In several earlier posts I put
the heavy responsibility of creating the right environment directly on the
shoulders of the Middle Managers. After
a lot of thought I soon discovered that I didn’t fully understand what it was
that went into creating that utopian workplace environment. So like a squabbling dimwitted academic, I
decided that the best way for me to unlock the mystery of the right environment
was to create a model. This model is unresearched,
unvalidated, and is limited to the walls of my undersized brain; however I
stand behind the logic and reasoning of how it can dramatically transform your
organizational environment.
Each year Fortune Magazine puts
out a list of the most desirable companies and workplaces. The criteria for making
this highly coveted list rage from company size, stability, overall culture,
and trust surveys. All of the companies
on this list are industry leaders; and I would argue that their profit margins
and ability to offer more outwardly focused perks and benefits are a function
of the environment that they have created while building their companies.
There are three components that
must be recognized and cultivated in order to create the right environment;
Culture, Learning, and, what I call Preference. The outcomes of these
components will determine if you are creating a great, or a less than great,
environment. As Jim Collins pointed out
in his now famous book, it is the way that we do the unsuspecting, and
sometimes trivial, things bigger, better, and riskier that help us make the
leap to greatness.
The first component to creating
the right environment in which to manage more effectively is the Cultural
Component. The environment in an organization relies on its Culture in five key
areas.
Expectations
Every corporation owes a large
amount of its success to how high expectations are set for all of its
employees. High expectations are only as
real as the accountability system in place to determine the success of its
outcomes, so managing expectations is critical to establishing the foundation
of your organizations culture.
Open
Communication
Another crucial aspect of
making your corporate culture one that promotes a healthy effective environment
is having vertical and horizontal open communication. This is not to say that disrespect and
insubordination should be cultural hallmarks! What you need to concern yourself
with is a form of communication that is inviting and productive. If you have ever
held on to information because you felt like it would be ill received from
supervisors or direct reports then you should start with this area to change
you culture to help in creating the right environment.
Ambition
as Importance
Ambition is a derivative of
expectations. By continuously pushing
for improvement through expectations, ambition will naturally become of great
importance to your organization.
Attrition will take care of the underachievers under this model. The
right environment does not have underachievers in it! You want players in key positions of your
organization that you can push to the edge of their abilities, and they know
you will never push them off the edge, but would jump anyway if they thought it
would help!
Positivity
Happy workers are not always
better workers, but maintaining a culture of positivity breeds a type of
environment that usually is more productive.
Who doesn’t want to work with the consummate optimist? If you can discover ways to take away the
negative you’ve got it. This is a very
specific issue that each organization will have to attack individually
depending on their current state. Personally,
I deal with negativity by using overpowering positivity and establishing the
expectation of what type of workplace that we are in.
Empowerment
as a function of TRUST
In a previous entry I
satirically addressed the issue of organizational trust that is plaguing our
workplaces. I made light of the fact that the issue is such a difficult one
that ignoring it and firing all of your employees would be the best
answer. In reality, trust can be a
catalyst that propels the other four areas of building a better cultural
environment. Using empowerment
strategies such as assigning and redistributing meaningful work, continuous
open dialogue, or allowing employees to assume greater levels of risk will all
help lead to a more trustworthy environment.
Cultural shifts or realignments back to forgotten days
can be extremely difficult for an organization of any size. This shift must be made in order to create a
more effective cultural environment.
Never underestimate the power of the subversive culture that lurks in
our organizations. It will destroy even
the best of intentions. When we decide
what type of culture we want to have in our organizations only then will we
begin to see the change.
The second component of creating the right environment is
learning. By stressing the important and
showing the value of learning in your organization you can begin to change the
minds of your employees. Most of us went
to formal school houses for 12-18 years of our lives; what else is there to
learn? The environment of learning will be reflective of your attitude towards
learning. There are 4 areas where we can make learning a key component of our
environment:
Training
How many of you literally get
mad and immediately begin coming up with excuses of why you can’t attend that
Outlook Invite that just popped up on you screen for a training session? Most
likely everyone reading this is shaking their head in guilt and shame. The mindset to accept training as a
development opportunity and not a waste of time must be changed. The quality of the training is very
important. If you are hosting a training
session make it a wealth of new knowledge and reassurances of old
knowledge. During my lectures with college
students I often tell them to just have one “take-away”. If you can have all
training session attendees (this include you too Middle Managers) have the
mindset of the “take-away” it will lead to a desire for more and a renewed
confidence in training sessions.
Training also creates an environment of learning because your employees
will trust that you will keep them on the cusp of what is new and potentially
industry changing. When we get into our
jobs, we focus on being good at our jobs today and forget that change is
evident. Training and continuous learning will create an environment of
yearning for more.
