The interplay of Culture, Connections and Performance...

The Interplay of Culture, Connections and Performance

 Every action has consequences

  Connections to our mutual well-being

   When LaserShip’s Katy M. answered her cell phone after leaving work on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 16th, she probably did not think that it was the owners of the company calling her; what went through her mind was most likely just responding to one more after work request from a customer, a question about a particular delivery, or a difficult problem that needed her solution. 

   Katy is familiar with those types of calls—she responds all the time during work and after work to similar requests.  But, this call was to thank Katy for her extraordinary efforts the day before—and reported in LaserDay on that Wednesday—to take charge of the office in the absence of others and stay in charge far into the night when she was called out to make a final pick-up. 

  Katy’s response to the “thank you” call was that she was just doing her job; that taking care of the clients even if it meant going back out in the night to make a pick up, was what was necessary in order to make sure everyone’s livelihood was protected.   

   This mutual connection to our shared future is something that Katy understands very well.  In September 2009 her home was completely underwater from flooding in the Atlanta area.  Not only did her Atlanta team, but also many people throughout the company and in the corporate office responded to help her get back up on her feet. 

  Katy‘s story is illustrative of the interplay between culture and performance.  Our company’s culture plays a special role in driving engagement (connections) and where engagement leads, performance follows. 

  Connecting people to our company, as exampled by Katy, is our goal and in this 25^th year our priority.    We are taking concrete steps to identify the specific values based actions that we can take to make sure that everyone feels the connection to our mutual well being. 

   Our actions, especially those of leaders, must demonstrate accountability for our success and demonstrate a consideration of the whole not the parts. 

  Actions that support our mutual well being include:

v     Accepting and committing to the idea that everything is my job

v     Recognizing that every action or decision—significant or seemingly insignificant—has multiple consequences

v     Considering the impact on the whole from both words and actions

v     Being accountable for everything that occurs; holding others equally accountable

v     Being reachable by anybody: Encouraging my team members, peers and customers to reach out

v     Communicating the significance of our work conduct and product; communicating to individuals and teams how their activities impact customers, colleagues and the entire company

v     Making decisions and performing each job in a manner that will reflect well on our company, will result in growth, opportunities and prosperity for all

No need to go undercover if approachable...

No Need to go Undercover if Approachable

 Better ways to find, learn, grow, advance

 Open to the exchange of ideas, solutions and feedback

   “Undercover Boss,” a CBS reality television program follows the heads of major corporations as they go “undercover” inside their own businesses.  Memorable episodes have included the CEOs of Waste Management, Hooters, United Van Lines and 7-11.

   This show allows the executives to find out what's really going on in their companies; it shows them that what they hear in the board room is not always what the employees think.  It allows them to find what is right, what needs to be fixed, and who the real heroes are of the company.

 Because the employees don’t know the identity of their undercover co-worker they are for forthcoming with their perspectives and opinions.  As a result, the bosses hear things they never would have learned: Ideas for how to do things better, opinions on the effects of policies, 

   The 7-11 CEO, Joe DePinto, for example, working a donut production line, learned the secret’s of how to keep pace with the conveyor belt—ideas he was able to pass on to others.  He discovered that stores could not get their outside lights fixed because of inefficient and unresponsive maintenance procedures.  He also found out why one store sold more cups of coffee than any other:  The manager, Delores, knew and greeted by name every customer who came in the store. 

   Going undercover is one way to hear a different perspective, exchange ideas, or gain feedback.  A better way might be to create and advance a culture that operates on the principle of leader approachability with openness to the exchange of ideas, solutions and feedback.

   LaserShip, in our developmental years operated around these principles; now as we become a very large company it is our responsibility to make sure the guiding principles of our success to not become a casualty of growth.  We want our leadership’s actions to demonstrate approachability, humbleness (“I don’t have all the answers”), willingness to receive and share the advice and experience of others, and the desire to examine their own actions, performance and results in order to improve ourselves and the company.

