Culture, Leadership
Culture. What does that word actually mean?
Though many have tried, no one has ever landed on a fixed, universal definition for organizational culture. The subject has been vigorously debated from the pages of the Harvard Business Review to the halls of MIT Sloan. What is not debated is that culture is part of the DNA of every organization. Whether your organizational culture is empowering or toxic depends greatly on two factors: shared experience and modeled leadership.
Consider this. When new employees join your organization, they step in on Day 1 with a set of preconceived beliefs based on past experience. They may believe that markets are finite and there is only so much business to go around. They may believe that success is a win/lose proposition. Some have been taught that ethics and morals can be bent. Others have relied on the strict dictates of policies and procedures. That makes up the experience half of the equation.
The other half comes directly from modeled leadership. If the leaders of the organization are fixated on business development, channel expansion, and market domination, they are not likely spending any time intentionally trying to shape the culture. Unintentionally, however, they are sending very clear signals about what is important to them. They are the cultural architects of your organization and contribute three critical elements to the culture equation:
1. What is measured.
Let’s face it. Culture can be hard to measure. Senior executives tend to shy away from anything with a fuzzy ROI. Yet, whether you measure it or not, your culture is showing up in your bottom line. Skillfully managed cultures can be a performance multiplier. Recent research by the Great Place to Work© Institute found that companies that actively invest in workplace culture yield nearly 2x the return over their competitors. They also typically report 65% less voluntary turnover, saving an average of $3,500 per employee in recruiting and training costs. If culture isn’t part of your KPI mix, you’re sending the signal that it’s unimportant.
2. What is rewarded.
A recent study by O.C. Tanner found that employees report being recognized for their work as their most important motivator, over 20 times more than salary. Employees study what behaviors and achievements get rewarded, and naturally modify their work accordingly. Leaders who understand this connection create recognition programs that go beyond passing out paychecks. WD-40 CEO Garry Ridge proudly hosts the company’s annual People Choice Awards. Each year, heartfelt speeches are given by winners of coveted awards like “Best Mentor Coach” and “Best Team Player.” Leaders like Ridge know that coin-operated employees have no passion.
3. What is ignored.
Leaders are bombarded with data, hold back-to-back meetings, and field urgent requests on a daily basis. When we need to respond to fast-moving competitive situations, it is tempting to tap only our direct reports for feedback. In his Harvard Business Review article “The Focused Leader,” New York Times bestselling author Daniel Goleman warns that this temptation is dangerous. He recommends that leaders practice expanding their focus of awareness. “A failure to focus on others leaves you clueless, and a failure to focus outward may leave you blindsided,” Goleman writes. What’s worse, leaders who ignore input from those outside their immediate circle are signaling to the rest of the organization that their input is irrelevant.
Leaders are the cultural architects of your organization. The key metrics they pay attention to, the contributions they reward, and range of their awareness directly impact both your organizational culture and your bottom line.
Question: What do you measure, reward and ignore? How is that impacting your organizational culture?
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!
Emerging Leaders, Leadership
According to a recent Zapier survey, 62% of Millennial workers have direct reports. What’s more, a Future Workplace study shows that not only are Millennials managing their Millennial and Gen-Z peers, they’re also managing Gen-X and Baby Boomer professionals. If you’re among the growing cohort of emerging leaders, chances are, you’re finding that your hard work does not automatically equate to a move up the proverbial leadership ladder.
The good news is that there are some overarching concepts that are key to leadership success that you can use to condition yourself as an emerging leader. Here are two practices that you can build into your leadership toolkit today that will not only serve you, but will benefit your team and your current and future employers for years to come.
1. Know yourself. Before you can effectively lead others, you need to spend time thinking about things like how you are wired, why you’re here, and what you bring to the table. In Leading at a Higher Level, Ken Blanchard suggests that leaders need to clarify their own leadership point of view (LPOV). Doing so will give your team the benefit of understanding where you are coming from, but they’ll also be clear on what you expect from them and what they can expect from you.
It takes time to develop your LPOV. But, doing so gives you the ability to do some self-archeology and anthropology. It allows you to connect the dots of where you come from and why you hold strong beliefs about certain things at work. Your LPOV will be better if you share your first draft with someone who knows you well and who you trust to give you honest feedback. You can find step-by-step instructions and sample LPOV’s in Leading at a Higher Level. Here’s a sample LPOV shared by Kirsten Hund, Leadership Program Director for The Holdsworth Center in Austin, Texas.
