We began our research by asking people to describe their dream organization—one that feels authentic and within which it is possible for one’s best self to emerge. We’ve synthesized these ideal organizational qualities and have shown how some workplaces are making the elements of the dream real, inspiring the rest of us in the process.
Put together these multiple benefits – commitment, creativity, understanding, personal development, trust, purpose, and freedom—and you have created the fundamentals that underpin engagement at work. And we know that engagement is correlated with performance.
The dream organization, then, is also the high-performing organization.
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Rob Goffee is Emeritus Professor of Organizational Behavior at London Business School, where he teaches in the world-renowned Senior Executive Programme.
Gareth Jones is a Fellow of the Centre for Management Development at London Business School and a visiting professor at Spain’s IE Business School in Madrid.
Rob and Gareth consult to the boards of several global companies and are coauthors of Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? and Clever, both published by Harvard Business Review Press.
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While culture was once perceived as a vague concept, many organizations are recognizing its importance. The position of chief culture officer (CCO), is held at a number of progressive organizations. The CCO’s primary duty is to focus on maintaining the core parts of the culture that contribute to the organization’s success.
While organizational culture is increasingly observed as a critical factor in success, the implications of measurement are also significant. To build a culture of measurement certain steps need to be taken.
High-performing cultures have been associated with strong financial outcomes; however, these cultures also have strong employee motivation and performance. Research has shown that there are specific cultural characteristics directly related to organization effectiveness and outcomes. High-performance organizations tend to have cultures that share five common traits.
Empowering Style Leadership: Leaders communicate with respect and lead by example. Employees are empowered to use their judgment to make decisions and take action in their day-to-day jobs. Employees are not present to serve management or reinforce bureaucracy. Leadership is supportive of employees, with focus on helping to support employees so they can focus on caring for customers.
Collaborative Environment: This type of environment is inclusive; employees have a sense of belonging, with everyone sharing the responsibilities of identifying problems and coming up with solutions. These types of organizations are highly participatory.
Strong Core Values: Values of respect, loyalty, and integrity are embedded in leadership behaviors toward employees, and infuse the organization.
Planning: Employees know what the long-term plans are for the company and how to get there. Strategy is well-defined and priorities are clear. Plans are clearly articulated and there are specific measures to assess a plan’s success. Employees know what is important for the organization and what is required to do their jobs effectively.
Measurement and Feedback: High-performing organizations not only plan and prioritize what is most important for the business, but also provide indicators and measures to know whether they are hitting the mark or not. Data-driven organizations is another way to describe this environment. Employees receive ongoing feedback so performance is collaboratively assessed as it relates to the business.
Organizational cultural characteristics play a pivotal role in organization effectiveness. Measurement and feedback is one of the components of a high-performing culture. There are many benefits for creating a measurement-oriented organization culture. The following are just a few at the top of the list:
Measurement cultures lay the foundation for organization learning. Information sharing is leveraged in the organization toward knowledge and growth. Data-driven organizations make this possible.
Measurement cultures provide the way for departments to track their progress. Managers have the ability to track progress toward department goals. What happens if the project that is implemented is a flop? Or if needs are not fully met? Tracking along the way allows for modifications if needed to move outcomes in a favorable direction.
Measurement cultures make data-driven decisions. The use of the hunch takes second place to making decisions based on data. If a project is not going in the direction it needs to go, then the data will validate this point. And collecting the right data should help pinpoint where things broke down.
The Leadership Development Practitioner as a Change Agent
Practitioners often view their role as one who influences an individual, group, or organization toward desired change. The change agent plays a significant role in leading the change effort or collaborating with the team assigned to initiating change. Trying to create an environment that is measurement friendly also involves a change agent— someone to lead this effort and manage the change process within an organization.
It is important to remember that building a measurement culture should be a strategic change. The change agent must set the stage with the ‘why’ behind building a measurement culture, make sure that the change effort is in sync with what’s important for the organization, and include action planning and feedback to keep the momentum building. Involving people who are senior in the organization also helps because they have the clout necessary to pave the way for building a measurement culture.
