If you do not manage culture, it manages you, and you may not even be aware of the extent to which this is happening. — Edgar Schein*
What Is The ROI Of Corporate Culture?
By gothamCulture
Author: gothamCulture
The Most Meaningful Employee Benefits Focus On The Why
By gothamCulture
The growing interest in employee benefits has hit a fevered pitch this year. Many large organizations like Netflix, Microsoft, and Facebook have all recently enhanced their benefits packages. Others, like Gravity Payments, made a splash in the headlines with news of higher wages across the board.
As a result, I’ve had plenty of fodder for recent articles on the topics of interesting employee benefits programs, as well as the potential dangers of companies attempting to “keep up with the Joneses” with sometimes outrageous offerings.
Don’t get me wrong; extending additional benefits to employees is a wonderful thing. The danger, in my opinion, has more to do with the why behind these efforts and the selection of which benefits to extend versus others.
The Why Behind The What
The question that I often ask my clients is why are they looking at extending additional benefits to employees? Is it because the rest of the world seems to be doing it? Is it because you’re trying to keep up with your competitors?
Julia Gometz, author of the book, The Brandful Workforce: How Employees Can Make, Not Break Your Brand, suggests that a company’s benefits offerings define a brand. “If you focus on salaries then you will attract people who are motivated by that. People who apply to work at your organization make their decision based on what you are offering and if it aligns to what they are looking for. Not everyone is looking for the same type of offering and it’s the organization’s responsibility to seek out the types of people they want and figure out what motivates them,” Gometz says.
Rather than simply keeping up with your competitors, benefits should help attract and retain the right talent and help your employees succeed in their roles with your company.
Which Benefits Is An Important Question To Ask
Companies that clearly align their benefits package to the values of both their employees and the organization are better positioned to succeed in today’s competitive landscape.
I recently had an opportunity to spend some time with the leaders at Hilton Worldwide, an organization that is taking a thoughtful approach to employee benefits. I asked them about several benefits changes being implemented across their corporate offices and corporate-owned and operated properties.
Matt Schuyler, Chief Human Resources Officer at Hilton Worldwide says, “In the hospitality industry, we believe that it all starts with culture. Our team members join Hilton because they love to please others. It’s our job to ensure that we take care of our people so they are empowered to take care of our guests.”
The first major benefits changes instituted by Hilton is the January 2016 roll out of extended parental leave benefits to fathers and adoptive parents. In January, new fathers will be eligible for two full weeks per child. Additionally, the company’s existing maternity leave will be extended for an additional eight weeks (to a total of ten weeks of fully paid leave per child).
The second benefits expansion announced by Hilton was the roll out of a new GED assistance program to all full-time, US-based staff of corporately owned and operated properties. In a partnership with the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) Hilton will provide one-on-one GED preparation and advisement services, as well as test preparation.
“It’s tough for many adults to go back to school and to commit to getting their GED”, says Mark Crowley, Director of Internal Communications. “For many of our hourly team members, the achievement of obtaining a GED can help them not only continue to develop themselves, but it can unlock additional professional opportunities for them both within the Hilton organization and beyond.”
In an effort to provide employees of corporately-owned properties increased ability to plan their lives, Hilton also instituted a ten-day schedule guarantee. This commitment meant that employees no longer had to plan their lives around very short notice work scheduling. Instead, they now see their schedule with enough advance time to effectively schedule the rest of their personal commitments and plans.
How to Choose the Right Benefits
These benefits will positively impact thousands of Hilton Worldwide employees across the country by providing them with additional support in both their family lives and their personal development. But it’s important to understand how these benefits came about.
Rather than being the brainchild of an HR staffer in subbasement D, Hilton’s leaders took the time to understand the unique values and needs of their employee base in order to craft enhanced benefits that actually mean something to them.
Using both data analytics and personal interaction and insight, Hilton’s leaders were able to gain a clear understanding of employees’ needs and struggles. This allowed them to be intentional with their employee benefits, as opposed to chasing the latest fad or the latest perk that their competitors just announced.
In the hospitality industry, the experience is everything. If hospitality brands are able to create an internal culture that models their values and their desired customer experience, they are much better positioned to drive long-term customer satisfaction and loyalty. Hilton’s Schuyler describes his organization as desiring to attract and retain talented team members who love what they do. “If you love what you do, it shows.”
