Workplace Culture Is More Important Than Anything Else. Photo: Instagram/nadavshoval Companies sink or swim based on their internal culture. One bad hire can have a huge effect on morale, productivity, and ultimately, the bottom line.Brad Feld, co-founder of startup accelerator TechStars and managing director at VC firm The Foundry Group, says that too many startups focus on hiring for competency over cultural fit. “Many people default into choosing people who have high competence but a low cultural fit,” he writes. “This is a deadly mistake in a startup, as this is exactly the wrong person to hire.” Instead, leaders should hire people who see the much bigger picture, and can truly help a company thrive by aligning their career goals with a company’s values and mission. One of the most influential leadership books in recent years, Tribal Leadership, shows just how important culture is over nearly anything else — even a brilliant idea.
“Tribal leaders focus their efforts on building the tribe — or more precisely, upgrading the tribal culture. Tea and Empathy with Daniel Goleman. The High Cost of Low Wages. Wal-Mart’s legendary obsession with cost containment shows up in countless ways, including aggressive control of employee benefits and wages. Managing labor costs isn’t a crazy idea, of course. But stingy pay and benefits don’t necessarily translate into lower costs in the long run. Consider Costco and Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club, which compete fiercely on low-price merchandise. Among warehouse retailers, Costco—with 338 stores and 67,600 full-time employees in the United States—is number one, accounting for about 50% of the market.
Sam’s Club—with 551 stores and 110,200 employees in the United States—is number two, with about 40% of the market. Though the businesses are direct competitors and quite similar overall, a remarkable disparity shows up in their wage and benefits structures. The average wage at Costco is $17 an hour. On the benefits side, 82% of Costco employees have health-insurance coverage, compared with less than half at Wal-Mart. 12 Simple Things A Leader Can Do To Build A Phenomenal Team. The Two Most Important Words. When I arrived at Mattel, the company was losing almost a million dollars a day, the bonus pool was empty, and equity awards were underwater. I believed that those challenges were surmountable. On my first day, at a “town hall” gathering in the cafeteria, I said, “I know how this works.
We will turn things around, and because I’m the new, outsider CEO, I’ll get a lot of the credit. But I know who’s really going to deserve the thanks—all of you. I appreciate what you’re about to accomplish.” I had just arrived from Kraft Foods, where I spent the first 23 years of my career. By the time I was chosen to lead the world’s largest toy company, I had experienced every layer of organizational life, starting as an entry-level grunt. Most people come to work every day aiming to do a good job (even if my one bad boss didn’t believe that). Now, I’m not Pollyannaish. What’s wrong with recognizing a job well done? Wherever I show my thanks, these tips work well for me: GitHub's Code For Workplace Happiness. GitHub CEO Tom Preston-Werner is on the phone from San Francisco speaking with the cordial certainty of a professor.
Halfway through our conversation, I read to him something he blogged back in October 2010: At Github, we don't have meetings. We don't have set work hours or workdays. We don't keep track of vacation or sick days. We don't have managers or an org chart. Things have gotten more sophisticated since then, he says. What GitHub solves for. GitHub acts like a cross between Wikipedia, Google Docs, and Facebook, letting programmers share code and, crucially, discuss the differences between builds.
But GitHub--like another social network--didn't begin with the intention of becoming a company. "We wanted to make GitHub a place where we wanted to work; that was part of the deal," he says, noting that he and Wanstrath were coming from gigs with a lot of process, rigid departments, and inflexible job descriptions. How to build your own GitHub-ian utopia. It's simple, really. What monetary rewards can and cannot do: How to show employees the money - monetary-rewards.pdf. A Simpler Way to Get Employees to Share - Michael Schrage. By Michael Schrage | 9:00 AM December 13, 2012 A few years back, I helped a large, very compartmentalized and extremely silo-ed global organization launch an internal competition.