2. Develop enterprise thinking. When you land your first office job, chances are you get trained (formally or informally) on your role within the department and an assortment of technology tools to function within your role. If you get a promotion, you’ll gain exposure and access to a wider span of responsibilities. When you make the first order shift – from Role 1 to Higher Role 2 – you’ll get a better understanding of the dependencies that roles and departments have on one another, and your awareness of the annual organizational cadence increases. These are the seeds of enterprise thinking.
Enterprise thinking focuses on the way that the organization’s constituent parts interrelate and how the departments, processes, and operating systems work together. Five Ways to Develop an Enterprise Mindset offers an excellent example of how to make the seismic shift to grow as an enterprise thinker.
Knowing yourself (self-awareness) and developing enterprise thinking (others/systems awareness) are powerful counterparts that will serve you well as you move along the leadership continuum.
Question: What are some ways to take charge of building your leadership acumen?
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!
Leadership, Leadership Development
We’ve all come across them. Those leaders who people naturally gravitate toward. Though it seems counterintuitive, the magnetic effect these leaders have on people is not because of how people feel about the leader. It’s because of how the leader makes people feel about themselves.
These leaders have mastered the embodiment of two basic facts:
Fact 1: Every person matters.
Fact 2: Every person wants to feel valued.
By keeping these facts in mind, you can master the skills necessary to achieve leadership excellence. Here are three skills that will have the highest impact:
1. Help People Connect the Dots. In my post, “A Pharaoh Walks Into a Bar,” I illustrate why team members need to understand how their daily jobs fit into the big picture. It is your responsibility as a leader to help your team connect the dots. You may use formal tools like strategy maps, or pull up to your nearest whiteboard. Regardless of your delivery method, take the time to sit with your team members to help them visualize their role in the success of the organization.
2. Help People Grow. I know a CEO who likes to joke that, “The only thing worse than training your people and then they leave is not training your people and they stay!” All joking aside, one of the main reasons people give for leaving companies is that they stop growing. Growth brings energy, vitality, life, and challenge. Without growth, we’re just going through the motions. Create a culture of learning and growth to maximize the collective talent of your team.
3. Give People Sincere Appreciation. People who don’t feel appreciated are often the first to burn out or jump ship. It only takes a minute to recognize a team member for making a positive contribution. But, doing it right requires more than an occasional “thanks”. Give timely and specific praise to show your team members how you value their contribution. Here’s a quick demo to show you how.
One final secret to mastering leadership excellence – you can’t fake it. Leaders who genuinely care about their team members will invest the time to help each one feel valued. Be committed to helping them connect the dots, helping them grow, and giving them sincere appreciation. Every day is an opportunity to help people see the best in themselves and achieve their highest potential.
Question: What is one thing you can do today to help someone else feel valued?
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!
High Performing Teams, Leadership
Does your team trust each other? If not, what impact do you think that’s having on the bottom line?
This is a question that we have explored with teams ranging from publicly-traded companies to nonprofits. Regardless of the size of your team or the industry you work in, “trust is the foundation of real teamwork,” writes Patrick Lencioni in his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.
In the mid-1990s, Lencioni observed a business climate that was maniacally focused on growth with little attention paid to the fundamentals of team alignment and organizational effectiveness. As a result, Lencioni and his colleagues developed a simple online assessment that measures team effectiveness in five key areas.
1. Trust
Think about a time when you worked with a team member who you trusted. What was that experience like? Did you freely share information with her? Did you ask her for help? Admit mistakes? Now, think about a time when you worked with a team member who you didn’t trust. What was that experience like? Did you ask him for more data? Did you talk to others about his reliability? Did you try avoiding him altogether? Now multiply the results of these interactions by all of the possible team member combinations in your organization. You can quickly see how trust impacts speed, and how speed impacts results. We’re living in the age of Airbnb, Kickstarter, Etsy, and Uber – where trust is the fundamental economic driver. Yet, trusting our colleagues as much as we do total strangers is something that we have yet to master.