Culture is evidenced in your product. And in this transparent world, it shows. Julia Gometz explained that, “Brandful companies have figured out how to merge the culture with the organizational brand. They cannot be spoken about separately and those organizations who isolate the customer from the employee experience will fall behind.”
Schuyler adds, “There is a lot of copycatting going on in the benefits space. We’ve consciously rejected this approach. What works at Netflix won’t work for us.” Hilton’s efforts to gain a true understanding of the needs and values of their employees in order to provide meaningful benefits speaks to the power of being intentional and aligning benefits packages to support and reinforce the deeper values of the organization.
This article originally appeared on Forbes
Is It Time to Rethink Your Employee Recognition Program?
By gothamCulture
Guest Article Written By Kristy Sundjaja
Reward and recognition programs have a tendency to get on auto pilot, with a few star employees and top sales people lauded by management the same time every year as crystal trophies collect on a handful of desks. But as a new breed of employee enters the workforce—one the values rewards and recognition for a job well done—companies are starting to turning to these programs as a way to keep their entire staff satisfied, motivated and productive.
For LivePerson, a leading provider of digital engagement, we’ve looked to reward and recognition programs as one way to keep our 1,200 employees invested in not only their own success, but that of the company. And we’re not the only ones that are investing heavily into programs like this. Nearly 75% of companies have some kind of program in place.
However, after an internal employee survey conducted in 2013 uncovered that LivePerson employees weren’t satisfied with the current methods of recognition, we knew we had to rethink this critical element of the employee journey.
Designing an Employee Recognition Program Where Everyone Wins
The first step in redesigning our recognition program was to look to our mission of creating meaningful connections, and our values of being and owner and helping others. Using those established ideals, we created a reward and recognition program, the Outstanding Employee Awards, that served to recognize our employees. This program also brought them closer together through the peer-to-peer nomination style while shedding light on the behaviors of our most successful employees. The results were phenomenal. We had almost 600 nominations from across our company, an engagement rate that more than doubled our goal. And not only did the winners feel great, but their peer nominators felt involved and heard as well.
Here are some ways that you can use your company’s culture to establish a strong program to reward and recognize your employees and involve everyone, not just a select few “usual suspects”:
Encourage peer-to-peer recognition. Employees are the ones that see the day-to-day success and accomplishments of their peers — especially those who are behind the scenes and might not have lots of public exposure. It not only inspires more connection and collaboration among employees, but colleague recognition can make a bigger impact than manager recognition (not to mention it’s 35% more likely to have an financial impact than manager recognition).
Involve a community aspect. Millennials want more than just a job that pays the bills. Instead, they are looking for purpose and expect the companies they work for to give back to the community in one way or another. Including a volunteer day is an easy way to make employees feel good about themselves and their company.
Connect them with leadership. In large, global companies especially, employees can feel pretty disconnected from the executive team. A chance to spend some time with them outside of the office can go a long way to making an employee feel special.
Give them a break. In this digital era, employees tend to work around the clock, even on what should be a stress-free vacation. This can lead to serious work fatigue, so encourage them to shut down the laptops, stay off their emails for a few days, and get some R&R.
Look past cliché team activities. Bringing your employees together for a day of fun is a great way to connect them, especially if your company, like LivePerson, believes that true innovation comes from collaboration. Encourage team or group activities that they wouldn’t normally do, but be sure to look past the ‘team building’ trust falls and look to more unique experiences that bring them closer together. And you may just uncover some hidden skills and talents that could be beneficial to the whole company.
Above all, stay true to your culture. Before your company launches into a reward and recognition program thinking that it’s the way to reboot unmotivated employees, it’s important to keep in mind how a program like this would fit into your own company’s culture.
Do you have other ideas that have worked to reward and recognize your employees? Please share!
Kristy Sundjaja is Chief of Staff and Global Head of People at LivePerson, the global leader in intelligent online consumer engagement. In her role, Kristy integrates and aligns business and people strategies to deliver the company mission of creating meaningful connections to consumers and brands. LivePerson currently employs 1,200 people in 13 locations around the world
How to Tell Your CEO It’s Time to Stop Ignoring Culture
By gothamCulture
Employees are disengaged and blame runs rampant. Customers are letting you know they aren’t happy by taking their dollars elsewhere. Employees read the writing on the wall and you start losing your top talent. These are just a few of the potential indicators that your culture is not supporting your company’s success.
