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Category: Management

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Best Practices Health and Wellness Human Resources Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

Handling Conflict with Class

Potential conflict lurks around every corner. Over the weekend, I found a surprise in my inbox, which turned into a good lesson in two-way diplomacy and proactive problem solving.

It was an email from Jeff Hayzlett, co-founder and chairman of the C-Suite Network and the Hero Club. He was responding to a couple of questions I had asked, and at the bottom was the following comment:

“On a side note— I got feedback that when asked you had mentioned that the experience with Hero was not good— so was that wrong feedback or is this [program you are putting together] another run to make it work?”

I’m not sure which dropped further – my jaw or the pit of my stomach.

These are the kinds of scenarios that tend to trigger people’s fight-or-flight reflex. They either run away in embarrassment – even if the allegations aren’t true – or they react angrily and defensively, neither of which is conducive to productive discussion and problem solving.

My mind raced, simultaneously trying to figure out who had given him that “feedback” and what on earth I had said to that person that would have left the impression that I had a negative overall experience with the organization. Plus, I didn’t want some misrepresentation to tarnish my relationship with Jeff and the C-Suite Network.

However, one thing I did notice was how he chose to bring it up to me. On the one hand, he didn’t passive-aggressively write me off and give me the silent treatment, leaving me completely in the dark, but he also he didn’t attack me with accusations. After all, upon hearing that kind of rumor through the grapevine, most people’s reflex would probably have started with “WTF?!”

Instead, he neutrally and unemotionally stated the nature of the information he had received. There was no direct accusation, insult, or attack. He then equally objectively asked if what he’d heard was accurate (it wasn’t), and made an effort to try to understand my current position, giving me the benefit of the doubt and a chance to give my side and set the record straight.

What mattered most to me was to maintain that tone throughout the exchange, however long it took, in order to get to the bottom of things while keeping our relationship intact.

I responded showing my surprise, and wanting to set the record straight, while indicating my continued support for the organization and mending any fences that may have been damaged:

“??? I have no recollection of saying that. Can I ask what the context was?  Be good to know who that came from, not for gossip, just for context. And if I can reach out to clarify to them I’d be happy to. I want to promote HC, not disparage.”

Although he didn’t reply directly to my email, we saw each other the next day at the C-Suite Network Thought Summit in New York, which he had organized. I approached him first.

Knowing that if our roles were reversed, I would have felt betrayed upon hearing such a report, I apologized for any potential miscommunication on my part, and repeated the request for more information to try to figure out where things got lost in translation.

The story he received was that I had sent an email responding to an invitation his team had sent me about speaking on his panel, allegedly saying I didn’t want to because I’d had a bad experience with the Hero Club. This already sounded odd to me, because I love being on stage at his events (heck, at just about any event), and we both get great feedback afterwards, but I wanted to see what I had written.

I took a moment to scroll through every email I had sent to him or his team in the past few weeks, and the only one I found that remotely addressed the issue was a response I had sent to the original invitation saying that (a) I’d love to; (b) in full transparency I couldn’t address [XYZ] exactly as requested and explained why, but (c) suggested another angle from which I could approach the topic, and asked if that would work instead.

I showed him the message, and wanting to confirm that he hadn’t inferred something unpredictable from it, I asked him sincerely if it sounded like I had declined the invitation.

“No,” he agreed unequivocally.

“Does it sound like my reasons for [XYZ] implied that my experience with the Hero Club was not good?”

Again, he shook his head and said, “No.”

I also pointed to the thread and showed him that I had not received a response regarding whether or not my alternative solution was an acceptable one. I wasn’t trying to be antagonistic, or throw anyone else under the bus. I simply wanted to show where my current understanding of the situation ended, and hopefully restore my reputation with him, not at anyone else’s expense, which I also stated outright.

What was important in the exchange was that we both kept objective and neutral in word, tone and body language, and shared what information we had with each other, staying open-minded and seeking mutual understanding, all of which is critical to problem solving.

A little while later, he came back to me after a bit of his own digging and shared what he had discovered regarding what had fallen through the cracks on his end as well. I was relieved, knowing that my reputation and our relationship had been restored, which was my main priority, regardless of whether or not I had a formal speaking role at the event.

He said to me, “(when I realized what happened), I told my team, fix this.”

Sure enough, a little while later we were both on stage together. And truthfully, I think the result was even better than what either of us had originally envisioned.

