Organizational Culture (3 in a series)

The Answer is an Absolute “Yes!”

As an American who has grown accustomed to a fast paced life and the need for fast food, I’ve also developed my expectations for the service I’ll receive in these fast food restaurants.  I know that the employees who work in these establishments are paid very little.  I know that many of the employees view this as a temporary job.  I know that most of the front line staff work there for one purpose only; to make money.  This is how I justify the poor customer service I’ve grown accustomed to.  It never surprises me to deal with seemingly grumpy staff, to rarely receive a friendly smile or even eye contact, and more often than not, to have my order be wrong.  Despite this, I keep going back for more.

Our last two blogs have focused on viewing the business environment as an ecosystem.  So, if we are saying that managers can create this ecosystem, is it possible to create a friendly and engaged environment at a fast food restaurant?  The answer is an absolute “YES!”  As an example, there is a Chick Fil A in Edgewater Maryland.  The manager here must deal with the same elements that other managers of fast food restaurants must deal with.  That is, the difficulty in recruiting quality people, the low pay, the attitude of this job being temporary, and the fact that the front line employees rarely have a purpose in working there other than a pay check.  Yet this particular manager has created a friendly and engaged environment.  I go there more often than I care to admit.  Every single time, consistently, I am greeted with enthusiasm, a smile, an attitude that says “what can I do to help you?” and always a very friendly “thank you.”  I always feel that my business there is appreciated.  This manager has created an engaged work environment and it is noticeable to every customer.

Environments are created.  Cultures grow.  No matter your workforce, no matter your industry, it is possible to create a positive environment.  Examine your hiring practices, reward practices, performance management systems, communication habits, expectations, and goals.  Examine all the ways you and the business impact employees.  It takes time and patience, but with some determination, you can begin to change the work environment and allow desired culture to grow.

Organizational Culture (2 in a Series)

For this week’s blog I’m going to continue with the garden analogy from last week; i.e. that being a manager is similar to growing a healthy garden. This analogy enables managers to view behavior as logical rather than random.  The focus this week is on performance problems, the weeds in your garden. 

Some gardeners tend their garden regularly.  Weeds don’t have time to take over and when even a single weed pops up, it is noticed immediately and yanked out. A beautiful and healthy garden is allowed to flourish. In the business world, managers who handle people problems on a regular basis, and who do not allow problem behavior to go unnoticed, are able to grow an environment of engaged and productive employees that is noticeable to anyone observing this team.   On the other hand, a manager who focuses on performance issues only once per year at the annual review, will have a garden that has been so taken over by the weeds that it seems overwhelming. Problem behavior becomes the norm, and desired behavior will get choked out. When you stand back and observe this team, you will observe conflict and chaos.

If your work environment is currently filled with conflict and chaos, there is hope!  It is a lot more work than plucking a single weed, but it CAN be done.  Clearly state expectations and goals.  Monitor behavior and progress daily.  Deal with problems immediately. This will be equivalent to a large scale climate change in the environment, and you should expect it to take a while for the ecosystem to settle and become sustainable again. When it does however, you’ll find that desired behaviors become the norm.  The environment change will eventually change the organizational culture.

Organizational Culture (1 in a Series)

Managing is just like gardening. I did a simple Google search on “planning a garden” and, on the first page of search results alone, was quickly able to find the following quotes:

“A well-planned garden is easier to care for. It saves time in the garden and is more productive than an unplanned garden.” http://urbanext.illinois.edu/tog/planning.cfm

“When getting started, carefully planning your garden now can save a lot of trouble in the future.” http://www.gardensalive.com/article.asp?ai=74

“A vegetable garden should do what you want it to, so ask yourself what your desired outcome is.”
http://www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com/plan-a-vegetable-garden.html

Do you notice the analogy? Just like the first quote, a well planned business is easier to care for. Planning saves time and is more productive than an unplanned business strategy. Have you defined specific goals? Can you visualize what your garden, I mean business, will accomplish and produce? The second quote also applies. Carefully planning your business goals now can save a lot of trouble in the future. The third quote can equate to both planning and hiring. Are the employees you’ve hired able to do what you want them to do and achieve the desired outcome? In the business environment, people you hire replace the seeds in a garden. What have you planted in your business environment? What type of person and what talents will help the business achieve defined goals? A haphazard hiring system is equivalent to throwing out a package of mixed up unknown seeds and then feeling frustrated that you’re not growing roses. Take a moment to sit back and analyze the garden you’re growing. If you find business articles boring to read, perhaps a good book on gardening could help you produce a winning team!! We will continue this analogy with our next several blogs. Stay tuned.