   We are celebrating in our 25^th year not only our longevity but also the ideas and principles that put us in our industry leading position.  The actions that support openness and approachability are:

v     Asking questions to learn and understand different perspectives before making decisions

v     Asking for feedback on our company, decisions, polices, procedures and results

v     Acknowledging limitations in order to gain from the strength of others

v     Being open and transparent in dealings with people at any level, inside and outside our organization, including colleagues, contractors and customers

v     Being reachable by anybody: I encourage my team members, peers and customers to contact me

v     Being receptive to and actively seek feedback on my decisions and performance from my subordinates

v     Demonstrating respect for the opinions and contributions of others

v     Using performance feedback as an opportunity to teach and motivate

Collaboration Key to Mutual Success...

Collaboration Key to Mutual Success

 Overcoming Hierarchical and Organizational Lines

             Collaboration across Boundaries

   They help each other survive.  A most unusual collaboration exists in the animal world:  Coyotes and badgers help each other find and trap food. As a matter of fact, it is more likely that coyotes hunt for food alongside badgers than with other coyotes! The pairs track down small, burrowing animals and if they’re above ground, the coyote will chase them down and the badger takes over the hunt if they go underground. And not only do they find food together, but coyotes also have more success in this partnership than if they go it alone:  Coyotes with badger cohorts catch an estimated one-third more ground squirrels than solo coyotes.

   This animal kingdom collaboration isn't to imply that the two animals are friends—they're essentially competing for the same meal. Instead, it all boils down to efficiency and practicality: They catch more, faster and survive longer when working together.  Each animal takes advantage of the other's hunting skills and adaptations. Coyotes have keener eyesight for spotting prey than badgers. On the other hand, badgers can sniff out prey underground.

   The lesson for us is that individuals, teams and organizations all have unique skills and adaptations—things they have learned to do because of experience.  When we collaborate with others—both inside and outside the company—we are taking the best from all and combining to achieve more. 

   LaserShip essentially works as a collaborative organization.  Throughout out our 25 year history, individuals and offices have shared customers, coordinated activities, offered experience based advice and knowledge, provided assistance and support:  We have survived and grown because of collaborative behaviors. 

   We believe that our organizational and hierarchical lines do not exist to prevent our reaching out to request or give assistance, to offer or receive advice, or to accept or provide feedback that contributes to our mutual success.

  In our 25^th year we have identified specific behaviors that can be taken to make sure we continue to collaborate across all boundaries, including:

 

v     I actively solicit input from sources regardless of position, title or level

v     I strive to build collaborative relationships within customer organizations; I ask questions of and listen to customers in order to learn how to better serve their needs.

v     I share information; I offer what I have learned to members of my team(s) and with others throughout the company

v     I actively interact with my team(s) and customers to bridge barriers or to breakdown walls, opening up opportunities for me to hear and understand different perspectives and to improve relationships that allow me to better learn, teach, motivate or direct

Most profitable companies have other focuses...

              Most profitable companies have other focuses

         Caring about People, Processes and Outcomes

   British General James Wolfe assaulted the French in Quebec in 1759 by attacking the city from an indirect route, surprising and defeating the French garrison. The U.S. National Park Service uses a counter-intuitive and indirect way of fighting fires; they set smaller fires to burn the underbrush that causes larger fires.  The French scientist Louis Pasteur, whose “germ theory” revolutionized how we think about infection and the transfer of diseases wasn’t trying to discover germs or how to pasteurize milk; those were unexpected results of experiments looking for something else.   All of these examples suggest that we can attain a desired goal only by ­pursuing it indirectly.

   These examples are a lot like happiness—a goal for everybody on the planet, and happiness, too, is not best achieved by pursuing it directly. Happiness is not something we achieve by repeating actions that make us happy—but pursuing other goals whose outcomes make us happy. 

  If personal happiness is achieved obliquely—in a round about way—it may be worth considering that  business success may very well be best achieved in this manner as well—pursuing goals indirectly. The purpose of business is the pursuit of profit.  But there is ample evidence of something called the profit-seeking paradox – that the most profitable companies are not the most profit-oriented.

