Leadership Challenges – How Values Impact The Bottom Line
October 12, 2009
Event for NW Business Leaders
Leadership Challenges As We Emerge From The Recession – How your values impact the bottom line
If you’re a CEO, MD, HRD or FD based in the North West of England and you’re seeking any of the following in your organisation :-
- A breakthrough in the performance of your organisation
- Want to understand the magnitude of corporate culture
- Look to tap in to the energy and commitment from your people
- Wonder if there is another way of leading – for yourself and the business
Then you might want to attend this event being held in the center of Manchester on the 17th November.
Never before has it been so important for the Board of Directors to identify, manage and embed the desired culture and values in their working environments and never before has there been so much emphasis in place to encourage organisations to do so.
This year Maurice Summerson has been leading a team, with Phil Clothier CEO of the global Barrett Values Centre, working with NW regional business, NWDA, IoD, NWEO and other regional stakeholders. Key intentions of the programme are to create a values based, whole systems change framework to support the NW economy and wellbeing of citizens through both public and private sectors. This project team has brought significant regional, national and global capability, experience and advocacy, already resulting in the embedding of relevant values in the emerging Regional Strategy 2010 from NWDA.
You are invited to join us on this complimentary half day event to learn about:-
- The new principles of business that are generating sustainability, resilience and shareholder value.
- What some of your key values are and how they impact your leadership.
- The results of the North West Values Survey. Conducted this year it reveals the challenges and potential opportunities for both Companies and the region as a society to grow stronger.
- Plus you’ll hear from two Directors in the North West who have seen their business grow in size and profitability through the conscious application of values and an understanding of their culture.
Here is full information – Values 17th Nov 2009 – and we hope you can join us. To secure your place call 0845 123 1280 or email angela@bluepeapod.com. If you can’t make the event but would like to receive our white paper also call us.
Due to space limitations please RSVP by the 30th October.
Developing Your Organisation’s Culture – 7 Tips
October 1, 2009
Consciously developing your organizational culture is more important than ever. At the end of the day if you aren’t developing it, then it’s developing you.
People are seeking to work for a business where they can experience fulfilment and authenticity. Organizations which treat their employees well have experienced a better retention rate, increased productivity, increased innovation and lower sickness and absenteeism.
That said developing your organizational culture can be a big challenge for the leaders as well as its employees. Here are few suggestions of things you can do:-
• Analyze your corporation’s existing culture and compare it with employees, suppliers and customers’ expectations and perceptions. There are even tools that can measure this very accurately now and give valuable business insight that helps with performance and growth.
• Discuss the existing culture in your department. What aspects of the culture are great, what’s good and what needs to change? Then agree what you’d like the culture to be and how everyone can support and make it happen.
• Induction. This isn’t just about training new recruits in their job, it’s about making them aware of the culture you’re growing and how they can play their part. Even though you’ve made the culture clear in the interview process, so you’ve not recruited a misfit, it’s not enough to think that’ll do. There are of course still companies that spend all their focus on skills and fail to explain the culture and check for alignment – which of course is expensive as they can find themselves losing the new recruit within the next 6 months and having to start all over again.
• Communication. And I’m not talking a quick 2 line email saying our culture / values are this, it’s important and can you just send a quick reminder to all your staff. Yes those emails are still too common, ouch. I’m talking about a 2 way conversation where you bring awareness that this isn’t a band-aid or quick fix approach. Rather an ongoing, strategic process to build a more attractive culture that fits the needs of the organization and that can improve its business growth.
• Have Champions. This is a journey so it’s important to have people who whole heartedly support the creation of this desired culture. Plus it’s important that the champions / key culture group realise that not everyone is going to jump onboard right away. There’s going to be scepticism, even from those who would like the desired culture.
• Momentum and Measurement. Developing the culture to being a sustainable, profitable and healthy one for both the business and staff takes time. Look for low hanging fruit, celebrate what works, don’t re-enforce what doesn’t. Lastly measure. Not incessantly but say every 12 months assess your progress against the desired end point.
If you want to do more, if you’d like to measure your culture, if you’d like to discuss how you can not only manage your culture but generate wealth from it, then give us a call.
What do you make people feel?
September 17, 2009
I love the BMW Joy advert. From a branding perspective they’ve summarised what they believe they’re about.
What I really like is the bit where they say… ‘we realised what you make people feel is as important as the thing you make’ or words to that effect. I even spoke back to the TV, saying how true that statement was – and it is rare I am moved to talk back to the tele.
Now of course comes the challenge of getting that feeling of Joy into their dealerships. Yes the cars when you drive them bring a feeling of Joy (I’ve had one and did enjoy driving it). The dealership staff though never left me even close to Joy; unless you count when they handed me my keys back and I found that this time they hadn’t damaged the car. Fortunately the fourth dealership and a commute later and I found one that didn’t think damaging your car was a normal side effect of a car service.
Having been this clear about their corporate statement then it has to be felt at every touch point. Let’s hope they’re working on this so that something this powerful doesn’t just become a gimmick.
As a leader can you articulate your brand ethos so succinctly, your purpose, do you know how people feel when they’re with you and when you’ve just walked out of the room?
In a nutshell…Who you are, what you stand for and how you make people feel, are as important as the ‘thing’ you sell.