2. Conflict
Teams that do not trust one another will be reluctant to have open, constructive conflict. You’ve seen this in action in the form of passive-aggressive behavior, circular conversations, veiled discussions, and guarded arguments. You’ve witnessed people nodding their head ‘yes’ in the room but shaking their head ‘no’ in the hall. Teams that trust one another freely engage in debate so that they can assess reality correctly before making a common commitment. Teams that lack trust also lack the ability to effectively uncover the root causes of issues that impact performance. Instead, they spend their time dealing with symptoms and side issues.
3. Commitment
A team that can accurately assess reality will have a better chance of making clear commitments. A note of clarity here. Team commitment is not the same as consensus. When you are encouraged and inspired to share your ideas and know that you’ve been heard, you’re more likely to agree to the final decision even if it differs from your original input. As a result, you walk away motivated and feeling valued rather than resentful. Commitment requires weigh in before buy in.
4. Accountability
If you manage a team of people, you understand that part of your role is to hold them accountable for delivering results. Holding your peer team members accountable, however, is harder. This is especially true when you haven’t built trust, participated in constructive debate about root causes, or felt that your opinions about what to do to move forward haven’t been heard. You’re much more likely to call your peers out when you’ve bought into the agreed upon direction to deliver results.
5. Results
“What gets measured, gets done,” is a familiar maxim. If you are measured and incentivized based on individual effort, human nature follows that you are more likely to put your individual results over collective results. High-performing teams, however, understand that if the team loses, everyone loses. When you’re held accountable for team results, you’re much more likely to make the extra effort to help team members when they need support.
Teamwork isn’t easy. But high performing teams understand that team alignment is a competitive advantage.
Question: Are you achieving results or experiencing regrets toward team goals so far this year?
Whether your team is brand new, choking from lack of trust, or is long overdue for a team building event, CEE can help you measure, map, and move the dial in five key areas necessary for high performance: Trust, Healthy Conflict, Commitment, Accountability and Results. Learn more about how we can partner with you here.
Leadership
Father’s Day is coming up on Sunday. This is an excellent opportunity to show appreciation for the men in the world who take the role of dad to the next level. Here are five leadership lessons we can learn from the endearing dads of the world.
1. Be okay with not always being in charge. Having children teaches you to let go of thinking that you’re in control. According to Freud, infants are all id. The id is the impulsive part of our psyche which responds directly and immediately to our instincts. Babies demand to have their needs met, and now. They don’t care how much money you make or how many people report to you. Dads humble themselves before their newborn infants and marvel at how their new baby dominates the household. LaGuardia Cross documents this power struggle in an interview with his 3-month old daughter in New Father Chronicles.
2. Show your team what fun looks like. A 2019 study published by the University of California Riverside looked at the emotional health of 18,000 people and compared traits like well-being, happiness, episodes of depression, and stress. The conclusion? Dads, more often than moms, report playing with their children while providing care. When dads put down their work and engage with their children in play, they’re signaling that the world is full of adventure and work/life balance is important for mental and physical health. No one can introduce those adventures to a child better than dads like the ones in this video showing awesome dads raising awesome kids.
3. Trust your instincts. Of course, adventure comes with some inherent danger. Dads who play with their children also keep their radar open to save the day while their children explore the boundaries of their physical abilities. When kids start to take a tumble, dads naturally allow their amygdala to take over so that they can respond just in the nick of time. The amygdala is the part of our brains in charge of reacting to danger. Dads at play with their children instinctively save the day when there’s no time to overthink.
4. Yank the tooth. Change can be scary. Whether you’re unsure that a product is ready to launch or fear the pain of losing a baby tooth, sometimes you need a push. Dads are geniuses at finding creative ways to distract kids from the fears that come with growing up. They show kids that fear and change are normal, and that you can control your fear to achieve results like this father/daughter duo who enlisted the help of a squirrel to deal with a dangling tooth.
5. Talk it out. At the end of the day, children want to know that you are interested in their thoughts. No matter how stressful your day was, your children want you to know about their day too. According to the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, children make 700 new connections every second until they reach the age of 3. Those connections help children to acquire the social, physical, emotional and cognitive skills needed to navigate life’s experiences. When dads sit down at the end of the day to chat about the world with their children, they acknowledge the importance of their child’s opinions, and show respect for their ideas, like in this video of a dad having a conversation with his babbling toddler.
Happy early Father’s Day to all the dads who help to grow the future leaders of the world.
Question: What leadership lessons can you draw from dads?
