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Actual for You - Shaping Culture for Success
Leadership, what is it and what is the difference between being a manager and being a leader?. Definitions of leadership, there is not a single definition that everyone agrees on. Manfred Kets de Vries, a professor at INSEAD, says that leadership is a “set of characteristics, behaviour patterns, personality attributes” that makes certain individuals more effective in achieving a set goal or objective.Another way of describing leadership is to say that, to get the best out of people, individuals, teams, organisations, they need to be led, guided, persuaded, motivated, inspired, to be committed, to do their best, to work together to achieve a common objective. This, rather than the pure “management” approach of being told, directed, ordered, and treated as subordinates.True leaders are recognis
It’s essential that team members express their views. You want to encourage a healthy level of debate and discussion. As Moore said, “It’s fine for me to say ‘this is a stupid idea’ right up till we decide.” Listen to al
Let's be honest. Complaints are a reality of business. Every company, no matter how great, responsive, or caring, receives some number of complaints - email, phone calls, letters, blog posts, etc. It's inevitable; you can't keep all people happy all the time.Sometimes the complaint hurts. Sometimes it's personal. It especially hurts when you have a different opinion of the situation, when you realize you're dealing with perception. It's frustrating.So, what do you do?Here's my quick list:1. Listen. Let the person at the other end of complaint be heard. Often this is their need; they need to get the frustration they have heard by someone.2. Don't immediately respond. Pause, take a deep breath. If on the phone, resist the urge to yell back. If on email or other web-based commu
Whether you have one employee or thousands, there is “the way things work around here.” That’s your culture. Culture is a set of shared assumptions and unwritten rules - a force field that shapes how we do things. Since your culture shapes how things are done in your organization, it can make a direct contribution to your bottom line.
There are four mandates you can build into your business culture to enhance your ability to succeed.
MANDATE 1: HAVE NO “KNOW” BOUNDARIES
Let’s say you’re the CEO and a customer tells you that your support guys make him nervous. “Nervous?” you say. “Yes. I don’t want to hear ‘I have no idea if this will work but we’ll try it and see.’” What do you say? Bill Daniel (CEO, Surgient, Inc., http://Surgient.com) told the customer, “We can coach people so they don’t necessarily make you nervous but I won’t coach them to not be open with you.” If someone at Surgient doesn’t know something, they just come right out and say so. And that’s just the way Daniel likes it.
This is a key ingredient in creating a culture where everyone can contribute her expertise fully. Where gaps in knowledge are considered normal, not a “problem” but just a routine part of exploring solutions. Then everyone can contribute without fear of stepping on someone’s toes. Knowledge flows freely without getting stuck in eddies of invulnerability.
MANDATE 2: LIVE OR DIE TOGETHER
“This sounds corny, but we live or die together.” If your team knows how to get full commitment from each team member, then each of you will be saying that, just as Gary Moore said it of his team at Dell Computers. Corny, maybe - but fully committed, engaged teams get results.
It’s essential that team members express their views. You want to encourage a healthy level of debate and discussion. As Moore said, “It’s fine for me to say ‘this is a stupid idea’ right up till we decide.” Listen to al
Just when you thought the world made sense, here's bad news:Effective meetings have major problems.Here they are:Problem #1: It takes time.Preparing a clear goal requires deliberate thought. And writing out a goal takes time. Then planning an agenda takes more time. And finally, contacting key participants to talk about their expectations, needs, and suggestions takes even more time. Many of these conversations will be especially difficult because you will have to listen to someone else's ideas. All totaled, this work can take an hour or more. Many people prefer to skip these painful activities and just hold a meeting that goes on for hours and hours and hours.Benefit: It’s much easier to hold meetings that accomplish nothing. In addition, the time spent in a meeting keeps y
There are four mandates you can build into your business culture to enhance your ability to succeed.
MANDATE 1: HAVE NO “KNOW” BOUNDARIES
Let’s say you’re the CEO and a customer tells you that your support guys make him nervous. “Nervous?” you say. “Yes. I don’t want to hear ‘I have no idea if this will work but we’ll try it and see.’” What do you say? Bill Daniel (CEO, Surgient, Inc., http://Surgient.com) told the customer, “We can coach people so they don’t necessarily make you nervous but I won’t coach them to not be open with you.” If someone at Surgient doesn’t know something, they just come right out and say so. And that’s just the way Daniel likes it.
This is a key ingredient in creating a culture where everyone can contribute her expertise fully. Where gaps in knowledge are considered normal, not a “problem” but just a routine part of exploring solutions. Then everyone can contribute without fear of stepping on someone’s toes. Knowledge flows freely without getting stuck in eddies of invulnerability.
MANDATE 2: LIVE OR DIE TOGETHER
“This sounds corny, but we live or die together.” If your team knows how to get full commitment from each team member, then each of you will be saying that, just as Gary Moore said it of his team at Dell Computers. Corny, maybe - but fully committed, engaged teams get results.