Identify a System to Routinely Review Measures
Adopting a systematic way to plan, collect, analyze, and report on initiatives in the organization sets in motion the process of communicating and reinforcing what is important to the organization, while sending a clear message to key stakeholders as to what needs to change to improve outcomes. This is particularly true when measurement has been planned in advance to collect data points that will tell the story in a comprehensive way.
When leadership development programs are aligned with results-based initiatives or what’s important to the organization, it becomes more likely that Leadership Development initiatives are easily measured and supported. The old adage rings true in this context: What gets measured gets done.
Patti Phillips PhD is president and CEO of ROI Institute, Inc. and renowned expert in measurement and evaluation. She helps organizations in over 60 countries demonstrate the value of investing in programs of all types. Phillips serves on the faculty of the UN System Staff College in Turin, Italy. She is Distinguished Principal Research Fellow for The Conference Board and an ATD Certification Institute CPLP Fellow. An author or editor of more than 50 books, Phillips’ work has been has been featured on CNBC, EuroNews, and over a dozen business journals.
Jack Phillips PhD is a world-renowned expert on accountability, measurement, and evaluation. With expertise based on more than 27 years of corporate experience, Phillips has served as training and development manager at two Fortune 500 firms, as senior human resources officer, as a bank president, and as management professor at a major university. He is the author or editor of more than 75 books. SHRM has recognized Phillips for his publications and contribution to the human resources industry. ATD awarded Phillips its highest honor, Distinguished Contribution to Workplace Learning and Development. His work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and Fortune.
Rebecca Ray PhD is executive vice president, knowledge organization and human capital practice lead for The Conference Board. In this role, she has oversight of the research planning and dissemination process for three practice areas: corporate leadership, economics and business development, and human capital. She is the leader of the global human capital practice.
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It used to be said that people have three careers in them. Those who are particularly successful have many more. It’s all about evolving. What we start out as is different from what we progress into, both for companies and individuals.
Have you ever had reunion business relationships? It’s amazing how the circumstances change things the next time around. The people who denied your friend requests on Linkedin are now pursuing you as a celebrity on Facebook. As they know and trust you, they want to associate with you. It’s all perspective and the building of a multi-tiered Body of Work, stellar reputation and track record.
One of the great music figures was Burt Bacharach. His role model was George Gershwin. Bacharach started his music writing career by taking ‘work for hire,’ tailoring songs to particular performers. He wrote a lot of flip sides to hit records and was recognized as a consistent hit maker. The Bacharach repertoire expanded, and he developed his signature musical style, along with lyricists such as Hal David.
That is the way that I am with business wisdom. I continually dust off old chestnuts and reapply them for clients, in my books, through my speeches and in sharing with mentees. The case studies become the substance of what we provide future clients. We benefit from going back and learning from our own early Body of Work, assuming that we stratregized our career to be a long-term thing, as Burt Bacharach did.
One of my favorite movies of all-time is “Laura.” It starred Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney. It was a stylized 1940’s film noir mystery, the epitome of style and glamour. Their reunion movie was ”Iron Curtain,” a gritty documentary-style portrait of Cold War Europe. They played spouses in the come-back drama of an unsettled post-war European world. The two movies could not have been so different. They included two A-list Hollywood actors, appearing against type and image.
Some of the most creative professionals work behind the scenes and then later get accorded star status. Many character actors who subsequently became stars included Humphrey Bogart, Edmond O’Brien, Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, Angela Lansbury, Jack Elam, Ruth Gordon, Wallace Beery, Christopher Walken, Cloris Leachman, Karl Malden, William Conrad, Madeline Kahn, Jack Klugman, Ward Bond, William Frawley, Shelley Duvall, Edward Everett Horton, Thelma Ritter, Tilda Swinton, Thomas Mitchell, Eddie Albert and James Woods. They worked continuously and played every kind of role. Well-trained and experienced actors carried the plays and films.
