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#CareerAdvice : #ChangeManagement – How to Deal with These 4 Types of #ChangesAtWork …From Getting a #Promotion, #CompanyRestructure, #Layoffs, to Working with a New Boss.

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When it comes to your career (or life, really) very few things are certain. There is one thing you can count on for sure though. Throughout your professional life, you’ll continue to encounter change, big or small, positive and negative, voluntary and involuntary.

When you experience these changes–you have two choices. You can either actively resist it, or you can accept it and figure out what you can learn from, and how to, leverage the situation. In most cases, the latter is usually the smart option. As Jennifer Harvey Berger previously wrote for Fast Company, in a world that’s only going to become more complex, “shifting your mindset is the only way to not only cope but also make the journey more fun and successful.”

Here are five of the most common changes you can expect to see at work, and how to deal with it so you can continue to thrive in the workplace.

GETTING A PROMOTION

Congratulations! After over-delivering on project after project, and exceeding all your goals that you set with your manager when you started your job, your employer is finally rewarding you with a change in title and an increase in compensation. You’re exhilarated, but you’re also a little confused. What do you do now?

First off, start with figuring out what you will no longer take on, time coach Elizabeth Grace Saunders wrote in a previous Fast Company article. Assuming that your promotion comes with more responsibilities, you will probably need to learn how to master your new tasks, and you won’t be able to do that efficiently if you have to do that on top of your old job. This requires trusting other people, which can be difficult if you have controlling tendencies. But as Saunders pointed out, the higher you move up, the more you have to depend on others. So start to learn to let go of your micro-managing tendencies, and trust that you’re not the only one who knows how to do everything.

It might be counterintuitive to prioritize personal well-being like sleep and exercise. But as Saunders noted, when you are required to perform at a high level, you need to be stricter about making these things a priority. After all, they have a major impact on your productivity. That’s not something you can compromise when you’re required to perform at the next level, Saunders said.

Related: Should you ever accept a promotion without a raise? 

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COMPANY RESTRUCTURING

Very few things make employees as anxious as a company reorganization. Regardless of whether or not you survive the re-org, you’re sure to face some big changes. The first step, whatever the outcome, is to acknowledge what you went through, Neil Lewis, co-founder of Working Transitions, told Gwen Moran in a 2017 Fast Company article. If you survived the re-org and felt “survivor guilt,” give yourself permission to feel them. Then slowly rebuild your confidence by assessing what kind of opportunities you can take on to grow, and whether there are any gaps in your skills that you can fill. Lewis also urged that you shouldn’t be afraid of reaching out to your colleagues who have left the organization. After all, they’re a crucial part of your professional network.

If the re-org results in a layoff, The Muse’s Jenni Maier recommends that as soon as you’ve had time to process the news, let your network know you’re looking. When Maier was laid off from her role, she desperately wanted to keep it quiet, but because she was unhappy with (and wanted to change) her situation, she decided to be open about the fact that she was back in the job market. She wrote, “The majority of the interviews I went on after being laid off came from friends-of-friend leads. Leads I never got before I lost my job because no one knew I wanted them. And the position I ended up getting at The Muse? That “in” came from a former manager’s friend.”

Related: Take these steps to boost morale after layoffs

GETTING A NEW BOSS

Your happiness and success in your job has a lot to do with the relationship that you have with your boss. You might spend a long time building this relationship, but people move on, and one day, they might leave. You find yourself reporting to someone new, and you want to establish their trust and respect, quickly.

How do you do it in a way that doesn’t come off as bragging? As Gwen Moran previously wrote in Fast Company, the first step you should take is to build in some “networking” time with your boss–whether it’s coffee, or scheduling some time in a calendar for focused discussion. This way, you can start to learn their goals, working styles and any new ideas they might have, and work to amend your priorities where appropriate. Be proactive in terms of identifying where they might need help–that’s an easy way for you to secure some quick wins to help them shine, which builds goodwill quickly.

A CHANGE IN COMPANY CULTURE AND PROCESSES

Sometimes what the company looks like when you joined looks nothing like the company you’re still working at 2 years later. This especially common in a startup–which tends to start without structures and systems in place. As the company scales, those things become necessary, and sometimes, it can change the company culture, entrepreneur Matt Barba previously wrote for Fast Company.

The first step is acknowledging that structure isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and simply accept the fact that it comes with company growth. If you feel like there are some cultures that the company used to have that you want to reinstate–there are ways you can do that without needing approvals from the higher-ups. As SYPartners’ principal Joshua-Michéle Ross said at the 2017 Fast Company Innovation Festival, you can create deep transformations with tiny steps. He went on to say that one of the ways to do this is to create “rituals that solve a problem.” In the case of Airbnb, for example, the home-sharing company found itself with far too many internal meeting as the company grew. Their solution? they started filming the meetings and editing them into digestible content–which solved a problem and got rid of unnecessary bureaucracy.