It’s essential that team members express their views. You want to encourage a healthy level of debate and discussion. As Moore said, “It’s fine for me to say ‘this is a stupid idea’ right up till we decide.” Listen to al
Is your organization quick to pick the low hanging fruit? Do you gravitate first to the quick and easy? Are you prone to delay the bigger projects until you get those little ones out of the way?Low hanging fruit is, by definition, quick and easy to implement, thus the lure to pick it is compelling. And picking the first piece usually exposes another, leading to an infinite quantity of low hanging temptations. While some of these quick fixes make excellent investments, many do not, and the nearly infinite supply can become a black hole for your limited resources.Not only are the quick and easily-visualized fixes compelling, but the more important, strategic opportunities are often exactly the opposite because they can involve fundamental changes in how things are done. The most important initiati
This is a key ingredient in creating a culture where everyone can contribute her expertise fully. Where gaps in knowledge are considered normal, not a “problem” but just a routine part of exploring solutions. Then everyone can contribute without fear of stepping on someone’s toes. Knowledge flows freely without getting stuck in eddies of invulnerability.
MANDATE 2: LIVE OR DIE TOGETHER
“This sounds corny, but we live or die together.” If your team knows how to get full commitment from each team member, then each of you will be saying that, just as Gary Moore said it of his team at Dell Computers. Corny, maybe - but fully committed, engaged teams get results.
It’s essential that team members express their views. You want to encourage a healthy level of debate and discussion. As Moore said, “It’s fine for me to say ‘this is a stupid idea’ right up till we decide.” Listen to al
When it comes to personality profiling, the human development industry has countless tests and assessments from which to choose. These instruments may differ greatly on the surface - in the number and names of the archetypes each model advocates and the method through which a person's type is determined. But at their core, they are all attempting to accomplish the same objective: divide humanity into a manageable number of types and describe each type as a set of distinct and demonstrable characteristics. These "psychometric" instruments are designed to "measure the minds of respondents and provide them with greater insight and understanding of themselves. Because of that, they have increasingly become a core service offered by professional trainers, coaches and consultants.The ways in which the p
MANDATE 2: LIVE OR DIE TOGETHER
“This sounds corny, but we live or die together.” If your team knows how to get full commitment from each team member, then each of you will be saying that, just as Gary Moore said it of his team at Dell Computers. Corny, maybe - but fully committed, engaged teams get results.
It’s essential that team members express their views. You want to encourage a healthy level of debate and discussion. As Moore said, “It’s fine for me to say ‘this is a stupid idea’ right up till we decide.” Listen to al
You’ve been working with a potential client and you think that you finally have the future project all worked out – then they ask you for a proposal. You’ve seen this great potential project but you need to bid for it. So how do you write that proposal that is going to win you the business?Well first of all let’s look at what the proposal should do. Win of course, but before that you have to:* Make your company stand out from the others as well as reflect the values and brand of your company.* Offer the solution that is required in a format that is easily understood.* Be well priced so as to attract the client, provide a profit for your company as well as opportunities for you both to work together in the future.* Be well structured, well written and well presented.
It’s essential that team members express their views. You want to encourage a healthy level of debate and discussion. As Moore said, “It’s fine for me to say ‘this is a stupid idea’ right up till we decide.” Listen to all opinions, ideas and concerns. As a team, sort out the facts from the opinions. See where you are making assumptions and test them. Identify what you don’t know. When decisions are made, engaged teams move as one.
MANDATE 3: LOVE YOUR MISTAKES
What is a “mistake?” An experiment that didn’t turn out the way you’d hoped it would. It’s also an opportunity to learn what doesn’t work. To innovate, you have to experiment. For employees to be willing to experiment, you must view each experience as “good,” whether it turns out “right” or “wrong.”
As Steve Bercu (owner and manager of BookPeople, http://www.BookPeople.com) told me, “The point is – just keep experimenting. If it doesn’t work, don’t worry; we’ll change it back.” As a result of that attitude, BookPeople employees have generated some very creative ideas. A kids’ camp based on the children’s books by Rick Riordan, a new idea for book display that increases sales and other ideas from store d?cor to merchandising.
These innovative ideas contribute to BookPeople’s success. They are thriving at a time when many independent bookstores are losing their markets to chains and the Internet. The attitude of continual experimentation that Bercu has fostered translates to real bottom line success.
Your attitude toward experiments (both the successes and the failures) should tell employees that failed experiments aren’t “career limiting moves” but learning opportunities.
MANDATE 4: REMEMBER – THEY AREN’T “HUMAN CAPITAL” – THEY’RE HUMAN BEINGS!
David Whyte (poet and author of “The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of Soul in Corporate America”) has said that the reason we crack the window of our car wh
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