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Culture
Saying goodbye to jargon
Saying goodbye to our favourite jargon isn’t that easy. A recent chat on the IABC linked in page asked for jargon no one wanted to hear ever again. Here are just a few examples:
Incentivize, c-suite, granular, customer-centric, innovation, collaboration, creative, low hanging fruit, breaking silos, verticals, blueprint for change, under the tent, run of play, strategic architects, rolldown, scaling, flight risk, thinking outside the box, pick my brain, value-added, leverage, make an ask, reach out, bandwidth, deep dive, drill down, ramp up, onboard[ing], quick wins, tactical execution, think laterally, going forward, socialize, run it up the flagpole, circle back, face time, strategic decision…
And more. Many, many, more.
I think we all agree. Jargon is a bad thing. And yet, most of us have been guilty at one time or another of contributing to our jargon-filled world. Jargon just sticks.
So, now what? I’m thinking we may need a good exorcism.
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Innovation & collaboration: Strategic priorities or not?
For all the talk in Canadian business about innovation and collaboration, I just read a startling and rather disappointing fact from a talk given by BDC late in 2011: Canadian “businesses invest $2,400 less per employee, per year, in computers, software and training than American companies do.”
A few years ago that amount spent on information and communication technology wouldn’t have bought you much. Today it could set an employee up with enough technology and applications to be able to connect the way they want, when they want, with colleagues virtually anywhere in the world. It could create the opportunity for innovation and collaboration that we believe is so vital.
The United States have been hit harder by the recession than we in Canada have and yet they invest $2,400 more in the stuff that will make it easier for their employees to create new and more efficient ways of doing things; new products and services that better meet the needs of their customers; and a competitive advantage. This doesn’t seem right.
When we as leaders are out talking about the importance of innovation and collaboration to the future of our organizations and our country are we making it a priority? The numbers say we aren’t.
If innovation and collaboration are key strategic priorities, then we need to invest in them. If they aren’t, then we probably shouldn’t keep saying that they are.
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Connecting for big business benefits
This morning I came across three articles. Three different perspectives. Same conclusion. The more connected we are as leaders and as organizations the better.
Perspective 1 - CEOs. A study of 65 chief executives from around the world discovered that CEOs spend an average of 6 hours out of their 55-hour work week alone. The remainder of the time is spent in business meetings [virtual and face-to-face] and lunches and on the phone. CEOs may not like it, but it is how their work gets done and confirms Henry Mintzberg‘s seminal study “The nature of managerial work” [1973].
Perspective 2: Leadership teams. In their new book Strategy & Business, Rob Cross and Jon Katzenbach describe how: “In most companies, the phrase top team is a misnomer…” Instead, they go on to say: [P]ower comes from … members’ informal and social networks, their determination to make the most of those connections, and their ability to work well in subgroups formed to address specific issues… [A]s much as 90 per cent of the information that most senior executives receive and take action on comes throughout their informal networks – not formal reports or databases.” The conclusion: Enriching networks enriches organizations.
Perspective 3: Organizations. ”Web 2.0 … promote[s] significantly more flexible processes at internally networked organizations: respondents say that information is shared more readily and less hierarchically, collaboration across organizational silos is more common, and tasks are more often tackled in a project-based fashion.” This study goes on to demonstrate that the more networked an organization the more business benefits. If you, or your leadership team, ever had any doubts it’s worth taking a look.
Connecting is what we as human beings do. We’re social creatures. Our organizational work gets done with, and through, other people.
Helping your employees connect. A little idea with huge potential business benefits.
It’s a potentially beautiful thing.
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Staying in touch with reality
The single most challenging thing facing my clients is staying in touch with reality.
And, the pace of change just makes it harder.
It’s easier to assume we know what we don’t, or can’t, know. After all we have to get onto the next pressing issue.
It’s easier to react and respond rather than ask ’why‘?
