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The Culture Of....

Tue, 26 Nov 2024 15:59:19 GMT

Do you remember the ice bucket challenge of 2014? Ice Bucket Challenge ? This challenge went viral and ushered in a new way of marketing, creating awareness and raising money.

The Culture Of…

Do you remember the ice bucket challenge of 2014? Ice Bucket Challenge - Wikipedia

This challenge went viral and ushered in a new way of marketing, creating awareness and raising money.

That all sounds positive, doesn’t it? In theory and limited practice, it remains a positive means to a purposeful outcome.

Unfortunately, a creative new idea can become overused to a point where the value is minimized, or worse, it can go down the path of misuse as in the case of the Tide Pod challenge of 2017.

What does this have to do with workplace culture?

I have watched as a creative new way of bringing attention to important business themes has eroded the value of the specific initiatives and limited success across the board.

In the 1980’s the language of “culture of…” started showing up in business vernacular.

The simple, authentic, and effective “culture of…” statements made them highly desirable to replicate.

By the 1990’s and certainly by the 2000’s this well-intended approach became so pervasive that it resulted in silos, conflict over resource distribution, confusion for employees, and undermining of benefits of the “culture of…”.

Yet, today businesses continue to lean into the “culture of…” as if we are addicts seeking the initial high, and benefits, we felt and experienced. The culture of safety, quality, LEAN, diversity, learning, nursing excellence, inclusion, etc. attempts to bring meaningful and impactful attention, commitment, action, and long-term results.

Absolutely! There is value in professions and movements defining and sharing best practices that businesses can customize and adopt as their best-for-us practices. At the same time, we have taken the “culture of…” trend to its natural end and it is time to shift our thinking for even better results.

With the current approach, employees struggle with prioritization and shared purpose because there are too many cultures. It creates confusion and leads to a lack of trust in the company when there are competing cultures. This isn’t because of a lack of desire to be a team player. Our brains are wired to make individual sense of competing information, and this means that there are as many cultures as there are people.

My Suggestion

My suggestion to those who want a healthy and high-performing business is to tweak our thinking instead of completely abandoning the value the “culture of…” offered.

To simplify and chunk the information in a way that enables a consistent and repeatable culture, I advocate for a single overarching umbrella. The umbrella I use is, “A Culture of Sustainable Excellence.” The S.C.A.N. protocol offer us a way of thinking where there is a single, overarching culture with initiatives that ladder up to the single culture.

While the overarching umbrella is “A Culture of Sustainable Excellence” , the other “cultures” are central themes that are infused into the way the organization, and its people, think and behave.

The “culture of learning” is just another way of saying that the business wants

Learning to be Synchronized with the business
Agreed-upon Commitment to prioritizing learning
Bold action demonstrating Activation of the commitment
Nimbleness built into the ongoing assessment of learning as a central theme so learning remains a constant, yet evolving focus of the business.

… and that ultimately the outcomes associated with learning initiatives are sustainable.

We can say A Culture of Sustainable Excellence with learning as a central theme without losing the intent of “culture of…” All while improving the outcomes.

This type of shift further feeds a state of flow that comes when a business adopts effective Leadership.

As a caveat, an overarching umbrella isn’t permission to pick up a larger plate to add more “culture of’s….”. Discernment and intentionality are necessary to shift to infusive thinking. At the same time, a single culture doesn’t necessarily require a hard stop to anything currently in progress. There still needs to be a discussion about what critical few will live under the umbrella, but the umbrella is the constant.

Having a single culture provides the necessary clarity and organizes and chunks information to make it easier for every employee to learn, apply and infuse into their daily habits and decision-making.

Can you imagine a workplace where everyone is an ambassador to the themes in service of the umbrella culture vs. siloed departments loading up on tactics in hopes of swaying people to paying attention to their “culture of…”?

I’ve been working with companies for more than 20 years, focusing on creating healthy teams and cultures. I welcome a conversation to understand where your organization is on its journey to a single, umbrella culture, and let's explore how Ripple Effect Culture can help you improve your outcomes.

Choosing the Right Talent Management Consulting Partner

Fri, 23 Aug 2024 14:04:01 GMT

Finding an experienced talent management partner who can tailor solutions to your needs is essential to any organization's future success.

