Observing Beauty

A few days ago I left the office earlier than usual.  Darkness had not yet descended and as I was driving home, I realized that there was a spectacular sunset ahead of me.  And while driving, it seemed I was driving into the sunset - the most lovely sight my vision could behold.

Then I started thinking of the sunset in La Jolla, California. Back in November 2009, I was vacationing with my daughter and we spent a wonderful time by the sea in La Jolla, where a spectacular sunset accompanied us until she faded away into the night. Then I realized that  nature's beauty surrounds us all the time and there are spectacular sunsets everywhere if only we can take the time to see them.

That day I discovered that we occupy our time getting so much done that we never stop to see the sunsets.  And that is why when we go on vacation, the sunsets and the sunrises and all of nature seems to be the most beautiful things even though they are always beautiful but we never slow down to enjoy them on a normal day.

Stepping out of the Shell

The commentary that follows is merely my reflection on change specifically change in career.

I titled this blog entry "Stepping out of the Shell" because it  is something we should all do - getting out of the comfort zone,  away from familiar people, processes and culture surely makes one reflect, think, appreciate differences and most importantly, discover a lot about oneself.

And until we step out of our bubble we will never know how different the world is or what greater opportunity awaits. While we are comfortable, we tend to think that the people and the things around us are perhaps the best we can have.

But as E.M. Forster said, "How do I know what I think until I see what I say." How can you know you have the best unless you have what to compare it to and that has been my experience lately. Today, in our careers, we must not only be ambitious but we must be willing to face challenges and see them as opportunities.

Much as I thought I had a great career opportunity, deep inside I longed for something bigger - more challenging - I was ready to move on but all along I also talked myself into thinking I was in the perfect happy bubble. But the realization of this false self talk came to be when the bubble burst and work as I knew it evaporated into thin air.  My position ceased to be once the company was acquired and I figured it was time to step out of the shell - to understand my own thinking and to see what I was saying, discover what I was feeling.

This change taught me two very important lessons: Follow your heart and inner feeling always and never allow one manager's perception of your ability and readiness to slow down your growth.  Career growth can only be nurtured by us - we need to have a plan, build a valuable network and get feedback from others out of our inner circle.

And so I discovered that a manager who sincerely sees the potential and desire in an employee begins to open the opportunities for that employee.  They identify growth positions and set you free to discover, learn and grow.  Career growth is like seeing a child wanting to learn how to ride a bike and never telling that child that he or she is not ready yet.  But rather giving them the support, showing them the how and letting them go. Low and behold they start on a tricycle and very quickly they are riding a bicycle.

It is also important to know that when you are within an area for too long, you risk your potential to be underestimated and your abilities not really seen for their worth. Once you step outside the shell, you will find others see you differently and you are better able to get the bigger opportunity you longed for.

I am happy my old bubble burst and I came upon new people and faced new scenarios.  I was seen for what I was worth and I found higher grounds.  Change is good!  Build your network and put it to work,
  

Beyond the Logo and Mission Statement

I am inspired to write this blog as I was responding to an expertise request on the possibility of building a corporate identity – is there such a thing as a real corporate identity or is all of this just a make believe created through messages and logos?

While I am sure that is a lot written on the subject, I am putting forward my personal convictions based on over fifteen years of working in both large and small corporations and having seen firsthand how identity can build trust, dedication and success, not only at corporate level but on project levels as well.

Firstly, we must define what we mean by corporate identity. Let’s think of ourselves for a moment.  We are all consumers and as consumers our favorite food, clothing or cosmetics are brand driven most if not all of the time and very often when we talk about these things we identify them by their brands.  We are loyal to the brands that work for us.  Well, that’s how we must begin to think about corporate identity.  A corporate identity that goes beyond the logo and tag line is what is needed to ensure corporate culture.

Many of us can recognize our company’s logo and the mission statement but sadly, there is not much personal identification with those two things and this is predominantly why there fails to be a corporate culture.  Building corporate culture is simple and really does not need the fancy models and high consulting fees.  Any smart organization with great internal communicators and strong leadership with a desire to truly engage its people and build corporate identity hand in hand with a winning operating culture can be the architects of their company’s culture.

Let’s pause for a moment and reflect on the following questions – what has more meaning to you: is it that system you constructed after meeting with its users and getting all their input or a system handed to you with the expectation that you learn to use it and adapt to its quirks? I would imagine your answer is the former as there is personal gratification as well knowing that the users are happy because it fits all their needs and they identify with its values.  The other system will take a long time to create user identification while generating discontent and distance – association with becomes an uphill battle.  The same is how we can think of corporate identity and corporate culture.

