Time To Flourish

Sandi Rapp

Is it Time to Re-invent your Organization?

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Times are always changing.  Lately, it feels like that is true in a way that no-one would have ever expected.  So much has happened and so much has changed during the first quarter of 2020 that it is only prudent to take dedicated time to truly assess where your organization stands today.  I’m fairly certain that the last time any organization did their SWOT analysis or updated their Strategic Plan, that a pandemic wasn’t something accounted for in the process.  That being said, it’s time to do just that!

What has this pandemic done to your organization’s financial stability?   Has it put your organization in hyper-growth and over-drive mode or are you concerned about making the next payroll?   How has this changed your current target audience and how will it change your target audience moving forward?   Will you need to change or modify services, programming, goods or products?  Does the organization have the right expertise in the current staff to make the changes necessary? How adaptable is your current business model?  Does the business now require a new organizational design?  These are just a few of the many questions that need answered as leaders plot out the futures of their organizations.

When I think of companies who have successfully re-positioned, re-branded or re-invented themselves the one that first comes to my mind is Netflix.  I can’t help but immediately compare the Netflix transformation to the lack of reinvention by Blockbuster.  The slowness of Blockbuster to react and respond to the changes around them ultimately destroyed a company that was once valued at almost $6 billion. Many other companies have successfully re-invented themselves including big names like Amazon, Legos, Barbie and National Geographic.  Innovation, calculated good decisions, and speed to implementing change are just a few of the necessary qualities in a transformation.

Historically it has always been critical that organizations remain acutely aware of potential external threats to their success.  It is one of the many reasons that a solid SWOT analysis is an important part of the strategic planning process.   Knowing the strengths of your organization and therefore your ability to mitigate threats is a key component to sustainable success.  

Whether you are concerned with meeting the newly increased customer demand this pandemic has created or you are concerned with your organization’s ability to meet existing lender covenant requirements; be sure to dedicate sufficient time and resources to making strategic decisions for the planning and forecasting of your organization’s future.

Is It Time For a Culture Make-Over?

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Every organization has a culture.   Whether you have 10 employees or 10,000 employees, your organization has a culture.  Some cultures are methodically and strategically designed and maintained by the organization. Other cultures happen to the organization. The question you must ask yourself, is the culture at your organization what you want it to be?  Is it productive?  Are the employees engaged and happy?  Do employees stay? Do employees refer others to work there?

In reviewing culture surveys, a consistent theme is that executives tend to have a much higher opinion of their workplace culture in comparison to the feedback from their employees.  In other words, there tends to be a gap between how executives think their employees feel and how the employees actually feel. 

An organization’s reputation for workplace culture is usually well-known in their local community or even on a global scale.  If you asked your friends or colleagues to list companies with a toxic workplace culture and to list companies with a great culture; they would easily create that list based on either their own personal experiences or stories from others.  But what about the rest of businesses?   By definition, toxic means “containing or being poisonous material especially when capable of causing death or serious debilitation”.  While many organizations don’t necessarily have a toxic environment, they often do have much room for improvement.  They are in need of a culture make-over!

Sometimes organizations start out with a dynamic workplace culture but overtime it shifts.  When an organization goes through rapid growth in a short period of time, or experiences a change of ownership, or the founder retires; all of these types of events and others can cause the culture of a workplace to shift dramatically.  And if the culture isn’t a priority and culture isn’t part of the strategy then that shift is often for the worse.

Many organizations do a lot of things right, but they fall short on being a “best of” or top-tier company to work for because they have not made their culture a part of their strategy.   SHRM reported that approximately $223 billion has been lost by companies in the past 5 years from costs associated with employees leaving due to the workplace culture.    So, even if you don’t consider your workplace to be toxic, it’s probably worth evaluating.  If you have not conducted a comprehensive and inclusive survey of your employees in the past 12 months, then it’s time for a culture survey.  All improvements start with knowing your true baseline. 

Here are 10 signs that your organization needs a culture make-over:

  1. There is poor and/or haphazard communication.
  2. It is sometimes unclear to employees how decisions are made.
  3. There are instances of favoritism.
  4. There are instances of nepotism.
  5. Not all the bosses maintain the open-door policy.
  6. Employees feel unappreciated at times.
  7. Some of the good employees have been resigning or are job hunting.
  8. There is no clear succession planning in place.
  9. Employee professional development and career pathing is non-existent or lacking.
  10. There is high volume of gossip and drama.

