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#Leadership : Top CHROs Discuss Culture In A Digital World…It’s Important to Begin Planning Today for the Use of Cognitive Computing in Enhancing Workforce Productivity, Reducing Business Risk & Increasing Competitive Advantage.

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Steve Jobs once said, “Simple is harder than complex.” Human resources embodies that mantra where the complexities of behind the curtain data and analytics can yield the simplistic beauty of a great culture.

Free- Home Office

To explore how top companies build winning cultures in a fast-changing digital world, on February 23, 2016 I spoke with these CHROs of industry leaders:

  • Victoria Berger-Gross, CHRO, Tiffany & Co.
  • Matthew Owenby, CHRO, Aflac
  • Larry Pernosky, CHRO, Amedisys
  1. What is the one data point you look to first?

Larry Pernosky, Amedisys:  “Engagement because as our engagement barometer moves up or down, so will the culture and attrition.”

Victoria Berger-Gross, Tiffany & Co:  “Employee turnover — because even though it’s a lagging not leading indicator, it’s an objective sign of what’s going on in satisfaction, engagement, and the strength of your employee value proposition against the external marketplace.”

Matthew Owenby, Aflac: “We focus on engagement as a leading indicator of many potential issues, from which we gauge the level of trust employees have in leadership which is the foundation for creating the best employment experience possible.”

 

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  1. What’s the relationship between data and culture?

Victoria Berger-Gross, Tiffany & Co.:  “Over time you develop culture with qualitative hand-selection of people, close relationships, and understanding what values you can and can’t adapt in people once they’re hired.  We use employee survey measurement, qualitative focus groups, and other data gathering to recognize our constraints and drive new offerings to encourage people to engage and grow with Tiffany.”

Matthew Owenby, Aflac:  “Data is particularly important from a hiring standpoint. We are careful to hire people who embody our strong, individualized culture. It’s not enough to have a technical competency, you’ve got to be a person that’s going to connect well with our culture. Data and analytics don’t build your culture– the culture is built on values. That’s what’s worked for us for over 60 years.  From a value perspective, communication is key–regularly, immediately, and with transparency. Access to LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter makes it easier to gauge what types of communicators you may hiring”.

Larry Pernosky, Amedisys: “We sit on a plethora of data. In redefining our culture, we needed to redefine how we use our human capital data overlaying with business outcomes.  You then view your business outcome differently, incorporating engagement data to form a strategy that truly motivates and inspires employees to grow personally and professionally. That ties back to the success of the company.”

  1. How will mobile technologies and the Internet of Things affect the future of HR?

Matthew Owenby, Aflac:  “A practical view of mobile technologies and the future of HR is that more Millennials represent today’s workforce and shape the expectation around, ‘I want the ability to sign up for healthcare via my Smartphone.’ And more senior leaders increasingly want to access information real time. We’re using more of a push rather than pull strategy, meaning we are deliberately pushing content, doing more things mobile, from an access to information perspective.  Even our internal app which says, here’s what you need to be talking to your people about today and here’s how to incorporate diversity and inclusion in regular touch bases with your teammates”.

Victoria Berger-Gross, Tiffany & Co: “We are continuing to add more mobile technologies in retail, distribution and manufacturing (we are unusually vertically integrated). This connectivity supports absolute alignment between these groups.  At retail, repeat and long-term customer relationships are key to our mindset of customer service. Our retail staff are consummate and credentialed professionals – many are gemologists – and we use technology for on-going training.  We also use broad consumer analytics to understand the behavioral shopping preferences of different consumer groups, which affects how we select and train sales staff.”

Larry Pernosky, Amedisys: “Tele-medicine, tele-monitoring are becoming increasingly important to acute or even critical acute care. Partnerships across technology streams help us procure the best technology possible. A number one priority is work/life balance, and more often for Millennials. Incorporating fitness, health and well-being strategies, such as personalized data feeds from a Fitbit, builds a caring culture where employees say, “I’ve got an organization who cares, and even provides technology to help me manage my life.”

  1. How do you see the role of HR changing five years from now?

Victoria Berger-Gross, Tiffany & Co.:  “For the most part, whatever the size, companies are led by the same number of 10 to 15 people at the top. Data allows us to further scale and be more data driven, especially in the groups with high staff numbers, about scheduling and employee decisions in general. Utilizing people in different locations, not necessarily tied to particular customers in a particular location. Updated, faster customer databases– while balancing essential privacy issue.”

Matthew Owenby, Aflac:  “Accessing information in more real-time, user-friendly methods and doing basic and even complex HR transactions via your mobile device, from any location. Increased productivity and efficiency, whereby you no longer require someone to be in an office to perform a transaction.”

Larry Pernosky, Amedisys: “We will have dynamic workforce planning and forecasting capabilities. Companies will make predictive forecasting and analytic decisions versus today’s practice whereby somebody leaves and you replace them. That will change the game, business outcomes, and even capital analytics.

The future of human resources was summed up by Susan Steele, Executive Partner, Talent and Engagement at IBM. “It’s clear that the HR function, along with the entire enterprise, is increasingly becoming more digitally-oriented, data driven and cognitively-enabled. While this trend creates opportunity for tech-savvy HR leaders it can lead to new risks and challenges for those HR executives who are unprepared. I would therefore encourage all Chief HR Officers to begin planning today for the use of cognitive computing in enhancing workforce productivity, reducing business risk and increasing competitive advantage.”