   A good example is Merck, the pharmaceutical and healthcare company.  The founder, George Merck focused the company on manufacturing ­"medicine for the people . . . not for profits."   During the period he headed the company, Merck was comfortably profitable. Later, with another generation of leadership, the company assumed a more ­direct approach, pledging to be a company totally focused on growth and profits; company profits dropped.  ­Similarly, when Boeing's stated purpose shifted from surmounting "technological challenges" to an explicit ­focus on "shareholder value," its stock price floundered.  Moreover, one of the reasons Jack Welch did so well for General Electric's shareholders is that he worried first about workers and customers.

   By pursuing other purposes—like pleasing customers or providing a motivating work environment to employees—businesses can also achieve other sought-after outcomes such as profitability.  Customers will use services or recommend firms and employees will go the extra mile if they believe that the company and its leaders care about their interests.

  As someone once said, “Culture shortens the extra mile.”

  LaserShip’s goal in our 25^th year is to reconnect with our core—the founding principles of our business; during this year there is a desire to re-energize and re-emphasize those principles that guide our business—guidelines that have contributed to our success; to re-communicate guidelines for conducting our business. 

  From our value statements—focusing on customers and employees—we have identified a key guiding principle: Caring about People, Processes and Outcomes.  Like Merck, like Boeing, like GE, we are putting other possible results first; believing we can attain certain desired goals by ­pursuing them indirectly.  We believe it is important to demonstrate—in our decisions and actions—a balancing of many factors: Always considering the who, the how and the why. 

   Our Organizational Trait of Caring about People, Processes and Outcomes is behaviorally based:  It is best judged by how effective we are in doing not just talking.  Supporting actions include:

v      Making decisions and taking actions that demonstrate sustainable business practices which considers our employees, our customers and our stakeholders

v      Consciously considering who is affected, what is involved and what are all the possible outcomes and consequences when making decisions, determining a course of action, or implementing plans

v      Always “closing the loop” on any decisions and actions: Following up to determine that the needs of people, processes and outcomes have been met

v      Being personally invested in any decisions: Meaning we do what we say we will; purring our names on decisions and outcomes; sacrificing resources and short term rewards to achieve desirable goals.

                                                           

v      Simultaneously developing people, improving processes and producing profits

Building a business to be proud of...

Building a business to be proud of

           Finding Joy in Relationships and Outcomes

    

   We are doing more than building a profit producing machine.  If that were all, we would be lost—and we would have failed long before our 25^th anniversary.  Throughout our company’s history we have built the business on relationships: Getting to know people, providing people with opportunities to grow—the chance to do more, contribute more, achieve more and earn more—sharing the challenges of taking on seemingly impossible tasks and succeeding together, enjoying the marvel of what we have mutually created. 

   We see the years 1986 - 2011 on our current 25^th anniversary logos…but focusing on those two listed years misses the major point.  What is important is what is represented by “the dash” that lies between those numbers—that little dash represents all the 25 years and all that we have accomplished in those years. 

   What matters most is not the 1986 when we started or the 2011 that we have reached, but all those years in between—the dash years.  That little dash represents all the time we have had together—even if it has just been for a part of those 25 years.   When we have all reached our retirement age we will look back and not remember the amount of packages or profits, but we will remember the years together in which we built, shared, learned, laughed and cared.  It will be how we have lived those years represented by the dash—in other words how we have spent our dash. 

   It is fitting then, in our 25^th year, that we are making an attempt to state just exactly how we want to operate and grow this business: What values we share, what traits sustain us and what actions support are words. 

