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

When you talk abut cultural guideposts to engineers they often hold their collective noses and chant “fuzzy, fuzzy.”

Given that they prefer algorithms to concepts, providing direction from a source they respect may be acceptable in lieu of hard data.

Enter Carl Sagan, whose credentials are as solid as they come, and his The Rules of the Game.

To be useful, culture needs to embody a company’s values, in order provide guidance to ethical and moral questions, as well as human interactions.

Not only do Sagan’s Rules address all three, but the short essay in which he explains them is written with the same care ad skill he lavished on his books and work.

TABLE OF PROPOSED RULES TO LIVE BY

The Golden Rule Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
The Silver Rule Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you.
The Brazen Rule Do unto others as they do unto you.
The Iron Rule Do unto others as you like, before they do it unto you.
The Tit-for-Tat Rule Cooperate with others first, then do unto them as they do unto you.

Introduce the rules by sharing the essay with your people.

If you run into resistance, overcome it by pointing out that Robert Axelrod, whose undergraduate degree is mathematics, evaluated the Rules positively in the light of the prisoner’s dilemma (game theory).

Typically, the Tit-for-Tat Rule garners the highest rating, because it makes so much sense.

And the Silver Rule provides terrific guidance to both new and experienced managers.

Thank you (again) Carl Sagan.

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

It may sound like complete heresy, but entrepreneurs rarely build companies—they found them.

Founding a company requires a product vision and enough passion to draw a few others to the cause.

Building a company in the 21^st Century requires the ability to both lead and manage.

“Increasingly, the people who are the most effective are those who essentially are both managers and leaders.” –HBS professor David Thomas

Today’s knowledge workers, especially the type that gravitate to and succeed at startups, demand both leadership and management skills from those in charge.

And the key attribute is communication.

“Communication is the real work of leadership. Great leaders spend the bulk of their time communicating, and they know how to employ all three of Aristotle’s rhetorical elements.” –Nitin Nohria, Dean, Harvard Business School.

The best communicators are also the best listeners; moreover, they listen to everyone not just those in certain positions or at X level and above.

But listening and communicating require time and energy and many entrepreneurs are too busy.

They are company founders, not company builders.

Which are you?

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What do you think about slogans? Do they resonate with you or do you just shrug them off?

The subject came up when a client asked me whether it was worth the effort of finding an effective slogan for a new program at his company; he said the idea surfaced because of the success of President Obama’s “Yes we can” during the last election.

Our conversation reminded me of an article last year about the futility of slogans in today’s world by Dan and Chip Heath, co-authors of Made to Stick.

Now, Made to Stick has some great stuff in it and they made some good points, but overall I don’t agree that snappy slogans have no value.

There’s a reason that slogans have been around since 1500’s and that’s because human beings respond to them. They started as battle cries that roused the troops and gave them something to scream when going into battle; something that in a few short words told the world who they were and what they believed.

The Heaths think that has changed.

“People don’t speak slogan-language today unless they’re trying to put one over on you. So when you hear one, you immediately become cynical.”

They say this in spite of the fact that the first thing all the groups they described did, corporate and non-profit alike, was to find a slogan that encapsulated their goals.

The problem comes if the slogan is all there is; the Heaths used this example to prove their point, whereas I think it proves mine.

“Recently, a task force of top execs at a large technology company was brainstorming about a new leadership initiative. It wanted the company’s managers to spend more time developing their people and less on giving orders. To make this happen, the firm would have to change the way those managers were groomed, paid, and evaluated. Yet, facing these epic changes, the task force felt the need to hammer out a slogan. It was a doozy (mildly disguised for confidentiality): “360-Degree Leadership: Because we all matter.” Just then, all the employees in the universe rolled their eyes.”

I’ve seen many similar slogans that deserved the eye rolls, but this one doesn’t.

If all the execs had done was to announce the slogan and tell the company’s managers that they needed to put more effort into developing their people, then the slogan would be cheap, feel-good talk and I would agree with the cynicism—but they didn’t.

The key to the difference lies in these words, “the firm would have to change the way those managers were groomed, paid, and evaluated.”

Assuming that the company followed through with the changes and educated its managers to their new responsibilities, then the slogan has teeth and it becomes a war cry that can rally the troops.

The stories the Heaths recommend are great; use them to explain; use real examples to show the words in action, but as good as they are for communication, you can’t scream them when going into battle.

Slogans can inspire and encourage; they can tell a story to the world in just a few words; the good ones can be a lifeline when there is nothing else to grab.

People like slogans, even Millennials; what they don’t like are feel-good words and empty promises wrapped up in a snappy package.

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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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Years ago I watched a 40 story office tower being built in San Francisco’s Financial District across the street from where I worked. I learned that when building in earthquake country enormous pilings are pounded down into the fill and the building goes on top of them. It’s all about flexibility; the pilings act like giant springs so the tower can sway during an earthquake instead of cracking because it’s rigid.

And I’m here to tell you that sway they do; I know having several years in an office on the 35th floor of 50 California Street (and in the bar on the floor above).

Your culture needs the same flexibility if it’s going to survive the quakes and storms implicit in the business world.

A few weeks ago I offered a list of what I call IBBs that provide structural support to culture and the stressed the importance of not allowing them to morph into bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy shouldn’t be confused with process.

• Process is good—it helps get things done smoothly and efficiently;
• bureaucracy is bad—it’s process calcified, convoluted, politically corrupted, or just plain unnecessary and it feeds on people’s fear of change.

Of the three categories of IBBs, philosophy, attitude/style and policy, the first shouldn’t change at all; the second may morph to take advantage of new technology or show different styles; the third, policy, is the most likely to cause problems.

Here are five actions you can implement to avoid those problems.

1. Watch out for dozens of variations of “because we’ve always done it that way…” attitude in you and in others—some are very convincing, so pay attention.
2. Review and revamp your IBBs regularly.
3. Encourage input and take suggestions from all levels of the company and act on them.
4. Understand, and make sure that your people understand, things will change based on company growth, the economy, etc., but that the really important stuff, such as fairness, open communications, etc., will be preserved.
5. Communicate any/all changes to everyone.

Culture is a living entity and IBBs are its limbs and organs. Every living organism requires TLC and feeding—culture is no different.

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