Not only did the original HJ Heinz envisioned a global company, but also one that built employee loyalty by treating people well—and he did it starting in the late 1800s.
I never realized any of this until I watched Heinz; it is one of the Biography series on CNBC and I’m sure you can find a rerun of it in your local area. Here is a teaser.
Heinz’ belief that “heartpower was stronger than horsepower” and his idea that his employees should be treated like family were as revolutionary then as SAS’ attitude is today, but that belief helped him build a global brand long before any other company conceived of, let alone considered actually doing, it.
Here is another quote that today’s so-called leaders would do well to consider.
“Quality is to products what character is to a man.”
The truth of that statement is blatantly obvious if you consider the products and people from the likes of Enron, AIG, Wall Street and Madoff.
Corporate culture is a big deal these days, often seen as the difference between success and failure.
Millions of words have been used by thousands of people to describe and explain culture, but it pretty much boils down to the following:
How the people relate to each other professionally and personally; their personalities and interpersonal communications.
The work environment/atmosphere/ethics/morale/people/style/etc.
The company’s identity.
Environment of interaction and judgment.
The primary reason people join/leave the company/manager.
The way things really are as opposed to how they’re described (the walk vs. the talk).
Money lures, but culture holds. Culture is why people join a company—and more importantly, why they stay. It is what motivates (or demotivates) them, and cultural changes are frequently why they leave. Additionally, people learn from experience and eventually will reflect the traits of the cultures in which they work; as with other relationships, people will continue to gravitate to the same situation they were in previously.
Cultural elements people want:
The opportunity to truly “make a difference.”
To be treated fairly.
Positive ethics and values.
To trust management and be trusted by them.
To embrace the idea that work can and should be fun.
Accurate prioritizing of company, team and individual goals while keeping them synergistic
A positive “can-do” attitude (aggressive, but realistic).
A conscious effort to stamp out “not invented here” syndrome (in all its varied forms), so as to not waste time reinventing the wheel.
Continuing development and quality improvement in people, product/services and processes.
Committing to employees, customers, and investors—and meeting those commitments.
An open, accurate, company-wide flow of information starting from the top.
An environment that encourages people to reach their full potential, professionally and personally.
What people don’t want:
Politics: personal, group, or senior management
Unfairness; favoritism; star mentality
Unnecessary bureaucracy; inflexible process or bureaucracy masquerading as process
Poor management practices such as: erratic management; micro-management; workaholism; intimidation; belittling or contemptuous treatment; no loyalty; poor scheduling; the attitude that “we don’t have the time to do it right but we have the time to do it over”
Any form of harassment whether overt or covert
A generally negative attitude, i.e., the glass is half empty
Arrogance or an elitist attitude
An unwillingness (at whatever level) to seek and implement the compromises necessary to meet organizational needs within the required timeframe
Obviously there are many more philosophies, attitudes, and actions that I could list, but most would fit the spirit, if not the specifics of the two lists.
In general culture comes from, or is enabled by, the top and rarely can be changed from below.
That said, every person in a management role from team leader up creates a subculture in their own organization.
If you are strong enough and believe deeply enough, you can become an umbrella to your organization and shield it from the toxic elements in the overall culture.
But don’t kid yourself; this is a difficult path to choose, so it is wise to make the choice consciously, instead of accidentally bucking your company’s culture.
Join me tomorrow when we look at how to create a culture—or sub-culture.
People hate reviews, but done correctly reviews are a terrific tool to provide individual attention, improve retention and show your love—tention reviews as opposed to tension reviews.
I won’t bother explaining the latter; everybody has suffered through a tension review at least once in their life and probably far more.
The biggest difference between the two is in the level of communication and frequency.
Done correctly tention reviews happen constantly and are called feedback. Think of them as a manager’s response to the “how am I doing” sign implicit on every member of their team.
We all crave feedback, which includes
sincere strokes (given publicly),
constructive criticism (given privately),
career growth (what we have to do to take that next step), and
friendly general interest.
Truly great managers add
how can I improve,
what can I do to help you, and
how can I help our team excel?
Another part of review love is inherent in the communications necessary to setting solid, intelligent goals for each team member—
solid because they make sense and are achievable, while still being a stretch, and
intelligent because each person can see how their own objectives support their team’s goals, which, in turn, support the overall goals of the company.
Tention reviews also recognize that individual annual goals often need to be adjusted as a change in the company’s goals sets off a ripple effect throughout the organization.
And for those managers’ who claim they don’t have the time because of their real job, I’m here to tell you this is your job—cut corners or ignore at your own peril.
