TOLERATE CO-WORKERS, according to Dilbert

TOLERAR COMPAÑEROS DE TRABAJO, según Dilbert

Created by Scott Adams, Dilbert is about the world's most famous -- and funny -- dysfunctional office

Create Accountability for Performance and Values in your Culture

by S. Chris Edmonds

In our consulting work with organizations that desire a high performing, values-aligned corporate culture, my Ken Blanchard Cos. colleagues and I have found that most senior leaders have rarely experienced successful culture change in their careers. In addition, very few senior leaders have led successful culture change.

Our proven culture-change process first educates senior leaders on the best practices of high performing, values-aligned organizations. Our process then outlines three core actions that create the foundation of their desired culture moving forward:

1. Performance clarity for every leader and player in the organization.
2. Values clarity for every leader and player in the organization.
3. Consistent accountability for performance and values.

Our process helps senior leaders understand and appreciate the need for these three core actions to be formalized and demonstrated daily. These three help make a corporate culture measurable so leaders can gauge the progress toward their desired culture.

To help with this “appreciation,” before we engage in the process kickoff workshop with an organization’s senior staff, we conduct interviews with attendees (and sometimes with select front-line supervisors and employees). During these “state of the culture” interviews, we examine the degree of clarity and the degree of accountability for performance and values across the organization.

Our research and experience has found that many of our clients have performance metrics in place, but not for every leader and player, only for most leaders, some players and even some teams. Again, it is rare that every leader and player has clear performance expectations outlined. Accountability for performance is usually found to be inconsistent, at best.

On the values side, most clients do not have defined values. A small percentage of clients do have values in place. Those statements may be their parent company’s values, but they at least have some “core principles” printed on such materials as posters or annual reports. A very small percentage of our culture clients have behaviorally defined values in place at the beginning of our culture work with them. Accountability for values is also commonly found to be inconsistent at best.

Immediate traction occurs when senior leaders embrace their responsibility to create clear performance expectations (for every leader and player) and hold all accountable for performance. We don’t educate senior leaders on this step as much as we guide them through a thorough and consistent process for performance clarity and accountability.

Senior leaders require quite a bit more direction, coaching and guidance from us to define values in behavioral terms. Once senior leaders commit to our culture-change process, they are quite bold in asking for help with creating behaviorally defined values.

Creating values clarity starts with leaders identifying benchmark values players — great “corporate citizens” — and assess what they do and how they interact with others that make them such great values players. We then help senior leaders create values and behaviors that define their organization’s “citizenship standards” for themselves and all organization members.

Here’s an example of a value and observable behaviors from a retail client of ours.

Value: Personal integrity

Definition: Ethics and integrity is how we earn the trust and respect that is critical to our success. Our customers trust us to be their advocate. Our suppliers trust us to be an equitable partner. And, as company employees, we trust each other to uphold the highest standards of conduct every day.

Behaviors:

• I communicate honestly.
• I follow the law and company policies.
• I ensure personal alignment with company expectations by understanding the code of conduct and policies that apply to my position.
• If I am aware of actions that violate the law or company policy, I immediately report this to a salaried member of management or to our ombudsperson.
• I cooperate with and maintain the privacy of any company investigation into violations of the code of conduct or any other company policy.

Once values are behaviorally defined, accountability systems are put into place to ensure demonstration of those behaviors by every leader and player. I’ll discuss values accountability techniques in my next SmartBlogs post.

To what extent does your company define values clearly and hold all leaders and players accountable for demonstrating those behaviors?

Fuente: SmartBlog on Leadership

POLITICAL REASONS, according to Dilbert

RAZONES POLÍTICAS, según Dilbert

Created by Scott Adams, Dilbert is about the world's most famous -- and funny -- dysfunctional office

Corporate Culture Changes only 

when People Change

by S. Chris Edmonds

I’m coaching a senior leader through his company’s culture change. He recently told me, “Man, this culture management is hard work!” We both laughed — and agreed.

It takes time and energy to tend, monitor, and nurture a safe, inspiring work environment in your organization’s divisions and teams.

Safe, inspiring work environments do not happen by chance. Human foibles and temptations, driven by greed and power, can make companies lousy places to work. Only when leaders proactively manage productivity and citizenship do organizations enjoy their desired high performance, values-aligned culture.

Many senior leaders believe that they only have to describe desired outcomes and people will immediately align to them. I call that “managing by announcements.” Leaders state lofty performance expectations or increased quality targets or “values we’ll live by from this day forward” without any explanation of how the organization will make those changes. Without the “hows” and demonstrated senior leader commitment, these targets fall by the wayside quickly.

Think of the last organizational initiative introduced in your company. Did senior leaders “manage by announcements” or state the outcome and how to accomplish it, or did they do something in between? Have those outcomes gained traction?

The concept of perfection exists in our workplaces. This idea of perfection — from the executive-coaching world — doesn’t mean that things are beautiful and working well. It means that things operate as they do in our organizations because they are being reinforced. So we’re not surprised when we examine how work gets done (or doesn’t get done), things are exactly as we should expect them to be: good or not-so-good.

Frontline employees do what the company culture reinforces, whether that’s great performance or not-so-great (things are “perfect”). To inspire engaged employees, great performance and wowed customers, the culture must reinforce only what is desired.

Corporate culture changes only when the people that live in that culture change. People change only when they see their leaders consistently model desired behaviors. Therefore, to change their organization’s or team’s culture, leaders must define, demonstrate, and reinforce their desired culture.