Engaging with a talent management consultant can fill a gap or enhance and support existing people and processes.

What is Talent Management Consulting?

First, to dispel a myth, talent management is not the same as recruiting. Recruiting is a small subset of talent management, a broad term used to define various touchpoints along the employee journey. Talent management is sometimes called organizational effectiveness, organizational development, or employee experience.

Companies today must place the utmost value on their most vital resource—their people. To do so effectively and comprehensively, they need a talent management strategy, a means to implement, manage change and integrate new practices. Fortunately, with the growing space of talent management consulting and gig work, companies of all sizes and industries can tap into the benefits of being strategic with talent management efforts.

Talent management consultants get to know their clients to align talent strategies with company culture, values and goals. This approach reduces employee turnover rates while simultaneously increasing productivity and performance. A talent management expert can offer innovative solutions that will assist clients in meeting the ever-evolving business landscape.

A talent management professional will have the tools to define and enhance culture, attract talent, select candidates, improve performance, develop leaders, provide leadership coaching, design career progression, engage employees, and plan succession.

Talent Management & the Employee Journey

Businesses benefit from a talent management framework and strategy that drives success. A talent management consultant can assist companies with creating such a framework, helping the business attain results faster. Companies typically spend around one-third of revenue on employee costs; investing in talent management efforts ensures maximum return on this expenditure.

Attracting, selecting, engaging and retaining the right talent is often difficult to quantify. The cost associated with turnover typically ranges from 1 times the individual’s salary for an unskilled, entry-level position to 100+ times their salary for a highly skilled or executive position. Some of the costs that aren’t easily factored into this are the downstream impacts of hiring the wrong person. For all organizations, ill-fitting hires are costly. For a start-up or small company, the damage done can be fatal. At the same time, an engaged, right-for-you employee can be the lever that catapults you to the next level.

Attracting and selecting the best talent for your organization goes far beyond posting and interviewing. It begins with a deep understanding of who you are as a business, and then knowing how to talk about this is a way that attracts the candidates who are aligned. Understanding who you are as a business is at the core. Clarifying and communicating the role in a way that opens the pipeline is another layer that a talent management consultant can assist with. Interviewing is truly a skill. An expert in talent management knows how to assess candidates and develop the skills managers need to be effective and legally compliant interviewers.

New hire orientation and onboarding are both powerful yet different. Partnering with a talent management consultant can create distinction and clarity, which can become events, processes, tools and experiences that decrease the time it takes for a new employee to be fully productive.

Continually re-recruiting and engaging the top talent requires a different strategy, plan and skillset than attracting, recruiting and engaging the broad workforce. A talent management expert will enable you to differentiate between a solid performer, high performer, pipeline and high potential, and they will partner with you to retain these different audiences.

Leaders must be capable and confident in leading and managing different employees. Even knowing where to start with leadership development so that the business sees a sustainable return on investment is challenging. A talent management expert assesses needs and identifies gaps to guide this planning. A talent management partner can also create and deliver the learning to address needs and gaps.

One of the driving factors in a decision to stay with an organization is the opportunity to progress. Many businesses want to clarify career progression, but this is lagging in practice. Talent management consultants develop a unique-to-you career progression philosophy, career architecture and leveling guides.

Every business wants engaged employees. Talent management experts assist with the strategy and tactical planning to assess and address gaps. Knowing how to collect information about engagement can be tailored to your industry, size, years in business, employee audience, business needs, budget and any other unique identifier so that a formal employee engagement journey is successful.

The workforce demographics are changing. Selecting to work with a talent management consultant can help you plan for the next generation of your business. This includes looking at current talent, future needs and skills gaps and implementing a plan. This broad look at the business is known as succession planning. Succession planning is different from identifying a single successor for a specific position. If you prefer successor identification to succession planning, a talent management expert can provide a skills assessment and create and support an individual development plan.

There are many touchpoints along the employee journey. A trusted talent management consultant can help elevate and sustain your culture, employee experience and bottom line.

What are the benefits of Talent Management Consulting?

Talent management consultant assists organizations in creating and implementing best-for-you practices that attract, retain, and develop top talent.