In the music world, singers front the bands. Talented people write the songs, design the arrangements and conduct the bands. One of the great men of music was Nelson Riddle. His expertise became the signature recording styles of Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and others. Sometimes, Riddle had hit records with his own band, including 1956’s “Lisbon Antigua” (#1 on the charts) and the theme songs to TV’s “Route 66” and “The Untouchables.” In 1979, I emceed a music symposium with Riddle as the guest. I produced a documentary of his music. While it was playing for the audience, I noticed Riddle’s hand behind the skirted table, conducting my documentary in time to the music.
Another favorite of mine is Perry Botkin Jr. The public does not recognize his name, but you liked his recordings over the years. His father (Perry Botkin Sr.) was a guitar player and bandleader who worked with Bing Crosby and other greats of the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s. Botkin Sr. played the guitar cues for the “Beverly Hillbillies” TV show in the 1960’s.
Enter Perry Jr. into music. He was a masterful arranger and orchestral conductor. He was to 1960’s and 70’s music what Nelson Riddle was in the 1940’s and 50’s. Botkin Jr. provided lush arrangements for easy listening singers such as Ed Ames, Carly Simon, Sammy Davis Jr., Vikki Carr and The Lettermen. He conducted the Capitol house orchestra, the Hollyridge Strings. One of the most popular Christmas records is “Feliz Navidad” by Jose Feliciano, and that’s Botkin’s arrangement.
My other favorite Perry Botkin Jr. productions were “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” by Shelby Flint, “Love or Let Me Be Lonely” by the Friends of Distinction, “Black Pearl” by Sonny Charles, “Flim Flam Man” by Barbra Streisand, “Nadia’s Theme/The Young and the Restless” by Barry DeVorzon, “Rhythm of the Rain” by the Cascades and “Day Break” by Bette Midler. He scored many films and the “Mork and Mindy” TV series.
Then, there are the second bananas. The greatest art in building successful companies is to select, nurture and support good #2 people and beyond. I call that strategy “the Ed McMahon syndrome.”
Everything we are in business stems from what we’ve been taught or not taught to date. A career is all about devoting resources to amplifying talents and abilities, with relevancy toward a viable end result. Failure to prepare for the future spells certain death for businesses and industries in which they function.
These are the marks of building upon early business activity and moving forward to the next plateaus:
Personal abilities, talents and working style.
Resources being developed.
Relationships and interaction with other people
Ability to rise above circumstances beyond your control.
Timing. Things that were not achievable in early careers are now yours to master.
A rich and sustaining Body of Work results from a greater business commitment and heightened self-awareness. None of us can escape those pervasive influences that have affected our lives, including music and the messages contained in songs. Like sponges, we absorbed the information, giving us views of life that have helped mold our business and personal relationships.
About the Author
Power Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.
Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.
Power Stars to Light the Business Flame is now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.
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What’s your organization’s attitude? How is it impacting your culture? How is it impacting how you’re viewed externally? How is it impacting your results?
What are your employee’s attitudes about your company? What are their attitudes about your customers? How do they feel about the work they do?
Why is your organizational attitude important? Your attitude is everything.
We take it for granted that an individual’s attitude, to a large degree, drives their results. We’ve all known people who have the skills and experience necessary to do the job, but their disempowering attitudes and beliefs kill any chance for success. So why do we think it’s any different for an organization?
Your organization’s attitude drives how your company is perceived internally and externally. It drives how hard people are willing to work, how collaborative people will be and the level of ‘wow’ service you provide your customers.
The biggest driver of your organization’s attitude is your core values. Core values define your personality as an organization. They’re a small set (3 to 6) of nonnegotiable rules that you live by. Most organizations have core values that have evolved over time, without any attempt to proactively define them. Core values like ‘don’t admit to your mistakes’, ‘whoever screams the loudest wins’ or ‘me first, company second’ can become prevalent if you’re not careful.
Your key job as a leader is to create, communicate and hold your organization accountable to a set of core values that define what’s best, what’s right, what’s most noble about your culture. What are the characteristics you admire most in your employees? What do your clients value most? If you had to pick five members of your team that best exemplify what’s great about your culture, who would you pick? What behaviors or attitudes do they exhibit that made you pick them? These characteristics are the seeds your core values are created from.
To make sure your core values are not just a plaque on the wall, each core value should pass 3 tests:
Are you committed to firing anyone who blatantly and repeatedly violates the core value? Regardless of an employee’s level of productivity, if they’re not living your core values, they are a cancer in your organization. If you’re not willing to fire them for violating a core value, it’s not really a core value. Remember, core values are non-negotiable.
Are you willing to take a financial hit to uphold the core value? For example, let’s say one of your core values is ‘Respect, in everything we do’. Your largest client screams and curses at your customer service representatives and refuses to change their behavior. Do you fire the client and lose their significant revenue? If not, it’s not really a core value. Remember, core values are non-negotiable.
Is this core value alive in your organization today? Can you tell recent stories about how employees have demonstrated the core value? If not, you may aspire to that core value, but it’s not a core value.
The right set of your core values should guide your key decisions, such as:
Hiring – Only hire people that have shown that they live your core values. You can help someone develop new skills, but it’s almost impossible to coach an employee to become someone they’re not.
Evaluating Employee Performance – Regardless of productivity, if someone is not living the core values, they’re a C-player and you should send them off to work for the competition.
Promoting – Promote people that exemplify your core values. Leaders that live your core values will set the example for others and drive a phenomenal culture.
Prospecting – When qualifying new customer/client prospects, evaluate whether their core values conflict with your own.
New products and business strategies come and go, but your culture is the foundation of your organization. What are you doing to create an incredible culture of passion, excellence and accountability? How will you impact your organization’s attitude today?
Throughout his career at Accenture and Deloitte Consulting, he helped companies like Verizon, Disney, Polo Ralph Lauren, Chanel, Kmart, Dillard’s, Liz Claiborne and Levi Strauss. In 2007, Mike founded Performance Breakthrough to help mid-sized companies achieve dramatic business growth. He does this by working with leadership teams to ensure they have the right people, strategies and execution habits for growth.
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Last month, we celebrated the third anniversary of this magazine. My article was about the significance of anniversaries as important milestones. I am the only columnist who has been in every issue of this magazine. My articles reflect the Big Picture of Business. After that, the niche writers cover their areas.
This is the second part of the anniversary celebration. It seems fitting to reprise key take-away comments from the last three years, as a digest to apply to ultimate business success.
The biggest problem with business, in a one-sentence capsule, is: People exhibit misplaced priorities and impatience, seeking profit and power, possessing unrealistic views of purpose, and not fully willing to do the things necessary to sustain orderly growth and long-term success.
What organizations and individuals started out to become and what we’ve evolved into being are decidedly different things. The path toward progress takes many turns, expected and unexpected. How we evolve reflects the teachings, experiences and instincts that are not part of formal education.
Take ownership of planning programs, rather than abdicate them to human resources or accounting people. Predict the biggest crises that can beset your company. 85% of the time, you’ll prevent them from occurring. Challenge yourself to succeed by taking a Big Picture look…while others are still thinking and acting small-time. Your biggest resource is a wide scope…and the daring to visualize success and then all of its components.
An Institutional Review is a look at activities that contribute to an organization’s success and well-being. This transcends a traditional audit and identifies factors that already contribute well to the organization, rather than simply looking for ways to cut, curtail or penalize. It is more than just trimming the fat and criticizing incorrect activities in the organizational structure. This review is the basis for most elements that will appear in a strategic plan, including the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, actions, challenges, teamwork, change management, commitment, future trends and external forces.
Finely develop skills in every aspect of the organization, beyond the scope of professional training. Amplify upon philosophies of others. Mentoring, creating and leading have become the primary emphasis for your career. Never stop paying dues, learning and growing professionally. Develop and share own philosophies. Long-term track record, unlike anything accomplished by any other individual, all contributing toward organizational philosophy, purpose, vision, quality of life, ethics, long-term growth.