So my simple recommendation for really igniting your employees into fueling the fire of your corporate culture is make them part of the process of creating the corporate values.  Having a logo – that image that represents who you are without words and that mission statement that qualifies what you stand for is the beginning of building your culture. With those two things in place, gather your employees depending on the size of your company; you can have groups based on area of work if the numbers are manageable or you can use your intranet if the company is a large one. Build strategic questions and discussions around what your employees would like their company’s culture to be.  What would make them feel associated with the company’s service or product? You may find those in the manufacturing area talking about quality; those in packaging talking about speed;  those at customer service talking about attention and fast response; those in administration may talk about efficiency and impeccable execution.  Use the flip camera and go around campus, get them on video talking about why or what makes them feel part of the company.  Get your internal and external communicators involved – let them moderate the sessions, gather the info and you will soon be on the road to creating your company’s culture with your employees’ input. Once you roll out the final values – be them five or seven, they will represent what your employees identified with – how they see the value of the company.

After the exercise above, I will ask you to take the company values one step further into embedding it into the culture.  Incorporate them into your biannual or annual appraisal reviews.  Have employees cite an example of how they accomplished “impeccable execution” and so on based on your final list values. Place posters of the values in strategic locations where people gather. Create internal promotional pieces with your messages of your values.

Take caution to ensure that your new employees also have a way of becoming identified with your company’s values.  Excited employees will be your best ambassadors at telling the stories and getting others on board.  Build your reward system based on the company values as well. And, remember your communicators must constantly look for the avenues to consistently deliver messages around the company’s culture.

Communicators must ensure that senior management is seen and heard living and talking about the values as well.  Encourage townhalls, breakfast with the leaders – be creative – make your people feel like it’s their own business.

The end result of all this is simply one thing: success!  Dedicated and passionate employees who feel that they are part of what the company stands for do no harm but only generate great service, quality work and they will take pride in what they do.  That’s good for the bottom line and future growth!

The Motivation Factor

My last feature talked about rewards and its impact and ended on the note of making recognition programs impactful through how it is done rather than what is done. Today, I read McKinsey's Motivating people: getting beyond money which featured three "non-cash motivators" that are more effective than monetary rewards in creating employee satisfaction, engagement and commitment.  This article only reinforces the message of my last blog, which is - making people feel you care - having that face to face connection and making recognition more warm and visible among peers.  Bottom line:  people like to know that someone is interested in who they are, what they do, thier accomplsihments and what drives them. 

Mckinsey's three non-cash motivators as revealed through their survey are: praise from immediate managers, leadership attention (having one on one with senior leaders) and being given the opportunity to lead projects. They have found that these three factors in no way is less motivating than cash and in some instances produce greater motivational forces.  Comparing these findings to my post-reward surveys, I also found that, as mentioned in my last blog, the rewardees rated the personal attention, the small group meeting with senior leaders and the ability to interact and ask probing questions of thier leaders are big motivational factors that pushed them to work harder each year to get a second chance for those up close moments and attention.  It was not about the cash as much.

So in today's economic downturn and the fact that it is no longer the business as usual model, should HR managers and business leaders be paying attention to what really makes their employees wake up with passion and commitment to the job?  Yes! 

A company is its people; a company's success comes through the dedication and enthusiasm of its people when they are given a chance to do what they do best and to rise to bigger challenges through senior leaders endorsement and recognition.  I have discovered that public recognition can often create higher degrees of motivation over a slient cash reward.

So, let's take a look not only at what drives our high potentials, but what can also push the enthusiasm buttom on those that are one step behind the high potentials.  Conversations can take us a long way in understanding our people; communciation especially face to face have great merits - it is a two way channel that can lead to many undiscovered elements towards driving employee engagement.  Instead of paper surveys, how about townhalls, or group breakfast with leaders - listen to what engages people through conversations.  I am sure you will find two things: attention will always be welcomed and public recognition will always be unforgettable!

Communicating Rewards

It was a cold Saturday evening in October and I was winding down for the day. After a warm cup of tea, I snuggled within warm fleece blankets on the sofa and turned on the TV. As usual I would flip around all the channels before I can decide what program or movie I want to entertain myself with. While surfing the channels, I came upon a rerun of Los Premios MTV 2009. I paused there for a moment and suddenly the passion and excitement of the Latin music captivated my senses so I decided that I would watch the rerun as my entertainment for the evening.

I sat in the dark with low lights, big screen and surround sound. I was enjoying the music, the beautiful Latin artists, and presenters and of course the wonderful stage effects. I watched the award winners humbled by their win and some with teary eyes, thanked their fans. Of course the screaming audience was living every moment of the award ceremony. Suddenly I realized that all the Latin glamour, glitter, energy, and achievements of that MTV 2009 Award was reminding me of something special. It was a stark reminder of the annual incentive award program that I host to recognize the top sales men and women of the Latin America region for a large pharma company. That program was called Golden Circle.

