Culture is Not an Endless Series of Perks

Via @OpenViewVenture This Company Thinks Everyone Should Love Going to Work Every Day. Here’s Their Plan to Make It Happen.

The few levers companies need to pull in order to build a strong culture fall into three main categories:
1. Appreciation & Recognition
2. Friendship
3. Meaning

Determining When to Reinforce Culture
Starting at around 200 employees, companies are at an inflection point in their life cycle where they’re growing quickly. It’s crucial at this point to get culture operationalized so during that period of fast growth, from 200 to 2,000 employees, these organizations can maintain a consistent culture that really helps reinforce the values and behaviors that kept people engaged and happy sub-200 employees.”

Culture is Not an Endless Series of Perks
It’s not ping-pong tables and free soda and free lunch and concierge this and free that. While those things are good, they’re not culture. Culture has more to do with the human interactions within the workplace…
Building a great culture and ultimately making your company a place where people are motivated, satisfied and happy every single day is hard work.

How to catalyze front-line engagement

Admitting one's limits actually helps build engagement.

A perspective on front-line engagement from Japan | Opensource.com

Armed with what they've learned at these parties, these inexperienced (but smart) managers begin finding ways they can be helpful. Rather than just announce a plan to make changes, they spend time trying to understand what their employees needto have changed.

On some delicate subjects, I have been more successful holding peer-to-peer, open discussions after those parties. … With that environment and small group size, those discussions have been very successful for me, and I think that environment is the best venue for creative open discussions throughout Japan.

Finding a balance

Whether you're putting together peers at a formal business meeting, at an official boss's welcome party, or in a bar, I can't stress enough the importance of balancing the four criteria Whitehurst explains in The Open Organization:

1. Encouraging members to speak freely and honestly
2. Encouraging members be courageous enough to be different
3. Selecting members committed to achievement
4. Selecting members with the willingness to be accountable for whatever is decided.

This is how to catalyze front-line engagement—by staying involved in decision-making, not by skirting it.

Tech Slowdown Threatens the American Dream

Tech Slowdown Threatens the American Dream

For the records…

Advice is Cheap — Context is Priceless

“let me show you an example from someone we both know who’s doing it right.”

He laid out the ideas so cohesively that it felt like a polished board deck. He cussed, but wasn’t disrespectful. He spoke with intelligence andintolerance. “Here’s how they think of these three areas. Boom, boom, boom. What are you waiting for? See how you can look at your company differently?”

First Round Review – Advice is Cheap, Context is Priceless

The very simple way to reroute a conversation to growth is reframing the questions that you ask or that are asked of you. As I've mentioned before, I often get these questions:

• When you started KISSmetrics how did you start your blog?
• When you hired your first salesperson where did you find them?
• When you raised your first round of funding how did you do it?

What I ask in response are these questions:

• Are you trying to figure out how you should do marketing for your business?
• Are you starting a sales team and trying to hire the first person?
• Are you thinking about raising money for your company?

This would have been a better line of inquiry to start:

• I’m figuring out how to do marketing for my business. What should I be thinking about?
• I’m starting a sales team and trying to hire the first person. How should I approach it?
• I’m thinking about raising money. Where should I start?

This would have been their best line of inquiry to start:

• I’m figuring out how to do marketing for my business. Here’s what we’ve tried out and these are the few tests we’ve found to work for us. What should I be thinking about next?
• I’m starting a sales team and trying to hire the first person. Here is who our target customer is, our average revenue per customer and what our sales process looks like. How should I approach it next?
• I’m thinking about raising money. I raised my seed six months ago led by this firm, it seems the profile of this partner is the best fit and these are the reasons we’re raising a round right now. What should I do next?
  
  

There are a few key takeaways in the evolution of these lines of inquiry:

• Favor questions with verbs in the present participle versus those in the past tense. 
• Reframe questions to orient around the advice seeker.
• Provide context like a constellation. 
• Ask what you should do next. 

Want to Achieve Something Big? Think Small.

"A hard problem is usually a combination of many smaller ones."
Want to Achieve Something Big? Think Small. | Big Think

The 8 Most Important Leadership Skills You Need

Officevibe – The 8 Most Important Leadership Skills You Need

1. Being Self-Aware
How To Build This Skill
Practice mindfulness regularly, it has been shown to be linked to self-awareness1
Keep track of things to optimize your habits. By taking time to note things throughout the day, you’ll train yourself to be more self-aware

2. Trustworthiness
How To Build This Skill
You’ve got to give it to get it. Show your team that you trust them by giving them freedom and autonomy.
Open up and share a personal story to help people get to know the real you. That vulnerability will help people see you as trustworthy.
Spend more time with your team, like eating lunch with them, or going to work events. As you spend more time with them, you’ll get to know them and build that trust.

3. Empathy
How To Build This Skill
Listen more than you speak. There’s a famous saying that goes “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
Put yourself in their shoes. Try to think about what people on your team might be going through. Take time to do this to build that skill.

4. How To Delegate
How To Build This Skill
Learn how to let go. Understand that you might not always be right and have all the answers. Like Steve Jobs said “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”
If you want your people to grow you need to let them see projects through from beginning to end.

5. Giving Feedback
How To Build This Skill
Practice makes perfect. The more you give feedback, the better you’ll get with it.
Be open and honest, don’t do the feedback sandwich.
Use one-on-one meetings as a structured way to give feedback.

6. Receiving Feedback
How To Build This Skill
Actively solicit feedback from your team. Tell everyone on the team that you want them to give you feedback.
Listen, don’t speak. Your first reaction will be to defend yourself. Just listen and understand.
Ask followup questions to get more details like “Just to make sure, when I did X, you felt…”

7. Communication Skills
How To Build This Skill
Work on your body language. It’s amazing how much body language can affect how you communicate.
Speak clearly, slowly, and try your best to avoid filler words like “um” and “like”.
Watch your tone of voice and make sure that you’re using a calm, peaceful tone.

8. Consistency
How To Build This Skill
Set clear expectations with your team from the beginning.
Communicate a lot with your team to make sure they’re constantly in the loop.