Niche consultants place emphasis in the areas where they have training, expertise and staff support for implementation…and will market their services accordingly. An accounting firm may suggest that an economic forecast is a full-scope business plan (which it is not). A trainer may recommend courses for human behavior, believing that these constitute a Visioning process (of which they are a small part). Marketers might contend that the latest advertising campaign is equivalent to re-engineering the client company (though the two concepts are light years apart). Niche consultants believe these things to be true, within their frames of reference. They sell what they need to sell, rather than what the client really needs. Let the buyer beware.
No entity can operate without affecting or being affected by its communities. Business must behave like a guest in its communities, never failing to give potlache or return courtesies. Community acceptance for one project does not mean than the job of community relations has been completed. It is not ‘insurance’ that can be bought overnight. It is tied to the bottom line and must be treated accordingly, with the resources and expertise to do it effectively. It is a bond of trust that, if violated, will haunt the business. If steadily built, the trust can be exponentially parlayed into successful long-term business relationships.
The hot new idea is to focus on depth-and-substance…not on flash-and-sizzle. Those who proclaim that hot ideas make good coaches, then they are vendors selling flavors of the month…not seasoned business advisors. If coaching is based only on hot ideas, it is nothing more than hucksterism. Coaching must be a thorough process of guiding the client through the levels of accomplishment.
Customer Focused Management is a concept that goes far beyond just smiling, answering queries and communicating with buyers. It transcends customer service training. In today’s highly competitive business environment, every dynamic of a successful organization must be toward ultimate customers. Companies must change their focus from products and processes toward the values which they share with customers. Customer Focused Management goes beyond just the dynamics of service and quality.
One learns three times more from failure than success. One learns three times more clearly when witnessing and analyzing the failures of others they know or have followed. History teaches us about cycles, trends, misapplications of resources, wrong approaches and vacuums of thought. People must apply history to their own lives-situations. If we document our own successes, then these case studies will make us more successful in the future.
There comes a point when the pieces fit. One becomes fully actualized and is able to approach their life’s Body of Work. That moment comes after years of trial and error, experiences, insights, successes and failures. As one matures, survives, life becomes a giant reflection. We appreciate the journey because we understand it much better. We know where we’ve gone because we know the twists and turns in the road there. Nobody, including ourselves, could have predicted every curve along the way.
Success and failure…it’s a matter of perspectives. Out of every 10 transactions in our lives, five will be unqualified successes. One will be a failure. Two will depend upon the circumstances. If approached responsibly, they will become successful. If approached irresponsibly, they will turn into failures. Two will either be successful or will fail, based strictly upon the person’s attitude. A 90% success rate for a person with a good attitude and responsible behavior is unbeatable. There is no such thing as perfection. Continuous quality improvement means that we benchmark accomplishments and set the next reach a little further.
Professionals who succeed the most are the products of mentoring. The mentor is a resource for business trends, societal issues and opportunities. The mentor becomes a role model, offering insights about their own life-career. This reflection shows the mentee levels of thinking and perception which were not previously available. The mentor is an advocate for progress and change. Such work empowers the mentee to hear, accept, believe and get results. The sharing of trust and ideas leads to developing business philosophies.
Visioning is the process where good ideas become something more. It is a catalyst toward long-term evaluation, planning and implementation. It is a vantage point by which forward-thinking organizations ask: What will we look like in the future? What do we want to become? How will we evolve? Vision is a realistic picture of what is possible.
About the Author
Power Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.
Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.
Power Stars to Light the Business Flame is now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.
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The dream organization, then, is also the high-performing organization.
and Clever
, both published by Harvard Business Review Press.
Patti Phillips PhD is president and CEO of ROI Institute, Inc. and renowned expert in measurement and evaluation. She helps organizations in over 60 countries demonstrate the value of investing in programs of all types. Phillips serves on the faculty of the UN System Staff College in Turin, Italy. She is Distinguished Principal Research Fellow for The Conference Board and an ATD Certification Institute CPLP Fellow. An author or editor of more than 50 books, Phillips’ work has been has been featured on CNBC, EuroNews, and over a dozen business journals.
Power Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.
What’s your organization’s attitude? How is it impacting your culture? How is it impacting how you’re viewed externally? How is it impacting your results?
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