Every manager loves the folks who come to work champing at the bit, raring to go and bust their butt all day long. They love to talk about the high level of engagement their team has and brag about their productivity and innovative ideas.
If you want a group like this then make no mistake, It’s your responsibility to engender that attitude, i.e., engage them.
It’s not going to happen by accident and you can’t order your people be engaged.
Engagement happens because you, and hopefully your company are engaging.
This isn’t doubletalk or smoke, think about it. Think about what engages you.
The guideline is the same thread that has run through every major philosophy and religion for thousands of years—treat your people s you want to be treated—whether your boss treats you that way or not.
Authenticity is the current buzz word, but it translates simply to be honest, open and do what you say; never fudge, let alone lie, intentionally or otherwise.
There are absolutely no circumstances that warrant or excuse the messenger being killed. None. Because if you do, there’s no going back—ever.
If your company doesn’t have an engaging culture then you must be an umbrella for your people, because you can create one below you, even if you can’t change it above.
While managers may not be able to control overall corporate culture there are many things they can do within their own group’s culture to foster engagement.
The number one approach is to show your appreciation of your people. Study after study confirms employees’ desire to feel valued; to make a difference and be credited for it. But how, with budgets cut below bone level?
Here are four simple actions that you can implement at no financial cost and that don’t require approval from anyone.
Ask everyone for input, ideas, suggestions and opinions—not just your so-called stars.
Listen and really hear what is said, discuss it, think about it.
Use what you get as often as possible, whether in whole or in part, or as the springboard that leads to something totally different.
Credit the source(s), both up and down, publicly and privately, thank them, compliment them, congratulate them.
If you’re sincere, you can’t lay it on too thick; if you’re faking it, they’ll know.
And if you’re stupid enough to steal the credit for yourself in the mistaken name of job security you’ll have the fun of explaining to your boss the plummeting productivity and soaring turnover that accompanies the thefts.
Think ALUC; pin a note on your wall that says ALUC.
When it comes to company success there is much talk about leading and influencing, visions and inspiration, but when the subject of benefits comes up then it’s all about the bottom line.
Did you know that no benefits (other than those negotiated by a union) are actually required by law for any worker, full or part-time?
So why should companies have benefits? Just think about how much better their bottom line would be without them. Wow!
Then think about how demotivated, unproductive and disinterested their employees would be. Double wow!
The smartest employers (AKA good leaders) offer all the benefits they’re able to offer to the people who work for them, even part-timers. Sure, they’re limited by financial consideration, but they do as much as they can.
A startup CEO told me that he had insisted on good insurance coverage in spite of his investors’ gripes. Why? Because, he said, his people were more willing to put in 80 hour weeks when they didn’t have to worry about their families. Interestingly enough, his company also offered slightly below market pay and far more modest stock options and still filled their openings with top talent (this was during a boom period, too).
Another small biz owner I know, with sales of less than $2 million, offers Aflac, exceptional working flexibility, including working from home, and just added a 401K, although many similar-sized companies just moan about how they can’t afford anything.
My friend, who owns a tiny, neighborhood restaurant, gives her waiters their birthday off with pay—and has almost no turnover.
Part of the problem in large companies is that Wall Street penalizes companies that do take care of their people (Costco) and lauds those that use every trick to avoid spending that money (Wal-Mart).
But make no mistake—taking the best care possible of your people will yield a high return in the form of lower turnover, higher productivity and more creativity.
No kidding. After 30 years it still never ceases to amaze me that managers bust their butts spending time and money finding the right person, craft the offer, close the candidate and then go merrily on their way assuming that the person will show up at the appointed time—even if that time is two or more weeks in the future.
A lot can happen in two weeks.
When they do show up these managers do little-to-nothing to integrate them into the team, culture or work—other than to assign projects with a sink-or-swim attitude.
These managers complain when new hires don’t ‘hit the ground running fast enough’ and are totally perplexed when they either burn up or burn out and leave.
What motivates mangers to act like this? Sometimes ignorance, but mostly just not thinking.
Remember that
People aren’t water faucets. They don’t turn off emotions and feelings in the morning when they leave for work. They’re present in all their chaotic, sloppy splendor—but rarely admitted or discussed. Many of these emotions and insecurities will surface during traumatic times. According to the shrinks, changing jobs, even voluntarily getting out of a terrible situation, is one of the three greatest traumas that people face. (The other two are relocation and divorce, because unlike death people can play the ‘what if’ game forever.)
