When it comes to movies, TV shows, and novels, it’s usually pretty obvious who the hero of the story is. But what about in your organization’s story? Do you recognize who plays the role of the hero for your organization? That was the focus of my previous piece, which I’m grateful to see received a lot of attention and enthusiasm from the readers of this blog.

As I read the comments and responses to this piece, I began to wonder about something. If we understand that our employees are the heroes of our organization’s story, why then do so many employees feel disengaged at work? Why is there a persisting lack of meaning or purpose connected to the efforts and contributions made by those we lead?

Of course, the easy answer to such a question is to simply cast blame on an aloof or uncaring leadership; of organizations being run simply to cater to the whims and self-interests of those on top at the expense of those on the lower rungs. Certainly, the public revelations made about how Goldman Sachs has devolved from a focus of serving their clients to a more self-serving one would seem to support this.

And yet, a more realistic view of today’s organizations reveals that such leadership and cultural attitudes tend to be more the exception than the norm. When it comes to demonstrating that your employees are the heroes in your organization’s story, the disconnect we’re seeing here Click here to continue reading »”How Are You Helping Your Employees To Be Your Organization’s Heroes?”

These days, everyone is talking about the importance of innovation to an organization’s future, but what exactly does it take to be innovative and how do we start? That’s the basis of my conversation with business strategist and author Andrea Kates in this latest episode of “Leadership Biz Cafe”.

Andrea is the founder of the Business Genome project and has led more than 250 business innovation initiatives with a variety of organizations, including Royal Dutch Shell (Asia-Pacific), Audi, Allstate, Continental Airlines, KPMG, and OnStar. In her bestselling book “Find Your Next: Using the Business Genome Process to Find Your Company’s Next Competitive Edge”, Andrea shares her insights into the various business elements organizations need to employ if they are to create new innovation opportunities in the face of today’s competitive, global market.

Over the course of our conversation, Andrea and I discuss -

• What organizations really need to do to be innovative in today’s global market.
• What the creation of the Cool Ranch Doritos brand can teach us about the innovation process.
• The four steps leaders can implement today to initiative innovation in their organizations.
• How employee recruitment and culture play a key role in fostering innovation in today’s organizations.
• Why leaders need to look beyond focus groups and market studies to find their next innovation.

As I mentioned at the end of the show, Click here to continue reading »”Leadership Biz Cafe Podcast #6 – Andrea Kates on Fostering Innovation”

Imagine working for an organization where one of the senior managers insists on yelling at his employees because he believes it’s the surest way to garner the respect of those he leads and now, the front-line managers are beginning to follow his example by yelling at their team members.

Or what about working for a company president whose driven to attract the best talent under the guise of needing their help to make his organization more innovative, only to turn around and demand that they simply do what he tells them to do.

Better still, imagine what it would be like to work for an organization where year-end bonuses are tied to the amount of vacation time you give up, and not on your performance and contributions made to the organization’s collective efforts.

Although these might sound like fictional plot lines for a movie or TV show that satirizes the dysfunctional nature of today’s workplaces, they are in fact the real-life examples shared by one of my readers about the toxic work environment they face every day. And unfortunately, these kinds of scenarios are becoming more and more the norm of what employees face in the workplace.

Naturally, there is a tendency to assume this rise in toxic work environments is yet another consequence of the persisting economic uncertainties many industries and countries are currently grappling with. However, the reality is that such assumptions only serve Click here to continue reading »”Are You Creating A Toxic Workplace? Ask Yourself These 4 Questions To Find Out”

With the month of September now underway, there’s an unmistakable feeling of renewed energy and determination in the air. As children return back to their school routines and the summer break now nothing more than a fond memory, perhaps it’s only natural that there’s this collective drive to take on the challenges before us with spirited enthusiasm.

Of course, how organizations view challenges – either as an outcome of being in competition with others or as an opportunity to push themselves further in order to move one step closer to reaching their full potential – plays a key role in how they approach not only overcoming these obstacles, but the level of creativity and innovation they foster within their workforce.

With this in mind, here are four steps leaders can use to ensure their organizations are not simply reacting to what challenges come their way, but that they have a clear understanding of what their organization needs to do to succeed:

1. Set clear goals independent of what your competition is doing
When it comes to the ability to consistently surprise, delight, and transform customers into loyal advocates, there are few companies that succeed at this as well as Zappos and Apple. Their ability to “deliver happiness” and release unexpected ‘must-have’ technologies respectively, are clearly not mere responses to the challenges they incur from their competition. Instead, these measures are a result of addressing what goals they have for their organization, of what they wanted to create or accomplish that would make them stand out and succeed in their respective fields.

Take Apple, for instance. Can anyone say the iPod, iPhone and iPad were created in response to something their competition was doing? Or were they more in Click here to continue reading »”Are You Using These 4 Steps For Organizational Success?”