Way back in the late seventies I was telling clients that their company culture was important. I didn’t use the term, because it was considered ‘smoke and mirrors’; but culture has always been the deciding factor when a person joins a company or leaves and also the bedrock of innovation and productivity.

From tiny Elk River, MN, where a local president says, “Sportech’s culture is one of the company’s top competitive advantages,” to Canada where “Canada’s most-admired corporate cultures are outperforming the rest — despite the economic downturn” to Internet powerhouses like Amazon and Zappos to Southwest Air Lines all credit their strong performance to their cultures.

Yum Brands is hitting its current marks and laying the foundation for the future with a massive cultural overhaul.

Yum! Brands, the owner of chains such as KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, Dave Novak, the chief executive, is presiding over a training programme that he says is the “biggest culture-change initiative in the world today”, affecting all of the firm’s 1.4m workers spread across 112 countries.

Culture drives the success of the Ritz-Carlton according to its president Simon F. Cooper.

A culture is built on trust. And if leadership doesn’t live the values that it requires of the organization, that is the swiftest way to undermine the culture. No culture sticks if it’s not lived at the highest levels of the organization.

From the start, right along with the marketing and financial plans, Administaff co-founder Paul J. Sarvadi focused on a culture that would empower employees.

…very few people spend the amount of time and effort to develop their people plan,” says Sarvadi, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Administaff Inc. “What’s their people strategy? What is the culture they want in their company? What is their organization and leadership philosophy for the company? How do they want to award people?

Once upon a time Covidien was Tyco Healthcare (yes, that Tyco), a company going no where. It agitated to be spun off, dropped a toxic name, changed its culture and is now a $10 billion 41,000 employee global innovation powerhouse.

Covidien had to make changes to everything from its product development process to its employee evaluation and compensation program.

Whether you’re part of a giant enterprise or an individual out on your own reading stories about how other companies embedded the right combination of hard practices and the right MAP in their culture will show you what to do.

Sure, you’ll have to tweak the idea to fit your needs, but you’ll be surprised how similar the basics are once you strip away the trappings.

Image credit:  MykReeve on flickr

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I write and talk a lot about what happens when you choose to change your MAP through awareness and the resulting boos to your energy and creativity.

What I can’t remember sharing with you is a critical ingredient in the change sauce that I call the Philosophy of ER.

I consciously developed it formally and have shared it for decades to offset all the talk about failure when people are working to change.

First, you have to understand that I don’t believe in failure; I don’t think that someone has truly failed unless they’re dead. As long as they’re breathing, the worst bums on skid row have the potential to change, i.e., the possibility is there, even if the likelihood is not.

For decades change has focused on setting goals and if they aren’t achieved as stated, then you had failed.

Over the years I’ve worked with a lot of people (including myself) whose self esteem was at best badly bruised, at worst like Swiss cheese.

They started by telling me how they had failed at this or that, but in more detailed discussions it turned out that, although they hadn’t achieved their stated goal within the deadline, the goals and deadlines (one or both) weren’t exactly reality based or had changed along the way and not been restated.

To be valid, goals must come with delivery dates, but those dates must be achievable—not easy, but achievable.

When you set goals without taking into account minor details, such as friends/family/spouse/kids/working/sleeping/eating, then you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Beyond being reality-based, we all need an ongoing sense of accomplishment, especially for that which can’t be done in a few days, to sustain the long term effort that big goals take—thus came the Philosophy of ER.

Over the last couple of decades I’ve ERed almost everything (even when it’s grammatically incorrect).

• I may not be wise, but I’m wisER.
• I may not be rich, but I’m richER.
• I may not be patient, but I’m patientER.
• I may not be skinny, but I’m skinniER.

You get the idea.

So start ERing today and tomorrow you too will be happiER, smartER, healthiER and successfulER.

Just keep reminding yourself that to err is human, but to ER is divine.

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I do love culture, not pop culture, but the cultures that arise in companies, whether intentionally or not.

Last month I read an article on corporate culture with some surprising comments from John Chambers, Cisco CEO and Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle.

There have been many articles over the years about France’s 35 hour work week and the power of its unions. But all is not roses in the land of wine and baguettes. Read the real story of unhappy employees and a sky high suicide rate and you just may have something else to be thankful for next month.

Finally, follow through with these 4 actions described by Steve Roesler and I’ll guarantee you’ll change the culture of your group, boos productivity and have a much happier team. Just 4 things to wrap your MAP around; now that doesn’t seem too much to ask, does it?

