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Do You Know What’s Really Driving Your Organizational Culture?

By gothamCulture
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Do You Know What’s Really Driving Your Organizational Culture?

When I was a young child, I was convinced that the characters I saw in the glowing image of my family’s television set were actually running around inside the box. They walked, they talked, they even told jokes. As far as I was concerned that was all I needed to conclude that they were, in fact, real.

Only later did I learn that those wonderful images on the television screen were actually created by electromagnetic waves that passed through the air to produce the illusion—a manifestation that captured my attention all those Saturday mornings.

When I talk to people about the concept of organizational culture as it relates to business challenges, a similar phenomenon tends to occur. Our conversation centers around what people think the reality of their situation is. What they often describe when sharing their experiences are the manifestations of the underlying culture rather than the culture itself.

This is what makes the study and shaping of an organizational culture so difficult. We can only really see the impact of a culture on us as the roots of what drive those behaviors (the culture) remains beneath the surface.

Whether it’s high turnover, lack of sales growth or declining customer service, business leaders tend to focus on visible business challenges. It makes sense, as these challenges are easily measurable. The real question becomes, how does one dig beneath the visible manifestations of a culture to begin to understand the beliefs, values and assumptions that are driving behavior and results to begin with?

How To See Through The Looking Glass

Here are four tips to help you begin to really understand what is driving behavior in your organization:

  1. Culture is a collective concept. Unlike understanding things like employee engagement, which centers around the individual and their experience, the culture of an organization develops over time as the group has shared experiences and learns what works and what doesn’t. This difference means that, in order to understand a culture, one must understand how the collective has formed their shared belief system. I’ve found that the best way to truly understand these underlying beliefs and values is done by actively engaging the collective in the process of uncovering these shared aspects of the way they work together.
  2. You may need some outside perspective. Making matters more difficult is that oftentimes, these deeply rooted beliefs often influence peoples’ perceptions and behavior without them being aware of it. When you’ve worked in an organization for a while, you begin to pick up on cues from others that shape your behavior without thinking about it. This can make understanding the culture in which you reside a challenge. Sometimes it can be helpful to enlist folks external to your company to assist you in taking a fresh and unbiased look at what’s going on.
  3. Don’t jump to conclusions. What you see isn’t always what you get. For many busy business leaders, it can be tempting to do a quick analysis and make reactive decisions. We’re all busy, and speed is of the essence. Unfortunately, when working with a concept as deep as culture, this may result in intervening at too shallow a level and addressing the symptoms rather than the root problem.
  4. Understand the why behind the what. Deming is cited as saying, “The most important figures that one needs for management are unknown or unknowable, but successful management must nevertheless take account of them.” (Deming, W. Edwards (1986). Out of the Crisis. MIT Press.) There are a variety of ways in which organizational psychologists work to bring to light the underlying culture of an organization. While these methods shed light on an organization’s culture, they never are completely comprehensive. That said, the power that culture has on people’s behavior, and therefore your company’s results, cannot be ignored.

Take a moment to look at your organization’s culture. What do you see? How are the collective behaviors of your team helping or hindering business performance?

Whether you can see it or not, there is a lot happening under the surface. We may not always be able to best determine what it is that drives behavior. We might be influenced by own values or assumptions, or the behaviors of others. But once you see through the looking glass, you may find that your culture is impacting business outcomes in more ways than you realize.

This article originally appeared on Forbes.

How To Find Positive Return On Leadership Development

By gothamCulture
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return on leadership development

Last year, Deloitte released some startling statistics about leadership development in their 2015 Human Capital Trends Report. According to their global survey, 50 percent of respondents rated their leadership shortfalls as “very important.” Yet only 6 percent of organizations believe their leadership pipeline is “very ready”—pointing to a staggering capability gap.

This capability gap will only widen if organizations don’t make leadership development a priority. So, how can organizations get back on track in 2016?

Leadership development is a fairly common phrase in business. Most professionals understand and appreciate leadership development for its intangible benefits: growing our cadre of business leaders, improving our workforce, developing core skills such as communication and management. It’s all those things, AND it’s more.

Understanding how leadership development provides a positive return on investment is critical in establishing and sustaining an effective program.

How Leadership Development Affects Your Bottom Line

return on leadership developmentThere are three core areas through which leadership development can affect your bottom line:

1. Setting/executing corporate goals. Providing skill development for leaders in the area of both setting and executing corporate goals is a foundational component of their development.

Emerging leaders in an organization are counted on to become champions and contributors to organizational planning. They will be the guiding forces within business units or departments to see those plans are executed. Over time, these emerging leaders will direct the planning at the highest levels. Because of this evolving set of expectations, providing these individuals with a proper tool set is paramount.

The investment up front for personnel to develop their skills in strategic planning, business planning and related actions will provide a return on investment in both the short and long terms. In the short term, they help direct the goal execution in a more efficient (read: cost minimizing) way. In the long term, they will take their knowledge and expertise to make the key decisions that directly affect the bottom line.

2. Getting the best from individuals and teams. The second impact to the bottom line relates to these developing leaders getting the very best results from the individuals and teams they lead. Through skill development in the areas of communication, management, coaching, emotional intelligence, presence, and others – leaders will be able to more effectively redirect their personnel’s ineffective approaches.