Working with a talent management professional can bring many advantages across industries. Some general benefits include improved hiring practices, higher productivity rates, greater retention rates, reduced costs and a culture that positively impacts the lives of everyone who works for and with you. A well-defined and effectively implemented talent management plan can be the differentiator that attracts talent and supports the vitality and growth of your business.

If you would like to explore Talent Management services, let’s have a conversation. Ripple Effect Culture can help!

How to Create Company Culture

Fri, 16 Aug 2024 12:01:37 GMT

Culture is integral to the employee experience, team performance, and business outcomes.

Culture is integral to the employee experience, team performance, and business outcomes. “Creating” company culture is misleading because culture always exists. A company has as many cultures as it does leaders. Embedding an intentional company culture requires clearly defining the culture and providing structures, processes and tools to live the cultural norms. Having a well-defined culture helps attract, hire, retain, engage and develop a workforce that can carry forward the vision and mission of the business in a consistent and repeatable way.

Defining Your Company Culture

You can think of company culture like an iceberg. Behaviors, policies and practices are above the water line and comprise only a small portion of the iceberg. Under the water are the values that drive these behaviors, policies and practices. Underpinning the values are beliefs about the work and the people.

For example, the above-the-water line for a company might include a video game room, paid “play days” away from the office, and training for all leaders on how to lead through play. You can infer that this company values fun and play. This company likely believes that people are more effective and that the quality of work is better when people engage in play.

When the beliefs, values, behaviors, policies and practices align, it creates a wow culture that drives engagement, loyalty and business success. However, there is often a gap between the stated and lived culture that creates confusion, frustration and loss of productivity.

To define your culture, you can try to start by documenting your foundational beliefs. This can be difficult work because beliefs feel intangible. Another way to approach your culture is to draft your values and work backward to ensure the values accurately represe

nt the underlying beliefs. From there, you can look at the tangible items above the water line and align them with values and beliefs. That sounds easy, right? However, to accurately define the culture, there are many nuances that require honest and often difficult conversations.

For example, I am unaware of any business that does not want its employees to feel like they belong. However, the beliefs driving belongingness impact how belonging is defined and structured. Some businesses may believe that employees belong when surrounded by the industry's most credible, educated and experienced experts. For others, they may believe that employees experience belongingness when they have a voice in decisions, no matter their level of expertise.

Another example is the value of innovation. Innovation in one business may mean taking pride in the innovative products the brand offers. In contrast, another company may mean that innovation is encouraged and expected by everyone in their everyday work.

What a company believes and how it defines its values is neither good nor bad, right or wrong. What matters is that the values accurately represent the culture and that the above-the-waterline items match.

Clearly, defining and cultivating a company culture can be hugely rewarding for any organization, as it will boost morale, employee retention rates, productivity and business results. Prioritizing culture over other considerations is paramount to attracting the right candidates for your business while increasing employee engagement levels for maximum business success in today's increasingly competitive business climate.

Infusing the Culture

Having the organization’s culture defined in a handbook or referenced in occasional communication is not enough to earn the gains that come from a well-defined and lived culture. The culture must be infused into how leaders and employees think, make decisions, behave and act.

Some organizations may believe that policies drive decisions, ensuring consistency in thinking. Other organizations believe that applying values-based decision-making to situations is more important, resulting in more flexibility over standardization. Again, there is no right or wrong approach as long as each organization is true to its beliefs and values.

Infusion ensures that the culture is consistently demonstrated and felt. When the employees feel the organization’s culture, this extends and cascades to the stakeholders and customers. When you think about the employee journey, a number of experiences are common points of infusion.

When accurately defined and effectively communicated, the organization’s culture assists with attracting candidates who are a culture fit and culture add. During the interview process, assessing the match between the culture and the candidate helps the organization and the candidate make decisions about extending and accepting an offer. Alignment during attraction and selection decreases the potential for turnover.

The new hire and onboarding processes offer the opportunity to infuse further, reinforce and teach employees the written and unwritten rules of the company culture. When new employees understand the rules, expectations, and decision-making, their time to productivity decreases. Preparing and guiding new employees to understand the corporate culture is not the sole responsibility of a new hire trainer. Trainers and HR play a role, as do the employee’s leader and the team they are joining.