Quality
of Co-Workers
Learning in the conventional
sense is very unnatural for most people.
I think it is a Chinese Proverb that says that if you want someone to
learn something, telling them and showing them is not as good and letting them
do it themselves. Because learning is
such a foreign concept for many in the working world, having the right people
around can make all the difference in what kind of learning environment that
you will have. Quality co-workers will
promote your organization to unprecedented heights in more ways than just
learning, but the learning environment will be lacking without them. The quality
of your workforce is controlled through recruitment and selection. Bringing in quality employees in great
rapport with supervisors will change the quality of the incumbent employees for
the better.
Technology
How can I create a learning environment
using technology when it changes so quickly? When I was in college one of my
professors told us that technology doubles in its capabilities every 18 months.
That was 10 years ago! I can’t imagine what that statistic is today. But, there is absolutely no way that your organization
will prosper without a firm grasp and desire to explore new technologies. Employing the technology and knowing about it
are two different things. Just because you don’t think that you will ever use
the technology is irrelevant to the point that you know it exists. Continuous learning through technology will
create an environment that is occupied with “smarter employees”.
Learn
how to Change
Everything that I have stressed
with respect to learning so far has dealt with very explicit, or assumed, types
of learning. This means that you learn how to read and you will always know how
to read. If you learn how to use a computer it becomes second nature after
enough repetition. But learning how to
change is much more implicit, or contained, in the human brain. Change is
painstakingly difficult to endure, but what if you can teach your employees to
accept it and thrive off of it. Learning
how to change is another one of those farfetched ideas. However, breaking your
workforce down to a place where it is implied that change will happen and to learn how to get there ahead of it will
create the ultimate learning environment.
Learning is for everyone, and everyone has to know what the
importance of learning has in the changing demands of the global competitive
economy. We are the pupils and the changing
world is our teacher. The day you decide
to stop learning is the day that they will prepare your grassy plot in the back
forty; because to the world an idle mind is dead!
The last component of creating a better environment can
be realized by exposing the preferences in the workforce. I have determined that
all quality employees want or prefer three things in their jobs.
Contagious
Productivity
Nobody likes to be outdone. If
you can begin to cultivate a productive workgroup it will spill over into other
areas. Again, nobody likes to be
outdone. By definition the word
contagious means something that can be transmitted. The only thing you need is
a carrier. One employee can change an
entire workforce through their contagious desire to be productive. The opposite of productivity holds just as
true with a workgroup of any size.
Unproductivity is possibly even more contagious. Defend your organization against this disease
by rewarding and supplementing the productive workers. Spread productivity
through your organization even more rapidly by being a great example. How you
use your time sets the pace for your best workers.
Motivators as defined by
Hertzberg
For the types of employees that
you need to create the right environment you can depend on list of motivators
that Fredrick Hertzberg developed almost 50 years ago. Hertzberg, a 20th century psychologist,
shocked the world when his research concluded that motivators in the workplace
are things such as the type of work, the challenging nature of the work, recognition,
and job security. It is these things that
lead to achievement and personal growth that the best employees desire in their
work. Finding people who are motivated
by these things is not as hard as it seems. As a manager who assigns work, simply
begin try to understand what drives your employees. Empower them through the type of work that they
need to prosper and trust them to see it through. Money and benefits are not motivators! They may
get you to seek and accept a job, but they will not keep you there. Anyone who is outwardly and undeniable
motivated by their employment package and not the work itself will keep you
from creating the right environment. Find a way to change them now!
Goal
Setting
To the type of worker that we
want in our organizations, preferred workplaces have employees that prefer to have
goals. Goals and goal setting are a time
consuming aspect of building a better environment, but very necessary. There are many different strategies for
setting and realizing goals. The best
ones are concerned with tracking the goals to fruition. The quality employee that expresses his
preference in being goal oriented deserves to have your attention and commitment. The environment that you can create through
goal setting will only highlight the other areas and components of my pie in the
sky philosophy of creating a utopian environment.
Maybe this is too much to try to process. Or maybe you
feel like that you can’t do it in your current position. Remember, you spend a minimum
of 33% of your adult life in your workplace. There is no excuse to not give it
your best effort to make it the best environment that you possibly can. I will challenge you to take just one area of
one component of creating a better environment and make it your goal to change
your workplace. As a key player in your
organization, just remember that the cultural, learning, and preferred
components that I mentioned are enough to make dramatic changes. Whether you want a better environment for
profitability or for more intrinsic reasons, I promise that you will have a
better product leaving your organization by challenging your workforce with
these three components.
Go Create Something,
Clint Hamner