Resigning isn’t easy; it’s not comfortable and people don’t like doing it. And the longer they’ve worked for the manager/company the harder it is, especially when nothing is really wrong.
Even in this economy, counteroffers still happen although they’re counterproductive. They hurt the company, the group and the individual. The ones that work are the exception to the rule—probably less than 5%. As far back as 1983, the WSJ National Employment Weekly was printing articles warning about the dangers of accepting counteroffers; nothing’s changed; if anything it’s gotten more so.
Once your candidate has accepted, take an assumptive approach when talking about anything in the future. Use phrases such as: When you’re here, After you start, etc.
Then lock in your hire with these seven simple acts (simple once you think of them).
Call her after her resignation to make sure things went smoothly.
Assign a buddy from the team who can supply help and information on a proactive basis.
Give her information to read to familiarize herself with your market, company and its products.
Discuss the first project and give her information to take home.
Besides you and her buddy, have various members of the interviewing team call her occasionally to tell her how much they’re looking forward to working with her.
Solicit her opinion; ask for her suggestions.
Don’t overwhelm her, but make her feel that she’s already a valued member of the team.
Be sure to come back tomorrow and learn what to do after they start work.
The Carrot Principle, AKA, How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage The People, Retain Talent and Accelerate Performance, by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton was first published in 2007.
A new, updated, release this month with a new chapter and the results of an extensive 10 year study of 200,000 managers and employees that confirms what most workers have always known—recognition, not just money, is what draws them in, engages them and results in high performance.
But there’s a catch. (There’s always a catch.)
You can’t just start running around throwing recognition and carrots at your people.
There are four basics of good management you need embedded in your culture—but first they need to be embedded in your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™). They are
Goal Setting;
Communication;
Trust; and
Accountability.
The bad part is that if you don’t already believe in this stuff and have a culture that reflects it then the carrots of employee recognition will be tossed out by your people. Your people aren’t stupid; if you decide after reading the book that recognition is a better way than threats and screaming don’t expect to turn things round overnight. It’s going to take consistant effort over a period of time to convince your people that you’ve changed. How long depends on how bad you were and how sincere your changes are.
The good part is that you don’t have to work in a company or for a boss who thinks that way. Gostick and Elton give multiple examples of how “carrot culture” was implemented without support from either.
Carrot Principle walks you through the process and explains how recognition can be practiced in multiple moments without budget-busting amounts of money.
Recognition leads to extreme engagement and successful managers provide their people with frequent and effective recognition.
The winners of the future will be the companies that can fill their needs from the available labor pool, whatever the size, and the managers whose hiring skills allow them to confidently recognize talent, no matter the source.
It is neither the surplus of talent in a down market, nor the dearth of it in a tight market, that creates a staffing problem. Rather it is the attitude of many managers that if the person is not already working there must be something wrong.
In the Eighties the thought was “There must be something wrong; companies only lay off their deadwood.” In the late Nineties, it was, “There must be something wrong or this candidate would already have a job.”
Frequently the source of such attitudes is managers’ lack of confidence in the ability to make good hiring decisions.
By hiring currently employed people, managers unconsciously can validate a positive hiring decision (must be good or she wouldn’t be there) or excuse a hiring mistake (assumed he was good because he was at XYZ).
Why the prevalence of this rarely-discussed-almost-never-admitted lack of hiring confidence? Why is staffing, with all its associated pieces, one of the most disliked of all management tasks?
Simply stated, most people don’t like doing things when they don’t feel competent, and it is difficult to feel competent
doing an intricate task,
for which you’ve had little or no training,
makes you uncomfortable, and
do relatively infrequently.
Staffing involves many tasks
developing detailed reqs,
screening resumes,
doing substantial, time-saving phone interviews,
creating and mentoring an interviewing team,
interviewing,
crafting an offer,
closing and landing the candidate,
avoiding post-acceptance pitfalls, and
a myriad of other details.
Above all is the need to hire correctly; in other words, to hire the right person at the right time and for the right reasons.
To do it well requires sophisticated, proactive, real-world based training geared specifically to line managers.
Instead, much of the available training is geared to having an HR department or using an outside recruiter; is too mechanical; or is comprised of general psychology information.
When there is an abundance of highly qualified candidates it’s a result of the economy, not of a surplus of people. Population demographics, baby bust to retiring Boomers, guarantee hard hiring times for a decade at least; the current situation hasn’t changed the basic global demographics.
To assure their ability to meet the staffing challenges of the twenty-first century companies and managers need to work together to
create an efficient, proactive hiring process;
build internal sourcing skills that work in any labor market;
raise hiring skills to the level of core competency; and
disseminate them throughout the organization.
