Executive Decisions: Social Media and Culture In The Workplace

Executive Decisions: Social Media and Culture In The Workplace: [Update - 9/04/11] I'll be speaking on Social Media and Corporate Culture on 10/13/11 in Bellevue, WA for the NCA CEO Track Conference . If...

Executive Decisions: CEOs - external pressure, shortsightedness and the...

Executive Decisions: CEOs - external pressure, shortsightedness and the...: Many CEOs that I have the opportunity to meet constantly deal with the pressure of performing. With having to answer to a board, your shar...

CEOs - external pressure, shortsightedness and the pressure to perform

Many CEOs that I have the opportunity to meet constantly deal with the pressure of performing.  With having to answer to a board, your shareholders, your staff, and even at times your family, the temptation to make the quick fix or shortsighted decision so that you can get yourself out of hot water can be almost too hard to resist.  Some CEOs have been hired away from other companies to "sit in" and "save" another company because they were successful in their previous leadership position.  In this situation they are hired for the quick fix.  The benefits are many including the opportunity to shine but I wish to address one specific issue which almost comes hand in hand.  The pressure to perform and show results quickly!

No one will fault a CEO for trying to put his best foot forward and strive to strive for establish a strong economic outlook for your company.  On the flip side, your task may be to save your company from financial destitute.  Depending on the size of your company, you could be looking at having answer to your board (which I've seen consist of disgruntled family members, stressed out investors, majority shareholders that have little to do with management, etc - all with bias and personal pressures as well), shareholders, the bank and/or others with various interest in the success of the company.  When you step into such a role, these pressures can at times come without direction or positive solutions.  It's up to "the man in charge" which is you to clear the way and find the light at the end of the tunnel.  This is a common occurrence and many executives get derailed in the process.

Here are a few issues/negatives that tend to factor into the decision process:

- The typical 3 year contract: Some CEOs/executives are only on seemingly "short term" contracts at the company they're hired to work for.  This can cause executives to think short term as well.  They're obligated to show gains and stability during their tenure.  Not to leave a legacy for someone else to take over after they're gone.  Below is an example of a study done recently that may shock you even as a CEO but these are real numbers. 

Most pressing ethical issues facing business today (2010)

• CEO Roundtable - roundtable of 400 executives
• 80% said they would decrease spending on long term things to meet short term targets 
• 50% said they would delay new projects to achieve quarterly results even if it would lead to the long term sacrificing of value creation

Jonathan Wellum

CEO, AIC Investment Services, Inc.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

- External Pressures: The college coach compared to the CEO: There is so much pressure to perform.  Let's take college football coaches for example.  The closer the fans, investors of the athletic program, local papers, NCAA, and board of athletics are to a team, the more visibility there will be for the head coach.  In good times, this is great for him, yet, the moment the teams win record slips, the pressure is on for him to rise to the occasion.  More and more people will look to him for the "quick fix".  Sometimes, the will of the crowd and university board won't even give him an additional season to prove himself regardless of the recruiting efforts going on behind the scenes that can be the building blocks for 2 or 3 years down the road.  In the same way, a good CEO is hired for vision and perspective yet in many cases, is not allowed to do their job.  It takes strength and boldness in these times to do the right thing.  The easy things to do are to look at your career as short, show results "now" regardless of what it will do to the longevity or health of the company after you leave anyway.  This falls on the board or shareholders having faith in the leadership as well, not just the CEO "dealing" with them.

- Limited Capital – It’s hard to change direction, stay mobile/flexible, and adapt when issues are discovered.  Often times when you are already heavily invested in a process, technology, a well purposed staff, or business process, changing direction towards positive long term goals can be extremely cost intensive with limited immediate upside.  When you have board members or business partners that you had to previously convince to allocate money towards “the last change” and now you’re asking them to stay flexible again and move or allocate more funds to a new direction you can run into big unfriendly walls.  Sometimes, there are simply no funds available for adaptation.  With an unstable market, massive capital flexibility is as unavailable as it is necessary.  The only solution I can offer to this is to do your homework, do you best to forecast future opportunities and make sure that you’re seeking counsel outside of your board and possibly outside of your industry to see how others are adapting to change.  Leaders tend to be fairly shortsighted.  They tend to only seek ideas inside their industry and remain incredibly stressed out when it comes to having to make decisions and quick fixes when finances are limited.  Finding more capital often times means, “trimming the fat” from your existing structure.  This could mean that you are emotionally holding on to people you shouldn’t.  In a conversation with a CEO that just sold her company for over $550M, I asked her what her number 1 regret was in her entire career.  Her reply to me was, “Keeping people around for longer than I should have because I cared too much.”  Leaders, hear me when I say that if your staff is not doing everything they can to make your company better, it’s your duty to let them go so that they can find something that will suit them better and where their talents can shine.  It is not up to a business leader to coddle a staff member’s personal and professional life.  This is very different from having compassion, rewarding effort and caring about the wellbeing, health and success of a staff member so please do not get me wrong here.  The CEO mentioned above is one of the most compassionate people I’ve ever met in a leadership position so I was quite shocked that this point was her number one regret.  I and everyone I get to work really closely with will tell you that without their staff and those that believe in them and their company are not only valued to the fullest, they know it as well.  This is just to say that getting creative and in looking at your business from a high level, there are lots of areas that one can usually trim away excess spending.  Your staff doesn’t always have to be the last option since depending on the size of your company, it’s highly likely you’re carrying a lot of excess baggage.  Reducing spend may be as easy as reducing redundancy or increasing protocols or

