Time To Flourish

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!

Accountability – The Key To A Positive Work Culture

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Accountability in the workplace is recognized by all as a critical component for success.  I once had a supervisor who was razor-focused on accountability.  It was part of every conversation, call, meeting and email.  The problem was that we never did anything to achieve accountability other than talk about it. All talk and no action is a sure way to fail.  So, as a manager, how do you successfully promote a culture of accountability?

Workplace accountability is defined as the responsibility of employees to complete the tasks assigned and duties as required in order to fulfill or further the goals of the organization.  As a manager, displaying personal accountability promotes a culture of accountability.  Your team is likely to emulate your actions and follow your example of accountable behavior.  As an employee not in a management role, demonstrating personal accountability is important to demonstrating their value to the organization.  The key to a culture of accountability is based on the following:

  • a true understanding of accountability
  • a consistent and equitable expectation of accountability
  • a process for assessment and communication

Where to begin?  Ensure that each member of your team has a solid understanding of his/her role, responsibilities and performance expectations.  Be specific with the processes and methodologies used to achieve these expectations.  Set SMART goals for each employee.  Draw the correlation between the employee’s specific responsibilities and the goals and objectives of the organization.  Each employee must understand how they contribute to the overall mission of their department and company.  Each team member must be able to explain how their tasks and responsibilities impact the overall performance of the team.

Next, ensure that performance expectations are equitable and consistent among the entire team.  A sure way to damage employee morale is to hold inconsistent expectations throughout your team.  To demonstrate higher expectations for certain individuals will corrupt the overall sense of teamwork and will impact productivity.  In time, this lack of consistent accountability will tend to have the greatest impact on your strongest employees.  Recognize and reward good performance.  Implement incentives for going above and beyond and the achievement of team goals.

Finally, provide frequent and consistent feedback to your employees, highlighting achievements as well as areas in need of improvement.  Work with the individual to formulate a plan that will lead to the desired improvements.  Utilize the available data to present a clear picture and build achievable goals These meetings are also valuable in establishing rapport with each team member and a way to convey your commitment to their success.  Establish a consistent team meeting to communicate overall performance.  During the team meetings, take the time to identify shared challenges and achievements.  This dual approach will reinforce the need for personal accountability toward the achievement of team goals and performance.

Creating a culture of accountability will not only result in improved outcomes, it will deliver the satisfaction of true teamwork.  It certainly takes effort – but, is totally worth it.

“Accountability is the glue that ties commitment to results.” – Bob Proctor

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 .

The Power of Good Communication

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There are several factors that contribute to creating a productive and satisfying workplace environment, however, none more important than good communication.  Effective communication is critical for success regardless of the size and structure of your organization.  Poor communication will result in lower productivity and employee morale and engagement which ultimately impacts financial performance.  Everyone will agree that good communication is key, however, the quality of communication is not always measured or considered.

Good communication typically mitigates conflict.  Poor communication fosters an environment of confusion and resentment.  When evaluating and establishing your communication strategy, include measures to avoid misunderstanding, consider communication patterns and preferences and address the emotional needs of your team.

It’s important to assess whether your message is being understood as intended.  Communication isn’t simply sharing information but measuring how the information is received.  If the message is received differently than it’s intended, confusion on the part of the receiver may lead to resentment.  I have witnessed the devastating effects of poor communication, particularly when the communication avenue is only one-way.  Therefore, an effective delivery must include a feedback loop; a means to determine if the communication was received, understood and supported.  Two-way communication is always the goal when establishing an effective system of sharing information.

The vehicle of communication is also crucial.  A multi-generational workforce makes this more complex and requires that you consider various options of how to share information. Communication methods must be effective with your entire workforce which is most likely comprised of Baby Boomers, Generation-Xers and Millennials. Is your organization relying on email to distribute information?   Are you utilizing social media and technology as part of your strategy?  Are you ensuring that your communication strategy includes face-to-face interaction?  A multi-faceted approach will ensure that you are meeting your team at the point where your message will be best received and may include regular “Team Huddles”, an intranet providing policies and procedures plus company news and events, and regular but concise emails.

