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 …
Choose Culture Norms Wisely
As a CEO and/or leader of an organization, culture is your number one priority. One of the most important decisions leaders make is the type of norms one will bring into one’s organizational culture: “business norms” or “social norms.” Business norms are all those things we associate with business: quid pro quo, this for that, things are paid for in …
Culture and Human Energy
I’ve been speaking on the topic of culture for the past 10 years. I’ve been reading on the subject for more than 20 years. There are a lot of books published on culture. They all, including my own – Culture Trumps Everything – take a similar approach. They introduce a particular concept, explain why it is important to organizational culture, …
Boomerang Employees
A recent study published by Kronos and Workplace Trends surveyed more than 1,800 human resources professionals, managers, and employees. They found that 76% of those surveyed said they are now more accepting of hiring former employees than they were just five years ago. The same was true of 62% of the managers and 40% of employees indicated they would rehire …
Oil Industry Culture – Difficult, Unless You’re The CEO
2015 was a rough year for the oil industry. The giant drop in oil prices – from $108 to $37 in just 18 months – is taking its toll on American producers. Many face big debts. The U.S. oil industry shed over 100,000 jobs in 2015. The U.S. oil supply is expected to decline in 2016 but not enough to …
The Writing on The Wall
The writing is clear and concise. Can you read it? Organizations have no alternative but to take note and respond. Deloitte Consulting recently published their 2016 survey about Millennials. The survey continues to support several trends among Millennials that I have been discussing for years in my presentations. If you want to successfully recruit and retain this generation, companies must …
Behavioral Building Blocks of Culture – The Desired Dozen
For many people, believing an organization can actually have a good culture is like believing in unicorns (that don’t exist) or winning the lottery (it can happen, but the odds are way against you). Many employees are often frustrated by their culture, with some describing their workplace as being dominated by negative and/or toxic colleagues and supervisors who are back-biting and …
Happy Culture = Increased Productivity +
Organizational leaders, managers, and economists have long looked at different strategies to increase employees’ performance and productivity. This person needs more education; this one needs more training and skill development; everyone needs the newest technology. Few have considered what is all too often an overlooked element – human emotion. A team of researchers led by Andrew Oswald, a professor of economics at …
Costs of Poor Culture
Several recent studies have updated information about some already well-known facts discussed in my book, Culture Trumps Everything, and my presentations. A poor organizational culture has quantifiable costs for organizations large and small. Cost #1: Health The American Psychological Association says that health care costs of high-pressure companies are almost 50% greater than other organizations. A full 80% of primary …
Culture: Obfuscation And Education
In 1969, in what was then a secret and internal memo of the Brown & Williamson tobacco company, the company identified the strategy and tactics it would use to counter what it saw as anti-cigarette forces. These strategies and tactics would not be well known until the memo became public in 1979. At that time it was revealed that “Big Tobacco” …