But what made the greatest impression on me was how powerfully smooth the process was. At the end of the day, I asked him how he’d feel if I blogged about the experience and how we worked through it. He nodded. “Go for it.”

When both parties address concerns directly but diplomatically, share all relevant information, listen openly, take responsibility for whatever went wrong on their respective side, and collectively seek to find a remedy, that’s where positive change occurs.

******

Do you struggle with how to navigate conflict, or know someone who does? Contact me at laura@vocalimpactproductions.com or click here to set up a 20-minute focus call to discuss it with me personally.

 

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Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development Technology

How to Create a Productive Cybersecurity Team

This is part three of a six-part series for leaders of cybersecurity teams who want to create a high performance team. To start from the beginning read The Importance of a High Performance Cybersecurity Team and Protecting Your Organization through Engagement of Your Cybersecurity Team.

Throughout this series we are talking about the EPICC model for high performance and the 5-Pillars – Engagement, Productivity, Integrity, Collaboration and Communication. Today is all about Productivity.

When it comes to your cybersecurity team productivity is essential. There is typically more to do than most teams have time for and this team is your organization’s frontline defense against cyber attacks and internal threats. In the last article we talked about engagement in and I want to clarify that just because an employee is engaged, does not mean they are productive. Engagement is a great first step, but engaged does not equal productive.

Being productive means getting the tasks done that have an impact to the team meeting their goals and deadlines and an impact to the bigger picture and organizational goals. The way you are going to help empower your cybersecurity team to be more productive is by getting rid of the idea of time management and to start talking about priority management.

Priority management is a clear understanding of what each person on the team should say yes to and what they should no to. And as their leader this applies to you too.

You will need to work with each individual on your team to help them determine what their priorities are. This is important because if you have more than three priorities you have none – a priority is something that is more important than something else – and if everything is deemed a priority then nothing is actually a priority. This is about looking at the entire team, determining what the team’s priorities are and then breaking those down into individual responsibilities and tasks.

You may find a lot of tasks need to be done and that they all support the priorities of the team. That means you need to clearly identifying what is most important and what is least important and which tasks support which priorities. It is allowing members of your team to say no to requests on their time that do not support one of their three priorities.

As tasks get completed, organizational goals change, or new projects are initiated the priorities will change. Until that time, the priorities you set with each person is their focus and their guide for what they should say yes to and what they should say no to. But in order for them to say no to requests they need to know you support that action and the best way to accomplish saying no.

It’s about empowering them to determine if something supports a priority or not and the freedom to come to you and let you know that by saying yes to this new request something else on their priority list is not getting done.

We all have the same number of hours in the day and when they get filled with tasks that do not support the big picture or do not fall into the category of priority, the big projects don’t get done, or don’t get done well, on time or on budget.

Another big time suck is what people like to call multi-tasking. To read about this in its entirety check out The Dirtiest Word in Business.

The intent here is understand that that there is no such thing as multitasking the way we use the term. Our human brain does not allow for it, we are not built for doing two different cognitive activities at the same time. You are not multitasking you are switching between tasks. You might be doing this quickly, but you are missing out on details and losing efficiency every time you do it. Think about any time you have had to ask someone to repeat themselves because you missed what they said while you were “multitasking” and reading or writing an email while you were supposed to be listening to a conference call. We have all done it and we have all had it happen to us. The point is that we miss critical details, prolong meetings, and lose productivity when we are task switching.

If you want more productive employees and a high performance team you want your cybersecurity team to single task. That is one thing at a time. Even if that task is only planned for 10 minutes, during those 10 minutes they are laser focused on the task without distraction. Teach your team to block time for their tasks and projects and during that time they are focused on the task and nothing else. That means they don’t check email, don’t answer text messages, don’t answer the phone, don’t surf the web, and don’t stop to have a conversation about anything else.

This will take practice because in the world we live in we are currently bombarded with a lot of information all at the same time and we have spent a lot of time thinking that we are great multitaskers.

Start the conversation and discuss priorities and multitasking with your team and with some practice and diligence you will start to see more productivity. Couple that with increased engagement that we discussed in the last article and you are really onto something great.

For more information or help getting the conversation started email sharon@c-suiteresults to discuss resources. Visit www.c-suiteresults.com or listen to C-Suite Success Radio for more topics that will elevate your results.

