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Ducks in a Row: Remote or On-site

Tuesday, March 12th, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gidzy/3425345627/

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer started a brouhaha recently when she ended the company’s policy of allowing staff to work from home; many insiders said it was a good move, because remote workers weren’t performing.

However, low productivity and lack of accountability is a management problem, so if she only brings people on-sight without directly dealing with the underlying management problems the results probably won’t improve much.

Hubert Joly, the new Best Buy CEO, dumped the ROWE culture in favor of 40-hour on-site workdays for the headquarters staff as the best way to boost performance in the turnaround; he also wants to  sure that everyone knows they are dispensable (himself included).

However, nothing I’ve seen indicates that the work wasn’t getting done, so dumping ROWE may prove of questionable value.

Tony Hsieh thinks on-site is better not because of accountability, but because “companies with strong cultures outperform those without in the long-term financially. So we’re big, big believers in building strong company cultures; note that Zappos’ business lends itself to having all its staff on-site.

Whereas IBM has a strong, unified culture in spite of being a global company with thousands of employees who work off-site.

Bottom line: It’s not a matter of on or off-site; it’s a matter of the strength of the culture, which is dependent on the skill of the management.

Flickr image credit: Gidzy

Ducks in a Row: Back to the Future

Tuesday, October 9th, 2012

http://www.flickr.com/photos/akandbdl/5195990844/If your career or the time you’ve spent following business up and downs doesn’t predate 2006 then you may not think of Best Buy as a successful, cutting edge, highly innovative company with an exceptional culture.

I was reminded of Best Buy when I read that many managers still believe that time = productivity and contributions.

The managers viewed employees who were seen at the office during business hours as highly “dependable” and “reliable.” Employees who came in over the weekend or stayed late in the evening were seen as “committed” and “dedicated” to their work.

That attitude is so last century; in fact, it harks back to the industrial and even the agrarian age when presence was synonymous with productivity. After all, you couldn’t produce if you weren’t there.

The reason I thought of Best Buy is because it was the 2003 birthplace of ROWE.

ROWE means Results Only Workplace Environment and I’ve written about it previously (a lot), so rather than write the same stuff again here’s a link to my ROWE-related posts.

As to its success, in 2010 total revenues increased 11% and $4.4 billion of that was from female customers—not your typical big box tech shopper (at that time).

The extraordinary culture created by Brad Anderson that allowed for the bottom-up development of something as revolutionary as ROWE can not be overstated.

But it can be repeated.

Flickr image credit: Keith Laverack

Ducks In A Row: Value of Culture

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011

When I started RampUp Solutions way back in 1999 and talked/preached/ranted) about the importance of culture I was often met with a bored expression or an eye roll.

Back then culture was an ethereal concept compounded of smoke and mirrors and propagated by consultants whose main purpose was to generate business.

That attitude has radically changed over the last decade…

“…Our final advantage is the hard-to-duplicate culture that permeates Berkshire. And in businesses, culture counts.”Warren Buffett

“Culture has become the defining issue that will distinguish the most successful businesses from the rest of the pack.”Ginny Rometty, SVP, Group Executive, Sales, Marketing, and Strategy, IBM

“…he [Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO, DreamWorks Animation] didn’t always know how important it is to make employees happy in their jobs. … Had Katzenberg known earlier how critical it is to build a best company to work for, he told me, he might have been more successful than he is.”

Tony Hsieh, Jeff Immelt, numerous academics, assorted pundits, gurus and coaches, not to mention all forms of media, are focused on culture.

With all the talk and solid examples of the bottom line value of good culture why do so many companies, large and small, provide an employee experience that can only be described as ‘lousy’?

Because companies don’t provide culture, managers do.

Managers, from CEO to team leader, create/enable whatever culture exists below them.

But they have little-to-no effect on the shape of the culture above them, unless that culture permits the influence, as illustrated by the creation of Best Buy’s ROWE.

It’s not that managers don’t get it, but understanding something and doing it is not the same thing.

Understanding is grounded in intellect.

Doing is grounded in MAP.

And MAP is a personal choice over which companies have no control.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zedbee/103147140/

Ducks in a Row: Cultural Stain

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

ducks_in_a_rowFor 30 years I’ve preached the power of culture to the managers with whom I’ve worked.

I believed that good culture was the difference between great companies and the rest.

As a Silicon Valley headhunter, I made it a point to recruit for companies with good culture and from companies with bad ones, which is why 75% of my placements stayed 4 years or longer.

These days everyone is talking about the importance of culture—the media, bloggers, academics, pundits, CEOs—especially CEOs.

People like me who promote culture know that it must be like stain, not paint, to work.

Unfortunately, many CEOs use “cultural paint,” believing their employees will think its “cultural stain.”