Image credit: MykReeve on flickr

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A reader phoned me and asked if I could recommend one action item that he could do that would jumpstart a change in his organization and put them on the road to having a true culture of innovation.

I get asked that a lot and wrote abut it way back in 2006, so it seem like a good time to repost the original with a few additions here and there.

MAP and QF (questioning fundamentals)

Looking for a good way to make your company more innovative? Or to move it from where it is to where you want it to be?

Creating an innovation culture means encouraging your people to question the fundamentals (QF) of the company. This is one of the best ways to overcome the “…but we’ve always done it that way.” school of thought, as well as “not invented here” syndrome. Both are major stumbling blocks to innovation, productivity and a host of other positives moves.

• Start by identifying your company’s fundamentals, not so much the official ones, although they can also be problematic, as the unwritten/unspoken ones your employees deal with every day. It’s easy to find them, just ask—but ask knowing that you may not like the answers.

• Depending on the trust level in your current culture the identification process can be anything from a public brainstorming session with a whiteboard to some kind of truly anonymous “suggestion box.” Expect to be surprised at some of the perceptions that turn up. One client found that, contrary to its stated policy, their people believed that quality wasn’t as important as shoving the product out the door.

• Once you have a start on a list of fundamentals you want to open them up to debate—the more passionate the better—using a combination of technology (forum, wiki, etc.) and in person discussions. The object being to decide whether to modify/jettison/keep each one, as well as what to add.

Unless your MAP dictates a company that functions in Dilbertland, QF is an ongoing, proactive management task that encourages employees to question/rethink/revamp the company’s fundamentals.

Even when QF is deeply embedded in your culture you can’t assume your people will do so, since new people coming from other corporate cultures will need assurance that QF is indeed part of your company’s DNA.

Image credit: Marco Bellucci on flickr

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I read a fascinating article today about Americans, their stuff and their penchant for storing it instead of getting rid of it.

“The US has 2.3 billion square feet of self-storage space. (The Self Storage Association notes that, with more than seven square feet for every man, woman and child, it’s now “physically possible that every American could stand — all at the same time — under the total canopy of self-storage roofing. …one out of every 10 households in the country rents a unit…”

According to Derek Naylor, president of the consultant group Storage Marketing Solutions, “Human laziness has always been a big friend of self-storage operators, because once they’re in, nobody likes to spend all day moving their stuff out of storage. As long as they can afford it, and feel psychologically that they can afford it, they’ll leave that stuff in there forever.”

I’ve said for years that people aren’t water faucets, able to turn off emotions and thoughts or change their MAP just because they change environments from home to work or vice versa.

Reading the article made me realize a hidden reason that makes changing culture so difficult.

It’s not just that the parts of the culture changes, but that the employees won’t let go of the parts that are changing or being replaced; instead they store them away to sort later.

But later never comes, so, like the stuff in the storage units, it sits in the back of their minds running up a bill that is paid in energy, focus and productivity.

As a result of the economy, many of the thousands of the units that were in use for no other reason than laziness are being cleared out, or at least downsized, and the stuff gotten rid of.

Perhaps this is a good time to work with your employees to clean out their mental storage places; to purge the cultural residue and clutter that fills them up.

So clear out the rubbish, open the windows and let the fresh air flow through reenergizing everyone.

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Image credit: ZedBee|Zoë Power on flickr

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Yesterday I described how managers can use ALUC (Ask / Listen / Use / Credit) to engage their teams, whether or not the approach is supported by the overall company culture.

But think how much better it would be to have ALUC embedded in your culture as a part of its infrastructure.

ALUC isn’t something that can be mandated, even by the CEO.

All the proclamations, recommendations and demands aren’t going to force managers to do it if they don’t see the value or their MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) isn’t synergistic with ALUC.

What you can do is instill its value in those managers who report to you; they, in turn, pass the belief to their direct reports and so on down the ladder.

But how do you embed ALUC up your culture?

As Nike says, ‘just do it’—don’t talk about it—and it will spread by osmosis.

ALUC is a major productivity and retention booster, the results will speak for themselves, the how-to will be questioned, copied and implemented.

ALUC should also be a ‘make or break’ for all new hires in management roles, confirmed not only during the interview, but also through reference checking of previous direct reports, not bosses.

Not rocket science; most of the best cultural practices are simple, ignored, but simple.

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Image credit: ZedBee|Zoë Power on flickr

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Shocking answer, you don’t.

“JoAnne” called me today and asked if I could help her with a time management problem.

When I stopped laughing I told her that time management definitely did not fall within my expertise and asked why she had called me when there was so much information available.