Your brain might be averse to change, but with time and a shift in perspective, you can learn to accept it. And if you train yourself to be comfortable with uncertainty, you might just see opportunities as a result of those changes that you might not have had otherwise.

ANISA PURBASARI HORTON  is the Assistant Editor for Fast Company’s Leadership section. She covers everything from personal development, entrepreneurship and the future of work.

 

FastCompany.com | August 6, 2018

 

#Leadership : Hiring Remote Workers Made My Entire #Team More Productive…One CEO Explains How Surprised he was to Find the #RemoteTeams he Hired Reshaping his Company’s In-Office #WorkCulture for the Better.

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“Want to get lunch?”  This is a phrase you’ll rarely hear at our office. It’s not that we don’t eat or spend time together, but it’s physically impossible for our entire team to be in the same place at the same time. Sixty percent of our team works remotely, so for us, grabbing lunch is, “let’s meet on Google Hangout.”

It wasn’t always that way. Originally at Traitify, our entire workforce was based in one Baltimore office. We had a two-floor space and separated teams by department–developers downstairs, business and data upstairs.

Before long we noticed those two teams ended up forming separate cultures; the space literally caused a divide within our company. We tried intermingling the teams, but new floor members took on the same behaviors as those we moved. To cut down this friction we decided to look for a larger space on a single floor. The company was growing–and we didn’t want culture issues to bite us later on.

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Related:  My 400-Person Company Has A Great Work Culture, And We All Work Remotely 

Around this time we were also expanding our development team, and kept finding great talent outside our physical geography. We didn’t want to lose excellent talent based on location, so eventually we decided to give remote workers a shot. It was a risk considering the culture issues we were already dealing with onsite, but it paid off–and then some. Here’s how.

REMOTE WORKERS IMPROVED OUR ONSITE CULTURE AND PRODUCTIVITY

We started slow at first, by hiring our first CTO into a remote role. This led to the hiring of another remote developer, and another. Many of our hires came through referrals, so they had ties to the company already. And to our surprise, integrating them was incredibly easy.

In fact, we realized after a few months that hiring remote workers helped lessen our office divide. The remote workers we hired displayed high levels of self-motivation and responsibility, and were generally less antagonistic and better team players. Over time, those traits ended up rubbing off on other team members. (Of course, it doesn’t hurt when you can measure an applicants’ personality before hiring them; we build a product that lets us do exactly that.)

Productivity is a top concern for companies considering remote workers. But we found that they actually made us more productive overall. For starters, we’re forced to use Slack to its maximum potential to make that sure our team members, whether they’re in the office or around the country, feel like they’re sitting next to each other all day.

While Slack can be a distraction, it can lead to fewer interruptions if your whole team uses it properly (i.e. not for every single thing). For instance, we have a policy that if an update requires more than a quick Slack message or email, we get on a video call. Facetime makes it feel similar to being in the same room as your colleagues, but it forces the requestor to think about priority level (Is it urgent? Can it wait until my colleague says she’s free?) and ultimately boosts efficiency.

Related: Why So Many Workers Prefer Their Remote Colleagues To The Ones In Their Office 

There are challenges, too. If you’re not sitting across from someone, you can miss nonverbal communication like body language, facial expressions, eye contact, and posture, all of which build camaraderie and trust. But we’ve worked to mitigate that risk by planning team off-sites, work-away trips, and occasional company-wide gatherings, which we hope to make more frequent over time.

THE BENEFITS OF A HYBRID MODEL

For Traitify, the remote workforce concept has been a swinging pendulum. We’ve learned that while some roles, like developers, can work well remotely, there are certain teams–like sales and customer success–that benefit tremendously from being physically together. Still, we’ve chosen to embrace this arrangement that we’d initially just stumbled across.

Having a physical “hub” creates and reinforces the core element of Traitify’s company culture–a place where customers and investors can see “who” your company is and experience the energy firsthand. However, in order to attract the best talent, we also recognized the need to be open to hiring candidates outside our immediate geography.

Related: The Emotionally Intelligent Manager’s Guide To Leading Remote Teams 

Some founders insist on an all-or-nothing approach, but we don’t believe that’s the only way to make remote work successful. Instead, we’ve set explicit guidelines to reinforce the benefits of both remote and onsite work so our in-office and far-flung teams can work well in tandem with minimal impediments.

All our staff in our physical headquarters now work on the same floor. And when we hire remote workers, we screen their personalities to make sure they’re self-motivated and responsible, then we train them to use collaborative tools in a way that optimizes their productivity.

