MAKING SENSE OF YOUR CULTURE
Culture change, innovation, and experimentation are all hot topics. But before you go about making changes, you need to have a good grasp on what your culture truly is, not simply what you think it is. As a culture consultant, I encounter a lot of confusion around this topic. What is culture anyway? In a previous article, I’ve defined it to […]
How to Lay the Foundation for Culture Change
Culture change is not rocket science. Conventional wisdom may say that it is hard, that it is undefinable, or that it takes many years to accomplish, but I disagree. People participate in culture change all the time—they just don’t realize that’s what they’re doing. My business partner, Maddie Grant, and I have been doing change work […]
3 tips to managing external collaboration
If you want to build a culture that values collaboration, you can’t only focus on cross-functional teamwork and breaking down silos. You have to take a look at how you collaborate outside your own association, as well. This includes vendors, partners and related organizations, ranging from your foundation that shares your staff, to chapters/components and […]
How to encourage collaboration on your team
As I pointed out in a previous post, collaboration can sometimes be seen as “interference.” It can be perceived as distracting to someone who is already focused on “their” piece of the work. If you’re a leader and you see this happening — but know collaboration is critical to your success — you might consider […]
Have you addressed the dark side of collaboration?
If I had to pick one single “core value” I thought would be mostly likely to show up on an association’s core value list, “collaboration” would be towards the top. Who doesn’t like collaboration, right? Well, I led a senior management retreat for a client one time, and in a rare moment of truth-telling, one […]
What does your annual meeting say about your culture?
In the association world, we tend to think of our annual meeting in terms of what it delivers to the members. It is typically a crown jewel type of program — that date on our annual calendar when it’s all hands on deck because a large number of our members get a LOT of their […]
The link between office design and culture
I saw a presentation several years ago from an association CEO who had recently redesigned their office space. He started by talking about the core values of the organization, which included one like “Having fun.” This was a place that viewed fun as an integral part of getting their work done. He then showed a […]
Let’s redefine what it means to dress for success
Whether or not you have a written policy about it, all organizations have a dress code. It’s a part of your culture — the kinds of clothing you are expected to wear (or not wear) actually says something about what is internally valued at the organization. But I don’t think most organizations realize this. They […]
How to hire your next rockstar employee
Most of us think we know the best way to hire someone, and it looks roughly like this: First, you post a job opening with a brief description of responsibilities and expected level of experience, and then you sift through paper resumes and cover letters to prioritize the candidates (LinkedIn is probably involved these days), […]
Do you think your employees are with you forever? Think again
I hear a lot of leaders concerned about their new millennial employees who don’t seem to stay around very long. They’re “job-hoppers.” We invest in them, and then they leave. While I understand the concern, there are a couple of really important flaws with this kind of thinking. First of all, the millennial “job hopping” […]