Category Archives: Culture

From complex to profoundly simply – not for dummies

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I was chatting with a colleague today about one of my major frustrations with my consultant colleagues. Consultants seem to have a desire to make things that are complex somehow magically simple, or I would say simplistic.  But there is an important difference between ‘dumbing something down’ and pushing through complexity to a point where you can see a profoundly simple solution. A profoundly simple understanding of a complex situation is one where the hard work of comprehending the complexity has been accomplished, and as a result the solution appears.

Here’s the problem. That type of work generally requires a joint effort – it is true knowledge work, because it takes different perspectives, approaches, and thought processes to tackle a truly complex situation. It is rare that a single individual can go off and construct a profoundly simple solution to a complex problem, but individuals can reduce a complex situation to a simplistic set of tasks or steps that lead to a simple solution.  Effectively solving complex problems through collaboration that results in a profoundly simple solution that everyone can execute against is a LOT of work, and it tends to be messy work – not linear, hard to anticipate and structure, and highly iterative as the team works through the complexity.It happens in moments, in flashes, and in intense work marathons. It is unpredictable.  Consultants have a disturbing need box everything into deliverable timeframes, where their people are billable 40 hours a week for a defined period of time.  That’s inconvienent for the reality of highly strategic work.

Just think about what happens when you do it right – you can end up with a well aligned team that understands their reality, not some simplistic version of it, and is able to navigate it correctly. That’s pretty cool.

 

“Older generations…” Hey GenX, that’s You!

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Don’t worry, I’m a GenXer too.  I caught a New York Times article today entitled Embracing the Millenials by Tom Agan, where he made the age old claim that “Older generations of workers are sometimes annoyed and perplexed by millennials, many of whom want to take on big projects and responsibilities right off the bat, whereas earlier generations expected to pay their dues first.”  Really, with that sentence, you could replace “perplexed by…..” any generation and you’d have it right. GenXers were entitled, not willing to work hard, expected fast promotions, and to ‘have their cake and eat it too’ by making their own rules about work. Sound familiar?Believe it or not, Baby Boomers were somewhat sneezed at by the “Silent Generation” and the “Greatest Generation” when they came into the workforce too. This is a historic complaint by older generations leveled against younger ones.

Mr. Agan did follow that up with something that is unique to the Millenials: “Millennials are also accustomed to living in a world of vast transparency — tweeting, texting and emailing one another in a nonstop exchange of information and opinions.”  This commitment to transparency is what very well may change the fabric of work as we know it. As he deftly points out, when information can be controlled people can be controlled, and that has been a defining characteristic of managerial principles since the industrial age in America. The Millianals are poised to shatter that paradigm, and new management constructs will have to emerge that can exist effectively within an ever more transparent world.

Sure there will be those who resist, who remain committed to old models of control, who seek to fight the tide. But they will eventually be washed over, it is a question of when, not if.  So what happens then? I see a whole new form of organizational structure emerging, one in which information flows more fluidly throughout the ecosystem, and where checks and double checks happen real time about what “management” is saying. It is the fearless who will win in this construct – those who are willing to speak plainly and truthfully rather than obfuscating in ‘consultant-speak’ or ‘management-speak’.

I, of course, am a GenX offender in that regard – blame my almost 25 years in consulting for that. My only mea culpa is that I recognize it and have some levity towards it as a result. I love where the Millenials are taking us, and where the Millenial mindset, adopted by anyone at any age, can lead.  Give it a try and see what happens.

 

In 2020 Millenials will start turning 40 – GenX, are you ready?

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It is hard to believe, but it is coming!  Many companies are working on their 2020 visions and goals, but I’ve noticed that it is a lot of late Baby Boomers and solid Gen Xers making the plans. And yet, in 2020, Millenials will start turning 40 – just at the age when they will be coming into their own in their careers, with significant influence on how those plans go forward. As well, they will be the biggest consumers of the products and services that come out of the plans you are making now.  Are you ready for Millenials to turn 40?  Are you working with intention in your planning to make sure your company is ready?

Millenials are different in some important ways.  Over 30% of them don’t choose to get a driver’s license when they come of age. Many of them would prefer a smaller house than their parents. They are spending their time and money on different types of products and services, and have a different modality for integrating work and life. In America, they are the first generation to enter a workplace that is dominated by services, not product or manufacturing. Check out this article from the NYTimes about one father’s experience with understanding how to measure the success of his Millenial son.

What strategies are you putting in place for employees and customers to attract and maintain this up and coming generation’s affiliation to your brand?