 

Forbes.com | March 21, 2016 | Robert Reiss

 

#Leadership : 4 Warning Signs You Have A Toxic Company Culture…Make a Point of Practicing Early Detection, Because If you Protect your Culture, you’ll Protect your Future.

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When I took my first job leading a large team, I was sure I knew how to spot a toxic culture. And I was sure that I didn’t have it in my team.  I was wrong.

Free- Rusted Tanker

We had issues (many of them were my fault). It wasn’t long until I was a young leader with a toxic staff situation. If you’ve found yourself in that situation, know that you’re not alone.

Just like our bodies, most teams don’t stay healthy without a disciplined effort. I have come to believe that teams will drift toward some level of unhealth unless their leaders are watching vigilantly for the warning signs.

Now that I’ve helped several hundred clients build their teams, I’ve come to recognize there are several early warning signs to toxicity. And just like our physical health, early detection can be the difference maker between staying healthy and becoming terminal.

Here are four early warning signs to look for, and what you can do to fix them.

Sign #1: Rapid Growth Is Killing Your Culture

Believe it or not growth can be the root of toxicity. Growth is great. It’s fun. It’s the goal of all entrepreneurs. But when growth hits breakneck speed, culture is almost always at risk.

Just ask the folks at Zenefits, the three year old Silicon Valley startup that had a $4.5 billion valuation last year. A recent Forbes article outlined the CEO’s troubles that led to his resignation, and a Vanity Fair article outlined some of the cultural mishaps that have made a bad problem even worse.

David Sacks, the company’s new C.E.O. said, “It is no secret that Zenefits grew too fast, stretching both our culture and our controls.” A memo that was sent to the Zenefits staff banning use of the stairwells for smoking, drinking, eating, or inappropriate physical interactions in the stairwell were just a few of the major red flags that their culture was toxic. Many are speculating that the loss of their culture may end up being the death knell of a company with a great idea.

Are you in growth mode?

Take an inventory and make sure your culture can keep pace with your rate of growth. Double down your efforts to guard culture, even if it means slowing down a bit. Assign someone on staff the job of auditing how well your cultural values are being lived out. Growth is an addictive drug. But just as good culture is a Petri dish for growth, rapid growth can be the casket for culture.

 

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Sign #2: Nobody Talks About Problems

If nobody on your team is vocalizing the issues they see, or suggesting ways of improvement, one of two things is probably happening.

Either you’ve created the most successful company in the history of business and you know everything, or people don’t feel valued enough to think their opinions matter.

Transparency and the ability to raise issues is a hallmark of good culture and a smart team.

At Google GOOGL +0.06%, transparency is a cornerstone of the culture. As Lazlo Bock, head of People at Google, said in a recent interview, “The benefit of [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][transparency] is not just that people feel trusted…The other benefit is they’ll know what’s going on. They’ll make better decisions and they’ll create better products.”

When people feel that they can speak up appropriately without a fear of retribution, they feel valued. The culture goes from a toxic one to an innovative and energetic one. Giving your staff a platform to voice their thoughts lets them know that their ideas matter, which in turn leads to them innovating and creating better ways of doing things.

What vehicles are in place in your company that allow team members to bring up concerns and be transparent? How could you improve awareness of those vehicles to the whole team?

Sign #3: Everybody Talks About Problems

While you want to give people a place to feel heard and valued, the number one toxin I see kill culture is gossip. A workplace full of complaining, negativity, and back talk is a workplace that will have high turnover and low productivity.

 The solution?

Declare war on gossip.

My friend and client Dave Ramsey has a “zero tolerance” policy at his office about gossip. They simply do not tolerate it. Does this mean that nobody can bring up concerns? Not at all. He and his team have a motto: “Negatives go up; positives come down.” That means when there are problems, people are encouraged to take that problem “up” to their superiors instead of gossiping with colleagues.

When there is positive feedback, team members are strongly encouraged to send those “down” to team member under them on the org chart. It makes the staff feel valued, keeps the leadership informed of potential issues, and creates a sense of unity for the team. Most of all, it provides solutions to problems. Sideways complaining and blame shifting not only spreads ill will, it leaves problems festering with no real solution.

Do you have a clear policy on how complaints and concerns should be handled? How can you reiterate that among your team?

Sign #4: The System Becomes More Important Than the Mission

Many well meaning leaders hire, fire, strategize, and conduct business in a way that puts old systems ahead of their mission.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard something along the lines of “that’s the way it’s always been done,” as a reason for leaders making the decisions they do.

There’s certainly a place for sticking to the things that have been successful in the past, but doing things out of habit instead of mission will suck the life from your team and create a toxic culture.

People are rallied to vision and work hard for a mission they believe in. They want to be part of a company that stands by values, but isn’t a slave to systems that block achieving goals. The key to striking that balance is having a litmus test that can be used to decide whether to follow the system or not.

Ed Young is a pastor and friend who has a great test. He says, “Every church is a non-profit, but it has a profit. And that profit is life change.”

If a decision that will affect great life change means circumventing a system, they go for it. But if there isn’t enough potential life change to warrant breaking the system, they go forward with their proven processes.

What litmus test could you implement to tell people when to follow a system and when to ignore it?

I’ve seen these warning signs take root in really great teams over the years. The teams that address them early are able to make change and charge ahead. Those who don’t, suffer the consequences.

Make a point of practicing early detection, because if you protect your culture, you’ll protect your future.