 

 

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Entrepreneurship Management Personal Development

How Employee Engagement Can Be Smothered by Compensation, Compliance, and Corporate Structure

Today’s C-Suiters search for ways to enhance empowerment, employee engagement, and entrepreneurial culture. They can say they want a more innovative, entrepreneurial environment, but they need the tools to get there.

Our book, The Entrepreneurial Culture, 23 Ways to Engage and Empower Your People, is a companion to our New York Times Best Seller, The Barefoot Spirit, which gives you what you need to foster a dynamic, constructive, and progressive corporate culture. The Entrepreneurial Culture speaks to corporations, giving them successful entrepreneurial tools to engage their employees.

Developing a new corporate structure from scratch isn’t necessary—these tools can benefit a company’s present structure. In order for these tools to be successful, changes must start from the top, and tip-top management must be eager to make those changes. But, a common trait of many C-Suiters is that they are terrified of change. A C-Suiter might think that change will result in legal issues, wasted money, or an employee rebellion. What they might not realize is that they can prevent employee empowerment and engagement by praising the three sacred corporate cows.

1. Compensation: Salary is the most popular method of compensation among corporations. But salary does not pay for performance—it pays for attendance. With salaried pay, a raise is not personal. It’s not based on accomplishments, good ideas, or profits; instead, it’s based on tenure. Why should an employee care what they accomplished this week if their paycheck will look the same as it did last week? This teaches employees that they are unappreciated—they are not respectable assets to the company. Two or more employees might be paid the same salary if they do the same work. So, why would either of them put in extra effort when it won’t be acknowledged? These people will leave to find employment that pays in line with production. Who can blame them? How can an employee work to their potential if the company’s compensation plan holds them back?

2. Corporate Structure: Most companies operate in a pyramid shape, functioning from the top down. Within the company pyramid are several smaller pyramids. Each small pyramid ferociously defends itself from the other small pyramids, creating an environment susceptible to turf wars. This jagged structure can prevent great ideas from moving upward, potentially stifling any chance of real breakthrough. It’s tough to expect employee engagement when their ideas will be forgotten, withheld, or altered. How can anyone feel comfortable coming up with resolutions for other departments’ challenges if they are seen as forbidden territory.

3. Compliance: Compliance is designed to mitigate liability. Instead of finding reasons why things should be done, the legal department finds reasons why they shouldn’t be. Compliance is not a quick process—it creates a backlog, and employees know it. This alone can discourage them from proposing new solutions and ideas. Since the legal department is paid by the hour, they have an interest in running everything through compliance. Some legal departments go as far as to discourage public recognition for good work, fearing it could be used against the company in a legal dispute. What these legal departments fail to understand is that public acknowledgement encourages positive production, sets a standard for appreciation, and creates a respectful environment.

Want to discover how to achieve entrepreneurial culture by rounding up the sacred cows and removing the element of fear? Come back soon!

For more, read on: http://csnetworkadvis.staging.wpengine.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

 

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Entrepreneurship Management Women In Business

Putting the R.A.P. in Rapport – Mastering the Art of High Power Communication

Imagine hearing a conversation in a foreign language and immediately being able to understand what is said and communicate effectively in that language. How powerful would that be?  I’ve always had a secret fantasy of being able to do that. One of my favorite fictional characters is Lieutenant Commander Hoshi Sato, the Human Linguist from Star Trek Enterprise whose superpower is her ability to instantly connect with anyone.   I have always wanted to be it just like her.

Granted, speaking Klingon or Vulcan isn’t essential in the business world, or for that matter on planet Earth; yet the gift of being able to communicate effectively with anyone, at any time, in any given situation is extremely valuable.

Whether you have a product or a service, you are in sales. One of the biggest mistakes that people make in offering their products and services is working hard to sell something when there is no need or no perceived value.  When it comes to sales, proper communication is essential and can make all the difference between closing the deal or walking away empty handed.

What if you can look at your sales process in a completely different fashion? What if you were connecting to people and offering them solutions to their pain, suffering, and problems?

Delivering your message is more than just what you say. It is how you say what you say, when you say it, and why you say it and who you are when you deliver your message.

Whether in a one-on-one situation, on a stage or in writing, high power communication is an essential key to High Performance. It is a topic that I review with my clients both in sales and in relationships. Raising the level of your communication will deepen your connection with people and enhance your relationships, leading to higher affinity and increased sales.

