I’m a big college basketball fan. I love March Madness and despite the experts discussions about how the game is hard to watch today (for a variety of reasons), I enjoy the pageantry and competition. You may not be a Louisville fan, but you can’t deny the coaching prowess of Rick Pitino. Elected into the Basketball Hall of Fame on the same day he became the first coach to win national championships at two universities, Pitino is also no stranger to the concept of leadership.
A Guide to Implementing Change
Author: Diane Hamilton, Date: 9/27/2011Organizational change is difficult; yet, change is imperative to remaining competitive. Studies suggest that change efforts fail for a number of reasons, including:
• Changes are not anchored in corporate culture.
• A compelling business case is not made.
• The organization is not prepared for the change.
• The change vision is unclear; outcomes and measures are not well defined.
• Leaders fail to plan for and accomplish short-term wins.
• Communication is inadequate.
• Executives do not get personally involved in leading the change effort.
While change initiatives are often complex, we offer a few quick ideas to increase the success of your next change effort:
People are Watching
Author: Diane Hamilton, Date: 9/13/2011Like it or not, as a leader your behavior is under scrutiny. And that scrutiny increases the higher up the hierarchy you go. Employees are watching (and evaluating) your word choice, actions and behaviors. So it is helpful to ask yourself:
• “How inspiring am I?”
• “Am I demonstrating positive or negative energy?”
• “Do my actions match my words?”
• “Am I behaving in a way that is consistent with the organization’s culture and values?”
• “Am I modeling behaviors that I want others to follow?”
Who Surrounds You?
Author: Diane Hamilton, Date: 8/18/2011
I’m a firm believer that as a leader you are only as good as the people you surround yourself with. Surround yourself with great people (who are a good fit to your culture and environment) and you are on the road to success. Yet, I regularly see leaders who want to be the center of it all. They feel like they need to be the smartest ones in the room. Instead of sharing information, they withhold it thinking it gives them power. They let their egos and/or insecurities get in the way. They fail to invest in their team because they are afraid that that if their team members look too good, they will look bad (e.g., stupid, not knowledgeable, less skilled). As it turns out, they end up “looking bad” because the team isn’t as successful as it could be. And they only have themselves to blame.
Who cares how many hours you work – Maybe you’re inefficient
Author: Paul Dillenburg, Date: 8/9/2011With all the recent talk surrounding the number of hours the typical American worker is now putting in, I was reminded of a talk I attended that brought together some of the country’s most successful leaders. One of the presenters was Jim Goodnight, CEO of SAS, a premier business analytics software company serving 45,000 customers and 92 of top 100 companies on the FORTUNE Global 500® list. Jim has led the privately-held company since it began in 1976. While SAS’s business success is impressive, the culture Jim has created is awe inspiring.
Current Culture: A Starting Point for Change
Author: Diane Hamilton, Date: 4/26/2011“The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture. If you do not manage culture, it manages you, and you may not even be aware of the extent to which this is happening.”
–Edgar Schein, professor MIT Sloan School of Management
I often hear leaders talk about the need to change organizational culture. According to Schein, in most organizational change efforts, it is much easier to draw on the strengths of the current culture than to overcome the constraints by changing the culture.
So, how do we better understand current culture?
Living with Shear Joy
Author: Diane Hamilton, Date: 3/24/2011People who know me well know that I am an animal lover. (Okay, you don’t have to know me very well to know that.) We live in the country and have our own little getaway with horses, barn cats (who think they own the place), and steers. It is our haven…our respite from very busy lives.
And then there is the dog. We have a Border Collie mix named Tripper. Like most dogs, at the mere mention of the word “walk” she exudes shear joy. Anyone who has had a dog knows this. But dog owners know that their dogs exhibit shear joy in almost everything they do.
Heated Debate Versus Constructive Dialogue
Author: Diane Hamilton, Date: 1/18/2011
Civil discourse. Vitriolic language. We’ve been hearing and reading a lot about the state of American politics and our ability to discuss and debate. I don’t want to risk a comparison between our work lives and the Arizona tragedy. Except in cases of violence, a comparison would be silly. That being said, the concept of how we communicate with each other transfers from politics to our work lives each and every day. Just how civil are we at work? What does our organizational culture support?
I have worked in and been witness to work environments that have been quite heated—quite vitriolic. In recent months, I have had individuals tell me (or have observed):
Your Stories, Your Culture
Author: Paul Dillenburg, Date: 9/21/2010In the course of our work, we are asked to assess organizational culture. Common areas we focus on in our assessment of the organization are the elements of culture. While there are a number of elements, one I’ve found particularly interesting is organizational stories. Stories are defined as the written or spoken accounts that take a variety of forms including legends, myths, and sagas. These may be “official” accounts or “unwritten rules” about what it is like to work at the organization. They are the “physical” descriptions of culture that are passed from employee to employee that help define what the organization is all about. To help define what it means to work in your organization, think about the following:
