It is useful to occasionally take the time to understand the origins and path of something that is truly shocking—or should be—and the role culture plays in it.

The worst first: San Bruno, California 2010 where a gas line in exploded killing eight people, destroying 38 homes and causing significant additional damage. According to employees, there was “…a pervasive corporate culture where employees were discouraged from reporting safety problems and feared retaliation if they did.“ If what employees say is true, and evidence is mounting that it is, management at PG&E should be thankful they aren’t in England where they would probably be charged with corporate manslaughter.

There is no penalty for maiming or killing careers and corporations. In fact, the guilty parties are often rewarded with copious amounts of cash, stock and other goodies. Such is the case of Jeff Kindler, ex CEO of Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, and Mary McLeod, his hand-picked head of HR. Together they trashed a powerful culture and brought Pfizer to its knees. Although Kindler was fired, his “exit package of $16 million in cash and stock, another $6.9 million in retirement benefits, and various other forms of stock compensation” makes you wonder what a hero would receive upon leaving. Fortune’s in-depth story is fascinating reading for workers and a powerful lesson for anyone in a management role, no matter the level.

Finally, an excellent analysis of the challenges faced and solutions used  by Jamie Oliver when he found that he had to change a community’s culture before it would change its eating habits (documented on Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution) as applied to changing corporate culture.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pedroelcarvalho/2812091311/

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

Do you dream of following in the footsteps of Mark Zukerberg and Reid Hoffman?

Will you follow their path blindly or seek to avoid their errors?

Do you plan to treat your customers/community with respect and be transparent in your dealings with them?

Facebook’s oft-changing and opaque privacy policy in the name of “better customer experience” has brought howls of rage and government scrutiny from around the world.

Now it seems that LinkedIn is following suite.

Apparently, LinkedIn has recently done us the “favor” of having a default setting whereby our names and photos can be used for third-party advertising.

As you might guess, LinkedIn’s action isn’t engendering a lot of love.

Google, too, is getting hammered in the name of privacy for some of its actions.

Opaque processes have long been the bane of customers, but they’re usually attributed to “bad” corporations as opposed to “good” startups.

Which begs the question: at what point does a company cross the line?

And which side of the line will you be on when your company succeeds?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For those of you who want to opt out of LinkedIn’s “favor” I’m including a screen to show you where, as well as exactly what it says. I think it’s a bit clearer than the one shown at the link above.

Hat tip to Dennis D. McDonald via LinkedIn Bloggers for the heads-up.

Option Sanity™ is transparent.
Come visit Option Sanity for an easy-to-understand, simple-to-implement stock process.  It’s so easy a CEO can do it.

Warning.
Do not attempt to use Option Sanity™ without a strong commitment to business planning, financial controls, honesty, ethics, and “doing the right thing.” Use only as directed.Users of Option Sanity may experience sudden increases in team cohesion and worker satisfaction. In cases where team productivity, retention and company success is greater than typical, expect media interest and invitations as keynote speaker.

Image credit: Bun in a Can Productions

This post is dedicated to all the entrepreneurs who believe that changing the world involves more than a new way to sell to consumers.

John Ericsson was a mind-boggling entrepreneur 150 years ago; one of the few modern entrepreneurs on the same level is Gary Cola.

Ericsson designed up the Monitor, the iron-clad vessel that helped win the Civil War, but doing so was a long way from smooth sailing.

Ericsson’s design was groundbreaking and some of its concepts are still in use today, such as the revolving turret for its cannon. Before the Monitor, he shopped his ideas around and was turned down by many “investors.”

He finally responded to a NYTimes ad from the Union Navy that ran for six days, “…for a two-masted ship “either of iron or of wood and iron combined,” with a delivery date for the plans of less than a month.

Ericsson met the deadline, but the reaction to his plans was as far from positive as you can get.

“Take the little thing home and worship it,” one board member said disdainfully, “as it would not be idolatry because it was made in the image of nothing in the heaven above or the earth below or the water under the earth.”

But that didn’t stop Ericsson, who looked for and found an evangelist in no less than President Lincoln.

To understand just how unique Ericsson’s vision was, consider this,

“What makes the Monitor so remarkable is that she’s almost a stealth vessel because all the systems except the ordnance are below the waterline. Keeping the engine safe from attack was a big breakthrough. Not only did Ericsson create this radically new type of vessel, but his designs were so nearly flawless that foundries and contractors from around the Northeast could fabricate the parts, and they all fit together when the ship was assembled in Greenpoint. It boggles the mind.” –Anna Holloway, curator at the Monitor Center.

The Monitor was built in just 118 days, was made almost entirely of iron and had an armored revolving turret that held two cannon.

I’ve talked with many entrepreneurs who get discouraged because their idea isn’t software, isn’t social and doesn’t involve the Net.