JoAnne said that she had read multiple books and blogs and even paid for some coaching, but none of it worked. She said a friend had mentioned me and after reading some of the posts she thought maybe she had a MAP problem.

Now, that is a totally different kettle of fish, so I asked her to describe what she did and where she was having problems.

I kept notes and occasionally asked her how much time something took; then I added up the total.

No wonder JoAnne had a problem, the total was close to 22 hours and that was before such minor details as eating and sleeping.

When I mentioned this JoAnne agreed, but said she couldn’t bare to give up any of her activities and did I have any suggestions; maybe a MAP solution.

I explained that every solution was a MAP solution because if it isn’t synergistic with MAP it wouldn’t work. That simple.

I told Joanne that she already knew what to do; she just didn’t want to do it.

I said that there is no such thing as time management, only self management, and nobody could do that for her, it was definitely a DIY project.

First she needed to dig into her MAP and identify those things that made JoAnne herself, and then she needed to compare that list to the “activities she couldn’t bare to give up.”

The activities in sync with her MAP she would probably keep, those that weren’t were the ones most easily curtailed or dumped—although she might choose to change her MAP if one turned out to be important enough.

The lesson here is that the next time you’re overloaded remember that while you can’t manage time you can manage yourself. Start with your MAP, focus on what is really important and let go of the rest.

Image credit: digital_a on sxc.hu

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This might come as a shock, but there is no Eleventh Commandment stating, “Thou shalt place thy career above all things in thy life and draw all sustenance, mental and spiritual as well as economic, from it.”

For decades I’ve held (and preached) the career-as-part-of-life MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) as opposed to the reverse. Life is LARGE; career is but a small part of the whole.  A major problem is created when the adjectives (and, therefore, the attitudes) are reversed.

Steve Roesler has a great post on a better way to look at your work and your life.

“The issue of work-life balance is about what kind of a life you want to have. Work plays a part in that. Decisions that you make about life determine how much work and what kind of work you do. Spending time getting clear about who you are and how you are talented is time well-spent. You may not even like the answer at first. It may conflict with expectations from you, your family, the community, and even society at large.

Maybe that’s the place to start. For those who work best with a label, perhaps Life Integration would offer a better target than Work-Life Balance.”

I like that—Life Integration.

Very few people choose how to die, but too many don’t choose how to live.

They allow the expectations of parents, educators, friends, colleagues, movies, society-in-general and the ever ubiquitous ‘they’ to choose for them.

Most will deny this publicly, but anyone who honestly remembers the power of peer pressure in school will privately admit that it doesn’t cease to exist upon graduation; in fact the pressures increase dramatically while becoming more covert.

Few successful people care to admit that the goals for which they are working and even how they spend their non-work time are more about fitting in than personal desire.

They chase the goals and do the things that ‘everybody’ is doing in the name of being ‘with it’. And that includes “work/life balance” and “having it all right now.”

So the net time you are ready to tear your hair out STOP; stop, take a step back and honestly determine whose goals you are trying to reach.

The answer may surprise you.

Image credit: arkitekt on sxc.hu

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Most managers are, whether by sins of omission, i.e., unintentional, or commission, i.e., intentional.

Unintentional sins are usually a matter of

• being unaware of the effect of your words or actions on others;
• time spent in a culture where it’s the norm;
• rushing;
• acting before thinking; and
• not doing or ignoring doing what needs to be done.

Intentional sinning falls in the category of abuse.

The great problem is that the same words or actions from manager A would be omission, whereas from manager B they are intentional.

The people who work for them need to figure out the difference, which is easier said than done.

How do you determine if your boss is blind to her effect or just plain evil?

One of the best ways is to look at the words or actions through the lens of the larger picture as opposed to the isolated incident.

• Does the manager frequently say or do things that produce similar effects and then blunder about trying to eradicate them?
• Are the offending actions random or meted out across the board/directed at a constant target?
• How do they compare to the actions of other managers?
• Are they in line or at odds with the company’s culture?

By analyzing your boss’ comments and actions you can gain insight as to what is really going on.

Unintentional = unconscious = correctible—as long as the manager is willing. You and your colleagues can accomplish that by privately pointing out what’s going on each time it happens. In most cases the manager will be horrified and apologetic. Accept graciously, it doesn’t help to rub her nose in it, and repeat as necessary; the problem will lesson as her awareness increases.

Intentional = conscious = with malice aforethought. The best way to correct this is through diligent polishing of your resume, cultivating recruiters and becoming more active on LinkedIn, so that you are in a position to vote with your feet.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

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