Aside from choosing the proper target market, it is essential to make a connection with them. People want to feel valued and appreciated. Who do you do business with? People you like and care about. If you want people to do business with you, wouldn’t it help if they felt that you cared about them?  Show them you care, get to know them a bit, and build rapport.

We all have our own unique way of connecting and building rapport; look at it as your personal “Rap”. Most often it comes naturally and you don’t put much thought behind it. What if you made it intentional in order to uplevel your game and improve your results?

Let’s look at the strategy behind Putting the R.A.P. in Rapport.

R- Relate to Your Audience

A- Active Listening

P- Present Your Solution

R-Relate to Your Audience
 Your physiology and body language can help you make a connection. Keep your body open and your posture nonthreatening, give the other person proper personal space. Help them feel at ease. Remember like attracts like and connects to like.
Pay attention to your voice. Are your tone, volume, and pitch similar to your customer or audience?    How about your energy? Are you excited about making a new connection and the possibility of helping someone without overpowering them?

Are you speaking their language? Are you using terms that they can understand? One of the biggest mistakes is getting too technical by using professional jargon with someone who really doesn’t care.

A- Active Listening
What is behind the words? Are you truly listening to your audience? What are they asking for? Are they hesitant, do they have reservations? Remember, people will buy what they value and what they want, not necessarily what they need. They look for a solution to the problem, a relief for their pain or suffering. Are you listening to them and speaking their language?

Understanding your customers’ primary mode of communication will help you better relate to them. You can figure out their communication mode by listening to the words they use to describe things. People fall into the categories of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. In other words, some are more comfortable with seeing things, some need to hear things, and some need to feel things. Your primary mode of communication is the language in which you process information and connect to others.

Once you have successfully related to your customer or your audience, and actively listened to their problem, you can move to the third and final step by offering and presenting your solution.

P- Present Your Solution

People want solutions.  They want to know what is in it for them. They want to know that things will work and the problems will be resolved. Push a sale on them, and they will walk the other way. By using high power communication, you can connect with them, listen to them, identify their problem, and offer them a solution that will change their life.
Once the need and value have been established by understanding the problem, offering a solution is an easy process. Wouldn’t you give a fresh towel to someone who’s soaking wet? All they need is to dry off. You wouldn’t want to sell them Cologne, would you?

Effective communication in any situation is a combination of several actions. It is always a matter of having a good R.A.P.  Listening alone won’t build a good dialogue. However, when you listen and truly hear the other person, you have the ability to build better rapport with them. We all have the need to know we have a voice and are being heard. Practice all three aspects of communication and challenge yourself to master them. When you do that, you will build trust and a great following, and you will create loyal customers who will come back for more!

 

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Personal Development Women In Business

Understand Before Seeking to be Understood

 

In your negotiations, how much attention to you give to really understanding the needs, wants, and desires of the other negotiator? Do you understand why he’s really negotiating with you per the mindset he possesses, his values, his sources of motivation? A lot of negotiators don’t really understand the mindset of the opposing negotiator and thus, they lead themselves down a path that infuses the negotiation with more angst than what otherwise might be the case.

In your future negotiations, be more mindful of the mindset of the other negotiator. Seek to understand him before you seek to be understood by him.

www.TheMasterNegotiator.com

 

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Growth Management Personal Development Women In Business

The Other Side of Sexual Harassment

A lot of women who are employed outside the home have been sexually harassed at work.  It happens in every industry. Men are inappropriately touching, speaking, or wanting sexual activity from a woman.  Whether he’s her boss or someone she works alongside, women deal with uncomfortable and sleazy advances.  Undoubtedly, the thought of losing her job crosses her mind.

When the advances come from a boss, women have to think what it will do to her career. Will she get passed over for a promotion, receive a poor review, or lose her job. Advances from a co-worker cause a woman to worry that others will hear about it, ruining her reputation, or separating her from the team.

In Hollywood, it’s no surprise this has been happening. We’ve heard stories of couch calls for decades. These auditions are invitations from intimidators to engage in something sexual so the actor will get the part. In the 60’s and 70’s mothers would bring their daughters to these meetings knowing what would happen. Sexual misconduct also happens after the actor receives the role.