When designing employee and leadership development, the culture is at the forefront of design, delivery and measurement. Aspects of the culture, like the values, can be overtly called out as part of skill development and for defining the ‘why’ of development. For example, there may be a disconnect if the expectation is that everyone is onsite 5 days a week, yet all development efforts are virtual. If the underlying belief about onsite work is that teams are more effective when together, explaining why the development efforts are not in-person might be challenging.

Performance management is a great way to infuse behavioral expectations associated with the organization’s culture. The performance process is also a means for conversations about how the individual is doing within the context of the culture. A portion of the rewards system can also link to performance. Performing within the context of the culture is an often overlooked consideration. Someone who is a high performer in one organization may or may not be able to deliver the same performance if the new company culture significantly differs from their past experiences.

Ongoing communication about the culture can be considered an always-on marketing campaign. The communication campaign is another opportunity to reflect the culture. If the organization is formal yet the communications are light-hearted and fun, a disconnect erodes trust and negatively impacts the benefits of a well-defined culture.

Establishing or updating and infusing company culture may be complex, but the effort pays off in attracting talent, improving retention and increasing sales and productivity.

If you want your culture to drive even better outcomes, let’s have a conversation. HERE

Ripple Effect Culture

The Importance of Leadership Development

Fri, 09 Aug 2024 17:22:24 GMT

Leadership development was once a luxury and is now mission-critical to the success of any business.

Leadership development was once a luxury and is now mission-critical to the success of any business. Leaders are critical to executing the deliverables necessary for business success and growth. They are on the front line of the employee experience and are stewards of the organization’s culture.

Leadership development is the practice of equipping people with the capabilities, skills and competencies necessary to lead themselves, others and the business. Leadership development builds and enhances an individual's ability to guide, inspire and achieve results. It encompasses skills like strategic thinking, vision setting, communication, emotional intelligence, and the ability to foster teamwork, collaboration, and innovation. Leadership development provides skills to perform today and develops individuals to successfully take on future challenges, adapt to change, and work with and through others to achieve common goals.

Leaders significantly impact the employee experience, with “my manager/leader” being cited as the most frequent reason employees leave a job. A common misstep is when an individual who is delivering results is promoted into a people leadership position without the skills necessary to shift from getting results as an individual to achieving success by leading others. Leadership development helps to close the skill gap and ensures business continuity. Leadership development is strategic and can be a differentiator in the market.

Additionally, leadership development prepares current leaders to take on new roles created in response to the business needs and to replace more senior roles. Developing internal employees creates a stronger talent pool for future leadership roles and reduces external hires by strengthening your existing talent pool and creating internal talent pipelines. It is advantageous to develop leaders from within because it motivates employees, and there is already a history of the person’s success within the organization’s culture.

Leadership development also plays a vital role in keeping up with an ever-evolving workplace by helping create nimble leaders who can adapt quickly to shifting business environments and new strategic goals. This is integral to reducing turnover rates.

Leadership development is vital for any company and is a non-negotiable for those who are in high-growth mode.

Leadership development is a key factor in addressing turnover, quiet quitting, absenteeism, productivity and ultimately, the bottom line.

What is Leadership Development?

Leadership development refers to an array of learning experiences designed to equip current and aspiring business leaders with the necessary skills. Because leadership is a set of skills, it can be learned and developed.

Leadership skills include those that are transferable across areas of the business and externally across industries. Giving feedback is an example of a skill that all leaders will use.

Often, skills unique to a specific organization are also included in development efforts. Giving feedback in a way that furthers the organization’s culture and reinforces the internal performance management processes is an example of customizing a general skill. Synchronizing skill development with the business culture is a powerful means of creating consistency.

There is a difference between management training and leadership development. Both are value-added. Typically, one person in a single role is expected to be a manager and a leader. The percentage of time someone spends in each function often varies as they continue on their career path. Separating manager training and leadership development aids in communicating unique but interrelated expectations.