If any of these resonate with you, then your organization is ready for a culture make-over. Contact Time To Flourish to learn more about how to “Makeover” your workplace culture.

How strong is your EXTERNAL Team?!

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One of my family members was recently diagnosed with an aggressive cancer and we were discussing how important it is for her to lean on her tribe.  Tragedy can show you there are people in your corner that you never might have previously realized…unfortunately the opposite is also true.  You can find out that someone you thought was a part of your inner support circle, wasn’t really up for that role.  

Conversations like this have a tendency of causing you to reflect on many things in your own life. After many other personal and professional reflections, this conversation eventually had me thinking about the many external team members that have supported organizations that I have been a part of in my past. It also made me think about just how valuable it is to build a strong external team.  Successful leaders spend a substantial amount of their time building and maintain high performing teams, internal teams. People are the most important asset any organization can have so it only makes sense that a significant amount of time is invested in them.   But what about the amount of time invested in building your external team?  Do leaders spend the appropriate amount of time vetting and maintaining a high performing external team?  By external team, I mean the professionals that support your organization through services, software and products but are not employed by the organization.

Your corporate attorney, auditor and/or CPA, your employment attorney, marketing agency, recruiting agency, insurance broker, payroll company, IT solutions, business consultants, outside trainers, the list could go on depending on the size, scope and industry of your organization.  The key is remembering that all of the people that service or support your organization are also a part of your team and require management and leadership.

When I was brought into one organization as the CEO, they were in the middle of a legal battle that was portrayed to be insignificant in both financial consequence and the amount of time to be invested to the matter.  I quickly found out both of these things were not exactly accurate.  More importantly I also learned that the organization was using an attorney because that attorney was “who they always used”.  The unfortunate truth is that the size and scope of the matter had outgrown the expertise of this attorney.  That error cost the organization considerably.  I am not implying that a member of your external team who has always been good to you can’t continue to be a solid member of your team.  I am saying that you need to continually invest the time to reassess your external team to ensure that the level of service/products you needed yesterday versus what you need today and will need in the future will continue to be met by your external team members. 

A great external team can be a true difference maker for your organization.  The right IT solutions can ease frustrations, increase efficiencies and even contribute to greater work-life balance for your employees.   A professional recruiting agency can reduce your stress by having candidates discreetly lined up and ready to meet with you when you need to make that important staffing decision.  Your corporate attorney, regulatory attorney and cloud-based IT solutions could be the concoction that finally helps you sleep better at night knowing you have all the proper regulatory and safety precautions to protect your organization.  And if you live in any of the states (like NJ) with ever-changing employment laws, your labor attorney might quickly be a person you keep on speed-dial!

Your external team is an extension of your organization.  Make sure that team is properly staffed with all the right players!

Let’s Talk About Those Millennials!

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Every generation has its own unique perspective and approach to family, work, finances, and the social and political systems, etc. And every generation complains about the generation after them!  The Traditionalists complained about the Baby Boomers; the Baby Boomers complained about Generation X; and now everyone seems to be complaining about the Millennials.

I think it is time to have a different conversation.   Let’s talk about the positive attributes of the millennial generation.  I have had the pleasure of interacting with more and more millennial professionals.   They are a very fun and socially conscientious generation.   The millennials are confident, and they are not letting their age/gender/sexual orientation/disability/ethnicity/race/religion stand in their way!  They are a smart generation, both highly educated and extremely tech savvy.  They are open to change and want to learn new skills and improved ways to do things. They are highly collaborative and tend to do very well in teams.  They want to be challenged, trained and mentored.  They are creative, innovative and believe technology can drive change and new ideas.  They are highly sociable and loyal to their peers. They embrace multiculturism and globalism.  They are politically savvy. They have a strong sense of civic duty and community responsibility.

It is important to understand the strengths of a generation as much as you know their weaknesses.  And while not all characteristics of a generation will be true for each individual, understanding the generalities will help leaders become better at motivating and retaining this generation in the workplace.  After you recognize the strengths within the millennial workforce, leaders will be able to modify functions and processes and adopt programs in a manner which capitalize on the numerous strengths within this generation.

