From the top of Whistler Mountain, Sarah McNeill talks about obstacles that can get in our way.
Posted in corporate culture
Tagged business, corporate culture, obstacles, video, Whistler Mountain
I think that once viewing this video, actually twice (couldn’t help myself!), I felt happier and inspired to take this challenge on in my own life. I’ve always fallen on laughter as a key part of keeping happiness alive when facing stress or adversity. Shawn’s presentation has led me to consider happiness and success differently.
“ It’s the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality. And if we can change the lens, not only can we change your happiness, we can change every single educational and business outcome at the same time.” Sage advice Shawn!
Shawn’s video shares an insightful message on how we need to reverse the formula for happiness and success. Bring happiness back and this act of raising positivity will naturally make a person more productive than those whose brains operate under negative, neutral or stress. What a difference place we’d live and work if we could rewire our brains to work as Shawn demonstrates. Let’s move the benchmark for average up!
Posted in corporate culture, Inspiration
Tagged happiness, Positive psychology, Shawn Achor, TED Talk, video
Positive corporate cultures naturally grow empowered employees. They typically breed positive experiences that transcend beyond the borders of a company. These employees self manage the vision of the company by treating their role in the organization as a critical component to the company’s success. While in most cases these employees are not shareholders or owners but rather stakeholders that act as if they were real owners of the company. When company’s have outstanding corporate culture it really shows on the outside. And the most wonderful thing occurs when employees feel a part of the vision of the company – they are more energized and they also build more cohesive teams.
It’s hard to crack the code of what mix actually makes for a healthy culture. What I do know is that companies with a culture for excellence tend to have a natural selection process for moving out those individuals that don’t fit in the jet stream. In business, a good healthy culture facilitates an easy execution of corporate strategy as companies benefit from the consistency of shared values to the greater good.
Many business leaders of companies with excellent cultures speak of their teams in terms of ‘rowing in the same direction’. It’s an easy visual and quite an agreeable one. Anyting less is dysfunctional and inefficient. From my time on a high performing rowing team in University I can wholeheartedly agree with this wisdom. Give a team vision, strategy and most importantly a real sense of purpose and then all you need to do is have them set their sights on the finish line. And like all top level athletes, they practice and reflect. As teammates in corporations we too need to follow this rigorous training to stay healthy and to reach our finish lines.
Posted in corporate culture
Tagged business, employee engagement, Leadership, Organizational culture, Strategic management
You’ve probably have heard this before, ‘We need to change our corporate culture’ and ‘our people just aren’t motivated’. And suddenly new signage and new mantras and motivational carrots begin to pop up throughout the corporation. And the same dysfunction lives on. Turnover and poor engagement continue to plague. The machine may look shiny on the outside but the core is out of alignment.
Daniel Pink , author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, said that for the 21st century, there exists an evidence based approach to motivation for complex work. Daniel says that you can’t manage people into engagement. His recommendation is to pay them enough and then give them sufficient amounts of autonomy, mastery and purpose. So the secret to workplace happiness is not found in the carrots or external motivators to do great work.
People in complex jobs, which seem, these days, to make up the better part of the corporate workforce, require self direction. They also find a great deal of reward in the mastery of their work. The desire to get better at stuff and see real progress at work is highly satisfying. The only catch is that these people need to know the context of what they are doing and why what they do every business day really matters.
Time Magazine recently quoted Nobel winning economist Daniel Kahneman saying that ‘when you analyze happiness, it turns out that the way you spend your time is extremely important.’
When work is meaningful time passes quickly. The wheels of enterprise move in a kind of synchronized motion and teams are truly happier. Engagement? – check. Great corporate culture? – check. What better place to spend half of your daily life but in a workplace where you actually feel happy and enjoy the company of others feeling the same.
Posted in corporate culture
I had the pleasure of meeting Lance Kalish, one of the co-Founders of Yes To, while on Spring Break in Kona, Hawaii earlier this year. It was most enjoyable to hear his story of how he and other co-Founder Ido Leffler, took a fledgling natural health brand from Israel and gave it roots to become an international brand and success story.
One of the things that stood out for me was Lance’s genuine positivity and outlook on business and life. While running a new company has taken countless hours, what resonated was their company’s raw energy found in the power of the word YES. This video below clearly demonstrates how a strong brand and message has positively impacted their team. Their energy is contagious!
By the numerous team photos found on their web site, they literally ‘wear’ their brand! Well done YES To!
Posted in corporate culture
Tagged brand, corporate culture, Ido Leffler, positivity, Yes To, Yes To Carrots
It made me sad to hear the other day when I heard a company leader talk about how frustrating it had been to put on their summer function. This person had put a lot of time into the event and considered the interests of their employees to ensure that they would have a good time at the function. While the company had booked the event to take place in the afternoon, balancing both company time and minimizing personal/family time, there were a large number of staff who said that they couldn’t take the time off as they would fall behind in their work. This leader bemoaned that this often happens. Is this reason a legitimate excuse from staff or fear that if they take time away from their steady workload that pressure from management would follow.
I heard another story about how a seasoned employee said to a new staff member to just ‘keep their heads down and never plan to be a minute late from an out of office meeting’. Their manager even said, ‘Is it necessary to speak to your team beyond a greeting?’ This sounds absolutely archaic and surprising to know that this is actually still happening.
