Brought to you by Jeff Thoren, DVM  

Last month we learned how a handful of successful companies have defied conventional wisdom by ignoring the traditional strategic management model.  Instead, they were founded on a set of clearly articulated values that reflect how employees and customers are to be treated.  They nurture the heart and soul of the organization first, and then worry about the needed programs, systems, and structures that will facilitate efficient company operations.

A lesson from Best Buy shows how this kind of people-centered strategy leads to business transformation.  CEO Brad Anderson believes in his people and is relentless in his efforts to bring out the best in each one of them.

Here’s this month’s feature ...

Competing on Culture by Jena McGregor

From -- Fast Company -- Issue 92, March 2005

Highlights from the article:

• Many people in organizations have an enormous contribution to make but either don’t know how or can’t find a way to get into the right place to be able to make the contribution.  Great organizations help people find opportunities to make a difference, to connect with others, and to feel fulfilled as human beings.
    

• A strengths-based approach is necessary.  Anderson says. “If we can build an organization that instead of looking at every human being like they were the same, looked at them as though they were completely individual, we would be in harmony with reality as opposed to fighting reality.  We could choose almost every endeavor and have a much higher likelihood of winning.”  There’s magic in recognizing and capitalizing on the uniqueness that each human brings to the organization!
    

• In evaluating the employee-centered approach, the heart and soul of it is less in the outcome -- although outcomes are important -- but more in seeing whether the core engine is healthy.  Is the employee engaged with the customer?  If that engine is healthy, that’s what’s important.  Focusing on the employee’s experience and the health of the team pays dividends.  If you have a very enthused, energetic group of people who are passionate about the work that they’re doing, the numbers are going to be fine.
    

• The kind of leadership required -- that the primary job as a leader is to provide the right sort of emotional support and to have an enormous amount of faith in employees -- is very different from the models most of us have experienced.  This “servant leadership” is about recognizing that you’re actually in service to the people you lead.  The real measurement of whether you’re effective is if you helped increase the energy of the people who you’re leading. 

For the full text article, go to ...
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/92/clear-leader-extra.html

It Takes a Community

A number of recent movements in the workplace have focused on a concern for the human in the organization and a reaction against the priority of profits over people.  Jim Collins and Jerry R. Porras pointed out in Built to Last that businesses need profit, just as humans need air.  Profit is what organizations need to function in an economic system, but it’s not a primary goal. 

The most successful organizations treat their people well and reap the rewards of high productivity and low turnover.  Creating a good work environment is considered a legitimate part of an organization’s mission.  In fact, a good workplace can enhance an organization’s ability to produce a profit.  But a great workplace also sees profit as a means to enhance employee’s work life.  Organizations that foster this work life culture tend to be ones that are seen as workplace communities, evolving into a new integrated paradigm of the individual, the work, the workplace, and society.

Organizations noted for their strong work life culture share the following characteristics:

• An overwhelming alignment between the organizations’ missions and their commitment to employees, customers, suppliers, and community is proof of a strong values-based culture.
    

• Employee development and a strong employee focus is embedded in the culture.
    

• Organizational leaders live the culture.  An overall feeling exists that if you want to be successful, you must model the organization’s values.
    

• Empowerment and integrity go hand-in-hand with pride in these organizations.  Employees are likely to be overheard saying, “You create your own destiny and carve out your individual path.  You are the driver and the company is here to help.”  The emphasis is on intrinsic motivation and trusting people to do a good job.  These organizations hire talented people, give them a mission they can be proud of, and then get out of their way.  That’s called trust.
    

• Employees find their work to be meaningful and they enjoy socializing with their colleagues because they feel they’re all in it together.
    

• The sense of community and social responsibility is overwhelming.

Source: Neal Chalofsky and Mary Gayle Griffin in TD Magazine, January 2005

Next Month

You recruit.  You hire.  You train.  Within a year, they leave.  What’s wrong with this picture?!  You can prevent new employee “disconnects” by taking a few preventive steps.

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