April 13, 2018
Great cultures
Dave Logan, author of Tribal Leadership, helped me see the power of a good listener, who has the ability to influence conversation without even saying anything. He said, “You can tell who has that kind of power because if they look at their watch then the whole room.” Their presence holds the space of the conversation.
Sometimes that’s a real person… The worldwide training company, Landmark Education, has someone listening to the leader just to hold space for the conversation. I myself was the listener in the room when Dave recorded his audiobook. And I have noticed that the best podcasts seem to have a producer there in the room.
The eerie part, is you don’t even need a real person. Think that’s weird?
At Amazon.com they keep a chair open at meetings to represent the customer’s voice. How cool and weird is that?! It’s like a ghost is there.
It seems like Walt Disney is still there when you hear the stories behind the scenes in Disney management and training. And if you can wrap your mind around this: Steve Jobs’ biographer said those close to him still speak of him in the present tense… What?!
And it hit me… Without getting into the beliefs, the world’s most well-known person may be the ghost of Jesus.
Let’s stick with the living ones, at least for now…
Do you notice who are the powerful listeners at your company?
What are they listening for?
What space are they holding?
March 20, 2018
Culture of Chaos ,Values
When I’m with a group of leaders and managers, there’s often one from a family business.
They are the ones who throw me a curveball. Their culture questions are very different from the rest of the group. The conversation ends pretty quickly once I give them the answer they are not expecting. I say:
It gets a ton of laughs but I’m serious.
The mafia plays by different rules, or perhaps different values. While corporations tend to be based in performance, results, and service. Family business usually means the values are loyalty and trust, before anything else.
So while that leader in the company (usually a son, brother or cousin) is trying to shift the culture, they have to play the game. They want to do things differently but what they really have to do is build up so much trust and loyalty by staying in-line.
In no other circumstance do I say this, but I say – Be a Yes Man, or a Yes Woman. Do it to the point that they get sick of it. Then they’ll either build up a ton of credit to use later, or the leaders will simply hand over more responsibility.
And the next question is – Do you want to play that game?
Because you always have a choice. You can leave and find a place that’s more in line with your values. Or if you stay, play the game and help improve it by working from within.
March 12, 2018
Hacks ,Hiring
I just signed up for a Virtual Assistant Service.
They made it easy on me, by making it challenging.
What?
Yes. Stay with me here…
They could have simply given me a button that said, “Sign up here.” Then they could have taken my money. Yes, that would have been an “easy” process. But how many people would do it, and just sign up cold like that.
Instead, they added friction to me buying their service, and it made it easier.
Let me show you.
First, they didn’t ask me to buy. They just invite me to try.
After clicking that, they entice me to try it for free, and take my info…
They don’t stop there, because you know how many of us sign up for something like this, let it hit our email and do nothing, right?
So instead, they get me into action, immediately. They ask me to pick a task area, and if I do it within the time limit, then I get a $25 credit.
And then step by step, I pick the kind of task I want done:
I then go on to give them exact information…
And we’re on our way.
Yes, it’s a lot of steps, but, I believe it drivers higher conversion rates because:
a) They’re very easy.
b) It screens out those who are not serious.
c) I get immediate value, and they are selling by doing.
So how does this relate to your company internally?
1) Rather than post your job opportunities, put up a form to take their email address and their interests, so that you have a way of contacting them if a relevant job comes up. If you just show them the jobs and one doesn’t apply, then you’ve lost them forever.
2) Have them contribute a video of why they are a good candidate.
3) Ask them to use a very specific subject in an email to you, just to see if they can really follow instructions and pay attention to detail. If they can’t do this simple thing, they’re out.
4) Interview people in a group, have them work together on something and have each person say a recommendation for the others to get a job. You can tell how well they play in teams, and how much they’re willing to support the bigger goal.
When I started up the Goals Coach program at Zappos, we had only one coach for 1500 people. Rather than just opening up for coaching, we had them:
1) Apply to be in it, making them think about what they want and why.
2) They had to take a class about coaching and how it works
3) Now that they have had all their prep, the sessions only took 15 minutes, rather than a full hour, thus quadrupling capacity.
Where might you add friction in your business or in your culture in order to serve the higher goal?
March 5, 2018
Great cultures ,Values
In the Culture Blueprint I talk about how culture is related to systems theory. There are feedback loops (culture feeds on itself).
Here are the two kinds and why you should know about them:
These are the values you want to be known for. You want reinforce behaviors that support these values.
I would actually call these counter-balancing loops. They make sure the intended value does not go out of control, because any system that is optimized for a value without a counterbalance will tip over.
Let me explain…
At Zappos, the first value is “Deliver WOW! through service.” There are many reinforcing behaviors that go into this, from the way calls are answered to how problems are handled.
But… if that was the only value, imagine how it would go out of control if followed to an extreme. People would spend a lot of money on making customers happy, even to the detriment of the company. Or, people would focus so much on helping the customer that they would lose focus on themselves and burn out.
So the counter balancing values are “Do more with less” to keep costs down, and “Create Fun and a Little Weirdness” to make sure everyone is taking care of themselves.
You can see this in many companies.
Google places a high priority on academics. So they balance the education intensity of college with all the amenities of college too.
Apple is known for pursuing excellence. But if they only pursued excellence they would never ship because it would never be perfect. And because of that, they also have a high tolerance for failure. Steve Jobs said he loved the products they never created as much as the ones that they did.
So take the highest value you have for your company. Now take it to an extreme. Now what would be the counter balance?
Oh, and what do you think Steve Jobs said when asked what his all-time favorite invention was?
It was Apple itself – The company. Meaning the culture and people. Culture is the key factor.