Yes, there may be scoffers; yes, it may be harder to get funded; yes, it may be difficult to hire, but that doesn’t mean you should stop—it can be done. And if (when?) you get discouraged read again the stories of Ericsson and Cola and take heart.

Which do you think will be remembered 150 years from now?

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

Editor’s note: similar actions are to be found all over the government, private and nonprofit sectors.

Article credit: Register-Guard

Are you familiar with KISS? It stands for “Keep It Simple, Stupid” and is the best guidance for developing your culture.

KISS culture is a product of the boss’ MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy)™.

KISS culture attracts the best people and is a powerful force for retaining them.

A few years ago I wrote about KISS culture and this seems like a god time to revisit it.

KISS Corporate Culture Instead Of Branding

A blog post from India caught my eye earlier this week. Its premise was that retention starts with hiring (absolutely true) and went on to explain how to create and use “employment branding” for recruiting.

Essentially, pretty much everything that falls under the banner of employment branding also falls within the company’s culture—call it corporate MAP—along with the necessary processes.

But corporate culture isn’t static, it’s a living organism that shifts and changes as you grow and hire.

So it’s about hiring to match your corporate culture and using your corporate culture to screen candidates, limiting your hiring to people who are at the very least synergistic with your it—something I first wrote about in 1999.

Understand, I’m not disagreeing with what Sourabh said, just with the way he said it.

Using jargon to cast it as ‘branding’ makes it far more complex than it needs to be—especially if you want the knowledge to permeate your organization from top to bottom.

If that’s your goal, then take the time to understand your culture, KISS* it and communicate it to your people through a Cultural Mission Statement; once they understand it they’ll talk about it using language and terms with which they’re comfortable.

The result will be a culture that sounds and is real—not one invented by the marketing department.

Flickr image credit: ZedBee | Zoë Power

Ahhh, it’s that time of the month (no, not that time) again. The first Monday brings you all kinds of leadership, management and all-around useful information and advice from some of the most common-sensical people on the planet. What’s not to love?

And thanks to Jason Seiden for being such a gracious host this month.

How can I not love Laura Schroeder’s post? The 7 Habits of Highly Effective 5-Year-Olds is pitch perfect. Thanks, Working Girl, for a delightfully simply reminder of just how complicated we tend to make simple issues. (Elle would agree.)

From Amy Wilson: Why Business Leaders Should Conduct Talent Reviews. Amy has a unique ability to see around corners and figure out what’s coming in the talent development space. Here, she tackles the resource allocation that accompanies big change. At Wilson Insight.

“I hate doing these yearly performance evaluations.”
“What is it you hate so much?”
“They are nowhere near accurate and often times I feel forced to use recent information to determine employee performance.”
“What would be better?”
This: Michael “I know a thing or two about performance reviews” Cardus’s Yearly Performance Reviews SUCK! Managers Can Change That. posted at Team Building & Leadership Blog: Create-Learning.

Innovation is a challenge because it is largely a right brain activity. But once this is understood, innovation can become a personal leadership skill as well as a corporate one. Dana Theus talks playtime, the boredom that precedes the brilliance, and the risk of looking foolish in Why Is Leading Innovation So Hard?, posted at Reclaiming Leadership.

Read Wally Bock’s The 97% Solution right now. The Army says that there are “toxic leaders” in its ranks, and that’s a problem. But 97 percent of officers and sergeants have experienced an exceptional leader, and that may be part of the solution. Wally’s use of statistics demonstrates how to find the good.

Art Petty suggests Respectfully Speaking, Let’s Cure Respect Deficit Disorder at Management Excellence.

Utpal Vaishnav presents a very common corporate challenge in a clear and compelling (and non-alliterative) way. The title is a bit over the top, but the article itself is dead on. This is one to hand out to your employees. In Corporate, Non-communication Equates to Crime… posted at Utpal Writes.

Confused about which change model to pick for your organization? This post from Dan McCarthy’s Great Leadership will point you in the right direction. Dan McCarthy presents Which Change Model Should You Pick? at Great Leadership.

How do you talk to a CEO? Mark Stelzner nails it with his hard-won advice to anyone who may find him- or herself in that position. Take a moment to read How To Talk To A CEO, posted at Inflexion Point.

Sometimes, it’s good to have someone remind you that it’s not all complex conversations and deep thinking that drives success. Sometimes, it’s  the basics like getting out of bed early enough to get a jump on the day. Not a morning person? Follow Jon Milligan’s tips on how waking yourself up in his post How to Wake Yourself Up at Simple Life Habits.

The demand for innovation requires creative genius. But where and how do we find it? Genius is closer than you think. In fact, the path to your genius starts right here in this post by Anne Perschel: Knock Knock ? Who?s There? Genius posted at Germane Insights.