Additional Things that provide Pressure and Or Shortsightedness

- Home Life – Many executives pride themselves on their ability to compartmentalize, although, when it becomes too difficult to do and the problems at home seep into your productivity at work, everyone suffers.  Try remembering that family comes first.  I’m a strong believer that you should invest first in your family and then your business.  That way if the “stuff” really hits the fan and you have to lose one or the other, family will still be there for you and they know you’ll be there equally for them.  It’s a simple perspective of sustainability.

- Financial Struggle (second view)  – Often times if your home life and expectations aren’t in line at home, this can affect your business as well.   Financial pressures can be spurred from home life but usually from our experience, this starts as a business issue that leads its way home, not the other way around.  If it has started with your business, transparency at home is tough but necessary  practice.  But how do you communicate issues that your family may not understand or be as compassionate as you may want them to be.  Often times what is needed by a business leader at home comes more in the form of support than understanding.  Continuous communication and an effective partnership at home of love and honesty helps accomplish this.  It’s hard work but very rewarding.

- Medical  Issues – These issues are at times created by a lack of balance and stability in the work and home life but often come with uncertainty, are uncontrollable and without warning.  They are heart wrenching, time consuming, expensive and a support system is more needed in these times than they’d ever like to admit.  These issues can be very personal and eye opening to the person directly affected as well as those around them.  How many times have you had trouble creating 5 year projections for your company?  Try doing that when a family member doesn’t have 1 year left.  In these moments, the necessity to step back and regain perspective is very important.  If it’s you that is experiencing health issues, it’s the same.  You have to step back and evaluate your involvement, the time you spend on business as opposed to the other important things in your life as well as how good you are at delegating responsibilities.  Delegation is a problem for any leader of any business.

Positive Practices

Let me explain a little bit about myself so that I may add context around these ideas as well show you why I’m not blowing positive smoke like a cheerleader for a losing team.  For years I've worked alongside some of the greatest and successful business minds in the US.  Working within a private organization made up CEOs, Political types, Ven Cap and Board Execs who all work together to assist each other in day to day business decisions lead me to some conclusions and a number of principles we lead by; 

Integrity, More Than A Virtue - We can only do our best to act with integrity.  At the end of the day, are you proud of the decisions that you’ve made, the person you’ve become, the Leader that you are?  Do they continue to allow you to wake up with a clear conscience and smile on your face and support at home and in the work place.  I’ve seen businesses act out a complete remake of the Titanic but because of the leadership, the staff , the board, and their family at home, everyone still supports their efforts and values their leadership standing behind them 100%.  I’ve been absolutely floored by the resurrection of businesses or department teams I thought were going to crash like the Hindenburg, rise from the ashes simply because everyone believed in the leader.  They trusted the CEO to save things and therefore everyone banded together, took their lumps and moved forward. 

Keep Your Head Up - Leading is tough and when it gets hard, seek outside help and serve yourself first and foremost.  Only then can you serve your company.  It’s easy for a leader to just want to “get rid” of the problems through quick fixes, to get people off your back and to get ahead of the curve.  When the solution doesn’t seem so obvious, stepping back and taking back your life a little bit can be the only way to get through it.  I recently spoke with a CEO that broke down at the dinner table at his house in front of his entire family.  His company, a real estate and investment firm that transacted over a billion dollars in business per year, was heading into the recent recession.  With no clear solution in sight, he believed that this could in fact be the preverbal straw that broke the camel’s back for his business.  He quickly realized that not only had he taken too much of the burden on himself and had become tired of being the positive CEO in everyone’s eyes, he had become too close to the problem and it was swallowing him up.  He stepped away from the problem a bit, leaned on his top producers, his executive staff and brought in outside perspective as well.  By doing this he was able to take the weight off, act more positively and focus on a good life balance once again.  This in turn makes people more productive as well.

