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The Not-So-Simple Secrets of Successful Culture Change

By gothamCulture
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secrets of successful culture change

As the saying goes, even the longest journey starts with just one step.

Over the years, we’ve engaged with many clients who are dedicated to creating large-scale, significant, and sustainable culture change in their organizations in an effort to drive success. Unfortunately, many of these well-intentioned executives believe there is a silver bullet—some grand gesture of change—that will accomplish their goals.

While significant changes can and do drive sustainable performance improvements, truly transformational change results from a few deceptively simple things.

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Why Culture is the Heart of Organizational Innovation

By gothamCulture
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culture and organizational innovation

If you mention “innovation” to most business leaders, it wouldn’t be a surprise if they begin to think about Tesla, GE, or 3M. Compared to these giants of innovation, continually pushing the bleeding edge of what’s possible through massive investments in research and development, you may feel like innovation is out of reach.

No matter your organization’s size or industry, however, a culture of innovation may be necessary to evolve and succeed in today’s constantly changing business environment.

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Are You Investing Enough In Your Team’s Problem Solving Skills?

By gothamCulture
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investing in problem solving skills

As we explored in my last article, The Martian, by Andy Weir, provides a dramatic parallel to some of our most challenging professional situations.  We previously talked about empowering our teams and people. In this article, we’ll focus on the remaining two business questions we posed:

How important is our ability to solve problems and depend on our individual skills and strengths? And how critical is our investment not only in our teams but in each individual?

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8 Foundational Leadership Lessons From an Air Force Veteran Turned CEO

By gothamCulture
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air force leadership lessons

There are very few leadership transitions like being a newly commissioned officer in the military.

Typically, on graduation day from a military academy, ROTC program or Officer Candidate School program, young men and women in their twenties pin on second lieutenant bars and immediately find themselves in charge of huge teams and millions of dollars of equipment in one of the harshest working environments imaginable.

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How to Avoid Burnout at Work: 5 Proven Ways to Re-Engage

By gothamCulture
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how to avoid burnout

Feeling burned out at work is both frustrating and exhausting. Even if you enjoy some parts of your job, the continual stress can be overwhelming. If you feel overworked and under-appreciated, it’s easy to feel angry and resentful toward your team members or your boss.

Occupational burnout is characterized by exhaustion, lack of enthusiasm and motivation, feelings of ineffectiveness, frustration, and cynicism, and results in reduced efficacy (the ability to produce your desired results) within the workplace (Wikipedia).

If this sounds like you, you’re not alone. Nearly 70 percent of U.S. workers feel the same way, though this shouldn’t be too surprising. At its core, occupational burnout is caused by excessive and prolonged stress. And these days, the workplace is more stressful than ever.

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Leadership, Culture and the Art of Caring About the Little Things

By gothamCulture
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leadership culture and caring about the little things

Written by Alf Rehn

There are many ways to destroy a culture. It can be destroyed by arrogance, hypocrisy or hubris. It can be demolished through bad leadership, nepotism, unchecked misogyny or other unethical practices.

But, a pervasive lack of care might be the most effective way to destroy a culture. Whereas the list of sins above is obvious pathologies of an organization in decay, they are visible, and often manageable, vices. We tend to pay a lot of attention to these vices as they, by way of their visibility, draw our eye. And we tend to overestimate their importance as we underestimate the small things in our organizations.

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Getting Your Operations House in Order for the New Year

By gothamCulture
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operations in 2017

With the start of the new year behind us, now is a great time to get your house in order from an operations viewpoint. You still need to do all the usual tasks (close the books, update payroll and 401K information, etc.), but should also have on your to-do list tasks like re-visit your employee handbook and take another look at your internal processes.

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How Will Leadership Change in the Cognitive Era?

By gothamCulture
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leadership in the cognitive era

Technological innovation is continuing to accelerate on a hockey stick growth curve. Companies like IBM, Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon are bringing cognitive computing capability to the masses. And it’s only a matter of time until nearly every aspect of our work and personal lives are impacted.

These advances are still relatively new. Time will tell when and how they change things, but it will happen and it will happen relatively quickly. In a recent article, Steve Denning reminds us that a repeating pattern of massive transformation has occurred regularly over the last 250 years.

With massive change at our doorstep, now is the time to begin a collective discussion to help leaders navigate this new age.

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Why Having a Passion is Critical to Professional Development

By gothamCulture
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passion is critical for professional development

Most people in my life know I have a passion for running. However, most people in my life do not know that running is much more than just my cardio routine; it is a daily reminder that I am consistently setting and conquering new goals, which is especially important when other areas of my life feel dull.

My passion for running is not only apparent in my closet, stacked high with old running sneakers. It’s also reflected in my professional life.

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The 4 Foundations You Need to Build Trust in the Workplace

By gothamCulture
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build trust in the workplace

Trust is a fickle thing. It takes time to build and can be destroyed in a heartbeat. In the workplace, trust is undeniably important. The level of trust an employee has for his or her peers and leadership often defines the line between a happy, engaged worker and an unproductive body filling a cubicle chair.

Yes, trust is a critical component of every successful workplace culture. So why is it so difficult to achieve?

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