Culture

(30009)

Any fool can create a culture of fear. What’s hard is to create a culture of openness where people put in their absolute best efforts. Do all you can to build that kind of cultre.

The term “culture” is a pretty convenient weapon nowadays:

It can be invoked whenever somebody wants to set arbitrary rules that they expect everyone else to sign up for as well. “We’re available to our clients 24/7—nobody turns off their cell phones ever.

It can be used by executives wanting to pat themselves on the back “We’re all team players in this company, no superstars.”

People can make things up and try to pass it off as culture. “We always wear white shirts and conservative ties.”

Despite all this ambiguity, from the perspective of someone trying to make it to the top, there are four things you need to pay attention to when it comes to your corporate culture:

1.You’d better understand all the unwritten rules of your organization’s culture: so you don’t end up doing something taboo unintentionally. If you’re new to an organization, there are lots of things that can trip you up unawares. Ever acting conservatively can backfire if the expected norm is for over-the-top things. If you aspire to be in the top office, you’d better embody what the culture is, so be aware.

2.You’d better have your eyes open: and figure out whether or not the prevailing culture will reward excellence appropriately. There are a lot of bad organizational cultures that exist in the business world. When these cultures go bad, companies can become arrogant and self-absorbed. In these situations, talent, opportunity and ambition can be miscast as problems that must be addressed. Look carefully at the culture in which you are working and make sure it won’t reject you unjustly for some arbitrary rationale, and that you’ll have access to good opportunities. If these conditions don’t exist, make an exit sooner rather than later.

3.You’d better be sure the culture won’t distort perspective: and make it harder for you to find success in the future. Without any question, some corporate cultures cults because of the CEO’s forceful nature. Sometimes this drives the organization to great success, while at other times it is a more negative factor. Enron, for example, was arrogant about its own brainpower, dismissive of the expense of anything, and everyone there had an overwhelming sense of entitlement. If you join a cult, it can taint your career just by association alone. Even worse, you might actually start believing that is how business is done. If you’re placed in a position where you’re encouraged to do something unethical just to make your numbers for the quarter, that’s a warning sign you’re in a cult rather a corporate culture.

4.You need to act like a leader: meaning you need to make an attempt to influence the culture in positive ways. As you rise in your organization, the temptation will always be there to make your organization cold, harsh and humorless. Offset that by creating a culture of openness. Welcome fresh thinking and new ideas with open arms. Make sure nobody ever gets punished for suggesting new ways to do anything. Encourage risk taking and healthy forms of dissent. Do that and your culture will soar.

At John Hancock, we had a simple cultural goal: We wanted to make the company a great place to be at and a great place to be from. A great place to be at, in my opinion, is one where there is a free exchange of ideas, where there is some humor and fun, and where people’s contributions are rewarded. Why did we make it a great place to be from? Because no organization can hang onto all its good people. There is only one head of marketing, only one CEO’s job. If nobody leaves, you wind up with many highly talented but extremely frustrated men and women. And no boss says, ‘Where can I get more of those?’ So we wanted our employees to know that if you had John Hancock on your resume, it would be impressive to future employers. And everything we did to enhance our image, from our community relations to our Olympic sponsorship, was intended to inspire pride in anybody who could say, ‘I worked at John Hancock’

–David D’Alessandro & Michele Owens

Though it’s contrary to some conventional wisdom about how to succeed, I highly recommend having interests outside the office—interests that you can pursue without people from the office. Don’t take so much work home with you that you look like a donkey at the end of the day. Whether it’s on your computer or in paper form, you probably won’t look at it anyway. Try to avoid speaking the Star Trek language of executives, which eliminates all emotion in favor of basis points, leverage and click-through rates. Make friends who have nothing to do with your organizational life—and don’t sacrifice your family for your job, matter how important. As a top executive, you will be lonely in many of the hours you spend at work because you have to make so many decisions on your own. Don’t extend that loneliness to your personal life. Not only will it help you career, you will also not be a pathetic and unhappy figure when your career is over.

–David D’Alessandro & Michele Owens

Position

(30008)

The corporate caste system is pretty closely aligned with the one that existed in your average cave. Get into a revenue-generating job and stay there.

In any organization, there will be three kinds of people:

Three Kinds of People
1.Hunters
2.Skinners
3.Diners

The hunters are the people who go out and make sales and bring money into the organization’s coffers. In the cave days, these were the people who bagged the wild animals.

The skinners are the financial types. They manage expenses and keep the organization profitable. This is the equivalent of those who took the meat and doled it out.

The diners are those who perform some useful function. They are entitled to eat the meat because they do something the tribe values other than hunting.

The hunters are always given the greatest respect I any organization. Their ability to generate cash can cover a multitude of shortcomings. If you aspire to get to the very top of your organization, you’d better become a hunter. The skinners and diners are cost centers, whereas the hunters are pure revenue generators. And when it comes time to hand out promotions, the revenue generators always get first pick.

