Wow! The more I look at IBM, the more I like what I see. They* have smart people. They have scale. They have a global presence. They’re doing cool things that help organizations perform better and cranking out patents at an unbelievable pace. If that’s not enough, the IBM culture seems to get better all the time and they’re leveraging the strength of culture with cutting edge social networking capabilities that connect IBMers so that they are “better together.”
In recent interactions with IBMers, I’ve noticed a sense of pride about being at IBM that I haven’t seen in 20 years. There are clear signs to me that IBM is developing the Connection Culture I write about. Take a look at CEO Sam Palmisano’s inspiring email about the importance of IBM values and how they were developed through collaboration via IBM’s “Values Jam.” Check out IBM’s “Beehive” social networking capability.
I suspect these examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Stay tuned for more. In the coming months I’ll be learning and sharing much more about IBM and other organizations that are helping their employees feel connected to their corporate identity (mission, values and reputation), to the people they work with and to their daily tasks at work.
* I intentionally use the term “they” rather than “it.” Although organizations are a legal person they are, in reality, a community of people. It’s healthier, in my view, to refer to and think of organizations in this way.
Category Archives: Inspiring Identity
Increasing Employee Engagement at Lockheed Martin
Recently I presented to a group of 60 leaders at Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defense company. The leaders I met were part of the aerospace group. It was an inspiration for me to hear their stories including one about a dramatic savings of time and money when a front line worker’s idea led to a software breakthrough. I was pleased to see some business units were using the Start-Stop-Continue exercise. Both of these reflect the Connection Culture element of Voice. I was also inspired hearing how one leader felt extremely proud of his company and its important work when his young son saw up close the remarkable military aircraft his dad worked on (which reflects the element of Vision). I get goosebumps just thinking about these stories and how the bright, dedicated and motivated employees at Lockheed Martin are creating a Connection Culture!
U2’s Unity Featured in the American Management Association’s “Moving Ahead” Publication
An article I wrote on the band U2 was just published by the American Management Association as the lead article in its popular Moving Ahead: Management Insights for Business Success publication. The article is entitled “Great Teams: The Extraordinary Unity of U2.” Thanks goes to Shari Lifland, the editor of Moving Ahead, who made some very clever changes from the original article that was published last month in The Economic Times in India.
Connection Culture, Hawaii Style
Managing Aloha by Rosa Say is an excellent book that I’m adding to my recommended reading list for managers. Rosa Say is a Hawaii-based leadership and executive coach who formerly worked as a manager at various premier luxury hotels and resorts in Hawaii. In reading about her journey and experiences as a manager, we learn the values and practices that Rosa has identified as critical to success and happiness at work and in life. They are also the values that Rosa aspires to live out and to pass on to her children.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. What was especially fascinating to me were the rich descriptions of the values Rosa identifies. While readers will recognize many as being the universal values identified by positive psychology research, Rosa expresses them in Hawaiian words and in an Hawaiian context. In doing so, the values are more resonnant, i.e. they connect more with Hawaiians. This greater emotional connection is in part due to the fact that expressing universal values in native terms and stories gives Hawaiians a “sense of place” and pride that Rosa writes about in the book. After reading Managing with Aloha, I now look for ways to contextualize values for those I’m teaching and training.
I appreciated the way in which Rosa introduced new values while connecting them to those introduced earlier in the book. This building approach helps readers see the inter-connections among the values and how they play out in real life rather than viewing them as discrete concepts that are unrelated to one another.
Rosa’s values provide the optimal mix of task excellence and relationship excellence that is required to achieve sustainable superior performance. In the stories she tells, we see a manager who expects excellence, and works hard to achieve it herself while caring about the people she is responsible for leading.
Another benefit that comes from reading this book is that you learn about the practices that Rosa has developed. One in particular is called “take five.” When a manager asks an employee to “take five” it is an invitation to meet briefly together so the manager can hear what is on the employee’s mind. This simple practice gives every employee an opportunity to express his ideas and opinions and it motivates him to be continuously thinking so that he will be prepared when it is his time to “take five.” This practice increases the elements of Value and Voice that I write and speak about in my work.
In addition to Managing with Aloha, I encourage you to check out several websites that Rosa maintains. Here are links to them:www.ManagingWithAloha.com
www.SayLeadershipCoaching.com
www.sayleadershipcoaching.com/MWAcoaching
www.sayleadershipcoaching.com/TalkingStory
www.JoyfulJubilantLearning.com
Think Different: An Alternative View of Apple’s Success
U2: The “Band” as Family
Earlier this year I posted about the unity among the members of the band U2 and how it contributed to the band’s success. Comments from several individuals made me dig much deeper into the band’s story (thank you Astid, David Zinger, Lee Smith and Rachel for enlightening me). What I discovered was an extraordinary journey the band made to evolve into the force it is today.
The article I wrote about it was published today in The Economic Times (in India) and it will be published later this year in two of the American Management Association’s publications (Moving Ahead and the AMA’s Catalog). Here’s the link to The Economic Times’ article.
Let me know what you think.
From Process-centric to People-centric
Another theme that emerged from Communitelligence’s Employee Engagement conference in Chicago last week is what I would describe as “Moving from Process-centric to People-centric.” It seems that every organization has a robust set of process-oriented programs in place such as Six Sigma and Balanced Scorecard. These programs have helped organizations but people sense something’s still missing.
The next steps in the evolution of organizations will be focused on people and their values rather than additional process improvements. Organizations had lost their way in some respects by focusing so much on processes. By turning their attention to their core values, organizations were finding their way again, re-discovering their identities, who they are and what’s important to them.
Here are my observations from various presentations:
Changing Values at The Wall Street Journal
Disconnection occurs when an acquiring company and the employees of its newly acquired company define excellence in different ways. In this month’s Atlantic, Mark Bowden writes about this issue in an excellent article entitled “Mr. Murdoch Goes to War.” The article, as you might guess from its title, is about how Rupert Murdoch is altering The Wall Street Journal.
One of the three elements of a Connection Culture is Vision, which includes an organization’s mission, values and reputation. Altering an organization’s identity is tricky business. This is especially true when the employees of an organization have a strong emotional connection to the organization’s identity. In such situations employee engagement can decline and quality of execution along with it.
This is a story I’ll be watching closely for possible inclusion in my next book. If you have any insights about changes at The Wall Street Journal, please post about them or email me at mstallard@epluribuspartners.com.
“Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”
A friend’s email just reminded me of Benjamin Franklin’s words to his fellow signers of the Declaration of Independence. “We must hang together, or we shall surely hang separately,” opined Franklin following the Continental Congress approval of the Declaration. Franklin’s words conveyed a literal meaning in that signing the Declaration was treason according to King George III and therefore punishable by death. Since that time, “hanging together” has kept America strong. Adolf Hitler, Nikita Khruschev and, more recently, Osama bin Laden, proclaimed that America’s diverse ethnicities and creeds would result in disunity in the face of adversity. They missed the real source of America’s unity.
Is Employee Engagement a Competitive Advantage?
Check out a wonderful column in today’s The New York Times written by one of my favorite journalists, Joe Nocera. The column is entitled, “The Sinatra of Southwest Feels the Love.” In it Nocera contrasts the sober atmosphere at American Airlines annual meeting in Dallas this last Wednesday morning to the lovefest at Southwest Airlines annual meeting that commenced a couple hours later across town. The article focuses on Southwest’s co-founder Herb Kelleher and his belief that treating your employees well provides a competitive edge. Nocera shares his observations about Kelleher and explores other possible reasons for Southwest’s success. Like everything Nocera writes, it’s an enjoyable read with thought-provoking observations and insight.