Behind the website at Zappos

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I recently had the opportunity to go with a client to visit Zappos and see its well publicized culture up close on a tour of their new headquarters in Las Vegas.

It was pretty cool to see a branded culture in action. They are explicit and direct about who they are and why, and they celebrate it in many ways.  The design of the space they share, the way in which they communicate, and the services they provide to employees all speak to the idea of living their core values.  Interestingly, every one of the employees with whom we spoke referenced the core values, but even more, they demonstrated them in the way they answered questions. That’s what it looks and feels like when values are embedded in everything you do – it isn’t a recitation, it is an embodyment.

We had a good debrief from the tour as well. My client is almost 100 years old, and in a fairly serious business.  As one person said, when the worst thing you can do is sell someone the wrong sized shoes, it is OK to be a little irreverent and edgy in your culture. But when the worst thing you can do is leave someone living in poverty at the end of their life, you probably need a branded culture that is a little more serious.  I think she was exactly right. The take-away from Zappos isn’t that everyone should have a wacky and fun culture, it is that there is power in having a well articulated and understood culture – that it gives your people and your customers a deeper understanding of your commitments and your brand promise.

What happens then?  You move product more effectively, and stand out in a commoditized market as having something unique and valuable.

 

Transformation? I’m not sure that means what you think it means.

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Lately it seems like everything is “transforming” (when it isn’t being “disrupted”).  There’s transformative change, transformation of businesses, and a need to transform or “have a transformation”.  It often sounds very glamorous and exciting. It is also often described to me as being something being done for other people.  As in “the only way we can transform our business is if everyone (else) starts doing things differently.”  It is rare that someone says to me “we have to transform our business and that means I have to start doing things differently.”

That’s where I have a problem. For me, transformative change means that I feel three very conflicting emotions, and they materialize in my stomach (so I guess I could go on a “transformation diet” hmm…)

  1. I feel excitement that gives me butterflies in my stomach
  2. I feel anxiety that makes my stomach do flip flops
  3. I feel a sense of loss that is gut wrenching

If any one of those is missing, it is usually not what I would call transformative. It might be a big change, but it isn’t rocking my world. I have to be willing to own getting myself right with all three of those emotions to step out of my comfort zone and start to do thing differently, and to help the people around me to do thing differently.

Maybe that’s not everyone’s definition, but that’s what I mean when I say I’m working on transformation, and I challenge my clients to think in those terms. I get that it isn’t easy – especially the 3rd one. But transformation should be hard – otherwise it isn’t that big of a deal, right?

Think your employees are engaged? You are probably wrong. And likely you aren’t very engaged yourself.

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Back in August I published a link to a Gallup poll on employee engagement that had some pretty miserable results.  Out of 150,000 workers surveyed, 52% were ‘disengaged’, and 18% were ‘actively disengaged’. Sounds ominous, doesn’t it?  What about you? Are you engaged in your work?  I heard a CEO recently refer to work as the ‘horrific concession’ we all eventually make, when we concede that the majority of our waking hours will be spent at work.  His goal is to make that time as fulfilling as possible for people.  The Gallup poll would indicate that he has a big mountain to climb (aside: he seems to be doing it – his company is one of the best to work for by almost all measures).

A friend recently brough to my attention an article in Fast Company by Mark C. Crowley where he takes a closer look at the results. It is worth a read, as he recounts his interview with a Gallup researcher who monitors employee engagement in the US.  More recently, also in Fast Company, Ian Clough talks about ways to turn the tide. He gives a few good places to start:

  1. Make it personal: Leaders need to connect directly, as human beings, in a sincere and motivating way.
  2. Employees make the difference: Employees have to be involved in planning, delivery, and follow up – they must have a place at the table for engagement to take hold.
  3. Find an anchor and plant it: Find something that connects people to the very fiber of the organization and make sure they all ‘get it’.
  4. When going global, don’t go overboard: Be culturally aware, but don’t feel compelled to tweak everything that you do for every country you touch – there is value in consistency in messages and format.
  5. Measure consistently: Find the things that matter most and measure them periodically.

I would add to measure qualitatively as well as quantiatively, but that of course is my bias as a qualitative researcher.  I would also avoid the allure of measuring to much too often, because you will run the risk of squelching engagement by over-monitoring.

Both articles are worth a read, have a look and see for yourself.

Is that really a “best” practice?