Jim Logan has seen his share of business plans. In this post, he lays out the questions few entrepreneurs prepare for but that every entrepreneur needs to have a good answer for. According to the case he makes in The magic sales plan that can’t be explained, “if you can’t convince me you can be successful now, your chances of being successful later are slim to none.” At Saleskick.

If I had an award for Most Profersonal™ Post, this would be it. Hats off to Michael Lee Stallard for Starbucks’ CEO’s Broken Heart, which demonstrates the power that comes from doing business with a heaping serving of humanity. Posted at Michael Lee Stallard.

Ben Brabyn offers an important lesson in how to bring a group together in How to boost team performance without increasing costs posted at Brabyn.com.

Here’s one surprising tip for leaders to help them maximize their message. Steve Roesler presents Be A Presentation Pro: Do This at All Things Workplace.

Not sure how social media can help (or hurt) your business? Click over to the Bret L. Simmons – Positive Organizational Behavior blog and read his post, The Most Important Social Business Metrics. You’ll be glad you did.

I love Joe and Wanda on Management. In this post, Nick McCormick shares Russell Bishop’s perspective on decision making (from his new book, “Work-arounds that Work”), and Joe and Wanda respond. It’s a well-framed discussion of framing: Managers and Decision-Making.

In this straightforward and compelling post, Eric Pennington explains why your life is to be managed and cared for before it’s taken away: Getting Your Life Back. Gotta love a blog called Epic Living!

Organizations should market the great things they are doing to educate the public on internal best practices. Kathy C presents 7 ways to do this in Leverage What You Do Right in Your Marketing Plan! at The Thriving Small Business.

A short post on love in organisations? Check! Jon Ingham presents Leading in the Love Shack at Management 2.0 developing social capital.

Giving feedback as a leader can be challenging, especially to the employee who is highly sensitive to criticism. Lynn Dessert tells how to do it right in Can leaders deliver feedback without someone taking it personally? at Elephants at Work.

Have a laugh and learn something about the uneasy relationship between HR and managers. Wayne Turmel presents The Cranky Middle Manager Show #290 Why Does HR Hate Us The Evil HR Lady posted at TPN :: The Cranky Middle Manager Show. It’s funny because it’s true.

Mike Haberman delivers a fastball down the middle on the Omega Solutions Blog with The Key to a Successful Team: Lessons for HR. Mike says, “I got these lessons from John Schuerholz, the former GM and now president of the Atlanta Braves.”

For all you TEDTalk geeks, Adi Gaskell presents a good one in Is your chief exec suffering from the God Complex? | Chartered Management Institute, posted at The Management Blog | Chartered Management Institute.

Guy Farmer delivers a 2×4 upside the head of the management status quo in Leaders’ Obsessive Focus on What Employees Do Wrong, at Unconventional Training.

Charles Chua C K presents 10 P’s To Be Successful posted at All About Living with Life.

Jane Perdue offers a quick mid-year checklist for leaders: The 7 C’s – A Mid-Year Leadership Checkup at Get Your Leadership BIG On!.

Any one can develop skills to become a good leader – and here Malik Mirza presents tips from Jim Rohn, one of Malik’s favorite inspirational and motivational speakers. Jim Rohn’s advice on leadership is posted at WisdomfromBooks.com.

Many leaders seem to be having difficulty finding employees who care. Miki Saxon finds a solution to the problem by flipping the issue on its head in Ducks In a Row: Who Cares? at MAPping Company Success.

Patrick Bradshaw presents The Name of the Integrated Talent Management Game posted at TrendWatchers.

S. Chris Edmonds covers The Five Disciplines of Servant Leadership at Driving Results Through Culture—a simple post that left me thinking hard about how to recalibrate my time each week.

John Chappelear wrote: When you focus on making your people great, the result is a great organization.
Jailan Marie presents There are no great companies, just great people, who happen to work there. Live at Innovative Solutions For Positive Change.

Hey, tough guy: get your a** in gear and embrace those “touchy-feely” management techniques that science keeps showing works. Robert Tanner tackles the big issue head on in Not More Of That “Touchy-Feely” Stuff! posted at Management is a Journey.

Anecdotally, we all know that micromanagers are a headache to work with. But what are the actual business problems that they can create? Here we look at two reasons why they can be so damaging to companies. From Andy Klein and the Fortune Group Blog: The perils of Management OCD – an undesirable management malady.

Ah, leadership & ethics. Linda Fisher Thornton presents Ethical Leadership Context at Leading in Context. Regardless of where you ultimately shake out on the issue, this is always a good topic to revisit.

Jim Taggart sideswipes the time-honored tradition of the strategic off-site with his suggestion that leaders “co-create” organizational vision with employees. The VISION Thing at ChangingWinds is quick, light reading that squares perfectly with the headiest research on effective leadership.