 

Forbes.com | March 16, 2016 | William Vanderbloemen

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#Leadership : Why We Seem To Be Talking More And Working Less — The Nature Of Work Has Changed….The Real Reason That we Communicate More is Because, Today, we Need to Collaborate More to Be Effective.

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Are communication technologies like Slack, Yammer and Skype actually helping us, or just getting in the way? Certainly, they have made it easier to communicate, share information and collaborate with colleagues, but what if all that extra communication is actually preventing us from getting important work done?

Free- Iphone with Gadgets

In a recent article in Harvard Business Review, Bain & Co. partner Michael Mankins estimates that while a typical executive in the 1970’s might have received 1,000 messages a year, that number has skyrocketed to more than 30,000 today and argues that we may “have reached the point of diminishing returns.”

I think just about everyone can see his point. Today, the amount of meetings, emails and IM’s we receive can seem overwhelming and it’s increasingly hard to find uninterrupted quiet time to focus and concentrate. However, the nature of work has changed. The real reason that we communicate more is because, today, we need to collaborate more to be effective.

 

Today, Machines Do A Lot Of The Work For Us

First, consider how different work was 20 years ago, when Microsoft had just released Windows 95 and few executives regularly used programs like Word, Excel and PowerPoint. We largely communicated by phone and memos typed up by secretaries. Data analysis was something you did with a pencil, paper and a desk calculator.

Now consider how Mankins performed the study he described in the article. He writes, “My colleagues at Bain and I have studied these effects using people analytics and data mining tools.” It’s safe to assume that all that data was collected and analyzed electronically and shared instantly with the press of a button.

It’s also safe to assume that he and his colleagues spent quite a bit of time discussing what the results of all that analysis meant. 20 years ago, they would have had to set up a meeting or a phone call when they were all free, but today, they can toss around ideas between meetings, in airport lounges or even while waiting for an elevator.

As Mankins himself wrote in an earlier article, “Today, an algorithm can assemble many more facts about the accounts than any human being could easily process.” The truth is that we’re increasingly collaborating with machines to get cognitive work done and so it shouldn’t be surprising that we’re taking more time to discuss that work with each other.

 

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Problems Are Becoming Much More Complex

Another thing to take into account is that the work we do today is far more complex. Would Mankins have even undertaken his study without the “people analytics and data mining tools” made available to him today? Possibly, but it would have been significantly more onerous.

It’s also important to note that the trend toward greater communication is not just visible in industry, but in academia as well, where we can assume that researchers have more options to work quietly and without interruption. Yet they are increasingly choosing to work in teams and those teams outperform solo performers.

The journal Nature recently noted that the average scientific paper today has four times as many authors as one did in 1950 and the work they are doing is far more interdisciplinary and done at greater distances than in the past. It’s hard to see how any of that could happen without the improved communication technologies we enjoy today.

Clearly, technology is enabling us to tackle problems we wouldn’t have dreamed of addressing a generation ago. To work on these challenges, we are increasingly collaborating in teams and our work has become more social and less cognitive.

The Value Of Sharing Information

In the past, communication was often just chit chat. Valuable information was locked away in file cabinets and, if we could find it, we would have to make a hard copy in order to share it with anyone else. Yet today, even teenager with a smartphone has more access to information than a highly trained specialist a generation ago.

For a typical executive, the effect has been even greater. The new technologies that make up the Internet of Things collect information automatically from a vast array of sensors embedded in just about anything you can think of. This data, in turn, is analyzed through the use of other technologies, like Hadoop and Spark, to help us make sense of it.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that we’re discussing all of the information we now have access to. We can glean new insights, share them with others and they can reply with insights of their own. The result of this collaboration is often even more collaboration, as we pull people in with a greater diversity of experience and expertise to get their take.

That doesn’t seem like wasted time to me. The truth is that nature of work is changing. The office is no longer a place where we access information—today, we can do that anytime, anyplace—but rather a place where we access people. It’s where we can meet face to face, communicate non-verbally as well as verbally, build stronger working relationships and collaborate more effectively.

Collaboration Is The New Competitive Advantage

To be fair to Mr. Mankins, his greater point—and the subject of much of his other writing—is that we should put more thought into how we adopt and use our newfound communication assets. Surely, we all spend time attending meetings, getting pulled into conference calls, reading and responding to messages that could be used more productively. And that’s frustrating.

However—and this is a crucial point—we don’t know those interactions will be fruitless until we actually have them. Further, while it’s easy to remember the frustration of having our time wasted, it is not much harder to recall times when we have come across a random thread of information that we were able to capitalize on by sharing with colleagues.

It is also those chance encounters that often lead to bigger things, precisely because we are able to share them, get diverse viewpoints and mobilize the efforts of others. Increasingly, we live in a social economy with collaboration at its center. It is no longer just efficiency, but agility and interoperability that makes firms successful.

So, while I take Mankins’ point about the potential for new communication technologies to unproductively monopolize our time, we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yes, the cacophony of the constant barrage of communication can seem distracting at times, but it can also open up new worlds of opportunity. That is, if we are paying attention.

Greg Satell is a US based business consultant and popular speaker. You can find his blog at Digital Tonto and follow him on twitter @DigitalTonto.

Forbes.com | March 6, 2016 | Greg Satell

 

#Leadership : 5 Signs Your Leadership Style Is Too Soft…There’s Huge Pressure on Leaders to Keep Employees Engaged & Inspired & to Create Workplaces that are Fun & Fulfilling. But Sometimes these Initiatives Go too Far & Bottom-Line Business Results Suffer.

