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Ducks in a Row: Are Your Employees Owners or Renters?

Tuesday, November 8th, 2016

https://www.flickr.com/photos/gusilu/2888338293/

“Ownership” is the difference between having employees who care and those who are just along for the ride.

Jim Haskett, Harvard business School professor emeritus, hosts lively conversations around current research he and his colleagues have done. The comment period is roughly two weeks and the ideas/comments are as interesting as Haskett’s original post.

Are Employees Becoming Job ‘Renters’ Instead of ‘Owners’? is the most recent and is critical to any manager looking to foster an engaged workforce.

In our work, we found that an “owner”—either a loyal employee or customer who takes responsibility for improving relationships, products, and processes as well as referring new employee candidates or customers—can be worth more than a hundred “renters—”those who are only involved with the organization to complete one or more transactions.

Think about it; why would Uber drivers care about the company — to use Haskett’s terms, they rent the job.

It isn’t just the so-called on-demand jobs that hire renters. There are plenty of them in full-time positions and, surprisingly, even in companies such as Google and Facebook.

In a recent Golden Oldie we considered the truism that “you get what you give” when it comes to respect and that’s true about most things.

Another old saying is also very true — people don’t quit companies, they quit managers.

In companies with “real” jobs, it’s the managers who determine whether employees are owners or renters.

Be sure to click over, read the comments and add your own.

Image credit: chispita_666

Entrepreneurs: Disrupting Complexity

Thursday, April 9th, 2015

James-Heskett

Entrepreneurs love to talk about disrupting.

Most recently they have been disrupting finance.

Harvard’s Jim Heskett posits the idea that tech itself is ripe for disruption, especially if you agree with Clayton M. Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma.

Tech is ungainly for many of us.

Too much of it is developed by the young for the young

Both hardware and software are built by techies in love with the bleeding edge for early adopters and people captivated by potential — whether they will ever have use for it is incidental.

We’re told that the typical user of information technology today utilizes less than 5 percent of the capability made available by today’s hardware and software. A small number of basic functions repeatedly are put to good use by the typical user. They are the need-to-have functions. The functions thought by designers to be nice to have may enhance marketing efforts and satisfy software engineers’ desires to make complex things, but they largely go unused. For some, they even make access to “need to have” functions more confusing.

While many companies add (expensive) bells and whistles to drive growth, others work to provide a more minimalist approach that crushes competitors.

Heskett uses Intuit as an example of a company that focuses on consistently making its software simpler.

It did it by providing simple and inexpensive solutions to everyday problems. Scott [Cook, Intuit co-founder] likes to say that Intuit had 47th mover advantage, in part because it adopted a strategy that identified the pencil as the company’s most important competitor.

Does Heskett’s idea have legs? Is tech, in fact, ripe for Intuit-quality disruption?

If you have strong feelings or thoughts on the subject be sure to add your thoughts to the open forum; Even if you don’t comment it’s worth following; Heskett’s ideas always draw eclectic, well thought-through responses from his audience.

Image credit: Harvard Business School

If the Shoe Fits: How Well do You Listen?

Friday, February 7th, 2014

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A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

I’ve cited Harvard Business School’s James Heskett’s insightful questions and the discussions they foster many times.  

This time he asks if listening is becoming a lost art.

In his new book Quick and Nimble, based on more than 200 interviews, Adam Bryant concludes, that, among other things, managers need to have more “adult conversations” —conversations needed to work through “inevitable disagreements and misunderstandings” —with our direct reports. Such conversations require careful listening.

In the same book he reports that CEOs expressed major concerns about the misuse and overuse of e-mail, something that they feel encourages disputes to escalate more rapidly than if face-to-face conversations had taken place instead. The latter, however, would require people to listen.

As to the concerns about email, I would add abuse to the misuse and overuse, as well as adding texting, instant messaging and, although not as obvious, cell phones. (Nobody is really listening while navigating rush hour, zipping down the highway at 70 or listening to the GPS when they are late to a meeting.)