   Emanating from our Values of focusing on people and quality, we have identified an organizational trait—a shared characteristic—of finding Joy in Relationships and Outcomes.  This means that we find strength in people, satisfaction in associations and collaboration and we celebrate our achievements

   We know that the observable behaviors that support, sustain and strengthen this 25 year old organizational characteristic—extending it into the future in order to keep our company vital—are actions such as: 

v     Actively getting to know team members in a personal level, understanding their skills, needs, motivations and contributions

v     Actively identifying people for job and career growth;

v     Actively committing  resources to developing career and vocational growth

v     Actively setting up opportunities for achievement and creating rewards

v     Actively giving credit to others;

v     Actively celebrating the achievements of others;

v     Actively finding opportunities to acknowledge achievement

v     Actively and regularly using company programs to recognize individual and team achievement

v     Actively bringing passion, enthusiasm and fun to the workplace

                                                     

v     Actively demonstrating a caring attitude about work relationships by being open, honest and direct in a way that strengthens both relationships and outcomes

Meditations on Running

                             Lessons in the Pursuit of Running

        There is a big difference between the performance of professional runners (those committed athletes who win races and compete at the Olympic level) and the amateur runner (those who jog as an exercise activity).  Yet, just like the professional, almost all amateurs have a desire (or at least a dream) to run further and faster while being injury free.  The question always is: How to achieve it?

     The major difference between the amateur runner and the professional (the mediocre and the excellent) is that the amateur has not learned to use his body efficiently to propel himself forward. The biggest mistake that an amateur runner makes when attempting to improve performance is in focusing on a part instead of the whole; an amateur, for example, may pick-up a piece of advice such as “lift your knees higher,” and end up with worse performance and maybe an injury.  Instead of understanding how the whole body and mind works in unison, the amateur runner too often tries to improve one aspect of body movement; this unfortunately often creates a situation in which muscles are actually working against each other and decreases instead of improves performance. 

   The real impact is that while attempting to move forward, the amateur runner simultaneously pulls sideways, downward, upward, and even backward. Rather than enhancing performance, much of the effort goes toward sabotaging it—as if he were piling weights on his own shoulders. Not only does he work harder in the process, but he causes undue stress to his joints, which may eventually lead to pain and injury.

   The professional, on the other hand, does not contradict himself, but instead, over time and working with proper coaching, coordinates every part of his body to propel himself forward. Because the professional runner possesses more awareness of how different parts of the body can work together, he does not enact unnecessary movements that “cripple” the amateur runner.   As a result, the professional’s stride is smooth, graceful and powerful, requiring much less effort for an even greater amount of propulsion.

   Looking at running this way, we could say that improvement is a result of learning how to stop contradicting ourselves, or in other words, understanding how different parts of the body relate to each other and the environment and can be made to work in unison not in contradiction.  Understanding the whole, how the parts work together as one, is the easiest way to achieve real performance improvement. 

   The amateur often sees running as one thing, for example, a cardiovascular workout or a calorie burning activity.  The professional sees it has a series of related functions: Breathing, muscle strength, coordination, balance, awareness and feedback learning.  The professional sees the whole but also breaks improvement into smaller, more digestible parts, understanding the fundamentals of efficient, powerful and coordinated movement in a much deeper way.

   Once the building blocks for powerful, coordinated movement are in place, it was much easier to put them together into larger, faster, more efficient and powerful movements. The result is holistic strength, and it is several times more powerful than strength that relies solely on one element—for example speed over endurance or safety. 

  Excellence in running—or in distribution—is about going further—faster, longer, more efficiently and in a sustainable way.  The lesson from running in achieving excellence—professional level performance—is in thinking a different way:  Excellence is achieved not by taking one piece of advice and trying to fit it into an existing system; it is achieved by breaking things down into constituent parts, understanding each, developing each to a high level of performance and being able to put all the pieces together in a way that allows them to work together, in unison, instead of in contradiction. 