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There’s huge pressure on leaders to keep employees engaged and inspired and to create workplaces that are fun and fulfilling. But sometimes these initiatives go too far and bottom-line business results suffer. Leaders turn overly soft and are so focused on making people happy that they forget to help employees be productive and efficient.

Free- Focus on Work

There are four fundamental leadership styles: Diplomat, Pragmatist, Idealist and Steward. Leaders can be effective or ineffective within each of these four styles, but one style in particular is at the greatest risk of being too soft—the Diplomat. (There’s a leadership styles assessment to determine your own style.)

Diplomats prize interpersonal harmony. These leaders are kind, social, and giving, and typically build deep personal bonds with their employees. They’re often known for being able to resolve conflicts peacefully (and for avoiding conflicts in the first place). Working for Diplomats has been described as being more fun and social than working for other types of leaders. Diplomats put less emphasis on challenging their employees, focusing instead on putting their people in positions that leverage their strengths so they can reliably achieve success. And traditional measures of employee satisfaction are often very high for Diplomats.

As a leader you don’t ever want to stop focusing on inspiring and engaging your employees. But you do want to ensure that all the deep emotional connections you build with your employees and the level of challenge you create translate into exceptional bottom-line results. Pay attention to the warning signs, be engaging but not too accommodating, and you should achieve great success.

Working for a boss with a Diplomat leadership style can be an amazing experience. (Read more about all the leadership styles in my Forbes article“Which Of These 4 Leadership Styles Are You?”) But if any of the Diplomat characteristics sound similar to your leadership style, you want to make sure you don’t go to extremes. Here are five signs that your leadership style has become too yielding…

1. A 5-Minute Conversation Turns Into 50 Minutes

Imagine you give an employee a highly specific bit of constructive feedback (e.g. “this report is too long, shave off 1,000 words”). It’s the kind of feedback that requires no more of a response than “I got it, I’ll fix it now.” Now imagine that even though the feedback conversation should be done within 5 minutes, you find yourself engaged in a lengthy conversation with the employee about why they fell short, how that makes them feel, and why you’re somehow to blame for their mistakes.

Has that ever happened to you? If the answer is yes, that’s a good sign that you’ve become too appeasing. It’s good to encourage dialogue with your employees and it’s great when they feel comfortable sharing. But when employees believe they can talk themselves out of being criticized or held accountable, that’s a problem.

There are times when an employee just needs to say “I’m sorry. I messed up. I’ll fix it immediately.” That’s not indicative of a dictatorial environment; it’s usually just a sign of an efficient and accountable operation. There are some conversations that should be five minutes and done. So when you regularly feel like five-minute conversations are turning into 50-minute therapy sessions, that’s a strong sign that you’ve moved from approachable to acquiescent.

 

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2. Your Meetings Get Off Topic And Take Too Longg

Have you ever been in one of those meetings where a few of the big personalities just dominate the conversation? They talk louder than everyone else, including you. All you hear are their thoughts, their ideas, their yeas and their nays. The quieter employees feel totally shut out from participating. And even when you try to rein them in, they manage to barge right through and keep dominating.

Ideally meetings are value-adding forums where all invitees participate. Isn’t that why you called all those people into the meeting in the first place? Yet, when we struggle to control the loudmouths, when they don’t respect our authority (formal or otherwise), it’s a sign that we’re not being forceful or commanding enough.

Of course people should talk. Intense conversations can signal a healthy team. But there still needs to be someone in the room with enough power to keep the conversation on track, on time and thoroughly professional.

3. You Regularly Mediate Employee Conflicts (Instead Of Employees Solving Issues Themselves)

It’s troubling when a leader is regularly sucked into employee conflicts. In an ideal world, employees would act like adults and resolve conflicts themselves, reserving the boss-as-mediator for only the most serious issues. But when a leader has become too accommodating, employees quickly figure out that they plead their case to the boss and the boss will intervene on their behalf. It’s actually quite similar to the games that our kids play; whether it’s “ma, he’s looking at me funny” or playing one parent off another.

When the leader has a no-nonsense, ‘suck-it-up’ reputation, these manipulations are rare. But when the leader is seen as overly accommodating or appeasing, these games will be a frequent occurrence.

4. You See The Same Problem Multiple Times

There isn’t an organization on the planet that doesn’t have employees who make mistakes. That’s the price of doing business. But when you see employees making the same mistakes again and again, that’s often a sign that they haven’t gotten the message that they need to improve. And that’s often the result of employees believing that their gentle leader won’t really follow through on enforcing consequences.

I’m not suggesting that leaders move to the opposite extreme, where employees are risk-averse and paralyzed by fear of being fired. That’s every bit as damaging. Rather, the effective leader will find the middle ground of mistakes may be inevitable, but we all must strive to avoid making the same mistake repeatedly. Employees need to know if they don’t take their mistakes seriously, and work diligently and earnestly to improve, the consequences will be more than just a leader’s look of disappointment.

5. Employees Aren’t Learning New Things

One of the biggest leadership tests is: are your people learning new things? Because if they’re not, they’re not growing and developing and it’s a likely sign that your leadership style is too soft.

Making sure that people learn really isn’t that difficult. Once a month ask your people “Hey, what’s something you’re better at now than you were last month?” If they don’t have an answer, follow up with questions such as, “What would you like to get better at this next month?” and “What new skills are you going to have to develop this next year to reach your big goals?”

