Community Wellbeing and Sustainability in Action

I like the idea of The Big Lunch. Sitting down for a simple meal with your neigbours, talking, listening and learning. It looks like a cool, interesting way of connecting with your community. I intend to make something happen in our neighbourhood for The Big Lunch 2010 and I’ll keep you posted as plans take shape. Meanwhile here’s a quick snapshot of Big Lunch 2009 – there’s loads more on YouTube.

Along similar lines, I was interested to hear about the people of Fintry on last night’s Panorama. In Fintry the locals have got together to do something about resource scarcity and climate change. They have bought a wind turbine, a biggie. Last year it generated electricity which the village sold back to the grid for over £60,000. The villagers are using this money to fit state of the art insulation to their properties to conserve heat, save money, and further help to reduce emissions. A great piece of community connectedness. On a directly related subject my attention has been drawn to this interesting idea about transition towns. It’s basically more of what Fintry is doing, and with the option of taking community action global.

I think a sense of local connectedness is an important part of wellbeing, which can be used to enhance and refresh you, your neighbours and your colleagues. It doesn’t have to be either at home or at work, it can be both.

I’m keen to learn about other similar ideas, particularly anything in the workplace that is used to promote connectedness, togetherness. If you’ve spotted anything interesting, please share it here.

 

Employee Engagement Dilbert Style

Great Dilbert cartoon!Thanks to Angela Fraser for pointing it out to me.

This and loads more at The Dilbert site

 

Resilience is a crucial characteristic in this unpredictable world

We’re delighted to welcome guest author Kate Feather, executive vice president of PeopleMetrics to our site. PeopleMetrics primary purpose is to enable organizations to systematically take the best actions to secure and engage customers and employees. They are an interesting organisation with an impressive list of clients and a passion for engagement and service. This article was first published on David Zinger’s employee engagement network and we’re grateful to David and PeopleMetrics for permission to reproduce it here. We found the article useful, practical, and enjoyable, and we hope you will enjoy it and use it too.

Resilience is a crucial characteristic in this unpredictable world. Trees survive terrible storms if they can bend in the wind. Species who cannot adapt to new conditions die out. The natural world’s proclivity toward flexibility is also rewarded in humans. Thomas Edison once said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Eventually, resilient individuals can achieve success, sometimes after hundreds of attempts at their dream. At its core, resilience is the spark of determination that empowers us to get up and try again, no matter what the circumstances. We have seen time and again that the most successful businesses are resilient enough to bounce back from any crisis. What’s less clear is how such successful firms encourage resilience in their ranks.

It may seem like all that’s required for organizational resilience is a widespread “Try, try again,” company mantra, but actually nourishing resilience in an organization is much easier said than done. Today we’ll explore various ways of encouraging resiliency. To direct our review, we’ll list a technique or two for each of the characteristics of resilient organizations, as established in our previous post on resilience. Consider the following methods for increasing your organization’s resilience:
a. Resilient organizations have a Clear and Compelling Company Purpose.

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins suggests that those who are looking for a compelling purpose ask themselves the following three questions:

1. What am I most passionate about?
2. What can I be the best in the world at?
3. Now, how can I make money?

Although these questions were meant for the individual, they can certainly help your firm develop a clear and compelling company purpose.

As you zone in on the concept that expresses why you are in business, look for things you would do even if they didn’t bring you any money. Aim for a simple, short sentence that expresses your reason for being. A company purpose should be brief, customer-focused (what will you do for the customer?), broad enough to last through technological and societal shifts, and attainable through effort. Here are examples of two effective company purpose statements to get your brainstorm brewing:

Disney: “Keeping alive the magic of childhood.”
Western Union: “Connecting friends, families, and businesses around the world.”
b. Employees at resilient organizations have a Strong Trust in Leadership.

Steven Covey has recently turned his attention to the lack of trust in modern society. According to his article at Leadership Now, “Research shows that only 49% of employees trust senior management, and only 28% believe CEOs are a credible source of information.” In addition to making trust an explicit objective within your organization, Covey recommends that leaders who wish to be trusted follow these 13 behaviors of high-trust leaders worldwide:

1. Talk Straight
2. Demonstrate Respect
3. Create Transparency
4. Right Wrongs
5. Show Loyalty
6. Deliver Results
7. Get Better
8. Confront Reality
9. Clarify Expectation
10. Practice Accountability
11. Listen First
12. Keep Commitments
13. Extend Trust
c. Resilient organizations are defined by their Open Communication.

Your company cannot effectively respond to adversity if employees don’t feel comfortable speaking to one another. It’s no surprise, then, that many of the world’s largest, most enduring companies have an uncompromising dedication to open communication. General Electric has 14 divisions around the world, but it is all tied together through one person: the CEO, to whom all 14 division heads report directly. A clear, established line of command helps GE keep internal communication humming.

