Dare to Share: Building a Courageous Culture

David Dye and Karin Hurt are experts in innovative leadership development and co-authors of the popular book Courageous Cultures. In this short interview they share how companies can build a high-performing, high engagement culture, and the important role HR plays bringing courageous culture to life.

https://youtu.be/28EAAMPPIq0

Embracing Diversity and Leading Diverse Teams

My first boss Herman was a 2^nd generation Mexican American.  He ran a tight Jewish bakery counter and his brother Alex managed the kosher deli across the way.  

My best boss ever – and I’ve only had a few over a long career I consider truly great – was French and female.  

I’ve had bosses from the US, France, India, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Canada, Denmark, Mexico, and Germany.  They all had very different management styles.

One boss called me a ‘penetrante Kuh’ - which means annoying cow - but he was German, so I didn’t take it personally.  In fact, I considered printing it on my business card.

I’ve hired and managed people from Canada, South Africa, Germany, Japan, Poland, Singapore, Russia, Finland, Spain, Mexico, Ireland, France, and the US.

I’ve been lucky enough to work with Russians, Finns, Japanese, Italians, Canadians, Dutch, French, Irish, British, Welsh, Scottish, Spanish, Australians, Iranians, Pakistanis, Chinese, Belgians, Indians, Romanians, Swiss, Scandinavians, Germans, more Germans, and 2^nd generation Americans from pretty much every part of the world. 

Some were younger, some were older, some were male, some were female, some were fantastic to work with while others were difficult, but they all offered something unique to the mix.

It's the best part about working, to be honest. 

I didn’t like everybody, nor did everyone like me.  A few didn't like me a lot, and y'know... ditto.  But the point is that they all added colour and flavour to my work experience, as I hope working with me did for them.

Interacting with so many cultures and personalities upped my game and having such a rich mix of colleagues and experiences kept me longer in each role than I might have stayed otherwise.

Diversity matters in ways we can’t measure.  It makes us more resilient, curious, compassionate, and open to new cultures, ideas and experiences.  It tests us and forces us to adapt, compromise and question our assumptions.

Cultural diversity is just one lens on the many different perspectives people bring to the workplace, and like the other lenses can challenge an inflexible leadership style.  A manager who clings to his or her comfort zone like a one trick pony will struggle to get the best out of a diverse team.

How do you build and lead a diverse team effectively? By hiring people better than you and helping them play to their strengths while being very clear about your expectations.

Leave as much as possible up to the people in your team.  Let them decide when, where and how to work.  Let them decide when to ask for help and when to work independently.  Let them spend time on projects that interest them, so long as they line up with team priorities.  

One very important point of clarification here: This doesn’t mean everyone just runs off and does whatever they feel like.  It’s a leader’s job to set clear priorities and deadlines, manage expectations within the team, ensure people interact professionally, and hold each person accountable for bringing their best self to work. 

In fact, how you lead the team shapes the team culture, which in turn impacts how well the team functions – so much so, that many companies continue to hire for culture fit rather than diversity. This is problematic and here's why:

Imagine a Venn diagram where individual personality and company culture overlap.  You immediately see a trade-off because the bigger the overlap, the less cultural diversity you have.  

Hiring managers also frequently try to hire people who will ‘fit in’ and therefore – let’s say it – be easier to manage.  Here again, the larger the overlap between team culture and individual personality, the stronger the sense of tribe and the lower the likelihood of conflict – or true innovation - within the team. 

It's easier to lead a culturally homogenous team than a culturally diverse one because one leadership style is more likely to fit all, which means the manager has to expend less energy to lead the team.  That's why diverse teams with inflexible leadership tend to underperform because people have to expend so much energy trying to fit in.  

Here’s why it matters: A team with a high degree of personal autonomy – or a large ‘personal expression zone’ – led by a skilled leader is likely to outperform and out-innovate a culturally homogenous team because more perspectives engender more ideas, which in turn create more possibilities.  Creativity is a numbers game, baby.

Diversity creates discomfort, which if properly channelled has the potential to turn crazy ideas into game changers.  If the overlap between company, team and individual culture is too great, you get high complacency and sense of belonging but low discomfort - which can hold you back when you need to pivot.

