The Advisor’s Corner

Creating the best workplace on Earth

July 8, 2013/in Ideas to help you build a solid team/by Tom Doescher

You all know we are really into building great companies where people love to work. In the past, we have recommended the book Drive, by Daniel Pink, which focuses on how organizations can effectively — and successfully — motivate their teams. We discovered an outstanding article in the May 2013 Harvard Business Review that delves into the same issue. The article, titled “Creating the Best Workplace on Earth,” was written by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, and its precepts are based on a three-year study. As a result of the study, Goffee and Jones have identified six common imperatives of great places to work. Here is their list:

Let me be myself (i.e., I want to be the same person at work as I am at home).
Tell me what’s really going on (i.e., tell us all the whole story; don’t spin information).
Discover and magnify my strengths (i.e., give every team member a chance to develop).
Make me proud I work for your company (i.e., I want to value what we stand for).
Make my work meaningful (i.e., at work, it gives us purpose when we share a common cause).
Don’t hinder me with stupid rules (see our May 27, 2013, post).

Consider using this as a self-assessment tool for your company. Although these ideas may seem easy and rather obvious, very few companies manage to accomplish all six.

Leading with the heart

June 24, 2013/in Sharpening Your Personal Leadership Skills/by Tom Doescher

As we sat and watched Duke become Louisville’s latest victim during the NCAA Elite Eight, it reminded us of one of our favorite leadership books, Leading with the Heart, written by Coach Mike Krzyzewski. (See our recommended reading list)

Here are just a few of Coach K’s thoughts on leadership:

People want to be on a team. They want to be part of something bigger than themselves. They want to be in a situation where they feel they are doing something for the greater good.
Too many rules get in the way of leadership. Rules put you in a box. Sometimes, people set rules just to keep from making tough decisions. (For more on this topic, see my post from May 27th “Please, no more rules.”)
Luck seems to favor teams where the members trust one another. As a leader, when you make a mistake, admit you are wrong. Apologize in front of the whole team.
If you put a plant in a jar, it will take the shape of the jar. But if you allow the plant to grow freely, 20 jars might not be able to hold it.

After reading the book, it became obvious why Coach K has been so successful. How do you and your company stack up against his common-sense advice for leaders?

Wow, 240-year-old company was able to change!

June 10, 2013/in Nuggets and Encouragement Regarding Strategy and Focus/by Tom Doescher

We are on a roll with the value of the Harvard Business Review (see our HBR comments ). In the March 2013 issue, Jorge Cauz, president of Encyclopaedia Britannica, tells an encouraging story about why his company stopped producing the iconic encyclopedia and how they became a successful provider of online K-12 educational services. Click this link to listen to a 15-minute interview with Cauz: Harvard Business Review: Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Transformation

We have read about or observed so many companies that are not willing to modify their product to keep up with a changing marketplace and, as a result, die. Encyclopaedia Britannica understood and met their challenges head-on, which is why we found this story refreshing. We learned a number of things from Britannica’s experience:

They recognized the need to change at their sales peak.
They experimented with many different business models (i.e., spent money to do this). Most concepts failed, but they were not deterred.
They realized that their greatest strength/uniqueness was their editorial staff of researchers and scholars (i.e., high-quality content).
They resisted the urge to reduce their editorial team when sales plummeted.
They eliminated their 2,000-plus door-to-door sales force (I would assume they were a very powerful and influential internal voice at the time).

Cauz concluded his article by saying, “We don’t want to be like an old actor trying to hold onto his youth.” (Or, as we would say, be like Brett Favre!)

Are you in a situation like Britannica’s? Do you need to change?

Creating the best workplace on Earth

Leading with the heart

Wow, 240-year-old company was able to change!

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