The difference is obvious; cultural stain is absorbed into the very fiber of an organization, thus affecting everybody’s thoughts and actions, while cultural paint sits on the surface where it is paid lip-service and its effects are grounded in convenience.

Cultural stain is the direct result of walking the talk and making sure that everybody else walks it, too. It’s intentional action and it requires paying attention.

It’s not the output of an underling, although it can bubble up from employees if the circumstances are right, but “I didn’t know!” is never an acceptable reason for anything when coming from the person who ultimately is supposed to be in charge.

The ideas and desires that do percolate up may be included in the culture, but only if the top person really buys into them (think ROWE)

But if they are included only to make the employees feel good the result is cultural paint.

Like real paint, cultural paint can hide the dry rot and structural weaknesses in the company, but in the long run it won’t hold the people, because no matter how much paint is applied and no matter what the CEO tells himself and his Board, people aren’t stupid and they will vote the culture with their feet.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zedbee/103147140/

ROWE, WOLF, and Giant Steps Forward

Friday, January 15th, 2010

success-graphCali Ressler and Jody Thompson started changing the work world in 2003.

That’s when they conceived and somewhat covertly initiated ROWE at Best Buy.

ROWE stands for “results only work environment” and it means just that. No set hours, no clock watching, get the job done and be evaluated based on the results and resulted in a 35% jump in productivity

These days Ressler and Thompson run CulutreRx, teaching ROWE to a variety of companies, such as GAP.

ROWE is a business strategy that’s been proven to profoundly improve workforce productivity (as much as 41%) and reduce voluntary turnover rates (as much as 90%). And, ROWE is a magnet for the talent you want to attract.

Best Buy’s culture is one that encourages creativity and good ideas at all levels, so it’s no surprise that another stand out came along a year later.

Julie Gilbert conceived and started the WOLF initiative in 2004 (she was given full ownership rights including the intellectual property and the right to take it outside anytime in exchange for building it first at Best Buy).

WOLF’s focus is to promote and enhance the role of women both inside the company and outside in their role as customers based on three precepts:

  • Commitment – to the business, customers and other members of the pack
  • Networking –  amongst at all levels internally and externally to nurture and support one another
  • Giveback – giving back to women and girls in local communities.

Sound all warm and fuzzy to you? Are you fighting back a snicker and thinking that there is no way your company would ever mess with that?

If so, try shrugging off Best Buy’s results.

Revenue

  • $4.4 billion increase in revenue from female customers (11% increase in total company revenue)

Market Share

  • Highest ever female market share in company history
  • Females became the majority of the most “valuable “customers

Brand Reputation

  • Largest increase in brand perception in company history

Network

  • Passionate, global, viral customer networks growing market share and innovating new business offerings
  • Over 40,000 members in 40 plus countries

Performance Outcomes

  • 5% reduction in female turnover resulting in a minimum of $25 million in savings
  • 18% increase in the number of female employees.
  • 100% increase in females in the most profitable business unit
  • 40% increase in female General Managers & General Managers In Training
  • 60%  increase in female Operations Managers
  • 30%  increase in female Customer Experience Managers

ROWE and WOLF both came from the same company while Brad Anderson was CEO.

His response to the question “Where do you find new business ideas?” says it all.

I believe that some of our best ideas have come from the people who are furthest removed from the CEO’s office – those line-level employees who interact with our customers each and every day.

Without a culture that encouraged and supported innovation from all levels ROWE and WOLF couldn’t have happened.

The MAP that enables that culture can function at any level no matter the company’s overall culture. Yes, it’s more difficult, but you can create an environment in which your people’s creativity blooms.

Your choice.

Image credit: nDevilTV on flickr

Gap Outlet Is Going ROWE

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

Three years ago after reading a Business Week cover story I wrote about ROWE, the results only work environment, and why it is imperative that your MAP support it before you try to implement it.

Last week Michelle Conlin, who wrote the original BW story, brings us up-to-date on Cali Ressler and Jodi Thompson, the two HR pros who originally formulated ROWE and used a stealth approach to build the initiative at Best Buy; no longer at Best Buy they now run a consultancy called CultureRx that helps other companies move to ROWE.

Conlin reposts a story that appeared in the Society of Human Resource Managers (members only) about Gap Outlet, which is migrating its headquarters staff to a ROWE environment.

“Eric Severson, vice president of HR, believed the culture and the demographics at Gap Outlet were primed for a solution like ROWE. “We are in one of the worst commute cities and in one of the most expensive places to live,” he explained. “We have a 76 percent female workforce with an average age of 34.””