Employees “tell” their leaders every day that it’s time to pay attention to culture. I’ve seen this play out with hundreds of clients over the years in a multitude of ways.
From tangible indicators such as finding work elsewhere, to more subtle ways like disengaging, or even engaging in more passive-aggressive behaviors, there is no shortage of ways employees provide their employers with feedback. Unfortunately, all of these methods result in degraded business performance in order to get the message across.
But how do you approach your CEO about your company’s culture problem without damaging the organization? How do you engage your most senior leaders in a story that is leading down the wrong path?
Overcoming Your Discomfort
There might be several reasons you aren’t comfortable approaching your CEO with this feedback. It may be seen as an indictment on the CEO and senior leadership. You may find it difficult to clearly show the link between your company’s culture and its performance challenges. Or perhaps your culture isn’t one that openly accepts feedback from staff, and looks poorly on problem identification.
Even though it may be challenging to find the courage to give this type of feedback, time is of the essence. Organizations are living, breathing organisms, and one thing we know about living things is that they never stay the same. They are either thriving or dying. Things can get better, but they can also get worse.
Recognizing your own discomfort with the situation is a crucial first step. While you might be afraid of talking with your CEO or upset about the situation at hand, you have to arm yourself with the necessary resources to have a calm and productive conversation if you hope to influence things in a positive direction.
6 Ways To Talk With Your CEO About Culture
How do you put together a compelling case that will be heard by senior leaders? How can you help to ensure that the resulting action will drive positive, sustainable change in your organization? Here are a few things to get you started:
1. It’s not personal. You have to be careful not to assign blame to one person or group. An organization’s culture develops over time as its members learn what behaviors work and which don’t. The environment and challenges can change quickly. People don’t. As a collective concept, it’s formed and reinforced by everyone. Blaming the negative aspects of culture on one person or group isn’t getting at the root issue, and your frustrations with those people may stem from deeper, longer-term cultural misalignments that must be explored.
2. It’s about getting things done. If your plan is to waltz into your CEO’s office intent on airing your grievances, think again. While some people do take this approach, I’ve never seen it end up as planned. CEOs are working every day to drive the performance of the organization, focusing on top line growth and bottom line profits. They have a vested interest in the success of the organization and coming into the conversation guns-a-blazing is likely to make leaders feel defensive.
Instead, try focusing on the culture and not the individual personalities by using clear examples of how it is impacting employees’ ability to get work done. You stand a much better chance if you’re viewed as a partner rather than a torch-wielding posse out to burn someone at the stake.
3. Give a reality check. Provide clear examples of what is really happening and how the culture is yielding unintended behaviors. Coming to the table with some tangible examples of how the culture is influencing unproductive behaviors can help make it real for your senior leadership.
4. Be helpful. Be clear that your feedback is intended to benefit the organization and its members. Take time to plan your message. There’s a huge difference when coming into a feedback situation with positive intent versus approaching it from blame and venting perspective.
5. Find a fire, fight a fire. Offer solutions not just problems. CEOs are busy people and are hit from all angles – employees, customers, the Board. Help them help you. Don’t just come to the table with problems. Come to the table prepared to share possible courses of action, show that you’ve done your research and put some critical thought to the potential pros and cons of each. This is an opportunity to hone your business case skills.
6. Timing is everything. Finally, be thoughtful about when and how you approach your CEO with your feedback. Nobody likes to get ambushed and folks usually don’t enjoy being called out in front of others. Do your best to select a time when your audience can process the information appropriately. Dropping an information grenade in the CEO’s lap while giving your fifteen-second pitch may seem like a plausible course of action, but it probably isn’t setting you up for success.
Always be clear about your intention and desire to be a part of the solution and making the organization a great place to work. At the end of the day, you still have to come into the office tomorrow morning. Though it may be an uncomfortable conversation today, your insights might be the catalyst that helps your organization address the problems at hand and create a better working environment for years to come. Don’t let your hesitation in the short-term get in the way of terrific opportunities and success in the long-term.
This article originally appeared on Forbes.
How to Give Thanks To Your Employees This Holiday Season
By gothamCulture
The holidays are officially upon us! It’s a season of giving, gratitude, and spending time with those who matter most to us.
This is a perfect time to give thanks to your customers and your employees for all the work they’ve done over the last year, but some organizations today still miss the opportunity to give their team something meaningful during the holidays.