If, however, company and team culture are truly inclusive and allow for a high degree personal expression, you might just get… magic.  That's why the 'secret sauce' of a successful diversity strategy is inclusion, as Asif Sadiq, Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion, explains in this short interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0YsI1Labho

Resilient Organizations: Balancing Tech and Culture in the Digital Age

Looking into the not so distant future, how can organizations create a more resilient and human-centric workplace?

What is the role HR in selecting technology, and why do strategic HR and digital transformation go hand in hand?

Why do so many technology projects fail, and what should business leaders and HR professionals consider before deploying a new solution?

All this and more in this live presentation from the HR Digital Innovation Summit:

Navigating the Four-Day Work Week

‘Can I work part-time?’

As a team lead and hiring manager I hear this question a lot, now that the four-day workweek is a ‘thing’ – and for the right candidate it’s a no-brainer.

via GIPHY

I consider myself as a four-day workweek pioneer, blazing a part-time trail before it was cool.  It started when I was returning from maternity leave. I wanted to work part-time but was confident I could handle the demands of the role in fewer hours. 

I felt a bit nervous asking the hiring manager, but his answer surprised me: ‘I love part-team people.  They cost less, waste less time, and work harder.’

I accepted the offer and ended up doing two full-time roles in twenty hours a week, which was possible because the team culture supported me and we had top notch collaboration tools.

Now I pay it forward, not because it’s trendy to offer a four-day work week, or even because multiple four-day work week experiments have shown higher productivity and engagement.  It's because being flexible gives me access to some amazingly talented people who can effectively manage their time and deliver key results faster.

There’s a flip side, of course: skipped team lunches, minimal time for networking, leaving earlier than everyone else, missing meetings, etc.  But all that can be managed though proper expectations setting and proactive communication. 

If being available and ‘being seen’ are prioritized at your company, you may not be ready to accommodate part-time people in leadership or high visibility roles.  That’s fine but you may be missing out on some great talent, or paying people to focus on non-mission critical tasks.

Is a four-day work week right for your team or company? 

First let’s look at the benefits:

• Access to talent – A growing number of senior professionals prefer part-time opportunities because their expertise makes them highly efficient.
• Employer band – Making flexible work schedules and part time opportunities part of your employer brand will help you attract the best people.
• Mental health – Having afternoons free or one day off provides space to manage one’s personal life with less stress.
• Lower salary costs – While subject to negotiation, part-time professionals may accept a lower salary in exchange for flexibility, plus salaries are typically prorated by hours worked. 
• Engagement – Taking a bit of time away from work and work-related emails has a beneficial head clearing effect that increases engagement.
• Productivity - Embracing a shorter work week creates an opportunity to rethink processes and workflows to make them more efficient.

Now let’s look at a couple of caveats because a four-day work week isn’t for everyone:

• Right role – A four-day work week shouldn’t necessitate hiring extra personnel, which is why creative, strategic, or even leadership roles may work better than customer service or 'bottleneck' roles that others depend on.  
• Right experience – Someone with little job experience may need the five days to learn the ropes – in my first management role I worked about 60 hours a week but quite a bit of that was figuring stuff out.
• Right level of maturity – The four-day model works best with people who know how to manage their time and key stakeholders - a certain amount of finesse and experience are required.
• Right manager – If your company's managers learned most of what they know about leadership in the 90s this model is probably not for you.  
• Not everyone wants it!  According to recent EU stats most people are still looking for full-time work, either out of habit or for the higher earning potential.

The corporate world isn't yet ready for a universal four-day work week, but you can pilot the idea and get most of the benefits by: 1) offering it where it makes sense; and 2) supporting the arrangement with tools, communication, expectations setting, etc. so it works.

Whether or not you like the idea of the four-day work week, more people are asking for personalized work arrangements and choosing to work for companies that offer it.

Diversity and Inclusion for Introverts

I spoke at an HR event recently where the key themes were company culture and employee experience.  Following my talk, I was asked by the event moderator if I would accept less money in exchange for more fun at work. 