“ROWE also is self-policing, Severson discovered: People ferret out those not doing the work because everyone is highly protective of the initiative. “There are very few talent management programs that don’t create a sense of entitlement,” he said. “This is an agreement between the employees and the company that in exchange for the most incredible freedom to do your job in a way that makes sense for you, you will perform highly.”

Interestingly, ROWE solves another management quandary—how to correct the employee with marginal output, but who puts in the hours. This is especially valuable with Millennials who often feel that showing up is half the job.

Under ROWE all issues become performance issues, i.e., discussions center on results and how to improve them as opposed to attendance. Since work can be done at any time and the choice is left to employees there are no excuses.

Read both stories, do a reality-check on your MAP and then think about how you can implement ROWE or ROWE-like elements in your organization while keeping in mind Gap Inc. executive vice president of HR Eva Sage-Gavin’s admonishment.

The culture has to be right first with a high degree of trust. Check your culture, look at your demographics and if all those are green, then what’s the risk in trying it? Go slow, pilot it and check the results.”

Image credit: drustar on flickr

Of bosses, corporate culture and responsibility

Monday, August 25th, 2008

Nerys Wadham, in commenting on the changes in the corner offices at BP and GlaxoSmithKline, says, “…culture perhaps being less about ‘the people’ collectively than the CEO individually. The tone, look and feel of a firm are to a great extent set from the mindset and world view at the top.”

I can’t stress enough how true this is.

It’s the boss’ MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) that creates the form and shape of the corporate culture.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a mom and pop operation, startup or global giant; whether the company has two, two thousand or twenty thousand employees; whether the boss is called owner, founder, president or CEO.

Best Buy’s vaunted ROWE could not have taken root, nor would it have spread throughout the company, without a top boss who enabled the bottom-up culture in the first place, as well as providing the fertilizer that allows ideas to bloom.

It’s not enough to announce the cultural attributes in which you believe, such as no politics, and then ignore political actions because you believe that your senior staff are adults and won’t engage in behavior that goes unrewarded.

Even if you want to manage your culture by benign neglect, people need to know that there are repercussions for actions that flaunt the corporate culture just as there are for actions that violate legal issues such as harassment.

All this is just as true for the individual subcultures that establish themselves around every manager in the company.

Creating and caring for the culture around you should be written into every manager’s job description at every level.

If that bothers you, just remember that culture affects productivity, engagement, innovation and retention.

And if that’s not enough motivation for you to pay attention then stay focused on the MY-CCF mantra—my compensation, my career path, my future.

What do you do abut culture?

Image credit: iwanbeijes CC license

Leaders that DO: Brad Anderson and culture

Thursday, November 15th, 2007

If you’re looking for a role model when forming your corporate culture check out Brad Anderson, CEO of Best Buy.

While Anderson’s external focus is customer experience, for a sample just walk into any store, internally he’s enabled a culture that allows ideas to move from the bottom up, as opposed to top down. And not just little ideas, but giant ones, such as eliminating required work hours for the entire company—can’t get much bigger than that!

The program is called ROWE (results-only work environment) and was conceived of, and developed by, HR mangers Jody Thompson and Cali Ressler, who recognized that the main thing that “presence” and “productivity” have in common is that they both start with a “p.”

Since the idea of telecommuting surfaced, nearly 25 years ago, there has always been tremendous resistance by managers, based in fear, to the idea that people can be productive outside of the boss’ sight. This is well summed up by the attitude of the general manager of BestBuy.com, senior vice-president J. T. Thompson, “who was privately terrified about the loss of control” when he first heard about ROWE. The difference is that Thompson dealt with his fear, took the risk, and is reaping the reward.

How big a reward?

“Best Buy notes that productivity is up an average 35% in departments that have switched to ROWE. Employee engagement, which measures employee satisfaction and is often a barometer for retention, is way up too, according to the Gallup Organization, which audits corporate cultures.”

In fact, ROWE is a subculture, possible only because of the overall culture fostered by Anderson, who encourages “bottom-up, stealth innovation.” He and his team believes in ROWE so much that “they have formed a subsidiary called CultureRx, to help other companies go clockless.”

In a response to the question, “Where do you find new business ideas?” Anderson shows just how well listening to workers can pay off.

I believe that some of our best ideas have come from the people who are furthest removed from the CEO’s office – those line-level employees who interact with our customers each and every day. We’ve got a wonderful team of eccentric people working in our Manhattan store on 44th Street and Fifth Avenue. Now, there’s a large Brazilian community near the store, and the manager said, “Hey, we don’t do anything to cater to them.” So he hired folks who spoke the language in the store. They wound up discovering that there are cruise ships of Brazilians that come to New York City, so they contacted the travel company and found that the store was a desirable stop for them. So all of a sudden we have buses of tour groups pulling up on Sundays. If we waited for someone in Minnesota to come up with that idea, we’d still be waiting.