How can you show your gratitude to your team this holiday season? We asked our team to share their thoughts and ideas around holiday giving. Here’s what they had to say:
Chelsea Weber – OD Intern
At one of my early jobs, I had a boss who, a few days before December 25th, left gift bags on each of her team members’ chairs. Mine was a big bag, but it did not have anything expensive in it. Instead, it was a mix of good books and trinkets that would help me in my next chapter as a United States Peace Corps volunteer. The books were used, and the trinkets were more humorous than useful. The note that accompanied the bag highlighted a couple of specific strengths she had noticed in my work and wished me luck on my journey ahead.
Each and every item in that bag told me something loud and clear: that she had been listening, and that she cared about my success. I knew I mattered.
As humans, we need to feel genuinely seen, and the holidays are a perfect time to give that gift. People respond positively to authenticity in leaders and can sense genuine interest. And part of showing that authenticity as a leader is to see your team members as individuals with specific traits and strengths. Showing employees they matter through personal touches and quiet nods to their individual talents, hopes, or interests creates a deeper connection that lasts far beyond the motivation generated by a one-time reward or a lavish party.
Add to your holiday celebrations this season by reaching out and thanking your employees for something they’ve contributed or giving them something that speaks to who they are.
Mark Emerson – General Manager
I think one of the best ways to thank employees is simply to give a handwritten note. It goes a long way by acknowledging the contribution throughout the year and sets the stage for the next year.
Gifts are always a nice idea and don’t have to be expensive. One company I worked for would send a gift basket to every employee for the holiday and then a gift card directly to the partner of the employee.
Having a company dinner is also always nice, but the logistics can get in the way sometimes and the cost can climb when you start adding in your employee’s partners (although it’s nice to meet them so you know who your co-workers are talking about around the office).
If the company can swing it, giving the time off between Christmas and New Year’s is probably one of the best gifts – it gives everyone time to enjoy the holidays and reset for the next year, and truthfully, much doesn’t get done during this time for most companies anyhow.
Claire Taylor – Associate
When I think about employers showing their appreciation for their employees during the holiday season (or any season, for that matter), I think how they do it matters even more than what they do.
A sincere ‘thank you’ will always be more valuable than one given out of obligation. When someone takes the time to choose or plan something that fits the occasion or the person, the show of appreciation becomes as much about the intent as the actual item or event.
When organizations are thinking about saying thanks to their employees, they should approach the situation similarly. Organizational culture can help give insight into what would be most appreciated by employees at large. There may be several options that would resonate as meaningful with employees. Depending on the company, they may even be able to say thank you in more than one way (e.g., a holiday party plus a holiday gift) or let employees choose from a few options (e.g., select a holiday gift or an event to attend from several option) to maximize their chances that a particular action or item will resonate with each employee.
Even if the organization is not in a position to host exciting events or present lavish gifts, they can still sincerely express their gratitude. In many cases, the simplest gestures are the most meaningful, especially during the time of year that many struggle to slow down and appreciate the spirit of the season.
Shawn Overcast – Managing Director
Recently, a colleague (read more from Jonathan here) shared with me a framework for thinking about one of our client organizations, and the cultural implications they were experiencing. This framework, known as The Golden Circle, was created by Simon Sinek in an effort to reframe how leaders should think and communicate about their organization.
Leaders who are most inspirational communicate differently. Most communicate from the outside in – What, How, and then maybe Why. We start with what is most tangible. Inspired leaders think, act, communicate from the inside out. Instead of what we do…how we do it…and then the call to action, inspired leaders communicate what we believe…the way we do it…and then what we do and the call for action. Why focuses not on making money, but on the purpose, belief or cause for existence. Sinek explains that ‘people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.’
Some of our clients have found ways to excel at communicating strategic direction and intent, some at driving customer loyalty, and others have mastered operational efficiency and reliability. Yet, they may struggle with communicating to their customer, and to their employee population why the organization exists.
While it is critical we define this at the organizational level, it is also imperative that we define this at the individual level. Why do my employees exist on my team, in our company? The answer is not simply to make money. There is a reason you chose him or her. Today, we consider the topic of creative ways to acknowledge the individuals in your organization, and help them to recognize their value and purpose for being a contributing member of your team.
Tip #1. Get personal. Recognize each employee as an individual, not just for showing up and doing their job. Not even for doing their job exceptionally well. Recognize that one thing he or she contributes in a way that no one else does. Acknowledge those things that would be missed, that bring personal significance to you as the leader, and to the members of the team.
