Is Your Culture Future Proof?

Leadership

Today, I am speaking at The Future of Work Conference in Boston. It’s a conference that I first attended in February in Las Vegas, where author and futurist Jacob Morgan opened his keynote with this story of Sissa and exponential change.

Once upon a time, there was a mathematician and inventor named Sissa who created chess. The ruler at the time was so impressed that he decided to reward Sissa with anything he wanted. Instead of money or land, Sissa asked for rice. He asked that the amount of rice be calculated by placing a single grain on the first square of the chessboard, and then to double the amount of rice for every square through the final, 64th square. The ruler was puzzled by the request but agreed. He ordered his servants to figure how much rice was owed, and to pay Sissa his reward.

As it turns out, Sissa’s request could not be filled because there was not enough rice in the kingdom. In fact, the amount rice needed would tower over Mt. Everest. The total was 1,000 times the present day global production of rice. That’s the power of exponential change.

“I tell you that story,” Morgan said, “because of the prediction by Ray Kuzweil, that today we are standing on the 32nd square of the chessboard in terms of technological change.” Because the world is now hyper-connected, the speed of change has exponential power. Morgan closed with this challenge, “At the end of the day, if your organization doesn’t think about and plan for the future of work, then your organization will have no future.”

Fortunately, that challenge is being met by some of the country’s leading businesses. Companies like Herman Miller, The Motley Fool, and SAP understand that the today’s hierarchical cultures are incapable of shifting fast enough to keep pace with change. These companies are creating transformational cultures that are not just more adaptable to change, but better for the people who work in them. Transformational cultures require transformational leadership – or leaders who can align people, purpose, and performance.

Here are some examples of how these companies are future-proofing their cultures:

1. People – It’s no accident that The Motley Fool is No. 1 for the second year in a row on Glassdoor’s list of small and medium Best Places to Work (2015). The Motley’s Fool’s 77% employee engagement rate has been won over time as the company has tested trust-based policies like Open PTO and Pick Your Own Device. Simply put, they treat people like adults who can be responsible for their choices. According to Kara Chambers, VP of Talent Strategy, their secret is “recruit people you trust and then assume they want to do great work. If our people are aligned with purpose the rest falls into place. ” The company is proving that treating people as human beings instead of human resources is a successful business model.

2. Purpose – “Herman Miller invented the cubicle,” confesses Tracy Brower, Director of Human Dynamics. “But what was meant to create free-flowing, autonomous environments was Dilbertized in the name of efficiency,” Brower says. The company has come a long way in redeeming itself by researching and testing ways to restore the human spirit that cubicle farms Among their findings is that employees need to connect with purpose; to be a part of something greater. Purpose engages the heart and fulfills the desire to make a meaningful difference. Herman Miller employees have evolved past the mindset of simply going to work to make a living – they work to make a difference.

“For responsible and motivated people today, work is merely a side effect of having real purpose.” -Herman Miller Industrial Facility Designer Kim Colin

3. Performance – Over 70% of the world’s transaction revenue touches an SAP system. That kind of reach gives SAP the big data to understand the drivers of performance. Their findings show that the traditional employment model, which slots people in defined jobs and assigns managers to monitor them, leads to disengagement. High performance organizations are shifting toward a flexible model of teamwork and collaboration. While most organizations are not ready for Zappos’ free-styling holacracy model, they can begin by looking at employee incentives. If employees are rewarded for individual performance alone, teamwork and collaboration are not likely to thrive. Considering SAP’s findings that “companies with a highly engaged workforce experience a 19% growth in operating income over a 12-month period,” collaboration and teamwork are worth trying.

Organizations were not created with the idea of change and adaptability in mind. But in a world of accelerated change, we are at an inflection point. The good news is, you don’t need big business resources to treat employees with trust, engage their hearts as well as their minds, and reward them for teamwork. These are things you can start doing today.

Watch the replay from my FREE leadership webcast. I talk more about what it means to be a transformative leader in the 21st century; one that makes their teams better, stronger, and more agile in the face of change.

Question: What hierarchical practices have been grandfathered into your business? Please leave a comment below.

Funny Business: 3 Reasons Why Humor Should Be Part of Your Leadership Toolkit

Leadership

Businessman and author Paul Hawken said it best,

“We lead by being human. We do not lead by being corporate, by being professional or by being institutional.”

That may be why leadership experts like John Maxwell understand the value of a good laugh at their expense.

Fake Interview of John Maxwell

The best leaders know that humor and humility go hand in hand. They act to keep their feet on the ground and their egos in check. The timely and appropriate use of humor is an asset to any leader.

Assuming your sense of humor passes the timely and appropriate test, here are 3 reasons why you should ensure humor is part of your leadership toolkit:

1. Humor fosters creativity. When you’re the leader, everyone is watching you for problem solving cues. If you approach business problems with furrowed brows and rapid-fire questions, you set the tone for a culture of fear. Cut down on the intimidation factor by using humor. “Humor is a key ingredient in creative thinking,” says Michael Kerr, President of Humor at Work. “It helps people play with ideas, lower their internal critic, and see things in new ways.” You’ll can find Kerr’s formula for how HA + HA = AHA! in this short clip.