   One of the areas LaserShip is working on in its 25^th year is breaking down our values into organizational traits that clearly represent our purpose and direction.  Each of the six traits that have been identified is supported by action statements.  Our Values of focusing on customers, employees, quality, image and ethics creates an organizational trait of having a Passion for Excellence.  This means that we are obsessed with delivering beyond expectations. The observable behaviors that support this obsession are: 

 

• Consciously considering the impact of actions on the whole; recognizing that every action has multiple consequences.
• Actively seeking to be the first to foresee problems; and identify opportunities to improve processes, service, work conditions, revenue and profits
• Taking immediate action when identifying a problem
• Constantly communicating excellence: What it looks like, how to achieve it, who it impacts and why it is important
• Rejecting “Okay” as a satisfactory standard
• Always asking “What’s next?” to achieve

Lessons from the Forest Service Firefighters

     Managing the Unexpected When the Unexpected Always Happens

 

Our lives are not on the line, but in seems we are often putting out fires.  In some ways our jobs are often like those of professional wildfire fighters—the people who fight forest fires for the U.S. Forest Service.  Wildfire fighters put their lives on the line in a fast changing environment, the following are also true:

ü      They depend upon immediate and accurate communication

ü      They must know where the fire line is and how it is moving at all times

ü      They must pay attention to the smallest detail and the surrounding environment at all times

ü      They must remain flexible and make quick adjustments as circumstances change

ü      They have to put the right resources in the right place at the right time

ü      Timing is of great importance

ü      They have to expect the unexpected at any moment—or perish. 

    All of these elements are eerily similar to things we face in our time-sensitive, fast changing, and communication intensive work environment.  That’s is why we can possible learn from how the Forest Service copes with their challenges.

   Mindful of the dangers and challenges they face, the U.S Forest Service has adopted the principles of High Reliability Organizations (HROs). These principles were explained in yesterday’s LaserDay.  Perhaps the one HRO principle that gives people the most difficulty is “preoccupation with failure.” People like to plan for, expect and celebrate success—and find it difficult to focus on failure. Yet, this is precisely what is required for the Forest Service wildfire fighters to survive.  Think of it like defensive driving: being constantly alert to the possibility of what could go wrong and having a mental plan of action to deal with the situation should it arise.

  The firefighters have had to adopt an upside down way of thinking about and looking at the world: What they stood on its head—to gain a different perspective—is the very concept of expectations. 

   To have an expectation is to envision something, usually for good reasons, that is reasonably certain to come about. To expect something is to be mentally ready for it. Every deliberate action you take is based on assumptions about how the world will react to what you do. Expectancies form the basis for virtually all deliberate actions because expectancies about how the world operates serve as implicit assumptions that guide behavioral choices. Expectations provide a significant infrastructure for everyday life. They are like a planning function that suggests the likely course of events.

    Yet, the very problem with expectations is that we expend so much energy on expecting the expected—what we have planned for, built our systems around, trained for, wake up hoping for—that when the unexpected starts to happen we either do not see it or we deny its existence until it is too late.  It is as if the continuing search for confirming evidence of the expected postpones our realization that something unexpected is developing. It is human nature to actively seek out evidence that confirms our expectations and avoid evidence that disconfirms them.

   This is the very “problem” the firefighters have turned upside down.  They understand the problems that expectations create: Expectations guide people to search narrowly for confirmation that the plan is correct, that the expected is happening even when it is not. 

   Trouble starts when we fail to notice that we see only whatever confirms our expectations but nothing else. The trouble deepens even further if we kid ourselves into believing that we expect to see is really happening. The truth is that we see what we expect to see. We see what we have the labels to see. We see what we have the skills to manage.

  Surprises are inevitable. And with surprise comes the necessity to improvise, make do with the hand you are dealt, adapt, make adjustments, think on your feet, manage on the fly, and contain the problem, then bounce back from unexpected events.  It is impossible to manage any process that depends solely on stable and fixed rules and routines or expecting to operate on automatic pilot.  No one knows enough to design such a system or process so that it can cope with a dynamic environment.

  Yes, surprise is inevitable which is why the firefighters have learned not focus on what is expected but have a preoccupation with failure—the only way to live is to constantly entertain the thought that they may have missed something that places them at risk.