‘No way,’ I said.  ‘I’m an introvert.  If you want me to have ‘fun’ at work, you have to pay me more.’

That got a big chuckle, but I wasn’t trying to be funny.  I like working with people, but for me ‘fun’ is reading a book alone in my house.  That’s how I shake my funky stuff.  

Just to be clear, introverts like me aren’t shy or unsocial but unlike extroverts we recharge in solitude.  Whereas extroverts find solitude lonely and tiring, and recharge in more social settings. 

In all the HR forums speaking about diversity and inclusion I’ve participated in, I have yet to see anyone bring up how to include introverts.  No one considers that if your company culture is highly collaborative, it can suck to be an introvert.  No one takes introverted work styles into account although it impacts everything from how people do their best work to how they communicate.

Hiring for cultural fit should mean hiring people who are passionate about your mission, not people who all behave or think the same way.  

Sadly, however, despite so much focus on diversity and inclusion, companies expect people to be extroverts at work if they want to advance. This isn’t as unfair as it sounds because communication and relationships are the cornerstone of successful business and no one can do great work in isolation. 

Nonetheless, while extroverts are more likely to excel at sales and proactive customer service, it’s typically introverts who show up in areas that require methodical execution and deep expertise.  That’s because introverts are more likely to invest the time and solitary deep work required for mastery of complex topics than extroverts.

LEADERS TAKE NOTE: Not everyone on your team has the same preferred work and communication style.  A one-size-fits-all management style won't bring out the best in everyone.  Take time to understand your team and help them play to their strengths, not yours.

But it is what it is.  For the time being, extroverts will continue to be in the spotlight at work and are also more likely to advance and earn more. So, here are some tips and reading recommendations for introverts to help you design your dream career without attending lots of networking events and pretending to be someone you aren't: 

Know what you want – If you feel stuck in your career, you may be Barking up the Wrong Tree.  Do you want to lead a team or be an executive?  You’ll need a support base to get promoted and if you’re an introvert who hates talking to people it’s worth asking yourself if that’s really what you want.  Do you want to work remotely or part-time?  You’ll need expertise and in demand skills to earn that flexibility.  Most things are easy if you know exactly what you want and what you’ll compromise – or not compromise – to get it.

Focus on relationships, not networks – You don't have to be an extrovert to be friendly and supportive of the people you work with.  Most opportunity comes from either being top of mind, where extroverts have an undeniable advantage, or being someone who helps others be successful, where introverts do.  Remember, no one succeeds without support, including you, so pay it forward.

Walk the talk – People who get what they want adapt their approach until they get it.  I’m not saying you should try to change into an extrovert because you’ll fail but you may have to have a difficult conversation or change jobs to get what you want.  Take a deep breath and commit to asking for what you want and finding something better if you don’t get it.

Play to your strengths – Great ideas are cheap - the real magic happens in the execution.  If you have a dream and lack the charismatic charm of an extrovert that creates its own luck, work at getting so good they can’t ignore you.  Fortunately, as an introvert, you have a natural advantage when it comes to deep work.

Find a communication style that works for you - Just because you don’t enjoy team lunches or networking doesn’t mean you can’t proactively reach out to different stakeholders in your company or write energized and positive emails.  Introverts can be great communicators if they organize themselves around outreach activities and use their natural empathy and powers of observation.  You may never be the life of the party, but you can be a great communicator.

Let’s face it, if you’re an extrovert with acceptable skills the world is your oyster.  Sadly, my introverted friends, that’s not you but you have your own superpowers.  Figure out what they are, develop them to peak performance, be nice to people along the way and the world can be your oyster, too.

Leadership: The Art of Honesty and Affirmation

I've worked for and with some fantastic companies but one still stands out as a model of wise and pragmatic leadership and talent management:

RECRUITING:
Candidates had an opportunity to meet with employees at each level of the business, giving both sides an ample opportunity to sum each other up. Not surprisingly, their openness and attention to detail in the hiring process resulted in a high success rate among new hires.

JOB INTERVIEW: 
The partner who interviewed me exuded friendly, polished confidence.  The contrast to myself - I was in graduate school at the time - intimidated me for the first few minutes of the interview until I noticed he was re-phrasing everything I said to make it sound better.

