Philip Mydlach wrote a great article saying that to create a better environment, where creativity and success can flourish, the management team should be like a fudgsicle—consistent all the way through.

Your management team’s behavior sets the tone for the entire corporation. So it better be consistent, predictable and true to your core values.

Absolutely true, as is the need for clearly communicating those values and not tolerating managers who don’t support them.

But achieving your fudgsicle is easier if you include a preliminary step that Mydlach doesn’t mention.

That step is using your culture as a filter in all your hiring—especially when hiring management and most importantly the executive team.

10 years ago I wrote and article for MSDN about how to use company culture as a screening tool to avoid hiring turkeys of any kind at all levels.

With the sighting of “economic green shoots” this seems a good time to revisit it (with some updating).

Don’t Hire Turkeys!
Use Your Culture as an Attraction, Screening and Retention Tool
to Turkey-Proof Your Company.

Companies don’t create people—people create companies.

All companies have a culture composed of its core values and beliefs, essentially its corporate MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™), and it’s why people join the company and why they leave.

Generally, people don’t like bureaucracy, politics, backstabbing, etc., but when business stress goes up, or business heats up, cultural focus is often overwhelmed by other priorities.

In startups, it’s easier to hire people who are culturally compatible, because the founders first hire all their friends, and then their friend’s friends.

After that, when new positions have to be filled the only people available are strangers.

So how do you hire strangers and not lose your culture?

Since your culture is a product of your people, hire only people with matching or synergistic attitudes. The trick is to have a turkey sieve that will automatically screen out most of the misfits and turn on the candidates with the right values and attitudes.

Here is how you do it.

• Your sieve is an accurate description of your real culture.
• It must be hard copy (write it out), fully publicized (everyone needs to know and talk about it), and, most important of all, it must be real.
• Email it to every candidate before their interview and be sure that everyone talks about the culture during the interview and sells the company’s commitment to it.
• Everybody interviewing needs to listen carefully to what the candidate is saying and not saying; don’t expect a candidate to openly admit to behaviors that don’t fit the company MAP, since she may be unaware of them, may assume that your culture is more talk than walk or consider it something that won’t apply to her.
• Red flags must be followed up, not ignored because of skills or charm.
• Consider the various environments in which she’s worked; find out if she agreed with how things were done, and, more importantly, how she would have done them if she had been in control.
• Whether or not the candidate is a manager, you want to learn about her management MAP, approaches to managing and work function methods.
• Probing people to understand what their responses, conscious as well as intuitive, are to a variety of situations reveals how they will act, react, and contribute to your company’s culture and its success.

Finally, it is up to the hiring manager to shield the candidate from external decision pressures, e.g., friends already employed by the company, headhunters, etc.

Above all, it is necessary to give all candidates a face-saving way to withdraw their candidacy and say no to the opportunity. If they don’t have a graceful way of exiting the interview process they may pursue, receive, and accept an offer, even though they know deep down it is not a good decision.

A bad match can do major damage to the company, people’s morale, and even the candidate, so a “no” is actually a good thing.

Remember, the goal is to keep your company culture consistent and flexible as you grow. From the time you start this process, you need to consciously identify what you have, decide what you want it to be, publicize it, and use it as a sieve to be sure that everyone who joins, fits.

Use your cultural sieve uniformly at all levels all the time. If someone sneaks through, which is bound to happen occasionally, admit the error quickly and give her the opportunity to change, but if she persists then she has to go.

Do this and watch retention, creativity, productivity and morale surge ever higher.

Stop doing it at your own risk.

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Honing “CEO skills” isn’t just for CEOs—it’s for every manager who wants to do a better job and every employee who wants to be promoted.

Sure, you may not know as much, or have access to, the same information as the boss, but don’t let that stop you.

It’s similar to managing a fantasy sports team, you know all the easy information and a little research usually gives you a lot more with which to work.

You can make it even more interesting and fun by recruiting colleagues to choose other companies to shadow and compete.