Give your people HARD Goals that challenge them and push them outside of their comfort zone and let them know that you believe they can do it. What’s interesting to think about is when you ask leaders, “What were the most significant goals you’ve ever achieved in your life, were they easy, or were they hard? The answer is always hard. And yet, those same leaders give employees too easy goals that are achievable and realistic and then wonder where the greatness is.

The best goals are not the ones that sit totally within your comfort zone. The best goals activate the brain and get the most neural activity going in a positive way. These are the goals that are 20 to 30 percent outside of your comfort zone, where you can look back on that goal and say, “Honestly, I wasn’t even totally sure I could pull that off. It was a doozy, but I’ll tell you what, I learned a ton.”

Conclusion

As a leader you don’t ever want to stop focusing on inspiring and engaging your employees. But you do want to ensure that all the deep emotional connections you build with your employees and the level of challenge you create translate into exceptional bottom-line results. Pay attention to the warning signs, be engaging but not too accommodating, and you should achieve great success.

Mark Murphy is a NY Times bestselling author, founder of Leadership IQ, aleadership training speaker and creator of the leadership styles assessment.

 

Forbes.com | February 11, 2016 | Mark Murphy

 

#Leadership : 3 Steps That Make A Real Difference In #Training Your #Team…Your Company’s Training Process Doesn’t Have to be Highly Structured or Complicated. Instead, try Creating a Framework that Evolves Organically from your Culture & is Flexible enough to Work with Any New Addition to your Team.

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For any growing business, hiring is always a process that must remain top-of-mind. There’s no doubt that hiring the right person from the onset is immensely important, but many overlook the impact that training has on the long-term success of any new employee.

job-seeker-3

Training is one of those things most managers/entrepreneurs don’t pay much attention to during the early days of the business. After all, you and your key team members are too busy creating a product, process and culture on the fly to institute a formal training program. It’s only after your hard work begins to pay off and the business begins to scale that the need for a formalized approach to training all of your new hires becomes acute. I experienced this firsthand earlier this year, when it became clear that our team needed to expand significantly to keep up with increasing customer demand.

Initially, my team and I dove right into the process of getting new hires up to speed on our immediate needs. Often, very little attention was paid to helping the new team members understand the larger initiatives at play. Naturally, this approach led to problems. Our new hires were confused about the bigger purpose behind their work, and the established executive team grew frustrated with projects misaligned to their needs and expectations.

We had to change to successfully navigate this period of rapid growth. We needed a framework that was flexible, robust and quickly implemented. To solve for this, my team and I developed a 3 step process for onboarding and training new hires.

Start with culture.

The level of skill that someone brings to the table is incredibly important, but it isn’t necessarily what makes someone successful. Specific skills can be learned and honed over time, but the need to mesh with a company’s culture comes up almost immediately. That’s why we spend the first few weeks on the job helping them acclimate to the culture that make our company unique. Rather than force someone to sit through a presentation about mission and values, we try and have new hires experience them firsthand. They spend time with our customers, partners and founding team. During this time, we reinforce the idea that we want to work with people we trust, respect and admire — setting the stage for long-term success.

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Assign a mentor.

Team members get a mentor who is tasked with making them successful. This way, we’re able to foster strong relationships across the organization and create an environment where people are invested in each other’s success. Mentors are responsible for not only tactical training, but also long-term career development.

When it comes to assigning a mentor, we often try to pair up employees who have had minor conflicts in the past. It seems somewhat counterintuitive, but I’ve found that if a leader has a problem with another team member, the best thing is to create a situation where each person is forced to make the other successful. More often than not, this structure resolves any existing conflict and forms a much stronger bond over time. This process of setting aside issues and moving forward positively help to create a much more balanced, open, and successful team across all levels.

Follow up early and often.

Finally, we follow up with new additions to the team early on and continue meeting on a frequent basis thereafter. This high-touch approach ensures that no one ever gets too far off course at any point in time. I personally set aside a scheduled time each week for an open conversation with each of my direct reports and require them to do the same with theirs. These follow-up sessions don’t have to be time-consuming. Often, they happen while making a coffee run or over lunch. The important thing is that problems and questions are never allowed to fester. By being insanely proactive in this manner, we’re able to make sure people receive the feedback and support they need, exactly when they need it.

Your company’s training process doesn’t have to be highly structured or complicated. Instead, try creating a framework that evolves organically from your culture and is flexible enough to work with any new addition to your team. If you ensure that your new hires understand the company’s culture, are partnered with mentors who are deeply invested in their success and have frequent opportunities for feedback, you’ll find that you’ll develop a more balanced and successful team.

Chris Myers is the Cofounder and CEO of BodeTree, a web application designed to help small businesses manage their finances.

Forbes.com | August 8, 2015 | Chris Myers

#Leadership : How To Make Your Company’s Culture of Innovation More Than Just A Nice Idea…In the #Workplace, Encouraging Creative Problem-solving is far easier in theory. By Taking the Needed Steps to Alleviate any Overpowering Fear of Failure, You can Steer your Team Onto the Right Path.

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Here’s what I Did to Turn our Office Culture Around & Encourage Employees to Share their Ideas Without Worrying about Rejection. – Manpreet Singh, Founder and President of TalkLocal

Develop an Effective Knowledge Transfer System

As a startup founder & investor, it’s not enough for me to merely value innovation and creativity: I must also manage the hazards associated with new ideas. After all, employees who routinely bring novel ideas to their colleagues are likely to experience more rejection, failure and even embarrassment than others in their career. The question is, how do you encourage your team TISI NaN% to innovate despite the risks?