Recently, film producer and co-founder of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, has been in the news about his sexual harassment of actors and staff. Women have stated they were afraid to speak out, saying that Weinstein could make or break their career. That’s a ludicrous reason for letting it continue. Without putting a stop to it means you value your career over your body, your dignity. When you don’t shut it down you are allowing it to happen. You make the choice of what is more important to you, your body or your career. Once the choice is made, you must live with it. If you don’t put a stop to it, then you are supporting it.

One of the actors speaking out against Weinstein said that Weinstein raped her twice. How does that transpire. There’s only one way: by putting yourself in the same situation again. Then whose fault is it.

Since then many women have stepped forward, telling about sexual misconduct at work. It covers all industries:

Corporate leaders, politicians, athletes, media people, chefs, photographers, animators, talent agents, singers, doctors, professors, deans.

The list keeps growing.

Choosing to let it happen by reason of valuing your job over your body makes you just as guilty as the oppressor. Giving into the situation doesn’t matter if you are an actor, an executive climbing the ladder, a minimum wage earner or any employee. Women need their jobs and worry about losing them in every industry.

In these situations, women have the power. They can take control or give it up. You take control by saying no. There are numerous stories of actors who told Weinstein no and left unscathed. If you don’t shut it down you are participating.

Men should never put women (and vice versa) in a position where they feel sexually harassed; period. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen. There are actions women can do:

  1. Immediately say NO, making it clear that you mean it.
  2. Remove yourself from the location. That means physically move away.
  3. Put a stop to it. Adamantly tell him that you do not accept that behavior and he is never to do that again.

There is no excuse to allow being harassed. If you come up with an excuse you are participating. Excuses are a way to hide your guilt to yourself. You can’t justify letting it happen if you think you will lose your job or for any other reason. You put a stop to it or you are engaging in it.

Imagine what it would be like today if women stood up to their bosses or co-workers a long time ago. We wouldn’t have all these accusations coming out now. We wouldn’t have our daughters subjected to this kind of treatment. Women would have already taught men that the behavior is not allowed. It’s like training a new puppy; sometimes you have to ‘pop him’ in the nose so he will learn.

If you didn’t confront the behavior long ago you have allowed it to continue. You still have the power.  Train him at the time it arises. Remaining silent doesn’t stop sexual harassment; it’s participating in it. Take immediate and assertive action, and shut it down.

 

 

Categories
Accounting Growth Investing Management Personal Development Taxes

How to Get a Charitable Tax Deduction for Remodeling Your Properties

If your home or rental property needs remodeling, consider getting a charitable tax contribution by helping a worthwhile cause. Many charities build and renovate homes for the needy. The tax law allows you to take a charitable deduction for donating used building materials removed from your house or rental property when they are used by a qualified organization.

How much you can deduct depends on the fair market value (FMV) of the materials you donate and when you donate them.

Amount of Your Charitable Deduction

  • For property held for more than 1 year, you will usually get a deduction of the FMV of the materials donated. If the property was used for business or rental purposes, you must reduce the FMV by any gain (if you sold the property) that is considered ordinary income. This is a simple calculation if you ask your tax advisor.
  • For property held less than 1 year, you will usually get a deduction of either the FMV or the cost basis (less any depreciation allowed) of the materials donated, whichever is less.
  • There may be limits depending on how much you contribute and your adjusted gross income, but the good news is, you can carry forward any unused deduction to later years.

Steps Needed to Get a Charitable Deduction

Before you begin your remodeling process:

  1. Get your licensed contractor to give you two bid quotes. One for deconstructing the space that you are remodeling and another one for demolishing it. Deconstructing the space is more expensive than demolition because fixtures, sheetrock, wood studs and more are taken apart slowly and carefully by hand to recycle every last piece as opposed to demolition where they rip out the materials without any consideration for reusing them (e.g. they just go into the dump).

Deconstruction usually is 1.5 to 2 times more expensive than a demolition process. However, since demotion is only a small part of your remodel, it should not add a large cost to your overall remodel.

  1. Find an appraiser that can appraise the reusable materials that result from the “deconstruction” process. Usually they can give you an idea of the FMV per sq. ft. of real property you are remodeling. Appraisal costs range but typically are around $2,000-10,000. They will need to see the materials before they are donated to a charity so they can issue an appraisal report.
  1. Consult with your tax advisor. They usually know a qualified appraiser you can use in your area or one can be recommended by the charity to which, you are going to donate the materials.