Its goal was to promote greater sharing of ideas, information, best practice and innovative processes. Leadership recognized that business units and functions had effectively been allowed to ignore the rest of the enterprise. Significant opportunities and resources were left underexplored or untouched. They wanted to signal a cultural change but weren’t prepared to spend millions — or even hundreds of thousands — to achieve it. The design was simple, clever and cheap: top management would recognize and reward people who demonstrated an ability to cross-functionally get real value from their colleagues and cohorts. It worked well. This “enterprise marketplace” emerged before the Jives, Yammers and SharePoints had materialized as intranet social media platforms. Today’s tools are so much better. Where Culture is King. Where Culture is King Despite size, scope or industry, the Most Admired Companies for HR share a commitment to culture centered on values every employee lives by.
By Maura C. Ciccarelli Thursday, December 6, 2012 When it's good, you can feel it when you walk in the door. Corporate culture is not about great brand messaging (think Apple) or a consistent customer experience anywhere you go around the world (think McDonald's), though these can contribute to a unified purpose for employees. Since 2005, Human Resource Executive® magazine has teamed up with Philadelphia-based Hay Group to identify organizations among Fortune magazine's Most Admired Companies that typify best HR practices. "Don't tell me; show me" is how Hay Group's Melvyn Stark describes the manifestation of a corporate culture. "Culture is not the kind of thing that companies would herald publicly," says Stark, Hay's vice president and regional reward practice leader located just outside New York City. Management. Values in Action. 5 Ways to Make Employees More Productive. Want to dramatically improve your employees' performance without spending any money?
Want to dramatically improve your own performance without taking classes, attending seminars, or buying cool new gadgets that promise lots but deliver little? It's easier than you think. Here's how: Create self-esteem incentives. We all work harder when we feel respected and appreciated. (Obvious, but really easy to forget.) Every employee is different, so think about the type of praise and recognition that has meaning to each person who works for you. Then build incentives based on what makes the most impact.
Employees work hard because it's their job, but employees work even harder when they feel good about themselves. Every job has some latitude--make sure you fully exploit that latitude so your employees can feel better about themselves, both as an employee and as a person. They'll naturally be more productive--and happier. Eliminate stupid stuff. Everyone faces roadblocks and hurdles. They'll tell you. The Real Point of Gift-Giving - Peter Bregman. By Peter Bregman | 1:18 PM December 15, 2010 A few weeks ago was my birthday. I turned 43. 43 doesn’t mark a new decade. It’s not one of those birthdays people usually celebrate in a grand way, and mine was no exception. No one threw me a lavish surprise party. I had a few small dinners with close friends and family.
And yet as I emerge from this birthday, I can’t imagine feeling any more appreciated, respected, and loved. As we enter this holiday season, it makes sense to pause for a moment and think about gifts. On a basic level, we give gifts because we’re supposed to. Underlying that custom is an important purpose: appreciation. But here’s a common misconception: the bigger, more valuable the gift, the more it expresses our appreciation. Because gifts don’t express appreciation, people do. The gifts I received that meant so much to me on my forty-third birthday? Just as he is. And yet we almost never do this. I’m not suggesting these rituals aren’t important. That’s OK. Preserving Your Culture During A High-Growth Phase: 5 Keys to a Successful Culture.
For the last several years, not a month has gone by without at least one well-meaning, concerned employee pulling me aside and asking me, something like, “Clate, how are we going to preserve our amazing culture as we continue to grow at such a fast pace?” I always tell them that we’ll be true to our Core Philosophy and we’ll be just fine. But the truth is, a few years ago, we had just raised venture capital, we were about to begin hiring at a very brisk pace, and I wondered the same thing: “How would we preserve our great culture while hiring very quickly.”
Since that time, we’ve grown the company from 50 to 175 employees, our revenue has quadrupled, and our culture has never been better. As I’ve considered what we’ve done to make this happen, I came up with 5 Keys to our success. I share them as suggestions for anyone serious about keeping a great culture while going through a rapid growth phase. 1. Establish your Core Philosophy, Built-to-Last style. 2. 3. 4. 5. Articles - Building Companies to Last. Inc. Special Issue—The State of Small Business In a world of constant change, the fundamentals are more important than ever In this era of dramatic change, we’re hit from all sides with lopsided perspectives that urge us to hold nothing sacred, to “re-engineer” and dynamite everything, to fight chaos with chaos, to battle a crazy world with total, unfettered craziness. Everybody knows that the transformations facing us—social, political, technological, economic—render obsolete the lessons of the past. Well, I submit that “everybody” is wrong.