I believe companies need to embrace remote workers, but they don’t necessarily have to resort to an exclusively remote workforce. It’s a great model to source talent, but the benefits of a physical hub are hard to overstate, especially when it comes to building a work culture. If our experience is any indicator, you really can–and maybe should–have it both ways.

Dan Sines is co-founder & CEO of Traitify, the company behind image-based personality assessments for employers and personal career growth.

FastCompany.com | January 14, 2018 

#Leadership : Does Your Company’s Purpose Resonate With Everyone, Or Just Senior Leaders?…If your Own Employees Write Off your Shiny New Mission Statement as Just Another Marketing Trick, So Will your Customers.

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Discovering your company’s “purpose” is tough. Sustaining it can be even tougher. Even if you’ve zeroed in on a mission that your executives love, it won’t do your company much good if the rest of your team doesn’t share the same sentiment.
Free- Boat going Nowhere

PURPOSE COMES FROM WITHIN AND WITHOUT

The challenge is to make sure your entire organization is willing to buy into its stated purpose. The consulting firm Radley Yeldar, which ranks brands according to “social purpose,” gives the top spot to Unilever for its sustainability efforts, among other causes beyond the company’s bottom line to which it has shown commitment.

The fact is that not all of your employees will embrace your new values as readily as your executive team does.

Other big-name companies, though, have dropped noticeably on Radley Yeldar’s annual list, like Johnson & Johnson (which settled a series of health care fraud cases this year for a record $2.2 billion) and Samsung (whose devices, from smartphones to washing machines, have been riddled with dangerous manufacturing problems). A company’s failures in the marketplace can undermine how consumers understand its purpose. But there’s more to it than that.

Purpose isn’t just backing up a do-gooder marketing angle with action. A company’s values—and subsequently its purpose—also come from its culture. For businesses trying to regain or redefine a sense of purpose, embedding newvalues into their cultures takes both top-down and bottom-up efforts. Brands that have seen a significant drop in their “purpose” rankings may have employees who simply don’t feel on board with their company’s purpose, or just see it as another rebrand.

 

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TIMING MATTERS

So how does a brand, armed with a purpose, motivate its employees to also believe in that purpose—even when they aren’t as passionate about the idea? It’s partly a timing thing.

The problem many companies face is figuring out how to incorporate purpose into a company’s culture without coming off as inauthentic. Try to rush the process, and it’ll likely fail. Purpose is often abused by marketers who try to showcase a brand’s supposed values superficially, rather than nurturing them internally to make sure they take root before launching the next campaign. Slapping a slogan on your website or printing off a series of ads that use a new catchphrase isn’t purpose-driven marketing.

In order to be successful, your entire organization—from your newest hire to your oldest associate—needs to live and breathe your mission. If a talented, capable employee finds that purpose to be just another boring corporate initiative, it’s time to press pause and reevaluate. The fact is that not all of your employees will embrace your new values as readily as your executive team does. But it’s up to management to find ways to make that purpose relevant to those who may not share the same beliefs.

Unsurprisingly, one company found that simple transparency can help fend off some of these risks. Precision Software, a logistics solutions provider, recently introduced a newfound purpose into its organization, kicking off a company-wide initiative to get all of its employees involved. “In our industry, our ‘why’ is what differentiates us from our competitors,” says Robert Clesi, VP of marketing and partners at Precision Software. That may not sound earth shattering or world saving, but that wasn’t the point; excellence was simply the most authentic value the company arrived at. It didn’t try to shoehorn in another one that didn’t fit.

“We really did a lot of due diligence up front and made sure everyone, especially on the management side, bought into our purpose,” Clesi explains. Well before sitting down with a marketing agency, Precision sent out several surveys to get an understanding of how employees and customers felt about the brand. By gathering feedback and taking the time to have those conversations, the company was able to craft a new mission statement that arose organically from within. And if someone wasn’t completely sold on Precision’s values, Clesi said management would sit down one-on-one to discuss that individual’s concerns and work toward a solution that satisfied both parties.

TELL REAL STORIES, NOT FABLES

If your team initially lacks that same enthusiasm your executives share, you may want to consider opening up a dialogue strictly around purpose.

In 2013, Forbes contributor Carine Gallo points out, Southwest Airlines deftly used storytelling in order to drum up that enthusiasm. The airline began to publish accounts of employees who were doing exemplary work in its monthly Southwest magazine, in effect offering public praise for excellent customer service. There’s no doubt that this was also a marketing move, but it felt authentic both within the company and without, because its culture—and the employees who lived and breathed it—was now front and center.