Sound Investments - Invest in that which will outlast shortsightedness and the quick fix unless absolutely necessary.  This can come down to whether or not you sleep soundly at night. “The best investments we can make in life are those that will outlast our lives.”  This is something I tell myself on a regular basis and something that I “try” my best to apply to every part of my life.  It’s also another, easier said than done principle.  Business does not always allow us to make long term goals our highest priority.

Other Leaders Can Be Your Best Allies - All you have to do is ask.  Keeping others that we respect in point of view, station in life and career will serve you tenfold.  It’s amazing how much people are willing to help when we just ask.  It’s also incredible to see how close the solution can be to us but we can’t see it until we have others look at the problem from different points of view.  The resources are out there.  Just search for the right ones.  I can send you a list of different types of groups, external boards and advisors that can help you accomplish your goals, whatever they may be.

Pride, The Death Of Us All - Often times pride is the quickest way to failure as a leader.  Remember this, if you’ve run a successful company, you didn’t get there by being the best at everything, you had others that filled in the gaps of that which you could not.  It’s the same way with good strategic hires as well as other leaders.  The group that I’m part of is made up of all very successful people that thrive off of this interaction.  “We will never live long enough to make all of the mistakes ourselves.” ~unknown

Be Deliberate - Once a decision is made and we have leaned on others to help formulate a plan, execute that plan deliberately and stick to your principals.  It’s doable and at the end of the day the decisions that come out of it as well as the direction of your company will be better off for it.  Besides, if you’ve had help coming up with this new found direction or plan and you don’t execute, the willingness others showed you before to help will go away. 

This is not me being idealistic.  These are just a couple realized business practices put to use daily within a strong group of execs across the nation.  There are a number of other principles we choose to live by and practice in our daily lives, but these are a few that pertain to this particular discussion topic of being a bit short sighted and losing track of the bigger picture.

I'd love to jump deeper into the above points if anyone is interested.  These are just a  few that I wanted to share with you from conversations in the board room and with C Level executives around the nation.  There are many other details we can get into if anyone has any questions.  Feel free to connect with me on @barretn via twitter or email me if you have any comments, additions or feedback that you'd like me to add in.  I appreciate your interest and time in reading Executive Decisions.

Social Media and Culture In The Workplace

[Update - 9/04/11] I'll be speaking on Social Media and Corporate Culture on 10/13/11 in Bellevue, WA for the NCA CEO Track Conference.  If you are a CEO or Senior Executive seeking more knowledge about the topic of Social Media and Corporate Culture or Information Security and the rapidly changing technical markets, there will be some incredible speakers in attendance including Sanjay Mirchandani, our key note.

Social Media: Social Media has created a new wave of business that many do not understand.  This is in large part because no one truly understands it.  It is constantly changing and evolving the way business leaders must look at their business and the relationships around their endeavors as a company.  Social Media allows for a great deal of transparency within the company which if not monitored, can quickly become negative publicity.  New hires and current employees can find out what they want and if what they find is negative, you won't pick up talent.  CEOs can no longer guarantee the image they pay for will truly be the way the public percieves their products or services.  But is this a negative, a positive or maybe a little of both.  Here's what our leaders are doing to change their perspectives and step out of the uncertainty to embrace change.
           

Whether You Like It Or Not – here’s the deal, I’ve been advising C level execs and Ven Cap leaders alike in the past year on the positives and negatives of Social Media.  The problem is, when it comes to the negatives, it’s almost not worth talking about them.  Your staff, your competition, your customer base, your supporting partners as well as many of your executives are already on Social Media whether you like it or not.  Embrace it as a cheap, fast and effective tool that will help you get what you want.  Note: I can expand greatly on how companies are doing just that.  How its affecting areas such as the speed of new products to market, costs of research and innovation, and brand awareness to name a few.

