This is the time of the year that many of us attend the Pomp and Circumstance processional at graduation ceremonies across the country. I’ve curated three of the best of this year’s commencement speeches for advice that could be applied by both freshly minted graduates and senior executives:
In 2007, three hungry Georgetown students were constantly on the search for food. But, for Nicolas Jammet, Jonathan Neman, and Nathaniel Ru, Taco Bell just wasn’t cutting it. They started talking about their post-graduation plans and decided to fix their own problem. And sweetgreen was born. Eleven years later, the founders of this hip and healthy farm-to-table salad chain are controlling one of America’s most successful startups. With over 70 locations and 3,500 employees, sweetgreen is putting the sexy in salad. The secret to their success? In a word – culture.
Question: I took lots of great notes from the Re:Imagine Leadership Summit last month. When I got back to my office, I got caught up in answering unread emails, and fell right back into undressed problems. Do you have any recommendations about how to effectively implement solutions that I learned at your conference?
You can choose to invest training and coaching resources in your management team, or not. Either way, the results will show up in your bottom line or in the headlines. Just ask Starbucks – after they complete racial bias training for 175,000 employees across 8,000 stores this afternoon. All because of the actions of one manager.
The single most important decision an organization can make is choosing a manager. Why? Great managers know how to consistently engage their teams to achieve high performance. They create environments of accountability and build workplaces that fuel productivity and sustainable profitability.
Gallup research finds that managers account for an alarming 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores in the global workplace. That variance, in turn, is responsible for the severely low worldwide employee engagement levels. According to Gallup’s recent State of the Global Workplace report, 85% of employees are not engaged or actively disengaged at work.
Yet companies rarely invest time to understand what makes a great manager. Instead, they promote highly skilled producers and hope that they will be able to replicate their success through others.
So what do great managers do? Gallup finds that great managers have these five talents:
The secret to meeting these requirements is simple – they get to know their team. They don’t just ask their team members to take an online test like StrengthsFinder the Strengths Deployment Inventory. They know how to put those strengths to work.
Great managers know that the most effective way to invest their time is to identify exactly how each employee is different and then to figure out how best to incorporate those innate idiosyncrasies into the team’s operational plan.
Successful managers observe their team members in action. They ask questions, listen, and note what each person is drawn to as well as where they struggle. This practice helps them gain insight about how the unique contribution of each employee can shine.
Companies that increase their number of talented managers can double the rate of engaged employees, and achieve, on average, 147% higher earnings per share than their competition.
If your training budget is earmarked for leadership development and customer-facing skills training, you could be neglecting one of the most important cohorts in your organization. Select your managers carefully, then give them the tools, training, and coaching they need to maximize team engagement.
Question: Where are the training and development dollars going in your organization?
Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!
Looking for some titles to add to your reading list this summer? We’ve gathered our own top picks and included some that our readers have found life changing. Here are six titles we recommend that you pack along with your picnic basket.
1. Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility by Patty McCord
What it’s about: Named by The Washington Post as one of the 11 Leadership Books to Read in 2018, McCord shares lessons she learned as Chief Talent Officer for Netflix about recruiting, motivating, and creating great teams.
Why pick it up: For road-tested advice, mixed with humor and irreverence, to help you create a culture of high performance and profitability.
2. How to Think: A Survival Guide for the World at Odds by Alan Jacobs
What it’s about: A masterpiece about treating thinking as an art, informed by the ancients in the humanities and religious traditions, Jacobs shares the techniques of clear thinking, and how to listen instead of defaulting into our stubborn mind bubbles.
Why pick it up: We live in contentious times when we all need to give the divisive issues we face some serious thought. That’s especially true when it comes to ideas and people we disagree with and those we label as the “repugnant cultural other.”
3. New Power. How Power Works in a Hyperconnected World by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms
What it’s about: We live at a time when the captains of business and government are being taken on by surging currents of social media-fed sentiment. Top-down hierarchies where power is centralized in the hands of a few is ceding ground to bottom-up, participatory, peer-driven power.
Why pick it up: To learn how to tap into the participatory energy of your organization and create sustainable success.
4. The Little Book of Change: The No-Willpower Approach to Breaking Any Habit by Amy Johnson, PhD
What it’s about: Anything done repeatedly has the potential to form neural circuitry in the brain. In this light, habits and addictions are impersonal brain wiring problems that result from taking your habitual thinking as truth, and acting on that thinking in the form of doing your habit―over and over.
Why pick it up: Drawing on a combination of neuroscience and spirituality, this book will show you small changes you can make in your everyday life that will help you stop your bad habit in its tracks.
5. The World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech by Franklin Foer
What it’s about: Over the past few decades, the world has rushed to embrace the products and services of four titanic corporations. We shop with Amazon, socialize on Facebook, turn to Apple for entertainment, and rely on Google for information. These firms sell their efficiency and purport to make the world a better place, but what they have done instead is to enable an intoxicating level of daily convenience.
Why pick it up: To learn how to restore your inner life, private contemplation, autonomous thought and solitary introspection.
6. Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone by Satya Nadella
What it’s about: Microsoft’s CEO tells the inside story of the company’s continuing transformation, tracing his own personal journey from a childhood in India to leading some of the most significant technological changes in the digital era.
Why pick it up: For a set of reflections, meditations, and recommendations presented as algorithms from a principled, deliberative leader searching for improvement—for himself, for a storied company, and for society.
If you’re an avid reader, you’re likely on a continuous journey for discovery and self-improvement. These titles will give you new insight about the changing definition of power, the impact of technology on our lives, and the ability to make immediate changes that will have a sustainable impact.
Question: What books have helped you along your leadership journey?
Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!