Find Your Focus

Have you ever had the feeling that you work your tail off but accomplish very little? It’s like you see this long road ahead, and you run and run, but the end never seems to get any closer. I go through these phases sometimes but if I take the time to think everything through, the reason is typically crystal clear. I’m usually just too busy to do anything about it!
One of the major reasons I find for working hard and accomplishing little is a lack of focus. I know I’m in trouble when I can no longer set priorities. I’ll sit down at my desk, piled high with half complete projects and ideas, and have no idea what I should be working on. I also can’t tell the difference between distractions and productive time. Everything just blends together.

If you feel like you’re spinning your wheels but accomplishing little, possibly it’s time to take a day or two off just to think. Why did you take this job or open this business in the first place? What was your purpose? What do you like to do best? What changes could be made and what decisions are needed? What tasks could be put aside for a while? Take charge and make a change. People often take a couple days off and try to put work completely out of our minds. Sometimes you need this. But if you’ve lost your focus, you need to spend time away from the chaos just thinking, talking to someone, and planning. Otherwise you head right back into the busy schedule and continue to accomplish little.
Here are some other ideas to help you gain focus:

• Turn off your computer and work with paper and pen for a day. Draw, visualize and map out ideas without the distractions of Email, web browsing, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
• Talk to people instead of email. Communication is far better that way.
• Break larger goals down into smaller tasks. Focus on achieving one task at a time. You can clearly see progress which helps you maintain your focus and motivation to keep moving forward.
• Set and keep deadlines for yourself. We all need accountability.
• Keep a time tracking journal. What exactly are you doing every day? Where is time being wasted?
• Stop trying to do everything well and pick one thing to do really well instead. Even if this is just temporary, focus time on accomplishing one important goal rather than working towards 10 at the same time.

In my experience, the longer I get off course, the longer it takes to get back on course. It’s like driving aimlessly for weeks versus a couple hours before remembering where you were headed in the first place. No one likes working hard with seemingly little progress. Take those couple of days off to think. Turn on your internal GPS. Remember what you like to do, how you like to do it, and what you hope to accomplish by this time next year. Then plan your course. The added benefit is that priorities will be clearer and you’ll be able to recognize distractions for what they are. We all need a distraction every now and then; it’s just nice to be able to recognize them.

KEEP YOUR CANDLE BURNING BRIGHT

I’ve titled this article after one of my favorite quotes.  The quote is about the potential negative repercussions of comparing ourselves to others. 

“Don’t blow your candle out because someone else’s is shining brighter.”

It is human nature to compare ourselves to others.  Yet it is crazy how often we allow this to steel our joy and motivation.  She has a bigger house than mine so suddenly my perfectly nice house seems pathetic.  He has a degree from an Ivy League school so suddenly my degree seems insignificant.  The business down the road has five times as many employees as mine, so my business isn’t as good. 

This phenomenon is important for anyone in a leadership position because it can have a huge impact on your team’s creativity, motivation, and ultimate success.  Over the next few weeks, try to keep the candle quote in mind and notice how frequently it impacts behavior.  Take note of the quiet employee who may feel intimidated by other members of the team.  Pull him or her aside, and listen to their thoughts and ideas.  Take note of when your own attitude and words make other’s feel not as smart as you and thus not motivated to offer ideas.  Take note of that employee who didn’t receive proper training and now her confidence is going down the drain.  You need your entire team to feel motivated and energized and taking note of when and why people are losing that motivation is a first step to fixing the problem.  If you notice and react to these situations quickly, the “fix” is a lot easier than if you wait till you have a fully disengaged team.

If you’re in a leadership position, one of the common ways we let our candles fade is when comparing our business to the competition.  Sometimes, especially when you’re just starting out or just heading down a new path, this can be discouraging.  The competition may have come out with an innovative new product you never thought of.  They may be bigger and better established.   They may have more clients.   Attitude is a choice.  We can get discouraged, which will infect your entire team, or focus on what your team does really well.  Maybe you can’t produce a new product as fast as that business across town, but perhaps your product is better.  Maybe you have 10 employees on your team instead of 500, but you may offer better customer service, and decisions can be made significantly faster.  Maybe you have five clients instead of 100, but you offer customized solutions rather than a cookie cutter approach.  When you focus on what you do well and the talents of your team, this confidence will shine through to potential clients and customers.  