But it goes much further than that. While other companies talk about their multicultural hiring, Best Buy turns theirs into a competitive advantage. Few people think of retail sales jobs as career moves, but they can be.

When a delegation from China recently toured Vancouver-area Future Shop stores, Kevin Layden [chief operating officer of Best Buy International] was the only one in the group who needed an interpreter.

In every store they entered, Chinese partners of the retail chain met Future Shop employees who not only talked the same technical language – they were all in the electronics retailing field – but spoke Mandarin as well.

Among the Canadian hosts to the Chinese delegation was Yingming Gao, manager of a Future Shop store in Surrey, B.C., and a 12-year veteran of the company.

Mr. Layden says the key to managing diversity, and to understanding different cultures, is to listen, learn and adopt the best ideas from a variety of sources, rather than imposing one corporate viewpoint.

Mr. Gao, who is expected to take on a management role in the Nanjing store, understands the differences in business philosophy, as well as the cultural differences. He aims to help Best Buy and Five Star bridge differences without disrupting Five Star’s relationship with customers.

The greatest cultures aren’t pronouncements, they are enablers that incite creative thinking at all levels, listen to the results, act on them and give credit where it’s due.

Another homerun for Best Buy

Tuesday, November 13th, 2007

There is nothing better than culture watching, especially one that does so many things so well, such as Best Buy. And now they’ve done it again.

While there’s been much talk about the importance of hiring a diverse workforce and how to manage it, Best Buy has taken the idea to a totally different level by utilizing its multicultural workforce to achieve their business goals.

It’s still relatively uncommon, however, for organizations to try to turn that diversity into a competitive advantage, as Best Buy is doing in tapping its Chinese-Canadian employees for hands-on help in its expansion strategy for China.

You want to do business in a certain place or with a certain segment of society, so you tap inside your company who speak the language and know the culture—sounds like a no-brainer, doesn’t it.

Instead, it’s a radical idea, especially reaching way past typical management ranks to tap your frontline workers.

But it’s ideas such as this along with eliminating hours in favor of work done that makes Best Buy a culture to watch!

The effects of CEO MAP

Friday, October 5th, 2007

Yesterday I said that the thing that truly defines a company’s culture is the MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy) of the CEO.

That’s true even when cultural change comes from the bottom up as it does at Best Buy where So secret was the operation that Chief Executive Brad Anderson only learned the details two years after it began transforming his company. Such bottom-up, stealth innovation is exactly the kind of thing Anderson encourages. The Best Buy chief aims to keep innovating even when something is ostensibly working. “ROWE was an idea born and nurtured by a handful of passionate employees,” he says. “It wasn’t created as the result of some edict,” but it’s Anderson’s MAP that enabled that culture to emerge and flourish.

Good CEO MAP isn’t about “me” even in an industry where ego is king. According to Disney CEO Bob Iger, “The story shouldn’t be about me. It’s about the team.” And while Iger isn’t without the vision thing, no one would call him a big strategic thinker. But by surrounding himself with smart people, including Jobs and the Pixar crew, and letting them get on with it, Iger has recreated a can-do culture at Disney…”Bob lets [the person] who can handle the job get it done,” says [Steve] Jobs, who sits on the board and is Disney’s single largest shareholder. “It’s not [about grabbing] headlines. That’s rare in that town.”

CEO MAP that believes in “Sharing the wealth, listening to even the lowest-ranking workers, and rewarding risk…management structure is flat, flexible, entrepreneurial — and fast,” isn’t just a function of startups and it can be found even where it runs counter to the national culture. BMW’s “Norbert Reithofer, who took over in September. (His predecessor, Helmut Panke, stepped down upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 60.) Says Reithofer: “We push change through the organization to ensure its strength. There are always better solutions.”

Much of BMW’s success stems from an entrepreneurial culture that’s rare in corporate Germany, where management is usually top-down and the gulf between workers and managers is vast. BMW’s 106,000 employees have become a nimble network of true believers with few hierarchical barriers to hinder innovation…Individuals from all strata of the corporation work elbow to elbow, creating informal networks where they can hatch even the most unorthodox ideas for making better Bimmers or boosting profits.

Robert L. Nardelli has a very different kind of MAP as displayed during his tumultuous time at Home Depot where he, alienated customers just as thoroughly as he did employees…replaced many thousands of full-time store workers with legions of part-timers…98% of Home Depot’s top 170 executives are new to their positions; 56% of the changes involved bringing new managers in from outside the company.”

MAP comes in many flavors and with literally millions of variations within each one.

MAP builds layer upon layer throughout life.

MAP is not carved in stone and can be changed—it may not be easy, but it is possible.

Best of all, it’s your choice, in your control.

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