Ultimately, I’ve learned that my personal values alone can’t create a robust culture of innovation. For example, at my company, a social media editor recently started noticing a persistently dismissive attitude coming from certain quarters regarding her collaborative projects. In one extreme case, she was mortified when a project (a stylized promotional video) was scrapped over what boiled down to the employee’s editing choices. Team members lambasted the video, getting it pulled without offering constructive criticism beforehand.

Imagine if that were our response to every lost sales lead or dip in quarterly performance: it would be both paralyzing and counter-productive.

In the workplace, encouraging creative problem-solving is far easier in theory. By taking the needed steps to alleviate any overpowering fear of failure, you can steer your team onto the right path. Here’s what I did to turn our office culture around and encourage employees to share their ideas without worrying about rejection.

Lead by Consensus: Put Feedback on the Meeting Agenda

My team used to email one another to get feedback. Besides being inefficient, emails offered an easy out for those who preferred to avoid confrontations. Ironically, this silence only increases the risk of failure and can still hurt feelings. To nip this communication method in the bud, we’ve placed all projects on the weekly meeting agenda to mandate those uncomfortable conversations. There are now face-to-face discussions about each project, which makes the office a safe space for critical engagement with one another. This in turn also produces shared clarity on project design and purpose while generating ideas for improvement and greater results. And with more engagement comes more shared responsibility for both successes and failures.

 

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Have the Last Word

Another barrier to direct critical feedback among team members was my own presence. I’m less risk-averse than most, yet my very vocal feedback made some team members too reliant upon me to catch every possible pitfall. Given my position and involvement, it was easy for team members to bring their concerns to management rather than have that possibly awkward dialogue with the project leads themselves. Now, my silence during meetings opens the door for the voices of other team members. Of course, I maintain the last word at every step of the process, but the emphasis is on last – and that makes all of the difference.

Make the Non-Starter a Conversation Starter

Most off-the-wall ideas never get implemented, so giving a constructive response to unviable suggestions early on can help your team members come up with more effective plans in the future (as opposed to shutting down their creative thinking). It’s critical that everyone has an evolving understanding of company goals, priorities and resources. At TalkLocal, we now deliver more frequent and detailed reports on our analytics, resource allocation, and where improvement is most needed. As a result, team members feel more empowered to offer informed feedback, and rather than falling silent, they are ushered towards a new way of critical thinking that allows them to produce more sophisticated and viable ideas over time.

Highlight the Anonymous Idea Box

As employees grew more seasoned, I saw fewer of those enthusiastic but naive suggestions, which was a problem in and of itself. In order to encourage new employees to not fall into a similar trap, we decided to dust off our suggestion box and encourage the team to bring up and discuss any anonymously submitted ideas. Through this process, we’re bringing new employees into our growing culture of innovation, while still helping them shape their thinking as they grow with the company.

Today, our social media editor remains creative, recently reducing our e-marketing costs while increasing click rates through better targeting, proving that one success is worth a dozen failures. Furthermore, not a day goes by that a team member doesn’t propose a way to change the company for the better — which makes us better regardless of whether the idea is implemented or not. As the inherent value of an innovation-powered workplace continues to energize and inspire our team, I’m confident that our tangible value will continue to grow as well.

Manpreet Singh is Founder and President of TalkLocal, a home services marketplace that turns online service requests into a live conversation with the right available business in minutes.

 

Forbes.com | August 7, 2015 |  Young Entrepreneur Council

#Leadership : John Sculley Talks About Mentors, Failure, Reasons To Join A Startup — But Not The Future Of Soda

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What do You Do When your Back is Against the Wall & You Have to Either Pivot or Fail? How do you get somebody to feel passionate about what you believe in and get them to join you and be part of your team? These are really challenging questions which you don’t necessarily get at business school and aren’t the types of things you get working inside of a large corporation.

Former Pepsi president and Apple CEO, John Sculley, talks about his life as an entrepreneur and the present and future of business.

Former Pepsi president and Apple CEO, John Sculley, 76, talks about his life as an entrepreneur, and the present and future of business.

John Sculley is best known for his successes at Pepsi and his dramatic tenure at Apple, including the battle that jettisoned Steve Jobs from the ground-breaking tech firm. But Sculley’s post-Apple career has been focused squarely on helping build new businesses and mentoring younger entrepreneurs. His latest book and video series – Moonshot! – looks at how business founders plan for success as they attempt to transform industries.

Karsten Strauss: You spent much of your career in the corporate world, how did you first learn about entrepreneurship?

John Sculley: I had not heard about entrepreneurship until I got to Silicon Valley back in 1982. As I started to understand it I realized it was very similar to the most fun experience that I had ever had working with Pepsi, which was starting Pepsi’s international snackfood business around the world.

I had a small team and we said we weren’t going to spend much money until we were profitable so we would always travel economy class, we’d get the cheapest tickets, we’d stay at the cheapest hotels. We brought in refurbished equipment from the U.S. We had to learn how to start up in countries where no one even knew what snack foods were back in the early 1970s.

 

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Strauss: Tell us about a business that you helped build.

Sculley: I’m a cofounder of a company called Zeta Interactive. We’re one of the largest private marketing cloud companies in the world. We don’t give out our revenue but I’ll just say its north of $200 million and we’re very profitable and growing incredibly fast. We have 350 million profiled names that we do very sophisticated data science mathematic predictive algorithms for that enable our clients to be able to acquire customers, build customer loyalty and monetize customers.