Is Greed Ever Good? – Remuneration and Motivation in an Organisation
July 21, 2009
The business culture of the 80′s put a clear emphasis on personal reward on the basis that highly motivated individuals could transform organisations and societies. This continued until the late 90′s when we began to see some companies traumatised and bankrupted by the inappropriate use of remuneration as a motivator. Now there rages a debate about the bonus’s paid in the financial sector, and the short term view or reward they encourage.
The notorious Barings Bank had individual traders on bonuses in the millions yet in the long term these motivated individuals were not fulfilling the company’s objectives. Then of course there are the reward system’s based on appropriate performance indicators, resulting in the organisation’s success and yet problems arise from the large differential between salaries of senior people and those of middle management.
Wise organisations are therefore trying to reward and motivate all staff so that staff act energetically to further the corporation’s interests both short and long term and feel they have been treated fairly. However there must clearly be in place the link between the items on which they are being rewarded and the actions they are able to take to influence the desired outcome.
A wise organisation accepts that:
• It is reasonable for the individual manager to act in his or her own interests.
• Managers work for people not organisations and want to please the superiors closest to them, or failing that, their peer group.
• Managers want to achieve and will be attracted to those tasks at which they know they can succeed, usually favouring the short term at the expense of the long term.
The clear implication is that an organisation should be aware of the culture at play before relying on a remuneration structure to change performance and behaviour. In other words the management and organisation’s values must be in balance with the remuneration system.
There are 5 major pre-conditions to the installation of an effective reward structure.
1. Measurement: “If you don’t measure it you won’t get it”. There are various measurement systems of which Balanced Scorecard, which sets multiple objectives and is used by Tesco, is perhaps the best known.
2. Monitoring: If the performance measures are not monitored properly or only monitored in a review at the year end, it can give the manager signals that they don’t really matter or, worse still, that failure is acceptable providing all the managers fail together.
3. Control of the tools for the job: The organisation must ensure that the individual is not over dependent on factors outside his control to achieve the performance measures set out (this is the ‘how’ part of the equation).
4. Consistency: Ensuring that short term organisational factors don’t over-influence managers or drive them from their real objective. The organisation must also ensure that its own design (be it bureaucratic or loose) is appropriate to what is being asked of managers.
5. Reward and strategy in line: An organisation’s achieving a clear strategy is not an event that will take place in the future; it is a journey. A remuneration system can be put into an organisation even when it has a relatively muddled strategy providing that organisational and management disputes are resolved by reference to strategy and the “balanced score card”. Only then will there be pressure on the organisation to refine its strategy, structure and remuneration systems.
Based on these 5 pre conditions, there is a checklist of 10 factors that the effective remuneration and reward structure must achieve:
1. Support the business strategy
2. Encourage the desired behaviour
3. Reward relevant performance
4. Be fair
5. Be substantial
6. Be tax efficient
7. Be timely (The reward must take place close to the achievement)
8. Incorporate non financial rewards (Recognition can be as important as cash)
9. Be firm (A bonus lost through missing target should not be recoverable whereas a salary increase should only be delayed until target is reached)
10. Be crystal clear
Transforming the Corporate Culture
October 7, 2008
When a corporation hires a proven leader to revive a sagging operation, the hardest part of the job isn’t what’s seen on the balance sheet. Of course attention is given to improving the numbers in sales, productivity, employee retention and other measurable items. However very often the biggest challenge comes in transforming the corporate culture. Unless this happens early in the new leader’s reign, then little else will go right. Corporations have a culture that was either shaped by the previous leadership or occurred by default. Either way if the ‘unit’ isn’t performing as desired then the current culture is a significant factor.
A weak or distant leader ignores the corporate culture, which makes it possible for divisions to be created between departments and middle managers. If you do a values based feedback on these leaders, often words like controlling, manipulative or being liked crop up.
Any new leader has to immediately make an impact on the corporate culture in positive ways or that leader will lack the power to implement significant and lasting change. Easier said than done with something as intangible but powerful as culture. You could watch and pay attention, but that’s the long game and maybe you don’t have time. You could measure it, find out what everyone in the organisation really values and thinks is important – and rarely does your staff satisfaction survey ever reveal this level of information.
Transforming the corporate culture isn’t tossing out all that exists as wrong and imposing a new culture by memo. A real leader magnifies and applauds the positive factors in the corporate culture and then, by motivation and inspiration as well as example, begins to turn the corporate culture away from negative attitudes. The blend of the best of the old culture and exciting new ideas can revitalize a corporate culture and motivate employees to perform at their very best. You’ll see the fruits of your labour in the balance sheet, your sales, productivity, innovation and employee retention figures will show a marked difference.
Business resilience in todays credit crunch economy
September 9, 2008
On the 22nd of September I’ll be giving a talk for the Turnaround Management Association .
With continued talk of recession, the credit crunch and an increase in raw material costs, many businesses are facing challenges on all fronts.
I’ll be offering my views on the impact corporate culture has on all of this and the real bottom line benefits of building a values driven business. It’s not THE answer to what’s going on in the world of business and the economy, but it makes a significant difference.
Join me where I’ll share :-
Full details of the location etc are available here.
Recent Comments