I’ve been working with companies trying to manage a multigenerational workforce for almost 12 years. Until lately, the focus had always been on Gen Y or Millennials, the generation of people born between 1982-2000/01, as defined by “The Fourth Turning” by Strauss and Howe. But recently I have been doing more reading and speaking about the generation following Millennials. I’d …
In last week’s blog, we discussed the high cost of incivility in a workplace culture. This week, I’d like to discuss some ways you can create a more civil culture. Set a Destination An ancient Chinese proverb states, “If we don’t decide where we’re going, we’re bound to end up where we’re headed.” Creating a culture of civility requires leaders …
Last week I had a flashback — full-on, no holds barred, cognitively, emotionally and physically. A former consulting client called to see if I would work with him and his company again. As he described his current situation, his whole demeanor reminded me – through my flashback – why I stopped working with him and his company: incivility. Many people …
Recently I had the honor of working with The Executive Committee, Canada, better known as TEC Canada, during its “Canada Day” in San Diego. I gave a two-hour keynote presentation on culture as part of a full-day conference, which extended into the evening with a dinner gala and awards ceremony. While I speak at this type of event dozens of …
Think about the last time you walked on a beach. It was probably a bright, beautiful day. You could feel the warmth of the sun on your skin. Everything was picture perfect. Lovely … Enjoy the memory. Now think about the actual physical experience of walking on that beach. You might remember that every time you placed your foot down, …
As promised in my last blog post, this week we discuss how Newton’s second law of motion can be applied to changing workplace culture. The second law is more complex, but if you stick with me, I promise to use it to explain another big and painful challenge when creating change in workplace culture: resistance. Here’s Newton’s second law: F=ma. The vector sum …
I’ve been thinking about physics and workplace culture lately (please don’t hate me because I’m a bit of a geek). Physics has been around much longer than psychology and other disciplines that study culture. As a result, physics tends to have much more precise and measurable constructs than psychology. Today I want to share some of my thinking around changing …
This week I’ve been thinking a lot more about the concept of conceptual blindness. Last week, I stated that our perceptions are limited by our conceptions. We can only see what we can imagine, consider, and understand. If you can’t conceive it, you can’t perceive it. You can find this issue not only in psychology, but also in business, economics, …
Last week, I had a really interesting conversation with the CEO and CFO of a mid-sized company. They had requested a teleconference because they wanted to discuss the possibility of me helping them improve the performance of their “business partners.” The problem? They had recently experienced a decline in availability of their most seasoned business partners, all of whom were …
Integrity is about ensuring that your words are aligned with your actions. When a company announces its cause/purpose/values, it is making a statement about what it finds important and what will drive its decision making. However, when those words don’t govern the actual behaviors and decisions of senior leadership, the words ring hollow. Human beings easily identify hypocrisy; people smell …