Strauss: What did you learn from the Zeta experience?

Sculley: It taught me how important the role of a mentor is. My cofounder is a man named David Steinberg. David and I had a previous company together called Inphonic, which we built to a $1.6 billion company on the NASDAQ stock exchange and this was a follow-up company that David and I founded. I’ve been David Steinberg’s mentor for 18 years. One thing that makes a mentorship work is high level of trust between the parties. A mentor does not make decisions, a mentor does not run anything; the founder or CEO runs the business.

Strauss: Despite your mentorship, Inphonic was forced to file for bankruptcy and David Steinberg resigned as CEO. What happened?

Sculley: The wireless operators started to squeeze the rebates which they gave to resellers and David restructured the agreement with his large resellers where he wanted to take the revenue as recurring revenue – in the online world, recurring revenue is always considered more valuable – which was perfectly legal.

But the mistake that was made – and he’ll tell you it was his mistake but it was as much his chief financial officer’s, who did a bad analysis – was that they misjudged the implication on cash flow. By turning it into recurring revenue, it meant that he was going to defer when the revenue was recognized and the cash came in. So instead of, say, AT&T paying them a rebate at the sale of the phone, AT&T was paying a smaller amount than they had before, but they paid over a number of months. The result was he got squeezed on cash. He went out and raised cash to try and fill the gap but he wasn’t able to raise enough cash to fill the gap and the company spiraled into bankruptcy.

The only person who stuck with him, who was on his board and invested in his previous company, was me. I continued to be his mentor. I agreed to found the next company with him, which is Zeta Interactive.

Strauss: But you Left the Inphonic board before the end. Why?

Sculley: Nobody wants to be on the board of a company going bankrupt. It’s pretty simple. I was still a close friend of his and when Inphonic finally did file for bankruptcy, I said, “What do you learn from this experience?” I’ve had failures too. We all learn from failures.

Strauss: Do you think you could have offered better advice as a mentor?

Sculley: I wasn’t management, I wasn’t inside the operations of the company; I was a board member. Board members look at the reports that are presented to them. Like I said, this was not a great day for the CFO.

Strauss: What do you bring to the table as a mentor?

Sculley: I’m a marketing person who has lived in technology for 32 years so I have domain experience in consumer marketing and in technology. Especially the technologies that we use today, which are big data analytics – which is what Zeta Interactive does – and it’s also incredibly important in anything to do with mobile health and the consumerization of healthcare.

Forbes: How do you start a mentorship relationship?

Sculley: It starts with a set of principles and the most important one is I only work with people I like, and they obviously in turn have to like me. If you can’t start with a relationship first, it doesn’t make any difference what the business is. That’s different than the way most private equity or growth equity firms look at investing in business; they don’t start with friendship.

Strauss: Is there a trick to dealing with entrepreneurs?

Sculley: Entrepreneurs are, by nature, high risk takers. They have strong opinions, they are passionate about what they do, they will often tell you that the reason they work for themselves is because they couldn’t work for anybody else—it’s just not in their makeup.

Entrepreneurs make business such a high priority in their own personal lives. It’s very different than professional managers who may be there for making a lot of money over five or six years of hard work. Corporate leaders tend to want to fit into what a company is doing; entrepreneurs are there because they want to break the rules.

Strauss: Is a there a single strand of wisdom all successful entrepreneurs preach?

Sculley: The really big insights of learning don’t come from even your best successes, they come from the mistakes you make. When you make big mistakes you think about them a lot because as an entrepreneur when you make a mistake it could be life or death for your company.

Entrepreneurs are also driven by a noble cause and I first learned that working with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. I’d never heard of the idea of a noble cause until I showed up at Apple because I came from the world of cola wars and competition so everything was about beating the other guy. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates weren’t talking about beating the other guy, they were talking about creating an entirely new industry.

Strauss: But Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were very competitive people.

Sculley: Bill Gates’ and Steve Jobs’ overarching motivation was a noble cause. In the conversations we had together, we never talked about making money. They were great competitors and they would argue, but that came later—first it was the noble cause.
Strauss: Do you ever get sick of being asked about Steve Jobs?

Sculley: I understand that the world is fascinated by him and he made some incredible contributions. He was a genius. He created products and industries that changed the world. I’m one of the few people who knew him incredibly well, worked closely with him when he was very young.

Strauss: Do you think Steve Jobs would have evolved into the CEO that he ultimately became had he not left Apple?

Sculley: Those were growing years for Steve Jobs. No one ever questioned that he was brilliant, but he made mistakes there and NeXT failed. He was learning from those experiences and the reality was that by the time he came back to Apple in the late 1990s he was an incredibly different person.

Every entrepreneur that has been successful that I know well will tell you that they learned the most from their mistakes. Steve, when he was very young – even before I joined Apple – was asked to step down from the Lisa group because he was considered a troublemaker; just as he was asked years later to step down from the Macintosh group.

Strauss: Entrepreneurs often try to power through the tough times. How do you know when to accept failure?

Sculley: Sometimes the way you give up is you run out of money, and that happens to a lot of entrepreneurs, unfortunately. A mentor doesn’t make decisions but a mentor can be a reality checkpoint. If there’s a really good, trusting relationship between the entrepreneur and the mentor, if the entrepreneur is failing he’ll turn to the mentor and say, “so, what’s your advice?”

It doesn’t mean that the entrepreneur has to follow the advice of the mentor but it’s useful for an entrepreneur to get advice that isn’t just yessing the entrepreneur.