Listening is both skill and art, but it’s also a revenue generator—just ask Tony Hsieh, whose own willingness to listen helped create a culture that’s the envy of corporations everywhere, while the listening skills he encourages in his CSRs have sold millions of pairs of shoes, or the Asana founders, who built the company on mindfulness, a philosophy grounded in listening.

Incorporating listening into your cultural DNA requires it to be universally manifested starting with you.

If you aren’t willing to put down your phone, discuss stuff in person, facilitate and carefully listen to disagreement then don’t expect anyone else to do so.

Image credit: HikingArtist

Ducks in a Row: No Surprise Management (NSM)

Tuesday, June 25th, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/michalogiorgakis/8649534648/Way back when I started this blog I wrote about the importance of creating a culture of no surprises, so it was with great interest that I read HBS’ Jim Heskett’s thoughts regarding the importance of a No Surprise Management (NSM), either. (Heskett’s previous discussion about servant leadership formed the basis of another recent post.)

Bosses don’t like surprises from their direct reports. But “no surprise management” works just as well when bosses don’t surprise those lower in the organization, says Jim Heskett.

Heskett is worth following, because he doesn’t lecture, let alone pontificate; rather posits a brief scenario, asks ‘what do you think, and draws his many readers into adding their thoughts creating a far richer level of information.

NSM should be a no-brainer for bosses at all levels, not just senior management.

As Larry Slate, Organ Preservation Supervisor, Gift of Life Michigan, so aptly puts it in comments,

Employees are expected to “dedicated, professional, accurate and ethical”. As employees we expect the same from management.

Or, as one manager recently said to me about his boss, “I give what I get.”

I think that pretty well sums up people’s feelings on NSM, as well as most other workplace topics.

Flickr image credit: Giorgos Michalogiorgakis

Expand Your Mind: Take These Personally

Saturday, July 7th, 2012

The links I’m sharing today are meant to be taken personally. They are about you and others in your world, so you may want to share them.

A couple of weeks ago I pointed you to a discussion that HBS professor Jim Heskett had initiated questioning the 24/7 style of today’s work. The forum is closed and Heskett has summarized the results based on comments that are well worth reading.

“There is a lot wrong with the way we work… (…) But ultimately the primary culprit is us.”

Following that came an essay on busyness to which I really related. Busy seems to be the new black, but you may want to consider varying your wardrobe.

They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence.

Now take a look at why living optimistically (not touchy-feely everything is wonderful) has real health benefits and the follow-up real-world example.

“…optimism is not about being positive so much as it is about being motivated and persistent.”

Years ago I wrote Being “Special” Can Ruin Your Children’s Lives and then watched as Millennials graduated college and entered the workforce with no clue that there was more to it than showing up and trying. In a high school commencement speech the speaker told students that they were neither special nor exceptional, but that did not change their value (you can see the entire speech here).

I wonder if there is any room for the ordinary any more, for the child or teenager — or adult —…who will be a good citizen but won’t set the world on fire.

— we have of late, we Americans, to our detriment, come to love accolades more than genuine achievement,” he told the students and parents. “We have come to see them as the point — and we’re happy to compromise standards, or ignore reality, if we suspect that’s the quickest way, or only way, to have something to put on the mantelpiece, something to pose with, crow about, something with which to leverage ourselves into a better spot on the social totem pole.”

Personally, I believe there is not only plenty of room, but also great need.

We are of enormous value in our own world as well as the world at large.

Flickr image credit: pedroelcarvalho

Ducks in a Row: Jim Heskett and Culture

Tuesday, October 25th, 2011

I am a major fan of HBS professor Jim Heskett; I like his thinking and especially like the questions he poses and the responses they draw.

In 1992 Heskett questioned the impact corporate culture had on success, but in his new book, The Culture Cycle: How to Shape the Unseen Force that Transforms Performance he identifies the missing connective link and talks about it here.

But they ultimately found that what really distinguished good and bad performers was the adaptability of cultures. They concluded that organizations need both strong and adaptable cultures to survive over long periods of time.

Not to minimize Heskett’s research, but from where I sit it seems so obvious.

All living things, especially humans, find ways to adapt to their particular situation; they have to or they won’t survive.