Speaking of the team…this recognition can go a long way in helping you build – or sustain – a high performing team. In The Wisdom of Teams, Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith, define high performing teams in part by members’ strong personal commitment to the growth and success of each team member of the team as a whole.
Tip #2. Go broad. It’seasy,and typical for those highest performers to get recognition. They do good work – consistently – that results in big impact for the company. Think for a moment about your last trip to the dentist. If you’re a high performer (or high achiever), you likely received kudos for good flossing behavior. For those of us who might not receive such praise and recognition, we might have been given a pass. You don’t have to floss all of your teeth, just the ones you want to keep. If the thought of recognizing each employee becomes overwhelming, keep this motto in mind.
We all need to feel appreciated and valued by others. That recognition can serve to validate, to motivate, or to elevate our performance, regardless of where we are today.
Tip #3. Create opportunities. It’s great to take advantage of the time of year to start these habits of recognition. But let this be the gift that keeps giving. Establish a culture of gratitude.There are many research studies being funded on the topic of gratitude, and the findings are consistent. Psychologists Robert Emmons of U.C. Davis and Michael McCullough of the University of Miami have found that practicing gratitude can actually improve our emotional and physical well-being.
Gratitude matters. It impacts our self-esteem, our quality of sleep, our physical health, our psychological health, our stress levels, and even our ability to establish longer-term relationships, according to a 2014 study published in Emotion. Happy and healthy employees means happy and healthy client relationships.
As those of us in the United States prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving, we give pause and reflect on what we’re most grateful for. I am grateful for my friends and family, and the diversity of perspective they help me to find. I am grateful to my colleagues for inspiring me to up my game, by continually upping theirs. And I’m grateful to you, our readers, for taking the time to engage…and for sharing your thoughts and ideas in return!
You Don’t Know What Leadership Is
By gothamCulture
You don’t know what leadership is.
It is a bold statement for me to make. One to which your response is probably an emphatic, “Yes I do.” Maybe even with an exclamation point.
However, when I respond by asking, “what is it?”, almost everyone struggles to articulate what leadership is. I contend that if you can’t articulate it, you don’t know what it is.
Some of you will argue that you can articulate what leadership is. You may even eloquently define it for me in simple or complex terms with a big “I got you grin”.
You may think you know what leadership is. However, how you define leadership is not how others define it. In fact, regardless of your definition, I bet I can find tens of thousands of people who will dispute it and tell you why you are wrong (and the response of, “yes, but I am right,” only works for my wife).
Is There One Definition Of Leadership?
There have been many brilliant minds over the years that have pontificated, defined, researched, and written about leadership. Some from an academic background like Stogdil and Mann from the mid 1900’s and some with practical backgrounds like Greenleaf and Patton.
These approaches often create dichotomies when defining leadership. One is that leaders are either born or made, though most of the recent research supports the idea that leaders can, in fact, be made. Another dichotomy is that the approaches tend to either focus on the leader or on the leader’s relationship with his/her followers. However, regardless of the focus, none of them have come up with, or agreed upon a satisfactory definition of leadership.
In the article “An Integrative Definition of Leadership”, Winston and Patterson reviewed over 160 articles and books on leadership and narrowed it down to 90 variables. Their “short” definition was over a page long and people still dispute it.
One of the problems we face in defining leadership is that the concept seems simple. And at one point in our history it was fairly simple: There was a person who was a leader by birthright or some sort of trait and people followed them because they were the leader.
Even today in certain environments leadership seems fairly simple. Take for example an enlisted soldier. Most people think of soldiers as they were in WWII. The soldier was trained to follow orders. Those of superior rank knew more and were better equipped to make decision. The enlisted men were followers, were given orders, and expected to follow them without question. Most people think this is how the military operates today, and to some extent it does. If you are a Corporal in firefight and the Sergeant tells you to move your ass, you do. However, with the dynamic environment soldiers face on today’s battlefield, even the Army is changing how it trains its soldiers.
The Army now wants soldiers to think and make decisions on the battlefield to a much greater degree than they did even 20 years ago. Now these followers are contributing to solutions. Leadership, even in the military, has been changing.
So, when I say, “you don’t know what leadership is,” I do not do so lightly. None of us really know what leadership is.