Here are strategies used by many of my successful culture leaders. Might some of these work for you?

• Make performance expectations and values expectations explicitly clear. Create specific, measurable, and trackable performance standards. Define values in observable, tangible, measurable terms (not in attitudinal terms).
• Hold all leaders and staff accountable for both performance and values. Once standards of performance and citizenship are defined, celebrate efforts and accomplishment towards both — and redirect efforts that fall short of performance and citizenship targets. No excuses.
• Be consistent role models of performance standards and valued behaviors yourself. No excuses.
• Connect with staff throughout the organization to learn how well the culture is operating. Spend 30 minutes a day wandering around your work environment, connecting one-on-one with staff. Ask “How is it going?” and “What can we do to make your job easier?” Learn where gaps exist then act to close those gaps.

What effective “culture alignment” practices and activities have you experienced? How do you work to keep your team culture on the right track?

Fuente: SmartBlog on Leaderhip

GREAT PLACE TO WORK, according to Dilbert

GRAN LUGAR PARA TRABAJAR, según Dilbert

Created by Scott Adams, Dilbert is about the world's most famous -- and funny -- dysfunctional office

If Strategy is painful, you're doing it wrong

by Max McKeown

Strategy involves change. People have to change something to bring strategy to life. You need to be able to translate your strategy into actions, tasks and projects. You also need to communicate the purpose, logic and purpose of the strategy so that people get engaged with the work and are willing to help it succeed. If strategy is painful then you're doing it all wrong

McDonald's was known for being unhealthy, dirty, inconvenient, cheap, unethical and old-fashioned. In response, the new CEO introduced a new strategy: 'Plan to Win'. It fit onto only one page. It explained very clearly the necessary changes so everyone understood what was required. The mission changed from 'best fast food restaurant' to 'favourite place and way to eat'.

This clear change of strategy led to clear changes. Instead of growing locations they improved experience. They introduced healthier food, good tasting coffee, interiors that surpassed coffee shop competitors and free Wi-Fi.

Suddenly competitors were struggling to catch up. The strategy delivered 8 years of growth. McDonalds succeeded because everyone engaged with a clear strategy that made sense and motivated action.

Strategy involves change because it has to adapt to competitors, technology and customers. If you change the strategy but don't succeed in changing the company, then the strategy is wasted. Even worse, the company may not succeed in adapting in ways that allow it to grow and thrive.

The McDonalds example shows the importance of clarity in getting strategic changes made. The changes are made by people. People can only help if they know what is expected. And they will only help if they feel engaged with the direction of the strategy.

The strategy may be correct but so boring that no-one wants to read it. It may include new ideas but ideas that are not credible. It may be so complex that it takes longer to read it than do anything about it. And it may be so vague that no-one knows what is expected of them if they do want to help. The Strategy Book is full of questions and advice about how to make your strategy enjoyable and fulfilling.

According to McKinsey, fewer than 25% of executives use the strategic planning process to drive decision making, and only 14% believe it involves the talent of employees so it's worth thinking about making strategy engaging before there even is a strategy in place.

So you could create your strategy in secret and spend months trying to make it work. But it's far better to spend months involving everyone in creating a strategy that encourages discussions between departments, improves understanding of competition and customers, and increases chances of creating something unique, something that will help you to grow.

It's also important to consider the scale and nature of the change that your strategy requires. Changes might be big or small. They may involve evolution or revolution. They may be positive or negative. They may involve losing jobs or gaining jobs. The strategy might require new skills or actions. It might involve different areas of the business in different ways. It may be more externally or more internally focused.

Change comes from different perspectives. Responses to changes come from different perspectives. And changes aren't going to be welcome in the same way. These tensions are what creates the attempt to make changes in the first place and what will shape what eventually happens.

There may be clashes between different interest groups, or disagreements about competing plans for the future. There may be an absence of clarity about what needs to be done so that nothing clear is done. There are often winners and losers who both feel very differently about the strategy.

There are two key challenges: How to reduce wasted effort arguing about what change should be made or not made? And how to make sure that the right action is taken to make the change happen successful?

Fortunately, the best solution works for both challenges. First, make strategy clear and easy to understand for everyone. Clarity is next to effectiveness. Clarity helps people know how to contribute positively to the strategy. It also increases the chances that people will want to contribute. Second, include people in creating and making it work. Take them through the logic behind the strategy so that your strategy comes to life.

Your task is to intelligently respond to real desire for change (and improvement) that already exists. Work with the forces for change so that it becomes organic rather than mechanical. In this way, you are working with the people rather than against them. The friction involved is reduced. And the chances are higher than you will – at least – be attempting something that is desired and respected by people.

Discuss the logic behind the strategy over and over again. Listen actively to dissent, discontent and feedback – use it to improve the strategy and the actions that follow from it. Consider the scale and nature of the changes that the new strategy will bring.

What has to change? How big are the changes? Who will be affected? Who do you need to really make the strategy work? For a strategy to be valuable, it has to be made to work. Smart strategists understand that strategy only works if enough people want it to succeed. More is accomplished when the people doing the work love the strategy that guides the work.

Fuente: Management-Issues

WIN THE BATTLE FOR..., according to Dilbert

GANAR LA BATALLA DE..., según Dilbert

Created by Scott Adams, Dilbert is about the world's most famous -- and funny -- dysfunctional office