2. Humor improves health. Today’s business challenges require executives to face tough situations with greater frequency than ever. When stress becomes a part of your routine for an extended period, it can lead to illness and chronic disease. In fact, research by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention shows that up to 90 percent of all illness and disease is stress related. The good news is, humor is the physiological opposite of stress. It lowers blood pressure, increases blood circulation, reduces muscle tension, and boosts your immune system. Find out more about the short- and long-term benefits of humor here.

3. Humor improves retention. When a team laughs together, it facilitates a sense of community and helps to create a positive corporate culture. It also helps to create a shared history. In an interview with Businessweek, University of Missouri-Columbia professor Chris Robert says that humor “enhances the degree to which you feel bonded and part of the group in the workplace.” When employees have positive emotions about their job, they’re more likely to stay. As Robert states, “You might get a better job offer, but it will take more to draw you away when you like where you work and the people you work with.”

Things will go wrong. The best leaders find the humor in the situation to keep things light and moving forward. Browbeating others is not as powerful as helping them have a good attitude and a little levity.

Question: Have you used humor to diffuse a stressful situation at work? What were the results?

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Struggling With Change? The Problem May Be In Your Pyramid

Leadership

You’ve seen the trends. You’ve read the headlines. Change is inescapable.

We’re on the verge of a demographic tsunami. By 2020, Millennials will make up 50% of the workforce, and 75% of the workforce by 2025.

Last year, Baby Boomers were retiring at the rate of 11,000 per day. This year, it’s 14,000 per day. We’re facing a huge gap in the passing on of knowledge and skills from generation to generation.

Technology is giving us more information faster than ever before, and giving us instant global connectivity. The rate of connectivity is increasing exponentially.

In response to these trends, companies are focused on workforce recruitment, retention, and management. Many are also emphasizing their social and environmental responsibility practices. While these responses are a good start, there is a much bigger problem that needs to be addressed. That problem is in the shape of a pyramid.

When we picture an organizational structure, typically a pyramid comes to mind. Under the pyramid model, power and privilege are concentrated at the top. It then trickles down through the ranks, leaving those at the bottom with the heaviest workload and the least privilege.

For centuries, the pyramid structure kept monarchies stable, dictated the rank-and-file system of the military, and enabled factories to manufacture highly reproducible goods from assembly lines. The model served America’s manufacturing economy well, helping it surge for most of the 20th century.

In the 21st century, information economy, however, leaders must remove the layers, get rid of the bottlenecks, and create a culture where their organizations can transform at the speed of change. Not only do they need to help their organizations transform, but they must be willing to be transformed themselves.

How to we do this? Where do we start? These are questions I addressed in a webcast on the subject last week.

Check out the webcast or join me next month at the Future of Work Conference in Boston to:

1. Learn how economic systems have shaped our leadership models over time.
2. Discover how those leadership models hold up in the information economy.
3. Understand the transformative leadership model.
4. Find out the 7 key practices of a transformative leader.

If you don’t like change, you’re going to hate extinction. Leaders who successfully navigate the 21st century will be transformative role models who ditch the pyramid mindset.

Join me as I present on Transformative Leadership at the Future of Work event in Boston! Register here

Question: Are there functional groups or levels in your organization where information gets blocked? How does that impact performance?

Great Leaders Get Off Their But

Leadership

Have you ever seen what kids can do with a box of crayons, a cardboard box and an afternoon to kill? They may build a rocket ship and explore Mars. They might build a pirate ship and bury treasure in the Caribbean. Kids have boundless imagination. They also have a natural sense of partnering and affirming each other. They instinctively work together to explore ideas that defy time and space.

(Flickr photo by @Eric Peacock)

As we grow up, the time in our lives when afternoons stretched endlessly ahead fades. Play time gets interrupted with the structure of class time. Eventually, we lose even our summers to year round work. Today’s workdays come at dizzying speed and exponential complexity.  Creativity is a fundamental requirement for survival. Yet, American workers are experiencing a creativity crisis. Ironically, the creativity that we naturally tapped into as children seems unnatural as adults. As Picasso said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

How can leaders help employees get back in touch with their inner kid? Many companies like Google, PepsiCo, and MetLife are turning to improv. As you may have seen on the popular show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, the premise of improv is simple. Performers don’t know what will happen on stage until they’re given a prompt. They start with that prompt, making up the story as they go along. Improv draws on the time-honored principle of “yes, and.” Performers accept whatever their scene partners do or say as part of the reality of the scene and then build on it with their own contributions.

Think about our conversations with our own teams. Ever notice how often we say “but?” What happens afterward? The team stops contributing ideas, they physically pull back, the light goes out of their eyes. To truly create, our teams need a safe space where they can generate unique ideas, then combine those ideas into the best result. As soon as we say “but,” the creative process can no longer move forward. Simply put, “but” stops the bus.
Saying “yes, and” tells your team that you are doing two important things. First, you are affirming that you respect the thoughts and ideas of others. That’s big. Second, you are truly listening and are willing to build on the ideas of others. That’s huge.

The more we practice “yes, and,” the better we hone four powerful leadership skills:

1. Listen more respectfully

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2. Pick up on subtle cues

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3. Demonstrate trust

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4. Value opinions

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Let’s face it. Not every idea is going to be a home run. But, building creative, collaborative teams is a leadership imperative. Collaborative teams are focused and present in the moment. They can think on their feet and adapt quickly to unexpected demands.

Question: How often do you get off your but and draw out the best from your team?