5 ways to improve your Company Culture

Research recently conducted by a multidisciplinary team from Auckland, Massey and Waikato universities, and Birbeck University in London found nearly one in five employees are being subjected to overbearing or belittling behaviour at work.

The survey of 1728 workers in the health, education, travel and hospitality sectors found 18% had been bullied, while 75% had suffered workplace stress. Read full article here

"Bullying is happening and it is not being addressed. It has long been accepted that this is the way of working -- if you cannot stand the heat, get out of the kitchen," says study leader Tim Bentley, associate head of Massey University's school of management.

Levels of workplace stress and bullying were greater than expected and one of the main causes was ineffective leadership.

A study and the end of last year by Hays International also highlighted that two thirds of employees believe their managers do not know what motivates them to perform and one third of staff are planning to leave when the economy recovers. Addressing these issues requires a significant change in the way people see, think and act about their company culture.

Every Culture in a company has a smell - how is yours?

Here are the 5 things that have the biggest impact in improving company culture.

1. Define and articulate the real core values of your businesses not some fluffy statements that are empty words on a plaque. This drives positive behaviour and facilitates the removal of people who do not fit well with your culture

2. Use behavioural profiling tools to improve interpersonal communication and working relationships. This will also identify your people’s strengths and help you understand how to leverage your people’s strengths to increase productivity and personal fulfilment.

3. Identify and overcome any dysfunctional behaviours demonstrated by your management team

4. Survey employee engagement to identify the areas that require attention – a proven way to increase sales, productivity, and customer satisfaction - whilst reducing accidents, absenteeism, and staff turnover.

5. Conduct well-structured meetings every week with your team members. Here you can recognise and reward positive behaviour and address any issues before they become a problem.

Implementing these disciplines can provide a challenge but not as much of a challenge as doing nothing.

Empowering People

One massive challenge I witness is the ability of organisations and leaders to empower their staff. Make it safe for people to make decisions. When they don't it creates bottlenecks and business can not move forward as much. Here are the only 5 questions you staff need to answer to make a decision without you.

1. Is it right for the customer?
2. Is it right for the company?
3. Is it ethical?
4. Is it something you would be willing to be held accountable for?
5. Is it consistent with the Company's values?

If the answer to all 5 is yes then - DON'T ASK - JUST DO IT

Understanding the "Core Values" of Honesty and Integrity

Often I hear that Honesty and Integrity are core values - as they should be. Would you ever Hire someone who wasn't honest or exhibited Integrity? How often though have you employed someone to be disappointed on these values.

The challenge is that you need to go to a deeper level so your people can understand what it really means in your organisation. The words are like the outer layer of an onion and you need to peel back the layers until you get to the real "core" of the definition for your company.

In our company "Live what we teach" defines Integrity for me. We have a client who is a painting contractor that has "3 coats means 3 coats". Isn't this a lot easier for his staff to understand than Integrity.

The difinitions are different for every company. What does the inside of your onion look like for Honesty and Integrity in your company.

Core Values - Honesty and Integrity

Often I see companies with "Honesty and Integrity" as core values. While these as essential elements of any company, do your people really know what they mean.

Today with your staff ask them to write down what their definition of these two values. When you have collected all the answers how many of them are the same?

The difficulty with these two words is that they mean different things to different people. So how can you align peoples behaiviour in your business or organisation when no one is clear on the definition?

Have fun with the exercise and tomorrow I will discuss what to do about it

Karl

Core Values

I was in a consultation with a company and we were discussing Values. Values are the biggest driver of peoples behaviour and every issue with people I guaranteed he could trace back to his company values.

I Challenged him pretty hard and until he understood that until all the people in his business knew the values how could their behaviour reflect them consistently. He asked if all my staff knew ours and I said yes.

He came out of the office and went up to one of my staff and asked "do you know your company values?" She said yes and he asked "what are they?".

Without skipping a beat she rattled them off like a pro!

It was fantastic and a moment that made me extremely proud – great to have a culture where our values are so alive! One of our values is "Live what we Teach"

Imagine what would happen in your business if all of your people could do that?

Before their behaivior can reflect them, do you really know what they are?

hint - they should never include the words honesty or integrity - tomorrow I will tell you why

Living What We Teach

As a Practise we strive to live what we teach, in fact it is one of our core values. We measure our relevant KPI's to help drive the business and we hold each associate accountable for their "piece in the pie".

One of our main measures is to ensure our clients meet their quarterly goals because this is important for them and it ensures we as a team are adding maximum value to their team. To make this a robust process we peer review each clients quarterly goal for relevance in the yearly goal and in the 3-5 year plan. We also check that it is achievable, measurable and challenging.

Living what we teach is an important core value of Results.Com.

Karl

Vision- Kennedy proved a point!

40 years after landing on the moon it is timely to reflect upon this achievement. President John F. Kennedy had a powerful vision in the very early 60's when he stated that the intention of the USA was "to land a man on the moon and successfully bring him home by the end of the decade" (or words to that effect).

Now love him or hate him the amazing thing was that when he made that statement the technology for such feat did not exist. But achieve it they did.....politics and cold war mongering aside, this was impressive and you can only imagine how brave those early astronauts were! Of course the spin off from the space program has been huge in many ways- new technology, new inventions (air conditioning, navigation systems, food, rocket engines, fuels and of course an interesting toilet system!).

The power of vision or as Jim Collins likes to call it "a Big hairy Audacious Goal" is incredible and if it is time bound, measurable, achievable and stretches a team then it really come to life. Get the Core Values right and the Vision and you are on the road to extraordinary results.

Karl (see our website)

Core Values- More than a List!

Core Values are things that many organisations tend to list, frame and hang on the wall. True Core Values are lived daily in the Company and are referred to used continuously. Staff are recruited from them, appraisals are done from them and if required staff are dismissed if they breach one of them.

Our Core Values at Results.Com are;

• People First
• Go the extra mile
• Live what we teach
• Abundance mentality
• Make a difference
• Passion for learning
• Straight talk

Our Core Purpose: To enhance peoples experience of life.

What are yours? and what do you do with them? Are they alive in the organisation? Why are they important?

Karl (see our website)