Today’s Culture Dilemma

I recently had the opportunity to write an article for the Center for Retailing Excellence at the University of Arkansas with their quarterly newsletter, “CRE8: Creating the Retail Landscape of Tomorrow.” In the article I discuss some of the issues that complicate today’s business world and prevent positive culture from developing. There are many factors that distinguish successful companies from unsuccessful companies, but culture remains a consistent common denominator. When you think of organizations that you truly enjoy interacting with – what thoughts and emotions do your experiences invoke? When I interact with a company that has a highly developed and evolutionary culture I always have a great experience and get what I have come to expect. For example, when I fly Southwest I know that I am going to get a positive customer experience due to the pervasive and modernized customer-centric culture they have worked diligently to establish. It’s the same with Google and the same with Disney.

Only by creating an agile culture are companies truly able to successfully navigate through today’s complex business challenges. Some of these challenges include:

1. Scandal-driven Accountability
2. Communications & Continuous Access
3. Social Responsibility
4. Globalization
5. Abundant Consumer Choices

Build a thriving culture will require your intense focus on the following areas:

1. Protect your company heritage
2. Build transferable leadership skills that help build in agility and adaptability
3. Don’t just develop skill-sets; develop the proper mindset through values
4. Define specific behaviors that support values
5. Allow for cultural expression in a diverse and cross-cultural global business environment

By focusing on these points you should be able to steer your company in the right direction and begin to develop the agile culture that will allow your company to succeed in today’s tough business world.

Onward!

Tags: culture

Can You Be Too Connected?

Over the years, our organization, SVI, has launched thousands of social networking studies to measure the connectedness of leaders inside and outside of organizations. We wanted to understand how one’s connections to others, or their networks, impede or enable one’s success. Do the most successful leaders have the most contacts? Do the most trusted leaders have the most friends? If I have more Facebook or Twitter friends than someone else, am I more likeable?

With the rise of social networking and the new emphasis our businesses have put on community involvement, it seems like we’ve elevated the importance of our connectedness to others. But is this a good thing? What does our research have to say?

After receiving almost 10,000 survey responses, we’ve discovered that there is no such thing as a standard ideal network. Different situations call for different relational dynamics. We did learn, however, that you can be too connected. Studies have shown that having too many connections impede our productivity. In this instance, our connections become the priority, not our performance. Additionally, too many connections can impede the level of trust others have in us. After all, isn’t it hard to trust the dinner party “glad hander”? You know these people. They are at every community event shaking hands with everyone they come in eye contact with.

For the champion, building relationships is different. What matters to the champion is not the quantity of their relationships, but rather the quality of them. And like our research shows, someone who’s not overly connected or networked has the time to invest in others and build a deeper level of trust with a precious few. Our research shows that the top performers in a business aren’t the most connected. In fact, these top performers typically drive the middle of the road when it comes to their network strength. The difference is, however, that these top performers are the most trusted regardless of their network size.

Below are a few ways to build trust within your networks:

Invest in others by listening first and showing real concern. Seek to know their agenda or needs before you share yours.
Be willing to be a little more transparent or vulnerable than usual. Share more of yourself with others in the truest way. Don’t project something you’re not.
Always operate with a cooperative mindset, pushing your self-serving agenda aside for the sake of a win-win outcome.
Don’t be afraid to share your emotions. Allow others to see your passion. It will ignite theirs and they will appreciate you for it.

I’m spending time discussing this at the upcoming Northwest Arkansas Economic Summit coming up on November 11th.  I hope to capture your thoughts on this topic prior to the event.  Please leave a comment on this post.

If you are near Northwest Arkansas on November 11th, I invite you to come to the summit. There is more information about how to take part in this summit at their website.

Onward!

Tags: champion, connect, connected, connecting, network, networking, organizational, OrganizationalChampions, professional, relationships, social