Your tax advisor should also be able to determine whether it is cost beneficial to consider getting a charitable deduction. For example, if the appraisal cost is $5,000 and the additional contractor cost of deconstruction is $5,000, the donation you must receive must exceed $35,000 to give you a net tax benefit. Some of our clients have obtained charitable benefits of over $100,000.

  1. Pick a 501(c)(3) US charity in your area that has as their mission to use the materials in their programs such as Habitat for Humanity.

After your remodeling process:

  1. The appraiser will give you a signed appraisal report and an IRS form 8283 signed by both the appraiser and the charity to which, you contributed the material; both must be attached to your tax return.

If these steps are followed correctly, then there is an excellent chance that much of the costs of your next remodel can be claimed as a charitable contribution.

For more information about this and other tax strategies to help you pay only your fair share of taxes email him at ssinger@groco.com

Categories
Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development

Power to the (Customer Service) People!

If you had to describe effective customer service in a single phrase, what would it be? I would define it as the ability and authority to take whatever action is necessary to make a customer happy. I believe mine is a reasonable definition given the nature of customer service itself.

With that said, effective customer service requires that staff members be empowered by their employers to both make decisions and take action. This leads to a question: does each and every employee in your organization, with jobs that involve customer contact, have the ability and authority to make decisions that are in the best interests of customers? If not, they are not empowered to keep customers happy.

You must understand that customers looking for help from your customer service team want immediate answers. They want solutions to their problems, not customer service reps transferring them from one department to the next. They certainly don’t want to be dismissed with a promise that a manager will call back later.

What Does Your Customer Service Department Do?

Modern business has unfortunately evolved into a rigid, top-down organization that is reluctant to give people at the bottom of the organizational chart the freedom and authority to do what they need to do. Modern business is more about micromanagement than actual problem-solving.

To that end, one of the first questions I ask clients in this regard is this: what does your customer service department do? I’m hoping to hear an explanation of customer service reps empowered to do their jobs. That is not always the case. More often than not, customer service reps are merely phone-answering personnel who defer all decisions to supervisors or middle managers.

Maintaining this kind of top-down customer service department leads to unhappy customers. Why? Because customer service reps not empowered to make decisions:

  • Do not present an air of confidence when dealing with customers;
  • Frequently have to put customers on hold in order to talk to supervisors;
  • Don’t tend to make an effort to understand answers and solutions;
  • Often do not have any real answers to give customers; and
  • May not really care about the end result once the customer interaction is complete.

Are You Willing to Empower Your Staff?

I hate to paint such a negative picture of customer service, but that is what customers often encounter. The question for you is whether you are willing to empower your staff to take care of customers. If you are, you will reap the benefits that come with an empowered customer service team. If not, your current level of customer service may never improve.

There are three things you need to do to empower your staff. First is to give them the authority to make decisions without necessarily consulting a supervisor or mid-level manager. It’s true that decision-making authority comes with a certain level of responsibility, but almost every employee will rise to the occasion if given the opportunity.

Second, customer service staff need to be trained to keep up with company standards and solutions. It’s not reasonable for employers to expect staff members to make wise decisions if those staff members are not kept up-to-speed at all times.

Finally, those customer service representatives who take good care of customers should be rewarded for their efforts. Rewards are an excellent incentive for taking ownership of one’s work. And it’s not necessarily money that your employees want. It’s often acknowledgement and validation that motivates them.

So, are you ready to power up your team?

 

Randi Busse, President, Workforce Development Group

www.workdevgroup.com

 

Categories
Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Personal Development

Trust Is Essential for the Health of an Organization – Part 3

In two recent blogs I have attempted to address the serious leadership responsibility of managing the variation in trust to produce desired results.  This is the third part of a 4-part series of blogs to provide a framework for a predictable method for building and maintaining trust.  The method needs to be actionable and predictable.  We can’t just wait for trust to be created. It’s too valuable for organizational performance and when it’s lacking, the damage is fierce.

A predictable method requires two important sets of ideas.   The first is an appreciation of the right definition of trust. We adopted The International Association of Business Communicators definition of trust: “a willingness to be vulnerable because of the presence of integrity, concern, competence and shared objectives.”[1]

Second, we need an effective leadership structure.   THINK – BEHAVE – IMPROVE (TBI) is a set of ideas which help us to appreciate how an optimum leader thinks, how an optimum leader behaves and how an optimum leader acts to improve the system within which they operate.  In this blog we will expand and clarify the BEHAVE portion of the structure.

