Culture (Page 2)

In: Crisis Management, Culture, Leadership, Resilience, Trust

Synopsis of an article from Kellogg Insight by Timothy Feddersen, published 2nd April 2020 The COVID19 pandemic is providing business leaders around the world with a crash course in crisis management. The immediate critical challenges of supporting customers, protecting employees and stabilising the companies revenue and security is a brand new experience for most leaders. An excellent example of a CEO demonstrating leadership right now is Arne Sorenson of Marriott. Timothy Feddersen (professor of managerial economics and decision sciences at Kellogg School) teaches a course on Crisis Management and he uses Sorenson as a model of excellence in leadership refering to the contents of a recent video message made for employees. “Sorenson starts by offering compassion for the employees who have COVID-19 or have family members who are sick and for those in quarantine. Then, Feddersen explains that Sorenson speaks “with an incredible level of transparency to explain to everybodyContinue Reading

In: Culture, Leadership, Resilience, Teams, Trust

Synopsis of an article published in Root by Jim Haudan on June 22, 2020 Global communications firm Edelman produce a regular report on Trust in Institutions, Edelman Trust Barometer. The Spring 2020 update, shared results of a survey taken by people in 11 countries from April 15‒23. What is interesting is that the survey was conducted during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and government trust rose 11% to 65% (this is an all time high in the 20 years the study has been run). But only 38% of people believe business is doing well or very well at putting people before profits and only 39% believe that business is doing well or very well at protecting employees financial wellbeing. Only 29% believed that CEOs were doing an outstanding job dealing with the pandemic. So Jim Haudan asks how do you build that trust in a crisis? Re-prioritize and liveContinue Reading

Smart People Get Fired

In: Change, Culture, Human Capital

Synopsis of article from Forbes by Tony Ewing Published 14th June 2020 Tony explores personal experience of people he knows who were recently fired, he reflected that these people are some of his smartest friends and they were working for businesses that had plenty of funding (in fact many also had government bailouts). So why were they targeted? In this article he explores five possible reasons using behavioural science. “Barring a complete corporate collapse, smart and competent people should never get fired.“ Some bosses mass fire out of fearwhen the going gets tough it is very easy to get caught up in a negative bias that anchors them to the worst outcome. In this scenario preparing for the worst actually creates tunnel vision and paralysis. Some bosses become slave to the CFO’s budget and many CFO’s hold the mindset that cutting heads is the most effective way to cut costs.Continue Reading

Tough Leadership

In: Change, Culture, Effective Communication, Resilience, Virtual Teams, Working From Home

Synopsis of an article from McKinsey By Homayoun Hatami, Pal Erik Sjatil, and Kevin Sneader Published 28th May 2020 CEOs (and all leaders) need to take care of themselvesWith so much to focus on right now, focusing on yourself might not be top of mind, but if you are tired you lose your ability to be effective, you stop processing information as well and your moods may suffer. The authors suggest tips on ways to avoid burnout and tap into new sources of energy. – Call a friend or colleague you like for an early afternoon chat– Take a walk outside, exercise is a tested way to restore energy– Stop Friday afternoon meetings– Consider getting an early night on Thursday to go into the weekend fresh Break out of your isolationGetting unfiltered information and contradictory viewpoints requires finding sources of objective, trustworthy and quality information. Making contact directly with individuals and teams toContinue Reading

Change

In: Change, Culture, Leadership

Article from SmartBrief by Dana Theus, Published 9th June 2020 Dana explores the Change Leadership lessons that are coming from COVID19 and the Black Lives Matter protests. Its clear that there are no simple answers but she suggests two leadership truths to help guide through the crisis. Stories, Facts and BeliefsFacts do not lead to beliefs and facts could not guide us even if we knew them. Our unconscious bias will always be the ‘invisible hand’ that sets how we think, assess and respond. “The truth is that when we become aware of how our beliefs and biases contribute to how we see facts, we gain control over the stories and beliefs that guide us and those we tell to others to guide them. Whether in a company, nonprofit or a public institution, great leaders do not confuse facts, beliefs and stories; they understand and accept their role in creatingContinue Reading