Rethinking the Source of Leadership
Leadership is an evolving concept that has become much more confusing than it used to be. I think the problem is based on the methods we use to try to define it. Since leadership is continuously evolving, so must our way of trying to understand it.
Instead of trying to define leadership, we should examine how we know when leadership occurs. Most of us, though we can’t truly define leadership, know when it occurs. And if we can figure out when leadership occurs, we get closer to understanding it.
So, how do we know when leadership occurs? I have only read one author who takes this approach to understanding leadership (though it is entirely possible that others have and I have not read their work). In the book, The Deep Blue Sea: Rethinking the Source of Leadership, Wilfred Drath from the Center for Creative Leadership approaches leadership not as something that exists on its own, but rather something that exists because we decide it exists. When you define leadership in your own way you are deciding it exists, while others who disagree with your definition might decide it does not.
Leadership does not exist independently of our perceptions. It exists exclusively because of our perceptions.
So, if leadership exists only in our perceptions, how do we know when it occurs?
Essentially, we can create what Drath calls knowledge principles, which are ideas or rules that are taken for granted to be true. These are shared creations of the people interacting together, rather than just one person’s perceptions. We use these to determine if leadership exists.
Since these knowledge principles are taken for granted to be true, Leadership’s existence becomes about what is meaningful to people as leadership. Because these knowledge principles are meaningful as leadership to people, they can say with certainty that leadership is happening for their group.
Leadership is what the group comes to understand it to be. There is no debate like there is when we try to define leadership. The group knows leadership is happening and becomes objective and not subjective.
So, from your group’s perspective, how do you know when leadership is happening?
The Myth of Fearless Leadership: How to Lead When You’re Afraid
By gothamCulture
The fearless leader fallacy harkens back to the “great man” theory of leadership, which portrayed effective leaders as those who charge fearlessly into the melee to save the day. They were “born to lead” and “looked fear in the face without blinking an eye.”
Maybe this resonates with some folks out there but, for me, it never quite sat right. I served overseas in combat as an officer in the military. I’ve started and grown a company that now employs more people than I could have ever imagined. By all measures I am a successful leader but I am far from fearless. In fact, every time I begin to think I have a clue about what I’m doing, something comes along that frankly, scares the living daylights out me.
I’m willing to bet that I’m not alone. I don’t believe that successful leaders and entrepreneurs are fearless. I believe that the most successful leaders and entrepreneurs among us are just as fearful as the rest of us. What sets these men and women apart is what they do in the face of fear.
Fear Doesn’t Have to Be Your Enemy
To me, being fearless means pushing forward with reckless abandon no matter what the risks. Evolution has seen to it that we as human beings have held onto the emotion of fear for good reason. Fear serves us well. It kept our ancient ancestors from putting themselves in dangerous situations, thus, keeping them alive long enough to reproduce.
Unfortunately, many of the things we fear today are no longer physical threats. Fear of what we perceive to be threats, whether it’s the fear of the unknown or the fear of failure, can be so overwhelming that it paralyzes us.
But fear is not necessarily a bad thing. It means that you’re pushing the envelope and doing things that take you out of your comfort zone. It means that you care enough about the livelihood of your organization that perceived threats to your sustainability cause an emotional reaction.
Dr. Joey A. Collins, Assistant Professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology at Seattle Pacific University, adds that, “Effective leaders demonstrate a high degree of self-awareness and are mindful of their feelings. It is not that they don’t feel fear – they do. They are just more aware of their fear and better able to process the threat that is signaling it.”
Fear is not necessarily your enemy. The difference is what you do when confronted by these fears. Here are 4 ways to begin to face your fears as a leader in your organization:
Know that you’re not alone.
It may not be easy to admit that you’re afraid as a leader, but I’ll be the first to step up beside you and tell you that you’re not alone. Leading is an enormous responsibility. You have to make sure you make payroll, keep your customers happy, inspire your team and read and adapt to changes in the market on a daily basis. As an entrepreneur you know all too well that if you don’t stay on top of everything going on, someone out there will seize the opportunity to eat your lunch. That’s enough to make even the most stalwart of us blink from time to time.
Ask yourself honestly, what’s the worst that can happen?
At this point in my career I have come to the conclusion that I am absolutely unemployable. As an entrepreneur for ten years, there is zero percent chance that I’ll ever be able to work for someone else again. Entrepreneurs have no safety net. No backup plan. But when I stop and think about the worst possible scenario, I’m able to manage the fear that generates from these thoughts.