We have seen organizations achieve incredible success with leaders who exhibit questionable behaviors.  There are numerous stories about the petulance of Steve Jobs.  Some days he was ‘good Steve’ and other days ‘bad Steve’.  Steve Jobs was well known for exaggerated emotional outbursts laced with profanity. Yet still, Apple has been amazingly successful and, as of this writing, is the most valuable company in the Fortune 500 (capitalization).

How does one explain the valuation of Uber in the face of recent leadership issues and the resignation of one of the founders because of sexual harassment and discrimination accusations?  As of this writing, Uber is estimated to be worth $70 billion and is known to have upended how people think about and use personal transportation.

These stories beg the question, “how can a leader(s) achieve such amazing success while behaving so inappropriately?”    It’s frustrating to many, including myself, to know that inappropriate behavior by leaders can still occur concurrently with incredible financial success.  It’s a paradox.  The answers lie in the interaction between strategy and culture and the priorities of the leadership at the time namely, the desire for short-term vs. long-term success.

The famous quote, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” was originated by Peter Drucker and made famous by Mark Fields, President at Ford.  This thought helps set the stage for us here to help provide some answers and lead us toward how we can manage the variation of trust. The point of Drucker’s quote is both the culture of an organization and its strategy interact to achieve success.  They are interdependent. One will influence the other.  Culture will eventually either undermine the strategy or support it.  Overtime culture wins.

We can look back at our two stories and point to examples.  If it’s true that the leader(s) of an organization influences the culture, then we can point to how Steve Jobs evolved.  It can be shown that Jobs behavior softened over time.  We can make the case that the earlier culture of Apple also evolved to help support their aggressive strategy.

Recent articles about Uber reveal that they changed their core values.  Those closest to the organization describe the how the original core values often led to inappropriate behaviors including competition between colleagues.

The key answer to long-term success is consciously managing culture to support strategy.  This is our purpose with this series of blogs. By providing a structure and method to manage the variation in trust the culture will support strategy.  There is no reason why this can’t happen concurrently with start-ups and/or company transformations.  In an earlier blog (Part 1) the point was made that leaders often don’t focus on managing trust because their theory of trust is incomplete, and therefore their methods of building and maintaining trust are often ineffective.

The key question is, “How can we create a culture of trust which will support long-term success through the positive support of an aligned strategy?”  The answer: “We must develop aligned core operational values and then provide consistent feedback about those values behaviors.”

When the core values of an organization are operationalized, they provide a description of specific and observable behaviors.  For example, our point is it’s not enough to just say, “We behave with integrity” or, “We respect each other”. The leadership needs to define exactly what that looks like.  Otherwise, it is difficult, if not impossible, to provide credible feedback when needed.  The feedback needs to be timely and credible otherwise it is a waste of time.

There are three operationalized values which help leaders and staff to behave with trust.  They are Integrity, Respect, and Customer Focus.  Here are some examples of the observable behaviors that can describe these values.

  • Integrity: making only agreements we are willing and able to keep and communicating immediately if those agreements cannot be kept.
  • Respect: Treat others as we would like to be treated; listening with the intent to understand without interruption; expressing empathy as needed.
  • Customer Focus: Ask clarifying questions to be sure we understand what customers need; proactively making recommendations that will better suit their needs

These are only examples.  The statements above only begin to describe the behaviors which will enable everyone in an organization to manage their own behaviors first and to provide feedback to each other because the behavior is observable. More details are needed and are always created in the planning phase of a “creating a culture of trust” initiative.

When the desired behavior is observable it is relatively easy to express appreciation when its seen.  Furthermore, it’s just as easy to provide feedback when it is not.  Providing of feedback enables everyone to contribute toward managing the variation in trust.

The three operational values of integrity, respect, and customer focus align perfectly with the adopted definition of trust.  The four key elements in our definition of trust are integrity, concern (a demonstration of respect), competence, and shared objectives.  Integrity in the operational values of course, aligns with ‘integrity’ in our trust definition.  Respect aligns with ‘concern’ and customer focus aligns with ‘competence’ and ‘shared objectives’.

The consequence of this alignment is powerful.  Everyone now has the ability (and even the obligation) to observe behavior and either express appreciation or provide feedback for optimum learning.  Now we have the structure and the behavior we need to begin to manage the variation in trust.  Now we are closer to our intended purpose.