For example, he saw on my resume that I was graduate student body president at UCSD and asked what that involved.  I said I ran meetings and sometimes met with the dean to discuss student affairs or speak at a campus event. He responded, 'Ah, so you're an experienced facilitator, negotiator and public speaker.'

The entire interview was like this and as we shook hands at the end of the interview he told me I’d made it to the next round and wished me luck.  Interesting, no?  He could have easily tripped me up with tough questions but he built me up instead.

COMPENSATION:
They paid less than competing companies and explained it like this: "We pay a bit less but we'll train you and give you so much practical business experience that you can walk out of here and earn three times as much after two years. Or stay the course and work your way up to partner." Sounded fair to me.

TRAINING:
There was a full-sized campus near Chicago to handle classroom training needs, but onboarding at my home office included an online simulation in which I spent a week managing a virtual project team. My simulated team members came to me with various problems, complaints and requests and it was my job to keep them motivated and productive. After the program concluded, an HR director pulled me aside to tell me I got the highest score ever on this part of the exam.

I hadn't done anything special.  I just followed two very simple rules that I have continued to follow in every leadership role: 1) I said yes to all reasonable requests from my team; and 2) I let people go with good grace when they were ready.

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT:
My first manager gave me the best - meaning useful, not glowing - employee review I've ever had to date. I don't remember the specifics of the review. I received an adequate rating accompanied by some positive feedback about my hard work, discipline and quality output, yada, yada, yada. Then came the useful part that stuck with me.

'I've gotten some feedback about you that concerns me a little,' she said, after all the nice bits. Apparently I had a habit of asking the same question over and over again in different ways until I got the answer I liked.'  Several folks had mentioned it to her, and not in a good way.

This isn't all bad,' said reassured me. 'A good consultant and project manager needs to be tenacious. But you may want to tone it down a little.'

I leapt valiantly to my own defense: I was just seeking clarification. I was just trying to save everyone from making huge costly mistakes. I was just this and I was just that.

'Stop,' she said mildly with a hint of a twinkle. 'I know you have your reasons and I'm sure they are good ones. But here's the thing. If one person says something about you they may be biased. If you get the same feedback from several people, however, take a mental note and watch yourself in action.'

This excellent advice has served me well over the years and I hereby pass it on.

TAKEAWAY: Everyone knows honesty, good will, and building people up make great places to work.  Why don't companies insist on these qualities in all their leaders?

Alchemy: The Secret to Leading Innovative Teams

There are so many books, articles, blog posts and tweets about leadership I hesitate to add to it.  

Clearly, we haven't hit on the magic formula yet. 

And yet, what strikes me about many of them is that they try to describe an ideal style of leadership.

If you think about it, that makes no sense.

Imagine a team made up of different generations, ethnic groups and work styles and just to make it interesting, imagine they work in different locations on various short- and long-term projects. 

Looking at how work and tech are trending, that’s the composite team of the future but we find teams like that even today.

So who thinks all these people with different cultural backgrounds and at different stages in their careers will respond positively to the same style of leadership? 

Exactly.  They won’t.  So how do you go about leading such a team?  It’s simple, really. You do it by helping each member of the team play to their strengths while being very clear about your expectations.

In order to do this, you need to be radically honest about your own leadership style and where you can and can’t be flexible. Don’t leave your team to figure this out for themselves, lay out the things that are important to you as a leader and are therefore non-negotiable. 

Leave the rest up to the people in your team.  Let them decide when, where and how to work.  Let them decide when to ask for help and when to work independently.  Let them spend time on projects that interest them, so long as they line up with team priorities.  

One very important point of clarification here: This doesn’t mean everyone just runs off and does whatever they feel like.  It’s a leader’s job to set clear priorities and deadlines, manage expectations within the team, ensure people interact professionally, and hold each person accountable for bringing their best self to work. 

