone else. As a leader you build a culture. Your own. Or you are becoming a leader of a company that already has a culture and you are fostering an existing culture. And you do it throughout your organization in all actions big and small. That’s it. No book needed. No class. And certainly no money spent visiting someone whose culture you can’t copy anyway.

Spend the money and buy their shoes. They will like you better anyway.

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