Leaders who start businesses and/or who are reinventing their businesses must focus on strategy to achieve results.  If we believe that “culture eats strategy for breakfast”, leaders can now concurrently create a culture of trust along with their new strategy. The results can be achieved more quickly and with less waste because poor behavior does not get in the way and slow them down.  Strategy will be nourished with “breakfast”.

Wally Hauck, PhD has a cure for the “deadly disease” known as the typical performance appraisal.  Wally holds a doctorate in organizational leadership from Warren National University, a Master of Business Administration in finance from Iona College, and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.   Wally is a Certified Speaking Professional or CSP.  Wally has a passion for helping leaders let go of the old and embrace new thinking to improve leadership skills, employee engagement, and performance.

 

[1] International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) by Pamela Shockley-Zalabak, Ph.D., Kathleen Ellis, Ph.D., Ruggero Cesaria

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Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development Technology

Protecting Your Organization – How to Have an Engaged Cybersecurity Team 

In the first article of this series I provided an overview of the 5 pillars for creating an EPICC high performance teams. In this article we discuss the first pillar of the EPICC model – engagement.

Gallup continues to report that in the US, employee engagement is  around 30% and worldwide at only 15%. While we know this costs real money and affects the bottom line, it has an even bigger cost when we are talking about cybersecurity. When it comes to your cybersecurity team, 15-30% engagement can actually be dangerous to your organization. This is the team that has to be on their toes 24/7 to keep your network and data secure and you want — no, you need — them engaged.

Engaged employees are motivated and excited to do the work they are assigned to do and don’t have to be convinced to do a good job. They truly want to be at work, and want to do their best to contribute. They are looking for continual ways to improve and innovate and they go above and beyond, take initiative, interact with coworkers and management, produce high quality work products, and take responsibility.

Because that is what you are looking for in your cybersecurity team, let’s get to what it takes to have engaged employees. It takes a leadership team that knows how to create engagement by tapping into the key motivators that people have. As a leader, you can inspire your team to want to do more and be better, but you can only motivate them for the long run if you can tap into their intrinsic motivators. For more information on the following motivators, use the links to take you to a more in-depth article on each one.

Contributing fully through alignment – When you want people to contribute fully they need to align with the work they do in a way that allows them to contribute who they are to a task. When people are not aligned they get bored and find other things to do instead of the work at hand. If you ever feel that people on your team are slackers it could be a sign that they are not aligned with their work and as a result, not fully contributing. That is not a sign of a bad employee; it is a sign that they are doing work that is not aligned with who they are.

The Big Picture – People want to know how they fit into the big picture. How does their work help the organizations goals? Punching a clock or showing up to do a job with no meaning is not going to cut it anymore. Your most loyal, dedicated, and hard working employees will be the ones that understand and believe in the purpose of their role in the organization. As a leader and coach of your team it is your responsibility to ensure your team knows, understands, and is bought into the big picture. It is your job to keep that big picture and shared goals in front of them as part of the on-going conversation.

Continued Growth – As a leader, it is your role to ensure your team is getting continued growth opportunities. They want to learn and grow and they will be more appreciative and harder working when given these opportunities. My experience as an employee in several organizations where there were no growth opportunities lead me to be less motivated and look elsewhere for what I was missing. Plus, when you provide educational opportunities, you are going to have a smarter, more talented workforce, and when has that ever been a bad thing?

Feedback and Recognition – Here is a place where your team needs you more than anywhere else. Do you know that most people go through their days getting no praise, feedback, or recognition, not even at home or from those they love? When people are told they are doing a good job, they will want to do an even better job next time. When they don’t know how they are doing they often make assumptions and think to themselves, “oh well, no need to try harder, no one seems to notice around here.” However, don’t just provide recognition and positive feedback because you are supposed to. Do it from a place of sincerity, like a proud parent would when their child is walking across the stage at graduation or scoring the winning goal of the soccer game. Without proper feedback and recognition you are missing out on one of the greatest motivators of all.

One of your jobs as a leader is to inspire those around you so that they are motivated to contribute fully, which will result in improved engagement and in the case of your cybersecurity team improved protection of your organization’s network and sensitive data. See how you can use these tips to amplify their motivation and help create better results for everyone on your cybersecurity team, and in return, for your organization..

If you have questions or comments email me at sharon@c-suiteresults.com and for more resources visit www.c-suiteresults.com and/or listen to C-Suite Success Radio