A leader can better motivate an individual by being actively present on-site, in a very supportive and approachable manner. A leader can make significant contributions to individual performance because of a refined set of skills as a coach. Knowing and working with team members who have different levels of emotional intelligence could provide difference-making insights.

All these outcomes provide stimulus for greater efficiency, time savings, cost savings and profitability.

3. Driving accountability. Finally, leadership development supports more effective levels of accountability. First, the leader is held accountable in having an active stake in the business, as one of the key contributors to organizational goals. Additionally, these leaders provide an improved approach to driving accountability for the individuals and teams they manage. And improved levels of accountability leads to improved results in terms of financial outcomes.

While the intangible benefits of leadership development have grown increasingly visible to organizations, the return on investment has not received as much attention. Understanding the ways in which your financial investment intentionally leads to improved performance helps reinforce the importance of the leadership development. It also makes a direct impact on the dollar signs that your stakeholders find important.

Can Eating Together Lead to Higher Team Performance?

By gothamCulture
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eating together higher team performance

A quick coffee and pastry from Starbucks for breakfast. Microwaved leftovers at your desk for lunch. Fast food on the way home for dinner. For many Americans, sitting down to eat a freshly cooked meal with friends or family seems like a lost luxury.

We all know the importance of gathering around the family dinner table.  According to The Atlantic, “the dinner table can act as a unifier, a place of community. Sharing a meal is an excuse to catch up and talk, one of the few times where people are happy to put aside their work and take time out of the day.”

Unfortunately, eating with others at work doesn’t hold the same kind of significance for many people. Research has shown that only 1 in 5 people step away from their desks for a meal during the workday. And while it may seem harmless to grab a quick bite at your desk through the lunch hour, creativity suffers, productivity lags, and the sense of belonging among coworkers can slowly erode if it becomes a habit.

Why Eating With Others Matters

eating together higher team performanceWhen considering the need for collaboration, creativity and teamwork in today’s work environment, eating alone at your desk doesn’t make sense. If the goal is to share ideas and increase productivity, why are we actively engaging in activities that do just the opposite? If the dinner table can act as a gathering place at home, why wouldn’t we work to equip our offices with the same kind of unifying space?

Companies like Google and Pixar have used the idea of “casual collisions” to design their workspaces in a way that promotes spontaneous, random discussions among employees. In fact, Google intentionally designed their New York City campus so that no part of the office was more than 150 feet from food. Whether in a restaurant, kitchen or cafeteria, team members are encouraged to collaborate and share ideas in common gathering places.

A recent study by Cornell’s Kevin M. Kniffin, Brian Wansink, Carol M Devine and Jeffery Sobal found a direct link between sharing meals together and higher performing teams. Their study of a fire department in a large city in the U.S. included visits to 13 different firehouses and 15 months of qualitative and quantitative research.

A typical firehouse has a kitchen, but it’s the responsibility of the firefighters to stock the kitchen and cook meals. Without any official mention of roles and responsibilities, these firefighters have adopted meal planning, cooking, eating together and cleaning up into their firehouse culture.

Firefighters reported that eating together makes them feel like a family; strengthening the bond between coworkers in a way that was lacking from other activities throughout the day. Further research found an undeniable positive correlation between eating together and higher team performance. The skills that underlie simple meal planning—cooperation, communication and collaboration—show up through performance on the job.

How Can You Apply These Findings?

Research has shown that eating meals together can lead to higher performing teams. So how do you begin to apply these findings to your office?

Encourage Employees to Eat Meals Together. There are several ways to encourage employees to eat meals together. Hosting an offsite team lunch, or ordering in for a meal around the conference table are both easy options. Or, it may be as simple as scheduling team lunches on the calendar, setting the expectation so employees can plan ahead.

Additionally, consider how you’re spending your own lunches. As a leader, are you role-modeling the behaviors you’re trying to promote? Or are you staying at your desk through meals, too?

Give Them a Reason to Step Away From Their Desks. What are you doing, as a leader, to encourage your employees to step away from their desks for a meal? Many companies – particularly startups – tend to offer perks like catered lunches. But in practice, these might actually discourage employees from venturing outside during their lunch hour.

Be mindful of how the culture of your company may be unintentionally keeping employees glued to their seats.

Take Team-Building to the Kitchen. Forget the trust falls; schedule a team building activity that involves cooking together. Whether offsite at a culinary school, or a chef-hosted event in your office, getting people together to plan, prepare, and enjoy a meal together can help your employees learn to better perform as a team.

Many leaders today are searching for that silver-bullet solution that will solve their company performance problems, but maybe the answers are much simpler. Though it’s often overlooked, cooking and eating together as a team can help foster engagement, innovation, creativity, and ultimately help your entire team perform better on the job.

The Most Meaningful Employee Benefits Focus On The Why

By gothamCulture
Published at In Category Blog Tags: , ,
meaningful employee benefits

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

meaningful employee benefitsThe 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
Published at In Category Blog Tags: , , ,
employee recognition program

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!

KristySundjaja_54153Kristy 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
Published at In Category Blog Tags: ,
talk to ceo about culture

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

talk to ceo about cultureThere 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
Published at In Category Blog Tags: , , ,
give thanks employees holidays

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-weberChelsea 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-emersonMark 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-taylorClaire 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-overcastShawn 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
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what is leadership?

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
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myth of fearless leadership

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

myth-fearless-leadershipTo 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.