In a way, it may be as Marshall McLuhan described it: “In our time we are reliving at high speed the whole of the human past. As in a speeded-up film, we are traversing all ages, all experience, including the experience of prehistoric man.” And, he added: “You can turn it off.”
And, maybe that’s what we’re doing. Maybe, in order to survive we’re just turning it off.
What’s great about McLuhan, though, is that if you didn’t like that idea he has another one: “With the acceleration of change, management now takes on entirely new functions. While navigating admidst the unknown is becoming the normal role of the executive, the new need is not merely to navigate but to anticipate effects with their causes.”
But in turning it off we’re missing that this time of change is also a time of incredible opportunity. Those who’ll succeed and thrive, it won’t be because of random luck. It won’t be because they’re comfortable with, and embrace, ambiguity. It will be because they’ve stayed in touch with the reality of what is changing and what is staying the same and what the implications of those changes are in relationship to their values and highest aspirations.
In your organization, do your leaders know what they don’t know?
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“Just hire a Dalek”
Last week I checked out a Kevin Rose interview with Chris Sacca thanks to a referral from Mitch Joel’s blog. For those of you who are like me and not part of the geek tech world, Kevin is the founder of Digg and serial start-up guy and Chris is a tech investor whose investments include things like Twitter. The interview is, as Mitch promised, an interesting look at this world.
Near the end, Chris describes the kinds of people he likes to work with and that he would hire or invest in. As you might expect, they aren’t your usual Corporate criteria. I thought his take was pretty interesting and worth repeating here.
To start with, you need to be the kind of person that Chris would like to hang out with. I think we can assume that you need to be smart. But you’ve also:
- Done at least one tough job – you’ve gotten your hands dirty doing real work
- Lived and worked in a foreign country – it’s humbling living somewhere where you don’t speak the language or understand the culture
- Played sports – you’re more likely to be balanced about the boundaries between work and life
Though not essential but good to have: you’ve gone to and excelled at college. He particularly likes a liberal arts education. You learn how to think.
Otherwise, according to Chris he can “Just hire a Dalek”. Just a bit harsh… But what do you think? Is there anything we as leaders can learn from Chris’s criteria?
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On becoming a zero email company
One year ago today, Atos Origin‘s CEO and Chairman, Thierry Breton, announced Atos Origin would [like to] become a zero email company within three years.
At the time, Mr Breton said:
“We are producing data on a massive scale that is fast polluting our working environments and also encroaching into our personal lives. At Atos Origin we are taking action now to reverse this trend, just as organizations took measures to reduce environmental pollution after the industrial revolution.”
“The volume of emails we send and receive is unsustainable for business. Managers spend between 5 and 20 hours a week reading and writing emails. They are already using social media networking more than search, and spend 25 per cent of their time searching for information. At Atos Origin, for example, we have set up collaboration tools and social community platforms, to share and keep track of ideas on subjects from innovation and Lean Management through to sales. Businesses need to do more of this – email is on the way out as the best way to run a company and do business.”
In their press release they also reported that:
- By 2013, more than half of all new digital content will be the result of updates to, and editing of existing information
- Online social networking is now more popular than email and search
- Middle managers spend more than 25% of their time searching for information
- 2010 : Corporate users receive 200 mails per day, 18% of which is spam.”
Atos Origin has created a page on their site that expands on their position and approach - here.
I’m curious about how they are doing on their mission to become a zero email company. Good, bad or indifferent there will be lessons here. So, I’ve asked them – by email [oh dear!].
As for the rest of us, over the past year I think we’ve all been feeling the pressure. Virtually all “organizational” men and women are increasingly tethered to email through their mobile devises 24/7. We’re initiating, receiving and responding more.
When you add email to all of the other ways we are sending and receiving information it can all be a bit overwhelming.
Let’s hope Atos has some good news and a few insights about their journey so far that they are willing to share! Standby.
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If the US Army is embracing social media, you can too!
Imagine this paragraph from the opening letter to the US Army’s social media policy - Army social media – Optimizing online engagement - written for your organization:
The US Army isn’t embracing social media as a nice to have. It’s a critical element of their operational strategy.