Corporate culture is also a living entity and the desire to preserve it by rejecting change is akin to encasing an insect in amber.

Corporate culture must adapt quickly to global, economic and political happenings or it will die.

All that said, it’s great that someone such as Jim Heskett, who has real clout and academic rigor, has proven it.

Flickr image credit: zedbee

Expand Your Mind: Studies, Studies Everywhere

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

expand-your-mindA few months ago The Conference Board published a study that showed that US workers were more dissatisfied now than at any time in the previous 20 years. James Heskett, Baker Foundation Professor, Emeritus, at Harvard Business School, used that study as part of the basis for a discussion about the growing dissatisfaction. Heskett poses intriguing ideas, but the greater value is in the comments he draws from his audience.

Speaking of American workers, do you know what their favorite new TV show is? A show that is a giant hit with young viewers and even beats Desperate Housewives? It’s Undercover Boss and I highly recommend it. Tomorrow is the season finale (I think) and it should be good. The company is 1-800-Flowers and according to the blurb the boss gets outed.

Next a little insight that could increase job satisfaction. Do you pride yourself on your poker face or are your emotions as obvious as a TV show? Or do you censor some and share the others? Research has proven that facial expressions are important to social interaction and current studies of people with facial paralysis offers some great insights for the rest of us.

Finally, some fascinating studies back up the premise discussed in Even Among Animals: Leaders, Followers and Schmoozers. Interesting reading and even better dinner conversation.

Enjoy!

Image credit: pedroCarvalho on flickr

Quotable Quotes: Culture Equals Performance

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

high-performanceMany of this week’s posts will revolve around culture, so it seemed apropos to start the week with some interesting views on culture.

Louis V. Gerstner, former CEO IBM, says, “The thing I have learned at IBM is that culture is everything.”

Many experts are coming to that realization—decades after the average employee figured it out.

They didn’t use that term 30 years ago when I was a recruiter, but candidates talked about wanting to work where they “felt comfortable” and “fit in;” where they were listened to and were happy.

Edgar Schein, a professor at MIT Sloan School of Management, says, “The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture.” “If you do not manage culture, it manages you, and you may not even be aware of the extent to which this is happening.”

Robert Mintz said, “The crimes alleged at Enron were not the acts of a few greedy senior executives, but truly was an indictment of almost the entire corporate culture.” Of course, it was those same greedy execs who fostered that culture.

Jane Howard said, “We believe it’s our responsibility to create a unique corporate culture. If we do that well, we believe we’ll have enthusiastic employees. If we have enthusiastic employees, we’ll have loyal customers, and if we have loyal customers, we’ll have a sustainable business.”

Shades of Tony Hsieh, who built a culture so powerful that other execs pay him to learn how to implement something similar in their companies; “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 is a long way from fast food, which is often considered the bottom of the cultural heap, but many execs in that industry are hyper aware of culture’s effect. As David A. Brandon, CEO of Domino’s Pizza said, “You can’t overcome a bad culture by paying people a few bucks more,” something that management ought to remember.

Finally, research from Harvard Business School’s John Kotter & James Heskett found that culture has a major effect of the bottom line, “We found that firms with cultures that emphasized all the key managerial constituencies (customers, stockholders, and employees) and leadership from managers at all levels outperformed firms that did not have those cultural traits by a huge margin.”

Image credit: DonFrance-photos on flickr

Are leaders deep thinking?

Saturday, June 14th, 2008

Post from Leadership Turn Image credit: stringbot

James Heskett is a Baker Foundation Professor, Emeritus at Harvard Business School and posts some of the most intriguing research questions I see at HBS Working Knowledge (FREE registration).

This week is no exception.

thinker.jpg“According to Gerald and Lindsay Zaltman, nearly all research techniques commonly used today probe humans only at their conscious level, though it is the subconscious level that really determines behavior.

Online forum OPEN for comment until June 26. Jim Heskett asks: What is your organization—and what are you—doing to bring more deep thinking into work and life?”

I hope you’ll take a moment and share your thoughts both here and at WK.

Your comments—priceless

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