We conducted a focus group about a year ago with a group of business leaders around the idea of organizational values and culture. In this focus group, we presented seven key values, based on research that defined organizational culture. The goal was to see what these professionals thought about these seven values in the context of a broader assessment product. And whether this values set could predict a company’s culture in order to match candidates to cultures that align with individual the candidates’ values. Often things like this come down to semantics, but one piece of feedback where there was
Last week, during a meeting with a client’s leadership team, we got on the topic of just how much time they spend each week in meetings. One of the managers told me that meetings take up about five to six hours of his day, every day! That only leaves him two hours to get his work accomplished. When I asked him to tell me about his meetings, his list went something like this: 8 AM- Meeting with team 1 to discuss issues 9 AMM- Meeting with team 2 to determine what issues from 8 AM meeting are critical 10 AM-
What’s one thing that is extremely detrimental to both employers and employees? Boredom at work! I once worked with an adult client wanting to make a career change. She was an extremely talented individual, and in talking with her about her then current employer she says she felt like she was just a “warm body”. One of the main reasons she wanted a change was because she was bored as a gourd at work! She worked for a government contractor (a waste of taxpayer money as she sat there bored) and none of her talents and skills were being utilized in
In 2015, we worked with a client where one of the company’s core values was relationships. The value they place on relationships, with their employees and their customers, leads to a competitive advantage for the company. But I don’t think they do it because it creates a competitive advantage. They do it because it is just the right thing to do. One thing I learned from them is how this value actually plays out in the way that they recognize and reward employees. As an outsider looking in they: Get to know their people as people, not just as workers
“For anything to change, someone has to start acting differently.” from Switch by Chip and Dan Heath Change is all around us. In our personal and professional lives, just when we might get to used to something, it changes. Many of the most life-altering personal changes that we choose like marriage and children we tend to embrace and get excited about. We put ourselves in these situations of change. At work, though, changes often occur, and we didn’t prompt them. They are unsettling and hard. We work a lot with clients helping them manage change. In addition, when we are