Add some sophistication to what you do by also stressing the profitability of sales. It’s all well and good to generate new business, but that business has to be profitable for the organization to move ahead. This requires skills I pricing your product appropriately, in controlling marketing expenses and in being able to utilize the entire value chain. All of these activities display business judgment that the people at the top of the organization must have. Get good at all parts of the overall values chain and not just what can narrowly be defined as sales.

When you evaluate what’s happening today in the overall business environment, it should be clear that your career path might change at any time. One of your key allies might pass away, your organization might get into a scandal or a merger situation or entire lines of business can collapse and new industries arise almost overnight. In addition to positioning yourself advantageously in your organization as it exists today, you need to be well positioned in the wider world as well. Get to know people outside your organization. A good way to do this is by volunteering to serve on the boards of some nonprofits such as universities, hospitals or charities. Doing this will introduce you to people from all walks of life. You’ll get a good feel for how your skill sets are valued by the business community as a whole, which is very good to have. If there is unexpected organizational upheaval, you’ll have a feel for what you should do now.

If you can become known within the broader community as someone who can gets things done, that’s got to be helpful and worthwhile. That reputation may even reason. If you have built a network of contacts over the years, word that you’re available will spread like wildfire. There are a few things you can do to enhance your positioning I this context:

Work at being as financially independent as possible: so if you’re out of work for a few months, you can survive just fine. That will mean you only take up a new job that interests you and not the first one that comes along to pay the bills.

Always have a backup plan I mind: what you would do if you lost your job.

Develop some marketable skills: by being an expert in some field. Write articles, give speeches and let reporters quote you. That means you could go into business in that field at a moment’s notice if required. And it may also lead to some good consulting assignments with other organizations. Once they get to know what you can do as a consultant, they may offer you a permanent position.

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Outsiders

August 11, 2008 by office  
Filed under Personal Growth, Success

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(30007)

Your organization’s clients or donors have lots of pull and don’t have to act rationally if they don’t want to. Work hard at making these people happy, even though they are outsiders.

There are lots of outsiders who can slow down or even stop your progression to senior management. These outsiders may include clients, donors, vendors, outside directors, even the CEO’s friends or acquaintances. Although you don’t see these people on a daily basis, you need to manage your relationship with outsiders to move ahead.

So how exactly do you do that? Well, what you need to do varies depending on what kind of outsider you’re dealing with. For outsiders who are customers of your fimr:

<li>Set priorities: and concentrate on the most important outsiders yourself while other members of your team cater to all the rest. Pay attention to them and be prepared to get on a plane and visit at the first hint of any problems.</li>

<li>Be very accessible to those key outsiders: give them your home phone number and ask them to call you if these are any problems that crop up.</li>

<li>Provide help and advice: give these outsiders the time and respect they ask for. Even if the outsider is looking for help with their own career, be willing to help in any way you can. Help them solve their problems and they will return the favor.</li>

<li>Never, ever air your own dirty laundry at a meeting with an outsider: because this can be used against you if the outsider happens to be aligned with the other side.</li>

<li>Always tell the truth: don’t ever try to lie. If your company has screwed up, admit it candidly and move on.</li>

<li>Realize there may be times when you’ll need to defy what your clients ask for: so be prepared to prove that what they asked for is detrimental to your firm and that you were right not to agree to that demand.</li>

With vendors, there are other things to be aware of:

<li>Always treat vendors with respect: because they are part of your extended family. Find out why your firm does business with that vendor and be aware of the reasons for your existing professional relationships.</li>

<li>Spread your business: divide up your contracts with a number of qualified vendors so nobody gets too much pull.</li>

<li>Anticipate that you’ll get sideswiped by any vendors that have close links to your CEO: so have legitimate reasons for your selections ready to go at a moment’s notice. Be able to prove that your decision was right.</li>

<li>Be especially wary of the bright ideas contributed by vendors: which you may have to waste time fending off. Be willing to prove methodically why an idea won’t work if the vendor uses links to your CEO to get an idea back on the the discussion table.</li>

Outside board members are another special class of outsiders. Handling these people well can be tricky. A few suggestions:

<li>Never arrogantly dismiss their ideas out of hand: treat their ideas on their own merits.</li>

<li>Take the time to get to know these outsiders: so they know more about you than the formal presentations you make to the board. Engineer opportunities to meet and greet.</li>

<li>Take advantage of any conferences you attend: to sit next to board members and interact with them. Let them know what you’re good at and let them get to know your capabilities well in advance of when discussions arise for promotions.</li>

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Motivations

August 8, 2008 by admin  
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(30006)

Your direct reports will be as ambitious as you are, so it will be obvious how you can motivate them. Make it possible for them to get ahead. That will keep them feeling positive about you.

The higher up you go in any organization, the more people you have to motivate to do their best work. That can get pretty complex, because you’re trying to motivate people who know a lot more about their specialties than you do. You will always end up managing parts of your organization that are completely unfamiliar to you.

So how should you handle this kind of challenge?