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!
Leadership
Commencement ceremonies from high schools and colleges have looked markedly different for the past year and a half. Parents aren’t seen straining to pick out their daughter or son from a sea of identical cap-and-gown-clad graduates. The solemn program on stage hasn’t been interrupted by the sudden appearance of a bouncing beach ball. Silly String wars are less likely to break out, fewer air horn blasts pierce the crowd, and those fortunate enough to graduate in a live ceremony don masks in addition to their caps and gowns.
But the commencement speeches from both celebrities, dignitaries, and graduating seniors themselves were a poignant reflection of the realities of the world we are living in today. Here is a selection of speeches that offer a call from those who’ve been fighting for justice and equity and a response from fresh graduates in sober recognition of the work left to be done.
1. John Legend, Duke University, Watch it here
“Over the past year, you were forced to pause. Not just in competition with one another, but in community with each other. Anyone getting sick was a risk to everyone. We all had to slow down. Stop filling our days with maximum productivity and simply keep each other, safe, alive, simply care for one another. And this perspective you gained will serve us all, because while that competitive drive that got you here can be an incredible gift, it can get in the way too. Competitiveness can be a slippery slope. To think, ‘For me to get ahead in life, for me to succeed, someone else is going to have to lose out. Someone else will have to suffer.’ If you let that competitiveness take over, you might start to see life as a zero sum game. [Remember], our nation is at its best when we realize that we all do better, when we all do better.”
2. Bryan Stevenson, Civil Rights Attorney, Author, and Executive Founder of Equal Justice Initiative, University of Michigan, Watch it here
“It’s easy to be discouraged in this moment when we don’t even get to come together for something as significant and momentous as your commencement. But I have great hope, and that hope resides in you. I know that so many of you are deeply committed to finding a path forward and do something about the problems that have created so much division and despair. We’ve never needed more people committed to change in the world than we do today. It breaks my heart to have to tell you that you can be talented, you can be gifted, you can be on the Dean’s list, a scholar of the first order, but if you are black or brown you’re going to go to places where you’ll have to navigate a presumption of dangerousness and guilt. And that’s not right. It’s not fair. It needs to change. And because of that, we have to commit to an era of truth telling in this country. I tell you this because I believe there is something better waiting for us than racism, than exclusion, than bigotry. But to get there, we are all going to have to change the narrative.”
3. Valedictorian Emma Cockrum with her dog Hercules, East Ascension High School, Prairieville, LA, Class of 2020
Cockrum was inspired by Sol Rexius, a pastor at The Salt Company Church of Ames in Iowa. She says Rexius uses the analogy of a dump truck full of dirt being emptied all over their senior year. Here’s how she put it in her commencement address:
“This may sound harsh, but it’s not untrue to how some of us feel. It is easy to feel buried by our circumstances. However, he [the pastor] goes on to paint a picture of a farmer planting a seed. Did the farmer bury the seed? Well, yes, but he also planted it. Instead of feeling buried by our situation, we must realize that the pain and heartache that has been piled upon us is not meant to bury, but to plant us in a way that will allow us to grow and prosper into who we are meant to be. As you stop and take in the circumstances around you, will you allow yourself to be buried or to be planted?”
4. Valedictorian Kimani Ross with her family, Lake City High School, Lake City, SC, Class of 2020
“I’ve had people tell me that I don’t deserve to be where I am now, and that really made me contemplate, ‘Do I really deserve this? Should I just give up and let them win?’ But look at where I am now. I’m glad that I didn’t stop. I’m glad that I didn’t let them get to me.
I’m especially glad that I earned this position so that all of the other little girls around Lake City and surrounding areas can look and say that they want to be just like me. I want those little girls to know that they can do it even if no one else believes in them, I will always believe in them. Classmates, when we’re out in the real world, don’t get discouraged about the obstacles that will approach you. As Michelle Obama once said, you should never view your challenges as a disadvantage. Instead, it is important for you to understand that your experience facing and overcoming adversity is actually one of your biggest advantages.
To all those who finished their studies and graduated during a global pandemic, I congratulate you for achieving this milestone forged under immense pressure. Your willpower has been proven irrevocable. Never forget that as long as you are unrelenting, you’re an unstoppable force.
Question: What advice would you give to those who graduated during the pandemic?
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!