One more example: Google is consistently voted one of the best companies in the world to work for. One reason is that employees are given a plethora of tools for communicating internally. As described at Google Blogoscope, Google employees have access to a broad company intranet, a special page for communicating new ideas, a project database to allow employees to see what their peers are doing, and much more. Even if your organization doesn’t have Google’s technological capability, you can still improve operations by smoothing out the lines of communication within your firm.
4. Supportive Management in resilient organizations helps employees solve any problem.

Due to widespread dissatisfaction with management, Boss Day is one of the most lackluster holidays in the US. A recent Adecco survey revealed that 53% of American workers think their boss is dishonest. In the same survey, 89% of those interviewed linked job satisfaction to their relationship with their boss.

Sincerely supportive management, therefore, has a huge impact on your organization’s resilience. If employees feel comfortable with management, they are far more likely to bring up opportunities and problems.

A simple way to encourage supportive management is to increase the amount of positive interactions managers have with employees. How many times a day do managers simply wander through the work space greeting and socializing with employees? When was the last time that managers honestly thanked employees for their contributions? Any recipe for supportive management is based on delivering consistent communication and positive feedback. To learn more about effective employee recognition, see our post on Five Effective Real-World Approaches to Employee Recognition.
5. Employees in resilient organizations have Adequate Tools and Resources to help them produce their best work.

Today’s economic hardships have tempted many companies to scour their books for opportunities to cut costs. Unfortunately, such budgeting often reduces the resources employees have for doing their best work, which usually has a long-term impact on profitability. Slashing employee resources damages your organization in two ways. First, employees who lost their tools for success feel undervalued, and often become embittered about their workplace. Second, there are practical implications of reducing employee resources. Outdated resources may save a few pennies today, but leaders should also think of the potential revenue that is lost by limiting your employees’ output. Leadership in resilient organizations recognizes that investing in employees’ performance yields better products and services in the long run. If you must cut costs, bring employees into the discussion.

As you can see, organizational resilience springs from the general work atmosphere. If employees feel supported and empowered to do their best work, they will see problems as challenges. A common, cherished company purpose enables leadership and employees alike to accurately direct their response to difficult situations. Open communication and trustworthy leadership allows employees to tackle crises confidently. In the end, as all of these factors also contribute to employee engagement, effective Employee Engagement Management may be the most comprehensive approach to encouraging Organizational Resilience.

~Kate Feather, Executive Vice President

 

What are the dumbest things you do to your colleagues/employees?

Another opportunity to share some learning. We are posing this question on a number of forums, to see if common themes emerge, to see what more we can learn, and to allow people to confess to their dumb things! Here are a couple of thoughts we’ve already received, it would be great if you can add to this research.

Hmmmm, confession time eh?

I was asked to create a business to business sales experiment for Dixons in Central London. As part of this I needed to recruit three people to form a sales team plus an administrator. I found an extremely capable administrator and two guys who I thought would make great sales people. I was very comfortable with these three appointments. I couldn’t decide who would fill the fourth seat on this team. I came under some pressure to make a decision and with the worry that if I didn’t fill the post it may get withdrawn, I chose the best of the rest.

Big mistake. This guy wasn’t as good as the others, nowhere near. I won’t bore you with the details but I sacked him a few weeks later. I felt terrible because I had tried to fit a square peg into a round hole. It was my fault for recruiting him in the first place.

The rest of the team were a big success. We worked and sold very well together. With hindsight I believe an empty seat would have been preferable to all of us. Including (maybe even especially), the guy I had to let go.

That was a pretty dumb thing, and I’ve learned to work with some great empty seats since then.

The dumbest thing corporations do is pretend that “people are our greatest asset” and then abuse the goodwill by canceling training and development programmes, the second dumbest is to hold meetings from which no actions are taken but to which everyone must attend to hear the new words of wisdom from the newly installed leader of the organisation, and the new strategy.

 

No problem at all

As you know we like to feature great customer experience stories, here’s a good one.

We’re in the latter stages of a big building project at home. By necessity things have been intrusive and disruptive, but we’re now doing things like choosing bathroom fittings, and tiles.

A visit to a tile showroom in Hackbridge called All Tile Ceramics, proved to be an interesting experience. We looked at loads of tiles. We asked loads of questions. It was clear that we were on a tight budget. Time was invested in us; our questions were answered politely and professionally without once making us feel like we didn’t know what we were talking about (which we didn’t). Samples were provided for us to take away and look at in context.

All of this was topped off with “No problem at all”. It didn’t sound forced, didn’t sound fake. It sounded like what we were asking for was exactly that, no problem at all. Unsurprisingly we didn’t go anywhere else; we bought what we needed from All Tile Ceramics. They took our order politely, set realistic expectations around delivery times (which they subsequently exceeded). They even took my money in a friendly way. And they helped Carole load the tiles into the car on collection. No problem at all.