Management training emphasizes equipping individuals with the skills and knowledge needed to run day-to-day operations efficiently within an organization. This includes skills like planning, organization, task delegation, performance monitoring, and adhering to protocols and procedures. Management training is often more about maintaining order and ensuring the smooth execution of operations.

Leadership development is broader, focusing on long-term vision and influence. Leaders are often expected to drive change and innovation.

One topic that is both about management and leadership is managing the performance of employees.

Managing employees has legal aspects that are critical to teach and reinforce.

The skills needed for day-to-day interactions are more challenging to develop. For example, managing conflict is one of the most difficult skills to develop. Yet, it is usually one of the most important skills to include in leadership development. Two other highly difficult and important skills for leaders are leading innovation and managing ambiguity.

Leadership development can be designed to scale for many leaders and be personalized to address each individual’s development needs and aspirations.

Leadership development can take many forms and can cover a broad range of topics. Being intentional when starting or revamping leadership development efforts can decrease the time it takes to see the desired results.

What makes for Effect Leadership Development

The most effective leadership development is more than a course or a program. It is specifically designed to address current and future business needs. It sustains and elevates the organization's culture and prepares participants to solve real business issues.

To determine whether leadership development efforts are effective, the design and management of the development include defining the measurable outcomes and measuring and reporting on them. The most basic measurable outcome is counting the number of people who completed the development. Another foundational measure is assessing how much the participants enjoyed the development. To gain even more buy-in for leadership development efforts, many organizations shift over time and measure the return on investment and the impact on business outcomes.

Various techniques and tactics can be used to develop leadership skills based on adult learning and content design theories. It is well-documented that practice and hands-on experience are the most effective ways to build leadership skills that are successfully and repeatedly applied on the job. Reading, observing, participating, and learning from others also play a part in designing effective leadership development.

Unlike a direct sale, which results in an immediate and easily quantified result, leadership development is an ongoing journey rather than an instant solution.

Leadership development can be overwhelming and certainly time-consuming. Even when the skillset exists within the business, many organizations do not have the bandwidth to design, execute or enhance all or parts of broad leadership development efforts.

If you are interested in starting or enhancing your leadership development efforts, Ripple Effect Culture (link to leadership development page) can help you!

Importance of Organizational Culture

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 23:48:01 GMT

Healthy Company Culture turns into Long Term Success

Why is Organizational Culture So Important?

Cultivating a healthy organizational culture (also known as company culture) is essential for the long-term success of any organization. It not only benefits employees but also boosts the overall reputation and success of the organization. This

statement is widely agreed upon. So why are so many organizations still waiting to take action?

How do I know if my Company Culture is Unhealthy?

Honestly, it can be challenging to know when an organization is healthy or unhealthy. Because

unhealthy organizations are not uncommon, many people struggle with making comparisons.

Employees may not have previous experience with healthy organizations to use as a benchmark.

Consider this: When we have a virus in our bodies, we rely on a baseline to know that our current state

is not our normal state. Similarly, when we're immersed in an unhealthy work environment, it starts to

feel "normal." It's not necessarily healthy, but it is predictable. And predictability is comfortable. Just like

untreated depression or anxiety, we can become accustomed to the symptoms and learn to function

despite an underlying health issue.

What can be Done About an Unhealthy Culture?

Addressing unhealthy organizations must be done at the cellular level, meaning we need to examine and

shift the underlying beliefs and attitudes. However, we can begin to create change by looking at the

visible symptoms and the structures, practices, activities, and policies of an organization.

Symptoms of an unhealthy culture that may benefit from a closer look include low employee

engagement, increased turnover, difficulty attracting quality employees, low productivity, high

employee relations issues, and even lawsuits from previous employees. While it's true that we need to

assess these within the context of the current societal environment—since factors like turnover and

hiring can be influenced by external conditions—focusing only on external factors can be a mistake. If

we ignore internal factors, we miss an opportunity to differentiate our business and position it as a

leader in the market.

Addressing these issues requires a holistic approach that considers both external pressures and internal

dynamics. Doing so not only leads to a healthier organizational culture but also establishes a sustainable

competitive advantage. At Ripple Effect Culture we say this advantage comes from creating sustainable

excellence. Take the quiz to find out if your organization can benefit from a Culture of Sustainable Excellence.