Ongoing assessment and feedback methods are a key strategy for organizations determined to establish a workplace environment rich with productive communication.  Employee surveys are a great way to assess your team’s perspective.  Surveys should be conducted at regular intervals and responded to in a timely manner.  Analyzing utilization of the company intranet will provide valuable feedback on its effectiveness.  Another great way to assess the quality of communication is to create ways for the team to echo the message back to management.  For example, when introducing a new policy, ask your team to respond with how this new policy will impact their roles and their productivity.

The power of good communication in your organization is significant and will result in improved employee engagement, higher productivity and an increased sense of their value within the company.  Establishing an effective communication strategy is complex but will greatly improve performance and outcomes.

 

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.

Build It and It Will Flourish

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In Hollywood, if you build a baseball field in the middle of your corn field, legends will appear on your lawn.  In business, if you work to build an engaging workplace culture, success will come.  Ignoring factors and indicators of employee engagement is a sure way to decrease the productivity of your team.  Employee engagement is an asset of your business that will diminish if you do not keep it as part of your strategic plan.  Productivity, employee retention, employee attendance, and proficiency are all factors that will drive the financial results of your organization in an upward or downward direction.

Knowing this, how do you positively impact employee engagement so that is drives success?  The following are five key areas to incorporate in your

The following are 5 key steps to improve employee engagement:

  1. Employ great leaders rather than managers.

Often promotion to manager is the reward given to a successful, technically proficient employee.  It’s a great move in so many ways, but one.  This individual may not understand how to lead a team; how to motivate, coach and manage employees.  Investing in management training and development is crucial.  Specific areas of focus for new managers include communicating clear expectations, implementing consistent processes, and leading by example.  Pairing a new manager with an experienced, effective manager for guidance and mentoring is a great approach to developing leadership and management skills.  Establish touchpoints with your new managers to review progress and establish upcoming goals.

  1. Encourage frank employee feedback.

It’s important that your managers create an environment where employees feel safe to provide honest feedback.   How to accomplish this?  Provide a means to solicit feedback and then pay attention.  Read the feedback and determine how to respond to each item.  Feedback can be in the form of a survey, anonymous complaint hotline, suggestion repository or targeted group meetings.  Now, where the difficulty lies is that honest feedback is only given when the surveyed individuals feel “safe”.    The actions of management have a deep influence on frank employee feedback.  A culture of open communication without retribution must exist so that you can trust the feedback provided.  So many times, the results of a survey are in direct contrast with the perceived morale.  In this situation, initiatives such as skip-level meetings should be utilized to uncover the cause of distrust and disengagement.

  1. Open lines of communication throughout the organization.

Employees who have a clear understanding of how they contribute to the mission and vision of the organization will undoubtedly be more engaged.  Communicate clearly the expectations of each person’s role.  Provide specific processes to follow.  Do not assume that everyone “knows how” to accomplish objectives.  Provide feedback on your team’s progress and provide a clear picture of how their performance is tracking.

  1. Create an inclusive environment.

Inclusive environments are critical to healthy employee engagement.  Offering an inclusive culture is being cognizant of the prospective and uniqueness of your employees.  It’s creating a workplace where everyone is treated equally with respect and consideration.   This includes providing equivalent opportunities to participate, contribute, learn and express opinions.    Often without conscious choice, managers will offer feedback to employees using completely different approaches.  For example, a manager takes the time to review progress with one employee, yet, sends an email to another employee to provide similar feedback.  Ensure that you delegate special assignments fairly and communication is to the group and not certain individuals.  Small gestures from a manager could be interpreted as discriminatory and erode  the employee’s sense of value.   Understanding the circumstances that create an environment of inequity is critical to eliminating office bias.

 

  1. Include employee engagement as a permanent part of your strategic planning.

Organizations with higher employee engagement realize higher productivity, substantially better customer loyalty, fewer accidents, and greater profitability.  Therefore, it is vital to include employee engagement as a priority in your organization’s strategic plan.  This initiative must be a priority for every level of management – from the board of directors to team leaders.

Employee engagement is not something that is “fixed” therefore forgotten.  It is a factor that will have a significant impact on the success of your organization.  If you ignore it, it will decline.