In fact, how you lead the team shapes the team culture, which in turn impacts how well the team functions – so much so, that many companies continue to hire for culture fit rather than diversity. This is problematic and here's why:

Imagine a Venn diagram where individual personality and company culture overlap.  You immediately see a trade-off because the bigger the overlap, the less cultural diversity you have.  

Hiring managers also frequently try to hire people who will ‘fit in’ and therefore – let’s say it – be easy to manage.  Here again, the larger the overlap between team culture and individual personality, the stronger the sense of tribe and the lower the likelihood of conflict – or true innovation - within the team. 

As you can imagine, it's easier to lead a culturally homogenous team than a culturally diverse one because one size is more likely to fit all, which means the manager has to expend less energy to lead the team.  By the same token, diverse teams with inflexible leadership tend to underperform because people have to expend so much energy trying to fit in.  

The glue that makes a diverse team great is the leader, who sets the tone, shapes the behavioral norms, encourages (or discourages) personal expression, provides support for professional growth, and keeps the team focused and on track. 

Here’s why it matters: A team with a high degree of personal autonomy – or a large ‘personal expression zone’ – led by a skilled leader is likely to outperform and out-innovate a culturally homogenous team because more perspectives engender more ideas, which in turn create more possibilities.  

Diversity creates alchemy, which if properly channelled has the potential to turn crazy ideas into gold.  If the overlap between company, team and individual culture is too great, you get high complacency and sense of belonging but low alchemy.

If, however, company and team culture allow for a high degree of personal expression and creativity, you might just get… magic.

You may also enjoy:

Diversity's the Secret Sauce of Great Culture

Work Hard, Wear Jeans, Have Fun

Ageism: Is it True or Is it You?

Undercover Boss

Are you an undercover boss wondering what employees really think about you? Check out these helpful tips from Starkiller Base Commander Kylo Ren as he shares his personal journey to connect with his employees.

 

Does Your People Strategy Include Gig Workers?

You may enjoy this short interview on how the gig economy is transforming business.

 

Great leadership isn't about you

Photo credit: ionut-coman-photographer-459986-unsplash

There’s a lot of great – and not so great - leadership advice out there.  Unfortunately, most of it’s focused on the personality and behaviour of the leader, ignoring one of the most important jobs of a leader: building a great team.

This focus on the leader is due at least in part to a flawed belief that people leave managers, which is true to a point.  I mean, I’ve left a couple of bad managers myself, but like most easy answers it’s incomplete.  Here’s why:

Let’s say you have a crappy manager in a great company.  If the company’s so awesome except for your lousy manager, you would probably consider changing managers within the company before leaving entirely.  Oh, but wait – you probably wouldn’t have a crappy manager in a great company. 

See where I’m going with this?  It’s the company not the manager that ultimately drives you off.

Photo credit: daniel-cheung-129839-unsplash

Also, let’s not forget people also leave companies for bigger jobs or more money, things even a stellar manager may not be able to provide immediately for the asking.  Sometimes a better offer’s just a better offer.

So, more precisely, people leave bad managers, they leave companies that tolerate and reward bad managers, and they also leave good managers and companies for a better opportunity.

Back to mainstream leadership advice, which I will paraphrase here:

Leaders should be authentic, empathic, and humble; they should listen, encourage, and support the people on their team; they should invite ideas and experimentation; they should play well with others; they should communicate a clear vision; they should be available; they should be vulnerable (but not in a creepy way); they should be professional, results-oriented, and mentally flexible; and they should help people achieve their personal goals while working toward the strategic goals of the business.

Good stuff. But.

At the end of the day, no one succeeds in isolation and teamwork drives innovation, community and great culture.  That means that one of the most important things managers can do for their teams is cultivate a safe and inclusive place for everyone to contribute, so they bring their best selves to work.

That means more than having weekly team meetings and providing bonding opportunities like team events.  It means providing clear expectations about team behavior and recognition for collaborative achievements.  It means empowering people to work together, solve problems, and create an amazing team experience.  It also means tending the garden, i.e. hiring people who will work well with the team and promptly addressing toxic behaviours.

That doesn’t mean everything’s always perfect.  Sometimes it’s a process.  Sometimes there are growing pains.  Sometimes things take longer.  But the focus is always on making the team better.