Whatever level you’re at, you may know a lot about your company already and a lot more is in the public domain.

What’s most important in running a company? Obviously, the list below isn’t everything, but it does offer ten of the most important things to get you started running the fantasy version of the company you choose.

• You may not be a CFO, but you better know your numbers: where they come from, how they interact, and where they’re going. This includes knowing/learning to read financial statements, annual reports, etc.
• No matter what your career path, know about your company’s market (no matter how cool and cutting-edge your service, product or e-concept is) so you can understand who buys it and why, what the competition offers and how your company products or services differ.
• Every successful company must have a competitive edge, whether it’s unique products/services, pricing advantages, company culture (think Zappos), etc. Learn how to define your company’s competitive edge and understand how to communicate it clearly to the whole company so that everyone is focused on making it happen.
• Clearly identify the goals of the company, then work to turn them into specifics. Assure buy-in by making sure employees understand the interaction among their goals, the company’s goals, and those of other people.
• Hire the smartest people available and give them an environment that enables them to produce; then watch your company’s strengths increase in direct proportion to your people’s growth. Remember, people are most productive if they know, and help determine, their work and the range of their control.
• Make sure that there’s an obvious and direct relationship between the rewards people receives—salary, stock, bonuses, medals, whatever—and the success of the company. The biggest rewards should go to those who understand the company’s goals and ethically do whatever it takes to achieve them.
• Create a culture in which the messenger is never shot; that way you’ll always get the earliest possible warning of potential problems.
• You set the tone of the organization. If you’re political, secretive, nitpicking, or querulous, then that’s how your organization will be, because, no matter what, employees will always do as you do, not as you say.
• Never criticize an employee in the presence of others. Praise in public, criticize in private.
• Companies are like tripods, with customers, investors, and employees each representing a leg. If you don’t pay equal attention to each the company will tip over.

Track your choices, decisions and actions against the reality. Give yourself a high five when your ideas pan out, and learn when they don’t.

You’ll be amazed at how fast the learning from your fantasy business pays off in your real work!

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See all mY generation posts here.

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Yes, it’s another post about my favorite company. Why do I write so much about Zappos?

Because, according to CEO Tony Hsieh, “Our No. 1 priority is the company culture. Our whole belief is that if we get the culture right, then everything else, including the customer service, will fall into place.”

Zappos embodies everything I believe about culture being the bedrock of corporate success.

Whereas all I can do is talk/write about it, Zappos puts its money where my mouth is and proves it works by becoming a billion dollar business over the decade of its existence.

Not bad for a dot com startup that was given exactly one week’s worth of additional funds in which to turn itself around or be shut down.

But heaping more kudos on CEO Tony Hsieh isn’t the purpose of this post. Rather, I’d like your opinion of why cultures such as this are so rare.

Hsieh is a Gen Xer running a truly multi-generational company (I confirmed this by calling and chatting with a  customre support person, not HR or an official source, just a worker) that hires based on cultural fit and skills—they carry equal weight.

The focus on culture is one reason that Zappos doesn’t have the generational management problems besetting so many companies.

The Zappos culture is a long way from rocket science and Hsieh isn’t shy about explaining how to duplicate it, so you tell me.

Why don’t more companies do it?

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Are you familiar with risk culture? You should be, no matter your position in your company.

Risk culture is “defined as the system of values and behaviors present throughout an organization that shape risk decisions. Risk culture influences the decisions of management and employees, even if they are not consciously weighing risks and benefits.

“A company’s risk culture is a critical element that can ensure that “doing the right thing” wins over “doing whatever it takes. … When companies reward reckless conduct, or results gained through any means, the risk management message becomes diluted. … Having a strong risk culture means that employees know what the company stands for, the boundaries within which they can operate, and that they can discuss and debate openly which risks should be taken in order to achieve the company’s long-term strategic goals.”

It takes time, effort, commitment from the top, starting in the board room, and support at every level of management.

Once acceptable risk is decided upon, folded into your culture and communicated it’s most important to use it as a filter in the hiring process.