Has the economic climate injected so much blackness that the average employee can’t feel comfortable to take any additional time out of their work day? As far as I’m concerned work will always be there. And that’s a good problem. But good employees should not have to feel like they live in the company of a warden. These companies have some serious cultural flaws that need to be ironed out. The general expectation and demand of workflow needs to be addressed and understood that it is ok to take a break especially with your teammates and to let loose a little. Even if its just a minute or two. It’s those moments together that bring the team closer. Needless to say the new employee left that medieval company.
photo credit: Adam Foster | Codefor
Posted in corporate culture
Tagged business, Cautionary tale, corporate culture, Employment, human resource, work
Companies go through cycles in their own career as a company. Through these changes there will be times when corporate culture is affected by the growth. And sometimes a shift in culture is needed to stay on track of this new growth or direction. Not everyone will be on board though. Ironing out the rough spots internally can actually be one of the biggest factors in moving the company forward. Jim Fowler, CEO of Jigsaw has some simple messages on the concept of changing a company culture. Having observed companies in some tough spots over the years and the effect rough spots have on corporate culture, I think his advice is merited.
Posted in corporate culture
Tagged business, corporate culture, Jigsaw, Jim Fowler, Organizational culture, video
I’ve chosen two books that I believe are perfect for summer reading. Both books are not your typical heavy business or career read; and the best thing – they can be read in a very short space of time. Isn’t that what summer reading is all about?
For the Manager: The Little Book of Coaching – Motivating People To Be Winners
Ken Blanchard, Author of the One Minute Manager, co-authored the Little Book of Coaching with Don Shula, former coach of the Miami Dolphins.
This is the perfect beach side book as it’s written so you can easily navigate through it and pick up at any point. It’s a series of key quotes and statements that associate with their acronym: C.O.A.C.H. This book has many inspiring ideas and stories that can be applied to both personal and business. I believe it is an essential read for anyone in a leadership or management role.
Career Reading: Johnny Bunko – The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need
New York Times best-selling author, Daniel Pink wrote this book in Manga format, so end to end this book should take no more than an hour. It’s visual format and strong messaging serves as the ultimate guide to take charge of your career that may actually help you get unstuck and start doing what really makes you happy and fulfilled. This book carries a universal message applicable to both those deeply into their career as well as for those just beginning.
Happy reading!
Posted in Inspiration
Tagged Book, business, Daniel Pink, Don Shula, Ken Blanchard, Leadership, Management, summer reading
There are days when I sometimes just have to stop what I’m doing. And so I stop. Most times it’s because my list of unfinished ‘to do’s’ and never ending priorities have gone to the red line and are about to create a landslide on me. It’s at that point that I try to remember what it might have been like at this time the previous year or even years before. It’s really just my general catch-all way of finding perspective on the situation. Even though I’m sure it’s just a matter of seconds, the distraction is long enough to break the cycle of my grind. My observation: today’s work climate is so fast paced that it almost seems to get faster with each year. So many new technologies, so many platforms to showcase competing engagements and deadlines. Naturally we adapt and try our best to keep up. And because we’re constantly adapting, we sometimes trick ourselves into thinking that what we are doing with our time is effective. When the grind is so intense it is easy to fall into routines that can actually lead you to be unproductive and quite frankly unmotivated and stalled. It’s sometimes best to just stop, regroup, and resort your priorities.
I really like Chris Brogan’s post, Grinding vs. Clocking. His one minute video clip reminds us of what we’ve forgotten that could make all the difference.
Just before I wrote this post I took five minutes out of my day to order some okespor water shoes I’ve been meaning to buy (on my ‘to do’ list) to go with a kayak that is due to arrive in time for this weekend. So in doing this, I’ve taken my time first mini time out. It’s a curious habit I have, and I’m sure I’m not alone, that I can leave on my ‘to do’ list things that can actually help me be more productive and recharged. I’m now ready to look at the rest of the ’to do’ list of my life and regroup. At the very least, break it up into smaller bundles so I can refocus on the things most important to me right now. And as a motivator to getting this done, I’m already visualizing myself on the kayak finding peaceful time to myself.
Hope you can get take a few minutes to get yourself out of your grind. Face it – we’re always in one. Just step out of it from time to time. Feels good.
photo credit: Joseeivissa
Posted in Inspiration
Tagged career, Chris Brogan, high performance, productivity, video
Peter Drucker once said ‘if you ever really want to learn how to be a manager, go with volunteers”. Working with volunteers you quickly realize that they aren’t motivated by the money. Essentially the best way to manage volunteers is to set the path open for them and get out of the way. The most culture driven companies today tend to have some of the greatest success stories for employee engagement. And not surprisingly, the all mighty pay cheque isn’t what it used to be. Nowadays people are far more motivated by culture driven organizations where they truly feel a part of the success. Being a part of something greater than just the bottom line tends to win every time. Furthermore, as the economy continues to recover, it is even more clear that salary is really not even on most employee’s top 5 reasons for staying with a company. Employees at all levels that participate in bringing forward ideas and being a part of charting the course of their company’s cultural quirks and styles set a strong course for team spirit and unity. Why go anywhere else when indeed it truly feels like your second home?
One of my all time favourite companies for nailing corporate culture so well is Zappos. Zappos has an original onboarding style that is almost counter-intuitive. As a way of ensuring employee buy in, they train new hires for a month and at the end of that first month they offer the new employee $3000 to leave! And if they were ever to leave and change their mind in the future they offer $4000 for their departure . Zappos has an incredible track record for employee retention. They’ve even gone so far as publishing a yearly corporate culture book comprised of unedited submissions from Zappos staff. And this book is 500 pages! Zappos is so keen on sharing the magic that they will send you a free copy of their book anywhere in the world!
Zappos stands apart because they actually LIVE their core values. It is a part of what they are and what they do – every day.
What are Zappos’ core values?
Zappos is so inspiring. I only hope that companies who have not yet put as much focus on their culture will feel the urge to give themselves an inside look as to what can truly make them a great place to work. So go out and become your own version of a Zappoian!
Posted in corporate culture
Tagged business, Delivering Happiness, engagement, Organizational culture, Peter Drucker, zappos