As a business owner or team leader, one of the major secrets to success is finding, hiring, and managing extraordinary people.  Keeping everyone’s candles burning bright is key.  You can’t control the attitudes of others, but your CAN focus on what your team does and could do well.  You CAN encourage and point out when someone blows out their own candle for ridiculous reasons.  You CAN give everyone an opportunity to be heard and to find ways to use their talents to achieve business goals.  Most importantly, your own positive attitude and belief in your team will be contagious.  It’s amazing what a motivated and energized team of people can accomplish, no matter how many candles are shining brightly around them.

ENGAGEMENT LEADS TO PROFIT

Many large scale studies have proven the connection between employee engagement and financial performance.  The correlation is undeniable. If you are running your own business now, or just starting up a new company, do a little research on employee engagement.  As Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest Airlines said, “There is one key to profitability and stability during either a boom or bust economy: employee morale.”  As the saying goes, “the soft stuff brings hard results.”  Are your employees engaged?

If you don’t know exactly what is meant by “employee engagement” just do a little experiment.  For the next week, take careful note of the behaviors and attitudes of employees in any business you walk into wherein YOU are the customer.  Are employees helpful?  Are they complaining about having to work or are they engaging in friendly conversation with customers?  Do you get ignored or do employees seem to WANT to help you?  If you have a question or request, are you able to get a satisfactory answer?  Do employees seem more anxious to get off of work or to meet your needs?  Can you even find someone to answer your question?  It’s hard to put your finger right on employee engagement but you definitely can feel when it’s there and feel when it’s not.  What are customers feeling when they walk in YOUR business?

How many times have you been in a customer service situation where you’re frustrated by the fact that the employee you are dealing with is clearly powerless to do anything but follow rigid rules?  More importantly, they don’t seem to care that they cannot meet your needs.  Rigid rules do not engage employees and frustrate customers.  Let me give an example.  The other day I was at Subway, the fast food chain restaurant across from my office.  My sister asked for a bowl of soup and requested some bread to go along with the soup.  As we looked at the employee we could see about 500 loaves of bread in racks behind her.  However, we were told that she could NOT serve bread with soup, only with a sandwich.  To make matters worse, the employee came across as if she was irritated by the request.  She didn’t smile or make eye contact or do anything to indicate she cared about customer service.  She was just earning a paycheck.  We ordered a turkey sub minus the turkey, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise…….and soup.  Unengaged employees who must follow rigid and ridiculous rules make customers like me tell everyone I know about the stupid rule and then post a blog about it.  

Try to experience your business from a customer’s perspective.  I was in a Walmart a couple days ago and can only hope that if the manager had witnessed the incredibly poor customer service and unengaged attitudes I dealt with there, several employees would be fired.  If you aren’t paying attention to employee engagement, you’re losing customers and losing money.  You may not be measuring this, but it IS happening.

In our next blog posting, we will continue with some easy to implement employee engagement techniques.  

How Engaged Are Your Employees?

One of the most frustrating aspects of being a manager is dealing with an under performing employee. Often it seems like the easiest thing to do is ignore the situation and have someone else pick up the slack. After all, you’re busy and don’t have the time or patience to deal with these annoying problems. It’s the old problem solving choices of fight or flight. Ignore the problem until you completely lose your patience, then deal with it ineffectively. The bad news is that this problem avoidance tactic is building a culture of low performance and mediocrity in your organization.

Most businesses have their superstar employees. Those are the people who will pick up that slack and do whatever it takes to get the job done right. They are the people who help you reward the low performer for his or her lack of motivation. The low performer can spend time chatting with friends or searching the web knowing that there will be little or no repercussions. The superstar picked up the slack and at the end of the day the tasks were completed and the boss is happy. How long will it take before other’s notice that it’s okay to not work really hard? How long will it take before that superstar employee gets tired of picking up the slack and unexpectedly quits? The easy way out of ignoring the problem is actually not an easy way out at all.
If you have one of these under performing employees, first decide whether they aren’t doing the job because they CAN’T or because they WON’T. Under the category of “can’t” you may have problems such as unclear expectations, insufficient resources, or a lack of knowledge or skill in completing the job at hand. Under the category of “won’t” you may have problems such as being inadvertently rewarded for low performance, or different priorities, or a lack of agreement on how things should be done. As a manager you have to understand why they aren’t meeting expectations before you can resolve the problem. Determining whether you are dealing with “can’t” or “won’t” is a good first step.

Wouldn’t it be great if all employees just came to work excited and motivated to reach important goals? One of the basic building blocks to reaching that highly motivated workforce is to deal with performance problems early. There are only a handful of employees who are naturally motivated no matter the environment. There is another handful that are naturally unmotivated no matter the environment. The vast majority is in the middle and can go either way depending on the culture that you, as the manager, build. What is considered normal and acceptable behavior in your department or business today? What culture are you building?