That’s almost the end of the story…

Turns out my measuring skills aren’t as good as I thought they were. Yesterday I called the shop and enquired about lead times. I was told if I ordered the following day, the extra tiles we needed would be there within a couple of days. Today I called the tile shop again and ordered another box of tiles. Three hours later as I was preparing to go out, I got a phone call. “We’ve been to the warehouse, your tiles are here for you to collect when you want them.” OK, so the timing of their phone call was a coincidence but hey, that’s quick service. I don’t doubt the warehouse run may have included other errands but it felt to me like this was being done just for me. Personal service – one of the key elements that our readers say makes a great customer experience.

I collected and paid for the tiles later in the day. I thanked the guys at All Tile Ceramics for their friendly, quick service. “No problem at all.”

Good work, great experience.

 

Even the CEO can take it personally

Since blogging about the science of motivation, my interest in removing the confusion, lack of trust and bad behaviour caused by financial incentives within organisations has been renewed. It seems I’m not alone. The Science of Motivation article has been one of the most read on this site in recent weeks, and I’ve discovered and enjoyed reading lots of creative action ideas by Derek Irvine on this subject.

We often hear criticism aimed at the very top of the organisation. They set the agenda, the tone, if only they would behave, set the right example, do the right thing etc., then everything would be alright. It’s easy to point the finger of blame at a somewhat distant figure. I was heartened to read an interesting study from the Academy of Management which indicates that a CEO with a strong sense of connectedness to the organisation, is much more likely to behave in a sustainable, inclusive way, than one who is not. Here’s a short extract from the Academy of Management article:

“One might expect that a CEO who identifies strongly with his or her firm will see nothing wrong with using the company resources for personal use, but our findings suggest the opposite to be the case,” comments James Westphal of the University of Michigan, a co-author of the study with Steven Boivie of the University of Arizona, Donald A. Lange of Arizona State University, and Michael McDonald of the University of Central Florida. “What we found instead,” he adds, “is that such executives tend to shun lavish perquisites that shareholders and the public resent, perks which, in fact, have been shown to be associated with significant underperformance of company stock.”

CEOs with strong company identification also tend to avoid corporate strategies that are likely to be at odds with the interest of shareholders. For example, they are less than half as likely as CEOs with weak company identification to increase their companies’ level of unrelated diversification, a strategy that the study characterizes as “a form of corporate empire-building…associated with lower financial performance, lower stock prices, and greater institutional pressure to divest.”

I encourage you to read more about this, it has certainly helped me pause to reflect and appreciate that there are leaders out there who get it. Now how do we strengthen the currently weak connection between most CEOs and their front line staff and build on this desire to do the right things for the right reasons? Based on the popularity of another article on our site, Visible Leadership is Great, Can We Have Some Please? I suggest a lot of CEOs could do worse than start to walk the floor, have a few honest, sincere conversations with colleagues and show through their behaviour that we’re all in the business of great customer service together.

 

The Inconvenience of Change

My attention has been drawn to a very interesting project. It’s called The Inconvenience of Change, it’s being led by Matt Cheuvront, it’s inspiring and great fun. Matt has just published a book of change stories. Punchy, personal tales. There’s a short video to accompany the book too.

This is a great piece of collaboration, I encourage you to take a look and I hope you enjoy what you find.

The Inconvenience of Change

 

Without People, You’re Nothing

The importance of engagement, as said by one of the greatest rockingest songwriters and musicians to ever walk this earth. Joe Strummer knew what he was talking about, we can all learn a lot from this simple one minute speech. Enjoy.

 

Simple Leadership, Lucy Style

I’ve just filled another pocket book. I prefer little Moleskine pocket books because they fit, in my pocket. Well in my manbag actually. And my manbag continues to divide opinion, as it has done since the day I bought it several years ago. Last week two women admired it, and one just laughed, couldn’t believe I was happy to be seen out and about with it. Where else am I supposed to put all my stuff? Anyway, the pocket book. I like these little note books because they are handy for capturing thoughts and ideas, and enjoyable to flick through and recall moments in time. Some of these are moments shared with my family, little drawings and scribblings, and some are other moments of inspiration and purpose, caught as part of a conversation.

I was on the phone speaking with Lucy a few months ago. She is bright, energetic and a very uplifting person to speak with. We were discussing leadership and Lucy was suggesting that most leaders tend to overcomplicate things. Among the things Lucy and I have in common, is a desire for simplicity. “So what do you expect from a good leader then?” I asked. Clearly and simply the reply came:

“I expect a leader to be realistic about where we are and clear about where we are going”, came Lucy’s reply. I drew breath, ready to reply with “I like that”, or similar. Lucy must have sensed I was about to say something pointless because she added, “Good leaders don’t just say it, they mean it, and they do it.” The conversation finished shortly afterwards. I captured these things Lucy said and popped them in the Moleskine. Now I share them with you. Thanks Lucy.

In turn I’d appreciate it if you could share with us, what you think good leadership looks like, feels like, does like.

 

Employee Engagement in One Sentence

The wait is over, it’s here!

David Zinger and his employee engagement network has today published the second edition of employee engagement advice. Great work. One powerful sentence each from hundreds of contributors from across the globe. You can download the publication from here. Have a read, have a think, and then most importantly, do something. Take action.