June 23, 2015
Great cultures
I was teaching a high-end mastermind of entrepreneurs and the subject of bonuses and raises came up.
After much discussion, we all came to one surprising solution…
Keep it random.
Certain things should be entitlements. People are entitled to a salary. People are entitled to benefits. But when I see companies give bonuses every year, or create a profit sharing model, then suddenly people feel very entitled to getting more and more.
The company’s financial success is not guaranteed every year. So why should bonuses be guaranteed? And not everyone is a partner in the company, so why should everyone be receiving profits?
What I have seen work is to vary the percentages, frequency and even format of rewards.
Why does it have to be money? What if it’s in the form of a group trip or vacation? What if you rewarded people with the growth and learning they’ve been wanting for themselves?
The best cultures learn what make people tick. They learn their dreams, and they learn about how each person wants to progress (in many ways beyond money). And they record and share the resulting stories.
As with all culture hacking, this takes experimentation. Let me know what you discover.
June 16, 2015
Hiring
In my book, the Culture Blueprint, I go over how to structure a hiring program.
More and more I’ve found that diversity on a team is key. I spoke with an entrepreneur who only realized that he had hired people exactly like him once he had them all take the DISC personality test.
There are three tests I’ve seen effective. Once you’ve reached the stage of seriously considering a hire, you might ask the candidate to take them.
If you already have a team I would recommend spacing these out so that people are not overwhelmed with the testing and the data.
DISC – Tests work behaviors
Kolbe – Determines how you get things done.
Strengths Finder – Helps you locate your unique abilities.
June 7, 2015
Great cultures
When I was a culture strategist at Zappos, I learned that culture becomes a self-reinforcing positive feedback loop when it’s shared. So the the tours and free culture books refresh the culture when people come in with appreciation, energy and new ideas.
Culture becomes a self-reinforcing positive feedback loop when it's shared. Share on XThis concept of “Share what you want to keep” is going to keep expanding in my opinion. Most recently, AirBnB decided to share its discovery engine for others to use.
Aerosolve is what Airbnb came up with to process all that data. And Thursday it is made available under what we call “open source” — a free download so developers can build their own smart recommendation engines based on the work Airbnb has already done with machine learning.
Why would they do that? Beyond the good will, others could improve the platform.
How can you share more of your insights and innovations? It can sustain your culture and feed it by welcoming others into the conversation.