Great leaders come in all shapes and sizes. They may be male or female, introverted or extroverted, tall or short, chic or shabby, suave or awkward, remote or onsite.  However, they’re easy to spot because they have one thing in common: They lead great teams.

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Teamwork or talent?

Stop telling employees they own company culture!!

Telling employees they own culture is a bit like telling HR to think like business people.

Let me explain that, because it's fair to expect HR professionals – especially those with business partner in their title - to approach problems with a business lens.  But here comes the ‘but.’  

The business people who say HR should think like business people tend to earn a lot more and have a much higher stake in the business than an HR partner.  So what, you ask?

Well, as a result, these ‘business people’ tend to be more focused on cost cutting measures to drive up share price and their own bonuses than investing in vague-sounding things like engagement.  Unless, of course, it drives up EPS and is cheap to implement.  Or better yet, free.* 

*OMG – I just realized telling employees they own culture is free. Well, that’s that explained, then.

We could even argue HR folks are the best business thinkers in the company because they understand the importance of things that are difficult to measure, but that's not the kind of 'business thinking' that's meant.

While it’s true HR needs a business lens, few businesses hire ‘business people’ as HR business partners.  Therefore, they shouldn’t be surprised most HR folks think and talk like… well, HR folks.  If you want your HR business partner to think, act and talk like your Chief Revenue Officer, you’ll need to recruit, reward and design this role differently.

Note that HR business partners with amazing networking, business acumen and storytelling skills quickly graduate to higher paying pastures. That should tell you something.

Same deal with employees and culture. Do employees own culture?  Certainly, everyone owns their own behaviour at work but let’s not forget the human tendency to observe others and imitate what works.  If people seem to get ahead by hoarding information, taking credit for teamwork, spending more time socializing than doing actual work, or shooting down ideas, guess what behaviours will end up becoming the norm? 

Whereas if toxic behaviour is promptly addressed, ideas are welcome, meaningful collaboration encouraged, teamwork rewarded, and helping others recognized a very different kind of culture will emerge.

I realize positive examples can inspire positive behaviours, even in a dark place, but bad behaviour tends to spread if unchecked.  Inevitably, others follow suit, which encourages others to do the same because it seems to be how things are done.

In a place where no one can be trusted, only a fool trusts or is trustworthy. 

So, who owns culture?  Everyone in the organization participates in and has some accountability for culture but the ‘owners’ are the leaders and decision makers - the choice architects - who set the behavioural example; design roles and incentives; decide who to hire and promote; and determine which behaviours to accept and encourage. 

Making employees responsible for culture isn’t great leadership, it’s lack of leadership.

Interested in learning more about how design thinking can be used to create a better company culture and work experience?  

Here are some resources to get started:

New Research: Employee Experience Design for HR Practitioners

Hey HR, Ready to Define the Future of Work?

Work Experience Design: Interview with Karen Jaw-Madson

Design Thinking for Leaders and Innovators

New Research: Employee Experience Design for HR Practitioners

Great employee experience doesn’t just happen – it’s designed. From how you define the jobs in your organization to leader selection processes and how work is done, exceptional EX requires more than just picking the latest and greatest technology. HR now has the mandate to design employee experiences with the same care given to delighting customers.

But how?  Your help is needed to answer that question.

NextGen Insights, Red Rocks Impact and UNLEASH have teamed up to explore the state of employee experience design and create a best practice framework for HR practitioners. You're invited to participate in this research with an opportunity to join UNLEASH in London March 19-20 where the results will be presented.

COMPLETE THE SURVEY for a free copy of the research findings and a chance to win a complimentary ticket to your choice of the UNLEASH Conference and Expo in London 19-20 March 2019, or UNLEASH America in Las Vegas 14-15 May 2019.

To recap: Take the survey now (it should only take about 15 minutes), receive a free copy of the results, and you may also win a free ticket to UNLEASH.

Hope to see you there!

You may also enjoy these related posts on design thinking.

Connecting the Dots between Employee and Customer Experience

I disagree with Richard Branson’s famous quote about taking care of employees so they'll take care of your customers.  