If the US Army is embracing social media, isn’t it time you did too! And not as a nice to have but as key to your operational strategy.
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Thriving in chaos
According to a recent article in Fast Company, This Is Generation Flux: Meet The Pioneers Of The New (And Chaotic) Frontier Of Business, we’re in trouble. The volume and pace of change is relentless and uncontrollable. We can’t know the future. And the past may or may not be relevant. It’s chaos.
“Our institutions are out of date; the long career is dead; any quest for solid rules is pointless, since we will be constantly rethinking them; you can’t rely on an established business model or a corporate ladder to point your way; silos between industries are breaking down; anything settled is vulnerable.”
And then, just when you think there’s nothing we can really do institutionally, except hope and pray, comes this: “The key is to be clear about your business mission. In a world of flux, this becomes more important than ever.”
When you can’t know, get back to basics. Get back to your institutional values and aspirations. Not the stuff that’s written on plaques on walls. The real stuff. The essence of what your organization is and what you stand for and care about.
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Learning from the Bishop’s wife
It’s that time of year in the Hinton household. The time of year when we dust off all our of our old and favourite Christmas movies. Last night we watched “The Bishop’s Wife“. And for me it was as it is every year like being with a good and familiar friend after a long time apart. Fresh and new.
For those of you who don’t know the story, an angel [Cary Grant. Yes that Cary Grant!] comes to earth to answer a Bishop’s [David Niven. Yes that David Niven!] prayer. The Bishop wants to build a cathedral. He’s become ruthlessly obsessed on doing whatever he has to do to get the cathedral built. And the answer the angel brings isn’t quite what he’s expecting.
We discover, through his wife [the very beautiful Loretta Young], that when he was a priest in the small and poor parish of St Timothy’s he was very different. More like his wife – loving, generous and joyful. As the story unfolds we see how he has lost sight of his fundamental values and turned away from what really matters to him. And, if that can happen to a Bishop then it can certainly happen to any one of us. [smile]
The new year is just around the corner. With, or without an angel, may it bring you, your family, the organizations you work for and communities you live in the opportunity to create what you truly value most.
And in the meanwhile, enjoy!
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The ultimate question & employees
I just listened to my favourite podcast, Mitch Joel’s “Six Pixels of Separation”. In this episode, Mitch spoke with Fred Reichheld. Not surprisingly, since Mitch is a brand marketing expert and Fred is a customer loyalty expert and author of the Loyalty Effect and the Ultimate Question, their conversation focused on the customer and the ultimate question: Have I treated you in a way that is worthy of your loyalty?
So, what does that have to do with employees and employee communication? Imagine asking the ultimate question to employees. I did. And, it made me think that perhaps we should be scrapping our annual employee surveys and instead start tracking the employees answer to this one question.
What could we learn by knowing whether our employees were “Promoters, Passives, or Detractors”? Would an employee net promoter score actually tell us more than we’re learning from our annual engagement and job satisfaction surveys? Would it be easier to administer and manage? Would the results be easier to communicate and act upon? Could that deeper understanding help us better achieve our business goals and build toward sustainable success fast?
Even if you don’t think this is the ultimate employee question, the idea of the one question employee survey is an idea who’s time has come.
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Recent Posts
- Grey zones are costing your organization big time
- Saying goodbye to jargon
- Don’t leave them laughing
- A master class with Ed Sullivan
- Innovation & collaboration: Strategic priorities or not?
- The truth about the number 1 fear
- Want to know the secret to writing a great speech?
- Connecting for big business benefits
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Recent posts
- Grey zones are costing your organization big time
- Saying goodbye to jargon
- Don’t leave them laughing
- A master class with Ed Sullivan
- Innovation & collaboration: Strategic priorities or not?
- The truth about the number 1 fear
- Want to know the secret to writing a great speech?
- Connecting for big business benefits
- Staying in touch with reality
- “Just hire a Dalek”
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