But the effort wasn’t just consumer facing. It ran in the opposite direction, too: Southwest also circulated internal corporate videos filled with real-life stories from actual Southwest customers to help employees visualize purpose in action. This helped the airline instill its brand values in every one of its employees while eliminating doubts that the effort was just a superficial corporate gambit.

“Purpose” only means something when your entire company is on board. Instead of pointing fingers at a broken corporate culture, try reexamining your organization’s purpose—not just to discover if it’s an effective marketing strategy, but to make sure it actually reflects what your team values and responds to.

 

FastCompany.com | BARRY S. SALTZMAN 11.07.16 5:00 AM

 

#Leadership : 3 Ways to Know If an Employee Is a Culture Fit…Many Factors Go into Making the Right Hire. Here’s How to Make Sure your Candidate is Right for your Company’s Culture.

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A good resume can blow you away. Impressive universities and company histories may be exactly what you are looking for. A job applicant might say all the right thingsin the interview, at which they’re wearing a perfectly pressed suit and spit-shined shoes. This is the new hire, right?

Free- Men in Socks

Except, at your company, t-shirts and jeans aren’t just for casual Fridays. Where you went to school isn’t as important as the passions you pursue on a daily basis. Every project is a cross-discipline team effort, and everybody shares credit. That’s your company culture, and it’s made your business successful. So no, that candidate, as impressive as they are, is not your new hire.

The “best fit” candidate is in the eyes of the beholder, which means you can define your ideal applicant however you want to make sure you make the best decision for your job requirement and your culture.

When it comes to fitting in with your organization, the best candidates share these three attributes:

1. They understand your culture and core values going in

A candidate should never be in the dark about your company’s core values, work style, its approach to teamwork or its methods of problem solving. That’s on you as an organization to have figured out and streamlined.

In fact, you probably shouldn’t be hiring unless you could paint a picture of your ideal candidate and exactly how they would fill a particular need. Make sure you know why you’re hiring in the first place, and not just to fill a vacant desk as soon as possible.

When you put out the call for applicants, be as specific as possible about what a prospective employee can expect should they be hired. If you’re a dog-friendly office with flexible telecommuting opportunities, say that. If working weekends is common, say that too. Never hide the truth from anyone – if you like your culture how it is, don’t run the risk of bringing in someone who will stir the pot because their expectations differed from reality.

If you’re struggling to envision your ideal candidate, take bits and pieces from current or past staffers and build a collage of sorts. What are the qualities you admire in real people you already interact with every day? Think back to when those people were hired – what did they do to signal to you that they were a good fit? Write out a list of what you’re looking for and find the candidate who most closely matches it.

 

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2. They have a passion for your industry, not simply employment in general

You don’t want to hire a candidate who’s only looking for a stepping stone to add to his or her resume. No matter how specific you write the job requirements in your posting, applicants who are wrong for the job (and know they’re wrong for it) will still apply regardless.

Be leery of candidates who move around laterally, taking similarly-titled jobs in a variety of industries. They may be great at certain skills like managing small teams, but if you value cultural fits and passion, you want employees who have stuck around and moved vertically within your industry.

Enthusiasm can be faked in an interview, but real passion can’t (unless you’re interviewing an Oscar-worthy actor, in which case they’re in the wrong field anyway). When you sit candidates down, ask them to tell you real stories from their work history – challenging situations, moments they felt the happiest – and see how their body language changes as they recount those times. You’ll learn a lot about their thought processes and how their passions go beyond the job at hand and apply to the industry as a whole.

3. They work well with others

If your company requires applicants to submit references along with a resume, are you actually going forward and contacting those references? How well an employee fits in with others at your company is a huge indicator of job success – in fact, it’sabout 50 percent responsible for an employee’s success within the first 18 months.

The laws of attraction apply to hiring as much as they do to relationships. Chemistry is hard to measure and harder to describe, but the concept of love at first sight applies to the application process. Depending on how good the initial spark with a candidate is, you might make up your mind to extend a job offer on the walk between the lobby and the interview room. That’s not always the wisest idea, but it speaks to the power of interpersonal connectedness when building a company culture.

One way to ensure that you aren’t blinded by a great first impression is to involve more members of the team in the interview process. Don’t just pick employees whom the candidate will report to; bring in those who will report to the candidate as well. Observe the interaction as your current employees essentially interview their potential future boss, then debrief with them afterwards to find out if they feel comfortable working under this person.

The best person for the job might not be the one with the shiniest resume, or the longest track record of success. The ideal candidate is the one you feel that intangible connection with, someone who combines acumen for the position with passion and cultural alignment in equal measure.

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
PUBLISHED ON: AUG 12, 2016
BY JEFF PRUITT

Chairman and CEO, Tallwave

#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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