Juliet Jones presents 10 Successful CEOs Who Failed at Politics, which is a helpful ego check for those delusional to think that success in one area automatically qualifies them for success elsewhere.

Finally, there’s 4 Ways to Become a More Emotionally Mature Leader. This one’s mine. And here’s a clue: it is impossible to say the words “I’m taking the high road” from the high road.

Image credit: Great Leadership

See all mY generation posts here.

I love the bits of common wisdom, often called adages or proverbs, that are frequently invoked to prove a point, bolster an argument or offered as advice. The thing about common wisdom is it’s just that—wisdom that should be obvious, but often goes unnoticed or ignored.

When trying to communicate, “’tis better to understand, than to be understood,” but if you focus on the first, it is much easier to accomplish the second.

Common wisdom provides a powerful explanation for why the candidate who presents so well is a dud, “Light travels faster than sound, which is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.”

“A camel looks like a horse that was planned by a committee,” so it is a wise manager who encourages discussion, while avoiding decision by committee.

It is said that “a handful of common sense is worth a bushel of learning,” but these days we have bushels of learning and nary a handful of common sense.

Real leaders are often found in the rank and file as opposed to out front with a fat title; one way to recognize a real leader is summed up in these words of wisdom, “A leader has been defined as one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” That sure rules out a lot of positional leaders who know the way and show the way, but absolutely don’t go the way.

Want a way to objectively recognize the start of wisdom in yourself and others? Common wisdom offers a failsafe method, “A man is getting along on the road to wisdom when he begins to realize that his opinion is just an opinion.”

See you tomorrow!

Image credit: Wordle

Toxic corporate culture isn’t limited to corporations; you can find it anywhere you care to look. Toxic culture doesn’t involve just one specific set of actions; rather it is a permissive atmosphere in which various negative and destructive actions are accommodated.

What happens when a leader uses a culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation to enhance results and gain good press? Exactly what happened to the Atlanta school system.

Goldman Sachs’s toxic locker room culture has been written about and condemned for years, but nothing really changes. Earlier this month a federal judge refused to reconsider Goldman Sachs’ efforts to force arbitration on the women who filed a class action suite against the firm. I hope they win the suite, but I doubt that even that will have much effect. No matter how large the damages they would be a drop in the bucket for Goldman.

I frequently hear women complain about guys hitting on them at conferences and, to be fair, I’m hearing more often from men asking how to handle unwanted advances from women. In a recent post on the subject Tim O’Reilly, whose company produces tech conferences such as Oscon, talks about the problem and states that such actions won’t be tolerated and that’s good. But the tone of the post is mild, calling actions such as stalking and unwanted sexual advances “a no-no” and saying, “If we hear that you are that guy, we will investigate, and you may be asked to leave.” MAY be asked to leave? Shouldn’t anyone proven to have acted in any of the manners mentioned be TOLD to leave and, if the actions are severe enough, barred from future events?

Any organizational culture that is permeated with “toxic leaders,” those who “put their own needs first, micro-manage subordinates, behave in a mean-spirited manner or display poor decision making” has a problem. Just ask the US Army, which is considering using 360-degree evaluations in its command selection process to weed them out.

Rather than leave you on a downer or with a bad taste in your mouth, take a look at the first article in a series from Fast Company on how good companies build positive cultures. The first example is MailChimp and includes CEO Ben Chestnut’s 5 Rules for a Creative Culture. If the rest of the series is as useful as the MailChimp example it will be well-worth following.

Enjoy!

Flickr image credit: pedroCarvalho

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

The referral source is awesome.

The resume is amazing.

The candidate asks great questions.

He is excited—interested in you, your vision and your product.

The team is thrilled.

The offer is made and accepted.

Everybody cheers.

As the euphoria of landing a “star” wears off you find yourself reviewing the interview like a favorite video looking to regain that feeling of triumph.

Instead, you find yourself with a slightly queasy feeling—because you can’t remember any of the candidate’s specific answers to critical questions.

So you ask your team and it turns out that either they thought someone else had asked those questions or were so caught up in his enthusiasm and answering his questions that they ran out of time.

And you suddenly realize that you have no idea going forward if he will be a star or a dud.

Option Sanity™ helps screen candidates.
Come visit Option Sanity for an easy-to-understand, simple-to-implement stock process.  It’s so easy a CEO can do it.

Warning!
Do not attempt to use Option Sanity™ without a strong commitment to business planning, financial controls, honesty, ethics, and “doing the right thing.” Use only as directed.
Users of Option Sanity may experience sudden increases in team cohesion and worker satisfaction. In cases where team productivity, retention and company success is greater than typical, expect media interest and invitations as keynote speaker.

Image credit: kevinspencer