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I’ve been talking a lot with clients lately about knowledge sharing and collaboration. This is a broad umbrella that includes content management, collaboration environments, reconfigured physical spaces, reconfigured cloud spaces, expert designations, profiles, and other tools to help build knowledge communities and great content. I love the work and the conversations of which I get to be a part as a result – it feels like it is having an immediate impact on the culture, the results, and the successes of some very large companies, which is fun for me.

A consistent debate that comes up in every instance is around “best practice”.  The debate rages around what defines a best practice, how do we acknowledge it, who vets and approves it, etc. I recently pointed out to a client that part of the problem is that “best” is binary.  There can only be one. And in most of life, there are many ways that something can be great and work well.  What’s worse is that things change fast – best today may be terrible tomorrow. So who maintains what is identified as ‘best’?

In some organizations we’ve switched to using “successful practices” – an inventory of things that have proven to work in certain situations as certain times. In others, we’ve moved to a star rating, where it makes total sense for more than one type of practice or collateral or content to have the highest star rating. We still have to debate the process for assigning and maintaining the ratings, but it seems to create a much more productive and useful  conversation.

In my mind, best is too definitive for most complex environments, and it makes little sense in my mind to spend time debating how ‘best’ will be assigned and maintained. Moving away from a binary descriptor can help shape the discussion and create positive change.  Give it a try!

Taking over channels

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The New York Times was hacked today, reportedly by a group called the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), who has claimed responsibility for a number of highly visible hacks lately. They claim to be using their methods as a way of getting the word out about their cause.  Basically, they take over the domain name of a well known publication like the Times and post their own messages to the site. In this case, they survived about 3 minutes before security kicked in and their messages were blocked. But they took the site down with them – NYTimes.com has been struggling for the last 24 hours to recover.

In old movies the evil antagonist sometimes intercepts the TV news report to say whatever he has to say – captivating the attention of the town, city, nation, or world (depending on his stage and the movie plot).  The idea is much the same here – take over the most obvious channel to the public you can find and use it for your own messaging.  It is the most complete form of interruption you can create in today’s society for news and information about the world around you.

When we look at the channels of communication that create and reflect culture in an organization, executives often get very excited about using them to push out a message. I’d suggest that can be as inappropriate as taking over a media distribution website to push your own agenda on people who otherwise wouldn’t see your message. If you want to ride a channel, get into the conversation instead of shutting it down. Learn to navigate through the discussions that are being had. Be a part of something instead of demanding that everyone pay attention to you for a moment in time.

I’m not making a political statement about SEA – just using the site hacking practice as an analogy for what I sometimes see happening in companies as they try to make one message stand out amongst a sea of information that is directed at the people who make up the organization. Before you take over, stop and ask yourself ‘is this the best way to use this channel? Is it the best way to connect with these people?’

Employee Engagement – What the Survey Says

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Gallup recently released their latest employee engagement survey results.  Gallup has been doing this survey for several years, and is able to show some interesting trends around engagement and its impact on the workplace. While I’m primarily a qualitative researcher, I see survey tools as powerful for showing trends, understanding macro level movement, and providing areas of focus or concern for employers who want to create higher engagement among employees.  I can certainly appreciate the logitudinal quality of the survey work being done on engagement, and how it contributes to our overall understanding of this phenomena.

This latest set of data illustrates the importance of employee engagement in the overall success of the business.  It also brings to light the importance of langauge and meaning over process and measurements when it comes to engagement.  Carefully defining ‘engagement’ and what it means to the organization writ large and to individuals is critically important. This can be done in terms of attributes or characteristics that have meaning to employees (for whom ‘engagement’ is ambigious and hard to enact when directed). Then, weaving those attributes into the day to day conversations around the organization becomes and actionable step for leaders, managers, independent contributors, and employees at large.

How you get to those attributes and characteristics for your own organization may require going beyond the survey. Practical experience tells me that they are highly localized even within companies, and how engagement is defined at a local level is critically important.  Asking quesitons about why engagement is important, what lack of engagement is doing, and what improvement would look like to you is a first step.  In parallel, understanding what people mean

 

There’s no such thing as ‘just talking’

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I admit, I get impatient with people who say ‘that’s just talk’, or complain about meetings where ‘all we do is talk’.  It shows a lack of appreciation for the idea that conversation is almost always generative – it is where work gets done, it is where things happen.  There’s no such thing as ‘just talk’ – as though action takes place somewhere else.  Organizations are reflections of the conversations among the people who exist within the organizational structure.

Why is this important?  Because if you want to change the organization, you have to change the conversations that construct it.  And you do that by…. talking!  So the next time you think a meeting is ‘just talk’, stop and think about the work that is getting done, and see what happens then.