If your worst business nightmare came true, what would happen? Acknowledging this can help you push through the fears that come up when you’re faced with critical decisions.
Acknowledge that failing doesn’t make you a failure.
As a leader and an entrepreneur, it can feel like the world is resting on your shoulders. And with so much riding on your decisions, failing is a tough pill to swallow. But, the truth is that everyone fails at one point or another.
Ask any successful entrepreneur how many times they’ve failed and you’ll probably get a good laugh out of them. It’s not about failing, it’s about what you do as a result of that failure that determines your future.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
One of the greatest ways I’ve found to face my fears is by relying on a strong support network. At the end of the day, responsibility for your decisions falls squarely on your shoulders, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t people in your life who you can depend on for guidance and insight.
Asking for help may not come naturally, but by showing some vulnerability and acknowledging that you need help, you’ll open yourself up to many opportunities that may otherwise never be available.
Understand what’s driving your fear and turn it into an advantage.
If you can develop your ability to harness your fear and move through it you set yourself on a path that few ever follow.
Tim Smith, President of Patriot Commercial Cleaning out of Saint Louis, MO is an Army combat veteran who has grown his business despite facing numerous challenges that would have stymied most people. “You have to try to meet that fear head on,” says Smith, “but it’s easier said than done. I’ve found that it does get easier with practice, though. The fears still exist but you can deal with them better because you’ve faced them before.”
Be aware that your reaction to threats will be noticed and modeled by your team.
“Leaders are better able to choose how to express their fear to others,” added Dr. Collins. Let’s face it. If you run around with your hair on fire when threatened, it doesn’t give your team a warm and fuzzy feeling. Effective leaders are able to gauge their responses and react most appropriately.
Maybe this is the root of the fearless leader fallacy. As leaders effectively manage their fear in front of others, the assumption becomes that they, in fact, are fearless.
It’s all about managing the dynamic tension that exists with your fear. On one side, you must be confident enough in your abilities and your value that you can go to market and win. On the other side, you must continue to push your limits so that you never quite feel comfortable.
Being able to manage this tension in the day-to-day is difficult. There are days where you may lean more heavily on one side than the other, and that’s okay. The trouble begins when you let yourself swing too far to one side or the other for too long and begin to operate only from that single perspective.
It is your choice as a leader and entrepreneur to determine how you will react in the face of fear. Respect that fear is a natural emotion, baked into our DNA, but don’t let it stop you. Your reaction to that fear is what will separate you from the pack.
This article originally appeared on Forbes.
M&A Integration Drama? Don’t Start With Culture!
By gothamCulture
We’ve heard it dozens of times: Not focusing on culture in M&A integration will lead to immanent deal failure. That can’t be good, especially considering the amount of M&A activity happening these days. According to Deloitte’s M&A Activity Index, there were $1.8 Trillion USD worth of deals in the first half of 2015. Yet, most studies say that only about half of mergers and acquisitions exceed shareholder expectations.
We’ve all heard the stats on M&A, and they only serve to reinforce the idea that deals are destined for failure. So, forcibly combining two corporate cultures into one feels a lot like a mad social science experiment.
Why Not Start With Culture?
The truth is, it’s far too simplistic to say that culture is the only driver of M&A performance during integration.
Culture is defined by the organization’s values and how employees behave. But strategy defines the future direction, which in turn defines how the organization expects employees to behave. By focusing on strategy first, your organization is able to guide the new way employees are expected to behave in the post-acquisition culture.
In my doctoral dissertation, I investigated whether a similarity between strategy, technology and culture was better or worse for M&A earnings, stock price, and P/E-ratio post acquisition. What I found was surprising. Companies had higher stock prices when they acquired companies with a different strategy, and a different culture.
With this in mind, here are some ideas for companies that are looking to tie “the corporate knot”:
- Different business-level strategies between the parent and target = better results. Yes, it turns out that birds of a feather do not flock together. It’s critical to start with strategy because that defines what direction you want to go in. Second, the evidence suggests that if you, the parent company, gets value by always building new products, your best bet is to acquire a company that is the complete opposite of you; one who creates value by keeping costs down, scaling, and building efficiency.
- Solving the culture conundrum starts when opposites attract. It is critical to align the organization around one single dominant culture. Remember, my research showed that companies had higher stock prices when they had acquired companies with different cultures.