For example, let’s say that you have a sales team that is predominantly Millennials.  Conduct a SWOT analysis with them.  You might be surprised at what they view as the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities.   Collaborate with them on each step of the process. Then take those insights and develop a strategy that maximizes their strengths and mitigates their weaknesses.

Since we know that flex-time, time-off and life-work balance are more important to the Millennials than titles and money; does your current benefits and compensation plans reflect this?  Does your employee recognition program have components of it that account for the variety of ways that each generation prefers to be appreciated?

Do you have an organized and methodical approach to staff training and development? Do you offer a mentoring program?  An organized onboarding program, staff development workshops, a leadership development series, management training, and cross-training programs are just a few examples of programs which help in the recruitment, engagement and retention of the millennial generation in the workplace.  Not to mention, quality training and professional development programs deliver a win-win for your organization by increasing your overall employee productivity and improving the consistency and therefore quality of the products and/or services.

Just think, it won’t be too long until the Millennials are complaining about the Generation Z workforce!

Mission Driven – To Be or Not To Be

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Is your organization mission-driven?   As a board member, owner, investor or senior executive did you make an active decision to be or not to be mission-driven?  Or is this a topic that requires further thought and attention?

 

Historically, many of us associated being mission-driven with non-profit organizations.  Today, more and more for-profit organizations are becoming increasingly mission-driven. I would personally argue that most organizations should be mission-driven.

 

For purposes of this discussion let’s make a few assumptions:

Assumption #1:  your organization offers a quality product or service

Assumption #2:  your product/service is either in-demand or has an appropriately sized target audience.

Assumption #3:  employees need to earn a fair paycheck.

 

With a quality product or service and a defined target audience, success for a great organization is largely dependent on the recruitment and retainment of great employees.  With the low unemployment rates and high competition for top talent, recruiting has become a greater and greater challenge at most organizations.  The cost of recruiting coupled with the expense of employee turnover is great motivation to assess and evaluate your culture.

 

Organizations who promote their mission and keep employees invested in the mission have higher levels of employee engagement. Employee engagement is a requirement for a positive and healthy work culture, and imperative for high employee productivity.  According to the most recent BLS survey, the average American employee will stay with their employer for 4.3 years.  Many surveys have pointed out that employees are happier and more satisfied in their jobs when they feel they have and serve a purpose.

 

Ask yourself, is my organization mission driven?  If the answer is no, why not?  To continue this conversation, please contact us at contact@timetoflourish.flywheelsites.com .

Are You Stuck Fighting Fires?

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Have you ever been involved in an organization and it felt like all you did all day was fight fires?  A constant state of chaos with reaction after reaction.  If you asked someone why a project wasn’t progressing in a timely fashion, they answered that there was never enough time because they were too busy handling x, y and z.   How come everyone can make time to fight a fire but no one can make time to do the things that actually prevent the fire from happening in the first place?  How does an organization become so riddled with problem after problem? Fire after fire.  Bad luck after bad luck.  Can a problem so complex have a simple answer?  Yes!  Yes, there is an answer as to why your organization is always in fire-fighter mode.  Culture!   Culture is the simple answer.  Although it might be one simple word, having a healthy, positive and productive culture is complex and hard work.  Without a wholistic and mindful approach to creating, recreating and maintaining workplace culture, firefighting itself can become the culture of an organization.  When the leadership team applies the same time and effort to strategic planning as they would have to fire-fighting, the fires can finally start to suffocate.

Several years ago I took over as CEO for a company.  The majority owner was an equity firm and they were very candid that the company was in dire straits and potentially not able to be turned around.  They were not exaggerating!  The organization had significant compliance and regulatory problems, legal problems, outcomes problems, product development issues, branding and reputation issues, and sales issues.  The root cause of why they had all these issues was embedded in their culture.  The organization was a product of several mergers and acquisitions.  As the organization was in growth mode, no attention or strategy was put into how to mindfully merge the varying work cultures.  The organization lacked a shared mission and vision.  Nepotism became status quo in the organization.  Few policies and procedures existed and the ones that did were created in vacuums without input or buy-in from the actual experts (the employees).  There was no avenue for sharing best practices or resources.   The workplace culture was one that rewarded the “heroes” for all their hard work putting out the fire, but no consequences or regards for how the fire started in the first place.  Thoughtfulness, strategy, research, benchmarking, KPIs, data analysis were not activities that were positively re-enforced or recognized.  Pats on the back were only given out for putting out a fire.  Culture reinforces behavior.  Step back, put on a pair of someone else’s glass and look carefully.  What behaviors is your culture reinforcing?