If necessary, get outside help: hire a consultant you trust two will tell you whether the people in these departments are genuinely doing some solid work or just trying to pull the wool over your eyes.

Listen carefully to your people: and defer to their expertise whenever you can. Ask questions that are posed in layman’s terms instead of trying to use the lingo you don’t fully understand. Stick to very issues:

1.Is this going to work?
2.What is our financial exposure?
3.Why are you so confident this the right approach?
4.What happens if things go wrong?

Make sure your in-house experts know you’re holding them accountable for the outcomes: so they’d better be doing their own due diligence because you’re depending on them. Make it clear that you won’t try to second guess them as long as they are following some sane guidelines.

Be comfortable making some decisions for the team: perhaps in situations where you get to the market early with a less than perfect product in order to keep the sales team happy. As long as you’re making decisions that are good for the overall organization rather than those that benefit your own area of professional expertise all the time, people will go with you.

No matter what, encourage people to tell you the unvarnished truth: and don’t shoot the messenger when bad news gets delivered. Make people who bring you bad news feel comfortable so that others will be happy to do likewise. Low people know you see your main role as being a problem solver and that therefore when problems are about to crop up, you want to know. Treat people like adults and focus on finding out the truth I any and all situations, even if some of your people are reluctant to be so candid and forthright.

Be inclusive: share information even-handedly with all you people. Don’t create an inner circle of those who are in the know while everybody else has to wait for the news release to find out what’s going on. That’s going on. That’s childish and insulting. Let everyone know what’s going on.

If problems arise, look for one of two causes: either your people don’t have the resources they need or someone is stopping things from happening because they have a different agends. If someone is deliberately throwing a spanner in the works, fire them.

Maintain the balancing act: be accessible to your people, but send the signal that you don’t need to be involved in every decision that gets made. Set up some reasonable social and emotional barriers so people won’t bug you with inconsequential matters. Act like their boss rather trying to be their shrink or priest.

Always remember that the people you work with aren’t being paid to be your friend. They’re paid to produce results. They will put up with your idiosyncracies because they’re being paid to, not because they choose to. Don’t look for people who like you or respect you—simply look for those who do their jobs well and then make it worth their while to excel.

So what’s the key to building loyalty? It’s really very simple:

Loyalty: Helping each member of your team get to where they want to go

You build loyalty by helping each person who works for you get to where they want to go. Every single person on your team will have a different set of dreams and priorities are and then use your connections to make good things happen for that person, they will walk over raw glass to help you get ahead.

When things are going well you don’t really need loyalty. The stock is rising or the fund raising is ahead of schedule, everyone is getting a nice bonus, so everyone is happy. It’s when things are hard that you need it. My advice is, treat the people who work for you with respect and start building that loyalty today.

–David D’Alessandro & Michele Owens

If’s not just that the pyramid narrows and the competition toughens as you rise. It’s that the game changes fundamentally. At a certain point on the way to the executive suite, the simple chain of command you have worked under for years turns into filigree, and you no longer have just one boss to please. You now have a complex, hazy matrix of hundreds of bosses. And you cannot rise without impressing a good number of them. So now, in addition to getting your job done and done well, you have to develop some very adult skills.

–David D’Alessandro & Michele Owens

Your Team

(30005)

No matter how competent you are, you’ll need to assemble a team around you. These people will become vital parts of what you have to offer, so choose them astutely.

To reach the upper echelons of organization, you need to attract good talent and then handle that talent productively. The type of people you attract is watched and evaluated very carefully by those who make the senior management hiring and firing decisions. This is a key indicator that you’re ready for bigger and better things.

If you hire fools or nutters, pretty soon the senior management team will start worrying about your own judgment. If the people you hire turn out to be strong performers, there will be confidence that you have good people skills and judgment. This is especially true when you bring in outsiders. Be very careful and do lots of due diligence beforehand so you don’t get caught out bringing in someone who is obviously a bad fit for the organization.

When it comes to putting together your own team:

Insist on making your own picks: don’t get lumbered with somebody who was a favorite of your predecessor, or who is friendly with someone on the board of directors. The stakes are too high for that. Insist that you need to pick your own team and stick to your guns.

Don’t build an army of clones: but hire people who have strengths in areas you are weak in. If you only pick people you like, your team will have some pretty big gaps and others won’t take you seriously. Diversity may be uncomfortable, but it’s necessary.

Be prepared to do some horse-trading with your rivals: poach a few of their best people and be philosophical when the same thing happens to you. Just make sure you get something in return if you end up being forced to trade one of your top-notch team members.

If you do have to fire someone, do it gracefully: which essentially means you make sure they are going to another employment position that will better suit them.

When you are promoted to senior management, my advice is to celebrate the night before you start the job, because there is no celebrating afterward. Just because you’ve been made a field general and given a spiffy new uniform with epaulettes doesn’t mean that you won’t have battles to fight. And let’s admit the truth: Some of the people judging you will inevitably be mean, power-mad, incompetent, or just plain crazy.

–David D’Alessandro & Michele Owens

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