Why Different Is So Much Better
Different is better because it’s easier to force the acquired company to let go of their culture through restructuring and organization redesign. When a clear choice has to be made, the parent organization can easily dominate the target company. A clear path forward is then set.
Additionally, different organizations showed improved financial performance when aligning strategy and culture starting one-year post acquisition. Strategy first, culture second.
Final Thoughts
Strategy sets the direction of where the newly acquired company needs to go. The structure defines what the organization looks like. And culture defines expected employee behaviors. Culture is critical, there’s no doubt about that. However, until you define where you want to go, and how you’ll operate, you can’t define how you expect your employees to behave.
Why Values (Not Perks) Define Your Startup Culture
By gothamCulture
Entrepreneurship has exploded in the U.S. market in recent years. According a recent Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report, there are now over twenty four million entrepreneurs in the U.S., making up 14% of the total population.
There may be a number of contributing factors to this trend. Entrepreneurs are often cited as modern day adventurers and explorers. They are willing to takes risks and push innovation. And for many, they exemplify the American Dream. That is, everyone has the opportunity to be successful, no matter how you started or where you might be from.
Unfortunately, glamorizing entrepreneurs—while flattering—doesn’t tell the whole story of what founding and growing a sustainable company entails.
Despite the number of entrepreneurs in the U.S., the country now ranks 12th among developed nations in terms of business startup activity. American business deaths now outnumber business births, according to Gallup and the U.S. Census Bureau.
As a leader of a growing startup, there are some brutal realities to face. These can include challenges obtaining capital to drive growth, an inability to attract the right talent, or the constant struggle of trying to manage an organization that looks fundamentally different every six months.
In order to grow a successful organization, knowing where to spend your limited resources is critical to success. Startups—especially in Silicon Valley—are often lauded for their culture. And unfortunately, “culture” in this case is many times defined by a set of borderline unbelievable perks.
You Are Not Your Perks.
With so much on the line for your growing business, you cannot put your perks above what you value. Perks seem great at the start, but they tend to lose their luster over time, leaving you with little of substance to sustain engagement, excitement and purpose.
With competitors grappling to offer some wild new perk in an attempt to attract talent, companies are getting sucked into a doom loop. Everyone will end up losing as they try to keep up with the Jones. The perks that were once on the cutting edge become the standard expectation, which only serves to put startups in an even worse position to compete for talent and sustain growth.
Additionally, many startups lack the capital to offer these types of perks, let alone sustain them over time. This puts them at a disadvantage compared to their larger, more established competitors.
Finally, perks and incentives are, by their nature, a manifestation of the core values of an organization. By offering endless perks, startups can send messages about what is valued that may have unintended consequences in the long-term. This can be a real problem if those messages are in conflict with your core beliefs or if those perks are being used as a replacement for core values.
By defining your values and culture based on the perks you offer, you’re sending the message that your company values following the latest trends rather than a being intentional about the deeper beliefs of your company culture. Employees may be left without any clear direction for how business should be done, how customers should be served and what it means to be a member of the team.
This is not to say that all perks are bad. Quite the contrary. Perks can help reinforce meaningful values and help drive the behaviors that are required to yield success in the next chapter of your startup’s journey. When used thoughtfully, in conjunction and in direct reinforcement of your organization’s core values, these perks can prove to be both sustainable and truly meaningful.
Rallying your team around a meaningful purpose and supporting that with appropriate perks is not only a more sustainable way to drive growth. It ensures that the people you attract are people who are joining you for the right reasons.
Values can have deep and lasting meaning for people, giving them a higher purpose. This is something that perks alone can never do.
This article originally appeared on Forbes.
What Every Founder Needs To Know About Scaling Startup Culture
By gothamCulture
For startups that want to stick around, growth and sustainability are the goals. But growing like Facebook or Twitter is far more difficult in reality. According to the Small Business Administration, only about half of all new businesses even survive to reach their fifth birthday. Only one-third of those make it to the 10-year mark.
Scaling a startup is no small feat. It takes clarity of vision, a feasible business model and a team who’s up to the challenge of operating in an extremely fast paced environment where dynamics change continuously. It also takes guts on the part of the founders and initial team members. These types of people risk a lot by taking a chance on a new startup. The nebulous nature of these situations can be too much for many people to bear.