In: Change, Culture

Synopsis of an article from HBR, by Robert H. Schaffer, Published 26th October 2017 This article provides an important context for management, that in effect to seperate out change from day to day management is actually removing the central aspect of the role. Rather than making change a specialty role, it is central to the accountability of the leader. He suggests there are ways to empower leaders and staff with tools to focus on continuous change and continuous improvement. Schaffer states “The job of management always involves defining what changes need to be made and seeing that those changes take place. Even when the overall aim is stability, often there are still change goals: to reduce variability, cut costs, reduce the time required, or reduce turnover, for example. Once every job in a company is defined in terms of the changes to be made (both large and small), constant improvementContinue Reading

In: Culture, Human Capital, Time Management

Synopsis of an Article from HBR by Maura Thomas, Published 14th May 2020 Maura Thomas is an award-winning international speaker and trainer on individual and corporate productivity, attention management and work-life balance. Synopsis: Remote work in the current world (affected by the COVID-19 pandemic) naturally leads to flexi time. Different employees will get work done at different hours, some will need to work around having children at home others will work longer hours. The downside of the ‘always-on’ environment is that it drives burn out and once this way of working is established in company culture its very difficult to change and reset later on. This article goes on to explain that you should ‘address the problem head-on’ make it clear on the workday expectations of employees and what is definitely not expected. Further provide clear guidelines about which communication channels to be used for which situations. Email should neverContinue Reading

In: Culture, Human Capital, Leadership

Article from KelloggInsight by Mark Zarefsky based on insights from Carter Cast, Published 7th November 2018 Cast, the author of The Right (and Wrong) Stuff: How Brilliant Careers Are Made—and Unmade, refers to people who have become complacent and resistant to change as “Version 1.0” employees who tend to lack curiosity, avoid taking risks, and want things to stay the same. Indeed, in the modern work environment, failure to adapt can be lethal. “You have to find ways to stay fresh, especially in this day and age with the massive rate of change in technology,” Cast says. “Disruption is everywhere.” So what steps can you take to keep Version 1.0 tendencies from interfering with your career progress? Cast offers five tips. Understand the New Job – its important to remember that what worked in your old job and got you promoted is not a guaranteed success formula for the new job.Continue Reading

In: Culture, Effective Communication, Human Capital, Leadership

Article from LinkedIn by Natalie MacDonald, Published 21st May 2020 On this episode of the LinkedIn Video Together In Business, Insurtech founder Ben Webster, Inspiring Rare Birds CEO Jo Burston and COSBOA chief Peter Strong join Natalie to talk about managing and supporting teams during the crisis. Together they covered: Tools for maintaining and building culture How to approach letting people go The benefits of honest and transparent communication, and making teams feel like part of the conversation How to talk to workers about heading back to the office Skip straight to watching the video on the link below. https://www.linkedin.com/video/embed/live/urn:li:activity:6669054004816818176 Originally published here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/food-thought-leadership-crisis-times-natalie-macdonald/Continue Reading

In: Change, Culture, Teams, Working From Home

Article from Gallup by Jim Harter, published 1st May 2020 This article focuses on three key areas In three weeks, the percentage of US remote workers jumped from 31% to 62% Returning employees will be influenced by many factors Your remote work policies and decisions will affect employee engagement A key Gallup Research finding has been that more than half those surveyed would prefer to continue working remotely as much as possible once restrictions are lifted. There is a complex relationship between ‘remote work’ and ’employee engagement’. Employers with remote work options have the highest employee engagement. “This does not mean that high or low engagement is guaranteed in any situation. The right approach to performance development is key to optimising the employee experience, performance and wellbeing, in all situations.” https://www.gallup.com/workplace/309620/coronavirus-change-next-normal-workplace.aspxContinue Reading