Finally, never lose sight of the fact that the only managerial action that should have a higher priority than hiring is retaining a current employee.
Recession of not, you still have an organization that needs to be productive.
According to an Academy of Management Journal study of 200 enterprises even a modest downsizing encouraged their most valuable “keepers” to start looking and move on. Check out these numbers; a 0.5% layoff increased turnover 2.6% (13% vs. 10.4%) over companies that had no layoffs. Add to that research by Frederick Reichheld, author of The Loyalty Factor (1996) and Loyalty Rules! (2001), that proved that a 5% improvement in employee retention translated to a 25%-100% gain in earnings!
So why do companies turn so quickly to layoffs? Mainly for these two reasons
Wall Street loves them because they have the fastest impact on the bottom line—and all the Street cares about is the next quarter. It will applaud you now and crucify you when the economy turns around and you have a demoralized staff and nothing in the pipeline.
They’re lazy. They require the least energy, managerial skill, leadership and creative effort, whereas keeping your people and juicing innovation and productivity when times are difficult takes energy, skill, leadership, creativity and work—lots of it.
Ever thought about what does it really costs to hire? Caliper has a nifty calculator. Try it, then multiply the answer by the increased 2.6% who walked when you laid off their colleagues. (Info hat tip to The Engage Sage.)
Smart companies, and even some governments, are getting creative, not for altruistic reasons, but because they don’t want to be crippled when the economy turns around. One of the primary actions that they’re using is to cut hours instead of staff—using with four-day work weeks, X% reduction in hours or closing extra days during the holidays and maybe beyond. Employees know that in an economy such as the current one a reduced job is far better than no job and companies finally figured out that staying prepared for the turn around is as important as cutting costs.
Finally, this WSJ article offers insights on attracting top people to a company in trouble, even one close to bankruptcy. Obviously, if these approaches work in those circumstances think how well they’ll work for healthy companies.
I frequently disagree with Jack and Suzy Welch in their weekly Business Week column, but in The Connected Leader they offer up good insights as to the effect of the internet on leaders, i.e., bosses, in terms of what it can and can’t do as well as what the leader needs to do.
“The Internet…ushers in a whole new level and scope of employee engagement. Leaders should welcome this development, and most do, but it’s a mistake to treat it lightly. Once employees engage you by speaking out, albeit electronically, they expect to hear back. We would suggest that it can be just as damaging for a leader not to respond to feedback as it is not to ask for it at all.”
Well and good, no arguments. And most leader-bosses are trying to embrace this—even when it scares them silly—because if they don’t they can’t hire. That’s right, engagement is high on the list of employee demands and not just by Millennials and if it isn’t there, well, it’s available somewhere else.
But what I’m cheering is this.
“…one aspect of leadership we believe the Internet won’t change because it can’t. Real leaders touch people… They get in their skin, filling their hearts with inspiration, courage, and hope. They share the pain in times of loss and are there to celebrate the wins.”
It’s called face-to-face and it’s where many leader-bosses are not cutting it. I see too many of them who embrace the orderly world of digital communications as a way to avoid messy, in person interactions—but it doesn’t work.
Current and future technology isn’t the answer—shoe leather is.
That’s right, getting out there and talking face-to-face, knowing your people and giving them the opportunity to know the real you. Not now and then when there’s a special message, but regularly.
As to having the time, you do, because if you don’t your retention will sink like a rock as your turnover soars and you get a street rep that says, ‘give up hope all who join this company’.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
Corporate culture is a big deal these days, often seen as the difference between success and failure.
People hate reviews, but done correctly reviews are a terrific tool to provide individual attention, improve retention and show your love—tention reviews as opposed to tension reviews.
If you want a group like this then make no mistake, It’s your responsibility to engender that attitude, i.e., engage them.
When it comes to company success there is much talk about leading and influencing, visions and inspiration, but when the subject of benefits comes up then it’s all about the bottom line.
Once your candidate has accepted, take an assumptive approach when talking about anything in the future. Use phrases such as: When you’re here, After you start, etc.
The winners of the future will be the companies that can fill their needs from the available labor pool, whatever the size, and the managers whose hiring skills allow them to confidently recognize talent, no matter the source.
“The Internet…ushers in a whole new level and scope of employee engagement. Leaders should welcome this development, and most do, but it’s a mistake to treat it lightly. Once employees engage you by speaking out, albeit electronically, they expect to hear back. We would suggest that it can be just as damaging for a leader not to respond to feedback as it is not to ask for it at all.”