As I watched the celebrated artists received their awards and made their speeches, I felt an emptiness that was profound – that emptiness reflected the fact that after four years of hosting the Golden Circle award program, it will no longer be under my wings since the company has undergone an acquisition. But it was one part of my job that brought me immense satisfaction – the planning for this event takes over nine months and its execution as always had to be flawless because for me, rewarding the men and women who are the drivers of the business was more than the compensation or the incentive trip – it was the black tie evening when they became superstars like those on the MTV scene. It was the night when they were celebrated, honored and photographed among their peers and loved ones. It was their night – their night to shine – to feel proud but more importantly to feel valued.

As a communications manager, my satisfaction was watching their faces light up and their eyes swelled with tears of joy as they are called upon the stage to receive their plaque and photographed. Over the years as I have done this program, it reinforced the fact that human beings value recognition and honor. It is what propels them to constantly give their best and to be defenders of their business. As a communicator, I say, it is not what you say, but how you say it, where you say it and the medium through which you say it that makes all the difference. Similarly, it is not what you do to reward your top performers, but how you reward them is what makes that reward so special and impacting.

Often I imagined the Golden Circle reward being only a cash prize and a congratulatory letter. That seems cold, distant and just okay in comparison to spending four days with senior management, a business workshop – a chance for the people in the field to have a chance to air their views and ask their questions and to crown it all, be treated like celebrities during the gala dinner and award ceremony. It is the how and the what that has the impact to these winners that leaves them eternally grateful for that moment. Their thanks are endless and upon returning to their homes, we get very emotional letters of how grateful they are for the special way in which they were treated and celebrated. For those winners, the award night was the greatest motivator of all! Would the cash prize and a congratulatory note create such profound reactions? I don’t think so.

As a communicator, I am a firm believer of the face to face communication because regardless of the growing social media, face to face communication will always play a key role in the motivational factor. After many decades, the most popular way of proposing marriage is still face to face. It still is, in my opinion, the most intimate and emotionally captivating way to do it. Face to face communication in many ways is time consuming we may say now that technology gives us the ability to communicate faster and with a wider reach; but depending on what we really want to achieve, sometimes, investing the time for face to face communication can provide more productive insights and build stronger relationships. It is the how and what factor.
(to be continued …)

The Power of Culture

Too may times we underestimate the role of culture and its impact on relationships, marriage and perhaps even more so in organizations - the latter being organizational culture.

Before reading any further, take a moment and think about a marriage or a relationship where two different cultures exist. Was it not a learning process for the people involved to understand each other, their perceptions, beliefs and values? It certainly is. I myself reflect as both my husband and I are from different cultural backgrounds and it is funny to look back upon the times when I tried understanding him from my terministic screens which obviously differed from his and so with time we began to understand different vocabulary, figurative expressions, behaviors (interpreting silence versus verbal responses) and so on. Not understanding the other’s body language or misinterpreting actions often leads to conflicts and the same goes for organizational culture.

Culture is a key element to harmony and success and I am prompted to write this piece as I experience the merger of two large companies. During the long transition process and working with so many different teams, interacting at different levels of the organization, I slowly begin to see that the organizational cultures of these companies are very different and I wonder when the two finally merge, what would be the culture that survives and would it be the best one for the future success of the new company. Obviously and more often, past mergers consistently shows that the culture of the acquiring company is the one that preserves but is it the smart thing or is it the easier solution?

Really, it is the easier solution because changing corporate culture is a tremendous job and it takes a lot of work but it can also bring great benefits - after all a corporation is its people and having people believing in a company’s vision and being able to associate with it at all levels, understanding how their role fits into and contributes to the vision is paramount to success.

A vision should never be seen only as some lovely statements to be displayed. Employees need to feel and see it in action from the top down. It needs to be part and parcel of their daily working lives and each objective that they own should be meshed into the company’s culture.

Every company has a formal and an informal culture and very often, as organizational consultants can relate to, it is the informal culture that really defines and tells what a company is. That is the real pulse of how employees feel and see the company they work with. I wonder how many organization have run diagnostics to assess the formal versus the informal culture. It is an interesting and worthwhile exercise for any company that truly wants to be successful and wants to see that its brand or culture is being lived and embraced by its people. It is what compels each individual to look for quality, to strive for flawless delivery, to seek effective and robust processes and to bring value each day in every way and hence create a strong and sustainable bottom line. It is strong corporate culture that sustains organizations amidst the ever changing dynamics of the external environment.

To really get a good understanding of organizational culture, it impact and its value, I suggest reading Corporate Culture - Illuminating the Black Hole by Jerome Want. But before you start reading, think of your organization’s culture and how it is perceived by the employees. Has it had impact on the success of the company? It is a culture that is highly talked about with pride? Does everyone know what the organizational culture is and does the leadership team exhibit the culture? What is your organization’s culture - Bureaucratic, Service, Political, Frozen, Predatory or New Age? Jerome Want does a great job at revealing the behaviors of these cultures and how they affect the success of a company.

Culture should never be underestimated. It drives the way we think and the way we behave!

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The Power Of Connections

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