In fact, the only way to ensure that your corporate culture, risk tolerance, values, etc., continues is to hire people who are, at the very least, synergistic with them.

Read the articles and if you have any questions, or want some help learning to use your culture as a filter, give me a call at 866.265.7267 between 8 am and 11 pm Pacific time or email miki@RampUpSolutions.com. (Calls are better; email can get blocked by filters.)

NO charge—I do it for fun.

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See how Calvin explains the economy

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I live in the great Pacific Northwest—the great, wet Pacific Northwest.

Our spring is late and what we’ve had has dribbled in a couple of days here and a couple there. Starting Friday we finally had three whole days of spring and I had a yard that needed major help.

The result of 30+ hours of hard labor is a vast improvement in the yard and I am totally whacked. So I chose a post from last year; I hope you enjoy it.

Corporate Culture I/O

Corporate culture has begotten a thriving industry that researches, dissects, writes, discusses, preaches, teaches, and studies it—all with the goal of helping people understand its effects and learn how to improve it.

It’s considered a soft science, a moving target, amorphous and difficult to pin down.

But I’ve always believed that corporate culture has much in common with a computer.

Yes, a computer, with its unyielding hardware and logical, literal software.

You see, in computing, the term I/O refers to input, whatever is received by the system, and output, that which results from the processing.

Programmers know that if you enter incorrect or bad data the results coming out of the computer won’t have much value, hence the term “garbage in/garbage out.”

And there you have it—the similarity between computers, corporate culture and most everything else in life.

What comes out is a function of what you put in.

Blindly accepting everything offered—whether from the guru du jour or religious texts—is sure to result in garbage out at some point.

Improving corporate culture requires critical thinking on your part. No one person, past, present or future, has all the answers. You need to evaluate the available information, take a bit from here and a bit from there, apply it to your situation and, like a computer, process it.

The resulting culture will differ from what you start with, because you’ve added the flavor of your own life experiences, knowledge and MAP to the mix and that’s good—different people, different culture.

A viable corporate culture is a living organism, growing and changing all the time and you’re contributing to that growth.

Do you contribute to your company’s culture?

Image credit: vivekchugh on sxc.hu

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What do you think of when someone mentions corporate culture?

What does corporate culture mean to you?

Here are some of the things that I think of when the subject of culture is discussed.

Conducive

Uplifting

Lasting

Teamwork

Us

Responsible

Enlightening

What do you think of?

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Although these three links are aimed at executives, I think you’ll find what they offer applies to everybody.

First is a Forbes article looks at what some CEOs keep in their office and explains how those items reflect the corporate culture—the premise holds true for managers at all levels and even for non-management.

Next is an interview with Richard Anderson, chief executive of Delta Air Lines. He offers some great career advice along with insightful comments on what he looks for when interviewing. Useful no matter which side of the desk you’re on.

Finally, the HBR Editor’s Blog talks about Myth of the Tireless Leader. The post has several links that illustrate and prove that lack of sleep does not yield smart actions, intelligent decisions or innovation. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Who knows, maybe after reading it you’ll stop bragging about how little sleep you need and get the rest required to be truly productive.

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I’ve never been a lover of the MBA, its almost holy status, depending on the school, and especially its dominance on Wall Street,

In a recent post Justine Larbalestier said, “I was fascinated by Background Briefing’s recent documentary about the emergence of business schools and their effect on corporate culture and its relationship to the current crisis: MBA: Mostly Bloody Awful.”

I agree with Justine regarding the illogic of assuming that people can walk in and manage or advise a business of which they know little to nothing, especially with little to no experience.

It’s said that MBA can also stand for ‘Mediocre but Arrogant’ or ‘Management by Accident’; I would add Muddled by Ascendancy and Master Bull Artist.

The podcast by ABC Radio’s Stephen Crittenden is excellent. I hope you’ll take the time to listen and, hopefully, rethink some of your hiring assumptions.

MBA: Mostly bloody awful

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Podcast credit: ABCRadio

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