Let me qualify that because obviously, Richard Branson knows a few more things than I do about running a successful global organization and any advice he gives on that score is well worth heeding.

It’s just that this particular advice, while not wrong, is incomplete because it implies that if you take care of employees they will automatically take care of customers.  

I think that leaves out an important part of the equation, the all-important bit in the middle that connects the employee experience to the customer experience.

No doubt Richard Branson is well aware of this missing piece and considers it so obvious it isn’t worth mentioning.  But for the rest of us, it’s the bit that matters, the ‘connecting dots’ between looking out for employees and great customer service. 

A few months back, I was poised to leave on a pilgrimage to Monument Valley to ponder my next move.  I had recently quit my job with the intention of doing something new, but I still needed to figure out what that new thing might be.  My plan was to head for the red rocks, just me and my laptop, and figure it out. 

As fate would have it, I ran a content marketing workshop the evening before and forgot my power cord.  Unfortunately, my shiny new personal laptop happened to be the kind of laptop that has a proprietary power cable that isn’t commonly sold.  With my plane departing in a few hours, I was looking at ten days of trying to capture my big vision on paper, like some sort of person who doesn't have a laptop.

Perhaps this doesn’t sound very serious to you but I’m a marketer.  I pretty much live in Powerpoint - it’s my tool of choice for pulling order out of chaos.  Not having that cable really sucked.

My husband, never one to get drawn into non-life-threatening drama, simply detoured en route to the airport at the mega electronics store where we bought the laptop.  Even his confidence in the universe was tested, however, when it turned out that the store didn’t carry the right kind of cable in its three full aisles containing every other kind of cable.  They offered to order a replacement cable but that didn’t help because my plane was leaving in a few hours.

We asked if we could borrow one of the cables from the test machines, of which there were literally hundreds, but that turned out to be against store policy.  The final recommendation of the harassed floor manager was to try the help desk where discarded parts were sometimes to be found.

I have to say, this felt weak to us.  My husband tried reasoning with them, arguing that he could just buy an entire machine, then bring it back in 10 days for a full refund.  Wouldn’t it be easier to lend, rent or even sell one of the many tester cables lying around?

Apparently, it would not.  Feeling the pressure of time, I wanted to buy the new machine, grab the cable and leave, but my husband marched over to the help desk.  

Long story short, they had a spare cable, covered in dust and hidden in the back under ten flat screen TVs and a tuna sandwich, and even the help desk guy was surprised when he finally re-appeared with it.  My soul-searching trip was saved and inspired the company Red Rocks my husband and I have since founded, thanks to that spare cable.

Now, let’s look at this customer experience from my point of view.  We’d not only recently bought an expensive laptop at this store, we had also made several other big-ticket purchases.  We also had several upcoming purchases to make that we were planning to make in this same store.  As loyal customers, we weren’t asking for a freebie - we were asking them to help us solve a problem.

Next, let’s look at it from the floor manager’s perspective.  She had a shop full of potential customers to serve – most of whom wouldn't bother to buy anything after sucking up lots of free consulting - and a clear store policy to follow.  My problem neither fit the rules nor struck her as a real emergency.  At the end of the day, store policy is store policy.

As for the help desk guy, he took his time finding the cable and had he cared at all about solving my problem I’m betting he could have found it faster, but since he saved the day we’ll leave it at that.

This is just one example of disinterested customer service – and fair enough if you think it’s a silly one - but I can think of dozens more and I’m sure you can, too. 

Here’s the thing.  Unless you connect the dots for people and reward the folks who go the extra mile for your customers, your average customer experience will look something like this one, with a focus on sales rather than solving customer problems.

To offer a great customer service you need to talk to customers and apply a design thinking mindset to the customer experience.  Especially in retail, where stores are losing ground to online shopping, you can put customers in the centre of your process design without driving up costs if you take the time to understand what matters most to your customers and recognize employees who go the extra mile.

Like great employee experience, great customer experience doesn’t just happen: It’s by design.

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Hey HR: Are you ready to design the future of work?

Design Thinking for Leaders and Innovators

Work Hard, Wear Jeans, Have Fun

Hey, HR: Ready to Design the Future of Work?

