Leading Workplace Change™

My family likes to eat shrimp all year and not only in season, but I recently read an article in the Atlanta Journal & Constitution (7/10/08) about “The Hidden Cost of Shrimp,” and I am ready to act differently. How I reacted to this article is a good example of one kind of push people usually need to change how they act.

The article outlines the pro’s and con’s between purchasing “wild-caught, farm-raised, U.S. or Asian shrimp.” The reporter, Meredith Ford gives the reader details about how shrimp gets to our fish markets and they are not pleasant - spread of disease, use of antibiotics & pesticides and destruction of ecosystems - all this info made me think differently about the shrimp I love to eat

But, the part of her article which affected me the most were her final thoughts - she recommends that we need to think about eating less shrimp; saving them for special occasions; and, to understand the greater cost to our planet than the price we pay per pound of shrimp!

Wow, this thought is coming from the Food & Drink section of a daily newspaper in the United States - asking us to think less rather than more. This pushes against the grain of our American cultural belief that we have unlimited natural resources. Essentially, she is asking us to think differently about the food we eat and our lives. 

Thinking differently is the first step towards acting differently.  

Tags: Corporate Culture Observer, Good Books and Articles by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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 The Sunday New York Times recently had an article (6/15/08 by Anand Giridharadas) about a founder and his company - Mr. Mukesh D. Ambani and Reliance Industries. It is an epic story about a man’s drive, inherited from his Father to make a living for his family that evolved into something bigger - ”a revolutionary thinker with bold ideas for what India ought to become” - a visionary who is now the richest man in India - a second-generation billionaire.

The fun part for me in reading this in-depth article was to tie all the personal stories, company myths and the author’s insights into a simple picture of the Reliance Industries corporate culture.  As I finished developing my list of values, it looked very similar to some of the pioneering American-based companies that we have worked with over the years, but with clearly the feel of India. Some examples are - Mr. Ambani’s early childhood living in Mumbai’s “chawls” or tenements instilling in him the “combative mentality of an outsider.” - and his Father’s early ventures in the yarn trade business requiring a “special canniness…or creative maneuvering around the bureaucracy,” due to regulations of a socialist-leaning government.  

So if you have the chance, read this article about Mr. Mukesh Ambani and share with me what you think are the corporate culture values driving how his company Reliance Industries does business.

Tags: Good Books and Articles by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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We have worked with a number of companies who use branding as a way to market their products.  These companies are diverse in the products or services they market from consumer goods, medical products to wilderness preservation, but an interesting common cultural theme amongst them all is the need for folks within these organizations to embody their organization’s  brand if they want to fit-in and be successful. The phrases we hear from these folks in our culture discovery work are:

• Need to manage your personal image as if it were a brand
• Important to represent our brand image when interacting with customers
• Need to live and breathe our mission in your personal life

This common cultural theme was confirmed for me again when I recently read an article about the transition in leadership occurring at Coca Cola. This is a company which uses branding to market its products and my sense is their brand image is upbeat, about feeling good and about fulfilling dreams.  The article by Joe Guy Collier in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution (7/2/08) quotes a  beverage industry specialist as saying that the retiring Coca-Cola CEO, Neville Isdell - “basically fixed the company and its culture … he used the force of his own personality and style to provide leadership - giving people faith and confidence in the company again.

It appears that Isdell knew how to embody the Coke brand and capitalize on it, and employees felt comfortable and galvanized with this kind of leader.  Sure he did many other things to return the company to growth and profitability, but improving employee morale is mentioned many times as one of his successes.  So the question is when do leaders in organizations that have what I call - brand corporate cultures need to live and breathe their organization’s brand image in order to be successful in their role?

Tags: Corporate Culture Observer, Good Books and Articles by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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I cannot help myself from writing more about the hustler  instinct in the American persona and how it manifests itself in the corporate cultures of some companies.   One of the clear themes in historian, Walter A. McDougall’s book, Freedom Just Around the Corner - A New American History, 1585-1828 is that “we are a country and a people with a ‘penchant for hustling’ - in both the positive and negative senses.”  He talks about “how hustlers are folks who are known for getting things done, but also cut corners and cheat and above all are always in a hurry… fleeing into the future.” 

You can sense that hustler persona emerge in companies today, especially those with a “win-at-all-costs” culture.  When asked what it takes to be successful in these companies,  the following  behaviors are many times noted by employees:

• must create opportunities & exploit them
• must be aggressive, compete & take calculated risks
• do whatever it takes to get the deal done

In the more successful of these companies, there are two important values that are in place in order to harness the hustler instincts and these are:

• Achieve Results for the Good of the Customer/Public Mission
  • not for industry dominance or for personal gain
• Working Together to Serve the Customer/Public Mission

It is clear from these two required values that having a focus linking the hustler instinct to something beyond personal gain or power is important.  This is not an easy job and usually very much of a juggling act on the part of leadership. Their work is to set and maintain the customer/public service mission front and center at all times without sacrificing the willingness of individuals to take personal risks and create opportunities for the future.

Tags: Corporate Culture Observer, Good Books and Articles, Leaders Leading by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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I recently read a good article that relates storytelling to leading change. It is called “The Four Truths of the Storyteller” by Peter Guber in the Harvard Business School (12/07). The cool thing is that Guber is a film producer of such movies as Rain Man, Batman and The Color Purple, so the article interweaves the world of filmmaking and leadership. What I like the best about the article is that Guber gives very specific and behavioral info about how to tell a story that people will get wrapped up in like a movie. He connects storytelling to the shamans’ and griots’ of pre-history who helped groups, tribes and civilizations to pass on their beliefs, values and rules in their tales of great heroes, triumphs and tragedies.

This connects directly to my thoughts that leaders who want to consciously manage culture change need to be good storytellers, because there is power in stories – we, as humans are biologically wired to like listening to stories – to be entertained and to learn at the same time. And the end goal for leaders who aspire to manage culture change is - to get people to act the way you want them to in a natural and self-sustaining way. So read this article to get the basics of how to tell a good story.

Tags: Good Books and Articles by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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