August 26, 2013
Uncategorized
Here’s how you can tell if your company does not really care about a corporate initiative – You throw an off-site. What? Yes.
I’m sure you have good intentions, but there’s nothing that conveys, “Man I wish we were just done with this and could move on” like a good old-fashioned all-day off-site that everyone forgets within a few months. Because here’s the thing…
Anything we really care about, we do often. We don’t schedule it for one day a year. We do it as much as we can. Every day if possible.
If you say you value culture, and you know it’s driving the company, how could it not be part of your everyday process, thoughts, and interactions?
You can tell what’s important to a person by how they spend their time and their money. The same is true of a company. Take a look at where the focus is, what’s constantly discussed and where resources are invested. That’s what people actually value.
Now, do you want to keep it that way, or do you want to shift to what’s most important to you and make it a part of your everyday?
August 7, 2013
Uncategorized
I look for themes when it comes to great cultures and brands. I also happen to be rather mischievous, so I can recognize that quality in both people and companies. So I find it rather interesting that some of the greatest brands are based on… theft.
Many people know that Zappos.com is based on a culture of service. It was a gamble at the time when every dot com company was staying away from phone service to focus on price cutting and efficiency. I asked one of the original team members what inspired them to focus on service. “Most of us came out of Nordstrom, so honestly, it was all we knew.” Service – stolen from a brick and mortar and taken online.
Take Starbucks – Howard Schultz lifted the high-end coffee cafes right out of Italy and figured out how to scale it.
Take Apple – Steve Jobs literally lifted the computers with the original graphic interface right out of Xerox PARC.
Take the United States of America. The nation/state system was taken directly from the Iroquois native Americans.
So perhaps the best innovation question to your team is not – “Who has a great idea?” But instead is “Who knows something we can steal?”
June 14, 2013
Values
If someone says they will do something and they don’t, then the result can be a lot of hurt. If you think of any time you’ve been hurt, I’m sure it was when your expectation was not met.
If you have an organization made up of people who do not do what they say they will do, then everything is dysfunctional. So it’s understandable when leaders want to institute “accountability” as a core value. But there’s a problem with that.
Values are based on what people value. You either value it or you don’t. It’s based on desire. But honestly, no one seeks accountability. We may like accountability because it helps us reach our goals. But in truth, we all want freedom to do what we want when we want it.
For that reason, accountability is really a skill. And to build that skill, think about it like a muscle: It must be built up over time. Take the Zappos on-boarding program…
New hires must show up everyday by 7am or they are fired. No excuses. Coming in one day at 7:05 can mean your job. People would overcome any situation to make sure they would be at work on time. With that kind of “workout regimen” – the accountability muscle is put through basic training.
It’s tempting for a leader to simply declare accountability a core value and expect everyone to fall in line. But the truth is, without starting small and building it over time, everyone is bound to feel disappointed.
June 13, 2013
Vision
I’ve seen it time and again… the desire for growth can kill a company.
Friendster was set to take over the world. It was based on a simple concept – rather than online dating, people could meet each other through friends of friends. It became the first major social network, and now it’s all but disappeared. How could this happen with a huge market lead and a new a team of silicon valley’s best and brightest?
As Friendster grew, the site’s founder saw the site load time was getting slower. The board didn’t think much of it because it was not a long page load delay. But where there’s smoke there’s fire. The founder pushed for resources to fix it, but the board was obsessed with growth, partnerships and revenue models. By the time it was a full blown fire (a 10-second page delay that had everyone running to Myspace), it was too late. Friendster became a ghost town.
It’s easy for a company to get drunk on growth. It’s fun, everyone feels good, the momentum is amazing. But when you’re drunk, your senses are impaired. And God knows how awful it can be when someone believes their senses are still in tact, and steps into a car. You may have driven correctly a thousand other times. But one disconnected moment could end it all.
Leaders are at the wheel of the company and the best leaders consistently look out for smoke (to mix metaphors!). Take Richard Branson. This CEO of Virgin meticulously reads complaint after complaint. And he loves it. He’s cultivated a sheer joy in tackling problems in customer service. But unfortunately many companies are looking to reduce customer service. They want to spend less. And most company leaders feel they can’t be bothered with trivial customer complaints.
Customer service is only one example of how the wheels can fly off the machine when it’s running faster than the frame can handle. But whatever the area, it’s in the tiny details. Big vision is what guides the company, but the smallest errors are where the mighty fall.