Over the last decade, HR has done an impressive job re-inventing itself as the strategic owner of the 'people agenda.'  However, in order to navigate the next wave of technology advancement, they’ll need to again rethink why they exist and how they serve the business.

(As will everyone else.)

With so much speculation about the future of work and employee experience, what is the most critical skill needed by HR to stay relevant as new technologies replace some of the more traditional - and transactional - HR tasks?

I see two areas that stand out as genuine opportunities for HR to create business value, both of which require a new breed of HR professional:

1. Holistic people agenda – Given the increasing trend toward temporary and outsourced roles (check out my guest post at Hacking HR What Companies Need to Thrive in the Gig Economy), it's time for HR to define a people agenda that includes both employees and contractors.  In my blog post Is HR Ready to be GIGantic? I outlined some of the key areas HR will need to consider. 
2. Work experience design – With process design skills and a fresh mandate from the business to drive employee experience, HR is ideally positioned to take a critical look at work: who does it, how it gets done, and where the process or organizational blocks are that slow progress,

The workplace of tomorrow needs people with exceptional coaching and listening skills who understand the fundamentals of design thinking and effective work design.  To do what, you ask?  To design a better work experience.

Consider the following example: A marketing organization delivers global campaigns across several teams.  The campaign strategy team comes up with the campaign story, the content team creates the supporting assets, the digital demand team sets up the email campaigns, tracking codes and marketing automation, the field teams localize, and whoever’s responsible for social media creates some social promotions.

On paper it looks fairly straightforward, but if you were to dig a bit deeper – and actually talk to people about how the process works - you might be surprised.  

You might discover, for example, that the only person who understands how the marketing automation tool works has been sick for two weeks.  Or that the person who sets up the campaign trackers is chronically late because she can’t keep up with the volume of requests.  Or that the local teams don't know about the global campaign and have already spent their budget.  Or that the creative team is tired of the field teams pretending they don't know about the global campaign.  Or that there’s zero quality control in place for the social media posts. Or that… you get the idea.

The point is, poorly defined work processes and organizations that ignore bottlenecks create a permanent sense of low-grade frustration and futility.  The thing is, you won’t hear about it in any operational meeting.  Unless you actually talk to people and listen to their feedback and ideas, you will be unable to help them to find workable solutions.  

In other words, you won't be part of the solution.

Another example: The business has implemented a project management solution as part of its overall digital transformation agenda.  Everyone assumes it’s working fine but if you dig a bit deeper you might discover that using the tool creates extra work because it doesn’t do what the project leads need, so they end up double reporting.  Or you might discover that the extra work still doesn’t deliver the information needed to identify bottlenecks and inform capacity planning.

Perhaps people despise the new tool because it has to be used outside the flow of work, i.e. it creates an interruption with non-value adding extra work. Or people may love it… but how will you know unless you take the time to find out?

Once companies have invested in new solutions, they are verrrrry reluctant to scratch below the surface because of the risk it turns out to be a mistake.  It’s understandable and very human but unless you do exactly that you will miss most of what’s really going on, putting the success of your digital transformation projects - and your business - at risk.

Where most companies fall short on design thinking is skimping on testing, iteration and improvement.  In the example above with the project management software, the implementation team may have asked employees for their feedback early in the process but then didn’t use the feedback to improve the implementation.  Or perhaps they focused on change management rather than proper testing and iteration.

In other words, instead of ensuring the new tool adds value to the people doing the work, they made the people who do the work add value to the tool.   

Too often, companies and teams roll out new tools, organizations and processes without doing proper testing and iteration.  Then they move onto the next thing without verifying success or opportunities to improve.

Design thinking helps you design valuable solutions and processes that add value for the people using them.  If HR can master design thinking they will be well suited to step up and help fix work.

Design Thinking is a discipline that creates value through continuous ideation and iteration, and there have been some excellent articles written for HR, for example by Enrique Rubio (Reinventing the Future of HR with Design Thinking and Agility) and Karen Jaw-Madson (Work Experience Design).  

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Work Hard, Wear Jeans, Have Fun