Strauss: Who were some mentors that made an impact on your life?

Sculley: I didn’t really have mentors but I had a terrific couple of bosses at Pepsico when I was there. But I wouldn’t call it a mentor relationship because they were bosses and I came up through the traditional, hierarchical organization. One of the reasons I wanted to become a mentor was because I wish I’d had a mentor when I was in Silicon Valley.

Strauss: What impact do you think a mentor’s guidance would have had on you?

Sculley: There would have been a lot of decisions for which I would have loved to have had a mentor there to get their perspective. When I was very much opposed to licensing the Mac software, I actually got pushed out of Apple because there were others who did want to license it. I thought it was a terrible mistake and I wish I’d had a mentor to bounce that thinking off of and maybe I would have been able to convince people, which I wasn’t able to do.

Strauss: Do you think your communication was an issue in that situation?

Sculley: You can always get help on how you see things and how you tell other people about what you see. Those are the types of things I do as a mentor for the people I mentor. I’m doing for them exactly the things I think would have been valuable to me when I was in their role. I try to say “if I were in their shoes, what would I want a mentor to give me their opinion on?”

Strauss: What would you do if you were just coming out of college today?

Sculley: I would try to get into a startup company or I would try to join one of the many incubators or accelerators, because the opportunity to learn from other people in entrepreneurial companies is just incredibly valuable. I think it’s even more valuable than going to business school because you’re learning about the things entrepreneurs have to know.

What do you do when your back is against the wall and you have to either pivot or fail? How do you get somebody to feel passionate about what you believe in and get them to join you and be part of your team? These are really challenging questions which you don’t necessarily get at business school and aren’t the types of things you get working inside of a large corporation.

Strauss: Do you think the soda business will survive?

Sculley: I’ll pass on that question.

Follow me on Twitter @KarstenStrauss

#Leadership : Top Signs Your Colleague Is An Empty Suit…Is your Manager, Employee, or CoWorker an Empty Suit? And How Would you Know If They Were? Here are Some Tell Tale Signs You are Working with an Empty Suit.

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Unfortunately, They Lack Knowledge of What They are Doing in Their Work Role. In the Worst Cases the Empty Suit Can’t Manage to Explain the Goals of the Department. In a weak attempt to do so will say something similar to one or more of the following:

The Office

There is nothing wrong with dressing well for the office, but the problem comes when it’s all style and no substance. Expensive suits from Hugo Boss or Armani are no substitute for business acumen. Women and men are each just as guilty in this. Such people could be found in any company from the largest like Apple AAPL -0.1% andMicrosoft MSFT +0.28% to small entrepreneurial offices. Nowhere is immune from this scourge, unless you work alone.

Here are some tell tale signs you are working with an empty suit.

1. Thinks fine clothing is a substitute for brains. They might dress in clothing they perceive as superior and frequently demean your appearance with snooty comments.

For instance: “OMG, why are you wearing those single buckle monk strap shoes, that’s so last season.”

Unfortunately, they lack knowledge of what they are doing in their work role. In the worst cases the empty suit can’t manage to explain the goals of the department. In a weak attempt to do so will say something similar to one or more of the following:

“You know, we do awesome things.”
“We’re the glue that holds the company together.”
“Optimize processes for better efficiency.”
“We’re like the people people.”
“It’s like we forward the empowerment goals of the company.”

 

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2. Talks primarily in platitudes. For instance, in response to “why aren’t any of the computers in the department working today?” says one of the following:

“These things happen.”
“It is what it is.”
“I can see that being a problem.”
“It’s nobody’s fault.”
“It’s a pity.”
3. Parrots the company line even to the extent of unwittingly sounding foolish to others.

On Monday, says: “Oh yes we are committed to providing our employees with the best training in the industry.”

On Tuesday, says: “No we can’t possibly spend money on training because we have to cut costs.”

When confronted about the obvious dichotomy will say one of the following to deflect:

“Not my decision.”
“We are all together in this.”
“My hands are tied on that one.”
“It’s the same everywhere else.”
“I’m doing what my boss told me to do.”
4. Never takes responsibility for errors. For instance, fails to purchase the necessary beverages for the office party, despite multiple requests from the boss to do so. In defense, says one or more of the following:

“I agree we could have done better.”
“Things take time.”
“These things happen.”
“We can’t always get it right”
“I don’t recall being asked.”
Note the lack of “I screwed up” or anything else taking personal responsibility.

 

5. Shows no original thought. Just when you think your empty suit colleague might have provided an insightful suggestion, you actually realize that you’ve heard it before. Where? Likely one of the following:
You made the same suggestion last week (now its being passed off as new.)
It’s recycled from the CEO’s group webcast.
Your colleague suggested it yesterday. The “suit” now takes ownership after ridiculing the idea previously.
The idea has failed many times but the empty suit is too dumb to understand.
The suit saw the idea watching reruns of Seinfeld; thinks no one will notice.
By now you should have identified if there are any empty suits in your work group. If it’s your boss there is no alternative than to find a new job or else suffer in silence as the empty suit leads your department down the road to well deserved obscurity.

If it’s one of your coworkers then be sure not to work on any teams with them if you can help it. And if you are lucky enough to have no empty suits in your team then pray that it stays that way.

In the meantime, don’t forget to plug your brain in as you put on your business clothes.

Simon Constable is a New York-based writer.

 

Forbes.com | July 14, 2015 | Simon Constable