In a recent podcast, Mike Robbins spoke of the need for leaders to think about employee morale. I think of morale as being another word for culture. Changing culture is one of the most challenging change-management tasks a leader has to tackle. Seemingly overnight, perhaps literally overnight, leaders have had to move workers to remote working cultures.
Business Jargon: For several years now, the business community has been using the term “pivot.” It is certainly not the first, nor do I believe it will be the last term that the business community appropriates from other disciplines. For me, the word pivot conjures up mental images of levers and gears moving around a pin or bearing. Secondary images …
History: I’m not big on history, usually. However, for reasons I do not now remember, I found myself reading two books about the history around the founding of our country, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution. I started reading before all the present political drama. And I’m glad that happened since it gave me a way to put context …
Being Heard: For many of us, the employees we hire are often referred to as “knowledge workers.” The most common definition of that term I’ve come across is, “Knowledge workers are workers whose main capital is knowledge.” In other words, we hire knowledge workers and pay them to think. We hope that they are smarter than we are in whatever …
Saving Face: During my time working with colleagues at a Japanese owned company, I learned how important it was to make sure people left any kind of public or group encounter with their pride intact. I’m pretty sure I knew that was appropriate before joining the company, but it was emphasized within that culture. At first, the most notable practice …
Nature Rules: There is a lot of discussion about organizational culture these days. What is it? How does it contribute to or inhibit effectiveness? How do we “manage” it? I define culture as simply “the way things get done around here.” And that means how decisions are made. That includes whether employees feel that the environment is safe for them …
Attitude ~ Values: In a recent speech to a group of business leaders, Peter Salvati, CEO of DPR Construction, said that he makes sure his team “Hires for attitude, trains for skills” And of course, he does the same when he is hiring or promoting his leadership team. To my way of thinking, attitude is pretty close to the same …
The Garden is Well Planned: During a recent conference, I had the opportunity to visit the Chef’s Garden. It was a working garden for sure. By that, I mean that the Chef used the produce and herbs in her recipes. I’m guessing that the Chef also supplemented her yield with commercial herbs and produce since the small plot of land …
Sustainable Advantage: I don’t know how we can claim we have a sustainable competitive advantage unless, that is, that we believe that advantage to be our ability to learn faster than the competition. Technology is moving much too fast for us to think that some sort of product or service is really our competitive advantage. But continuous learning, a willingness …
Catch 22? Have you noticed that many job postings lay out a list of skills and also require, say, five years of industry experience? Ever wonder how the heck a college graduate manages to get hired? Do you assume they worked their way through school? Or perhaps you look for a valuable and long internship program that provided relevant experience? So …