A healthy and positive work culture is the difference maker between companies who flourish and companies who eventually fail.  Growth is an exciting stage for a company.  Many companies achieve short term success in spite of themselves.  Fast growth coupled with strong financial success can mask the smoke that is just under the surface.  But eventually that smoke will spark and become a fire.  Sustainable growth requires a wholistic and mindful strategic plan.  You can’t have a wholistic and mindful strategic plan if it doesn’t include your greatest asset (your employees!).

When you are ready to stop fighting fires and lead your organization to greater successes, contact Time To Flourish.  To continue this conversation, please visit us at www.timetoflourish.net

Kindness Matters….Even In Business

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Kindness Matters, you hear and see that phrase every time you turn your head.  Parents say it to their children, teachers say it to their students and clergy say it to their parishioners.  How often do board members say it to the leaders of the organization?  How often do executives say it to their managers?  How often do managers say it to their front-line employees?   And more importantly, how often do the leaders of an organization actually live by those words?

Tough decisions must be made in an organization every single day.  And those decisions sometimes result in actions that cause stress, tension and even pain.  Laying off employees for a workforce reduction or disciplining an employee or changing direction in the middle of a project – all those situations create stress.   But every single action, every single conversation can be done with kindness and fairness.   An employee can be laid off or even terminated with their dignity.  Leaders can choose to be kind in tough situations.

Kindness matters shouldn’t just be a phrase but it should be a value that leaders emulates daily in their professional life.   I believe that when a leader demonstrates kindness, they are also creating a more positive and happy work environment.

Be kind to your employees.  Be kind to your employees on the good days, the great days and even the bad days.   Be kind when your sales team exceeds their goals.  Be kind when your sales team misses their goals.  I’m not saying to not address poor performance.  In fact, I believe strongly that poor performance needs addressed quickly and directly.  With kindness.

Business is business.  It’s not personal.  Goals and objectives must be met. But no one ever said you can’t be kind while you are accomplishing your business goals.    You might even find that kindness will help you achieve those goals!

In 2015, a Pew analysis of Labor Department data estimated that the average American works 1,811.16 hours per year.   That is a lot of hours to show kindness to the people around you.

6 Reasons Why Interim Management is a Wise Choice for Many Organizations

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Have you ever wondered why some organizations hire an Interim CEO or an Interim President/COO?  Here are some insights as to why they do it.

1. Allows Hiring the RIGHT Leader to be the TOP Priority

The decision to change the top leadership of an organization is a big one.  Replacing that person with the right candidate is a long and time-consuming process.  And one that an organization can’t afford to mess up.   An interim leader allows the hiring committee to solely focus on the priority of recruiting and selecting a permanent leader.   Often times a top leader is left in place much too long for the simple reason that the hiring committee does not yet have their replacement identified.

2.  Brings Objectivity

An interim leader is able to remain inherently objective while they are in their role.   They are able to see the big picture and prioritize the needs of the organization without emotion or bias.

3.  Reduces Anxiety

Change at the top level creates uncertainty for the employees.  A board member or operating partner acting as CEO can create additional stress and workplace politics which creates a more inefficient workforce.

4.  Reduces Transition Lag

An interim leader is able to keep the company moving forward and focused on strategic goal achievement during the transition from one leader to the next.

5.  To Support a Founding CEO       

Sometimes a founding or start-up CEO finds that their organization has outgrown them.  They might not be ready to step away and/or still have value to bring the company.  An interim COO can provide the necessary support and collaboration the CEO needs to keep the business moving in the right direction.

 

6.  To Balance an Entrepreneur  

Everyone knows that the skills that make someone an amazing entrepreneur are not all the same skills that make an amazing leader.   A proven c-level executive collaborating with a visionary entrepreneur can be the perfect synergy for a start-up to realize true success.