The real question is, what is the proper response to change? To identify those timeless fundamentals, Jerry Porras and I embarked upon the intensive six-year research project that led to our book Built to Last. By studying companies that have prospered over the long term, we were able to uncover timeless fundamentals that enable organizations to endure and thrive. Make the company itself the ultimate product—be a clock builder, not a time teller.
Culture Code: Creating A Lovable Company. Make It a Habit to Give Thanks - Ron Ashkenas. By Ron Ashkenas | 12:00 PM November 20, 2012 While Thanksgiving in the U.S. is celebrated with sports events, family dinners, and time off from work, its real purpose is to reflect on everything that we have to be thankful for — such as health, family, material possessions, and general success. It’s also a good reminder that “thankfulness” and “appreciation” are important managerial behaviors in effective organizations — behaviors that need to be fostered throughout the year, not just when there’s a holiday. There are actually two kinds of appreciative behaviors that managers need to develop, interpersonal and organizational. Interpersonal appreciation is the day-to-day ability to genuinely and graciously thank other people for what they do.
The reality is that all of us need affirmation and positive feedback, at least occasionally. In fairness to managers, neglecting to give interpersonal thanks is usually unintentional, particularly for the busy and overwhelmed. To Give Your Employees Meaning, Start With Mission - Teresa Amabile and Steve Kramer - HBS Faculty. By Teresa Amabile and Steve Kramer | 11:00 AM December 19, 2012 It is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work.
-Jim Collins Do you feel that you have work worth doing? If so, you are among the more fortunate of our readers. If not, you are among the many who find that their work — the thing to which they dedicate so many of their waking hours — holds little meaning. Instead, work is merely a means to an end, where people suffer through their jobs in hopes of finding time for those things that matter more: family, faith, hobbies, vacations, even watching TV. Must it be this way? Why is meaning so important? Unfortunately, too many companies don’t even try to make work meaningful for the people doing it. Mike Brenner and Steve Van Valin, of the consulting firm Culturology, talk about sources of “meaning amplification” that managers can tap in their quest to sustain employee engagement. 10 Reasons Your Top Talent Will Leave You.
The 9 Corporate Personality Types And How to Inspire Them to Innovate. Center of Excellence: Preserving corporate culture for sustained growth. I'm doing some research regarding the importance of corporate culture and how to perserve a small business corporate culture while continuing to grow the business. While some may consider culture to be a bunch of mumbo jumbo, a strong corporate culture can really be critical to a businesses success and in particular to retaining top talent.
It is hard to maintain the culture as a business grows unless you commit to it's maintenance and that requires commitment from the top to the bottom. If the top doesn't commit to it, the bottom will see the job as nothing more than that, a job. Committing to your culture's maintenance can be a huge competitive advantage and can save the business alot of money. I encourage you to crunch the numbers; how much does it cost to keep an employee; and how much does it cost to hire a new employee?
Make sure you include the softer costs of the new hire coming aboard - time it takes to get up to speed, potential risk associated with a 'misfit'. Preserving Your Company Culture as Your Business Grows. Over the past year, has your business been steadily growing? Although this is a positive for your profits, you may be concerned about how this is influencing your company culture. It is your job as a business owner to ensure that your employees feel comfortable in the workplace, even as it grows bigger.
There are many ways to help your team adjust, including customizing their benefit options. Having the ability to scale your company to still preserve the shared values and culture within takes time to learn. As you move past the initial startup stages, here are some ways to keep your small business values and grow at the same time: • Keep the Same Perspective. Beginning as a small business, this made it easier to focus on customer and employee needs. At Clark Insurance, we want you to keep in mind that the foundation of your business is your hard working employees.