Stay Focused – there is a mess of new applications, creative tools and forms of communicating out there via Social Media that CEOs, Politicians, and everyone else gets confused and flustered by.  Here’s a simplified solution to the idea of Social Media; Don’t worry about the technology at all.  With the rapidity of the technological advancements in the Social space as well as the progression of comfort that the community has with it, you'll never be able to keep up.  It can cause a company to sit foggy and uncertain as to the direction things will go, especially if they’re focused on it from a technology standpoint.  What I’d like to stress is that it really cannot be about the technology but must be about the relationship or objective you have given the target market you seek to influence.  First figure out what the point is and what you're trying to do.  Only then can anyone (including the "experts") inform you on how to communicate and with what tools to use.  Note: I’m happy to speak with anyone about the technology and which applications, software and services to use in which situations based upon the Objective you develop around your chosen Target Market.  Until you have those pieces though, don’t bother talking about technology.

Use Known Formulas - Understanding and establishing a target market and what your objective is for that market can help overcome the mystery of what technologies to use and create strategy around those.  POST.. people, objective, strategy and technology (cited from social media book “Groundswell”).. there’s a reason that technology comes last.  I would contest that the message hasn't changed, just the way you deliver that message.  Leaders waste too much time on the method of delivery over the actual message they wish to convey due to the fact that there are so many ways to deliver it.  All the hype around these channels cause leaders to think they need to keep up.  This is strictly for CEOs and C Level execs as well as some politicians here; focus on your market and message and leave the techy stuff to your staff.. notably your PR, Sales, Development and Marketing Teams. 

The following are some recent subjects I’ve spoken on that interest other CEOs:

- Strategic steps to navigating the world of Social Media and information transfer

- Companies should be looking at Social Media as a positive tool.  How to re-leverage the power they are losing to the current Online Socially Networked world

- How to use Social Networking tools to embrace, empower and enhance your internal employee resources as well as your new found external socially networked community resources

- How some companies are successfully handling the change and why

- How companies are using social networking to innovate faster, adapt more rapidly, strengthen client relationships, empower customers and their employees (gamification, user feedback, influenced/incentivized rating systems, realized product improvement based feedback or policy change, etc), improve satisfaction ratings, build their book of business, decrease market spend, placation of dissatisfaction of customers and employees, etc.

I'd love to jump deeper into the above points if anyone is interested.  There are some really fun conversations to be had about this ever changing Socially Connected Market.

These are just a  few points that I wanted to share with you from conversations in the board room and with C Level executives around the nation.  There are many other details we can get into if anyone has any questions.  Feel free to connect with me on @barretn via twitter or email me if you have any comments, additions or feedback that you'd like me to add in.  I appreciate your interest and time in reading Executive Decisions.

Finding Good Talent: (Series 3) A Messy Candidate Market

A Messy Candidate Market: Many companies not only had to reduce staff in the down economy, they used the down economy to cull the herd of poorly chosen hires so that they could clean up their work force.  The problem is, now that companies are attempting to rebuild, it’s not easy. 

Solutions:

Candidate info online - there are a great deal more resources available to management such as LinkedIn, JigSaw, Facebook, recruiting agencies and simple Google searches that allow companies to search for information on potential new hires to name a few.  LinkedIn itself will show you the electronic resume of a candidate as well as what type of contact they may be interested in.  They may be perfectly content with their job but still interested in hearing about better offers.  Note: this is the same for your employees as well which you should be considering at all times.  See “Competition” below.

Learning from you competition - good managers will figure out what other companies are doing to rebuild their workforce and where they are finding the “good ones”.  If you lose a candidate to your competition, find out why?  Ask them.  Often times they’ll tell you or can direct you to the recruiter that was working with them.  It can be as easy as asking.

Supporting Your Current Workforce – having employees that believe in your company and enjoy the workplace and their career will have your good employees recommending other employees from the same pedigree.  Note: I’ll be adding a blog about Empowering the Culture You Want, covering culture both internally and externally to your business, in the coming weeks and what some really respectable companies and I are working on.

Know what you want – I recently consulted for a CEO whose staff was seeing roughly 20 in person candidate interviews to only 1 hire.  This was for mid level sales people.  This is a flawed process, period.  Many of the CEO’s that I work with know exactly what they want “out” of an employee but don’t know what they want “in” an employee.  There’s a great deal more about retention and employee satisfaction that has to do with the leadership, the mission statement, the culture and the type of work they’re hired for.  Figure out through the interview process how you might better sort through these points.  I can add to this if anyone is interested in hearing how other companies are doing just that.

These perspectives are gained from sitting in the board room.  Note that all views and opinions within these blogs are issues, solutions and general thoughts that C Level executives go through.  Most of the work I do is to sit in external board groups that I monitor and work out solutions on everything from firing negative influences within a corporation to IPOs.

These are just a  few points that I wanted to share with you from conversations in the board room and with C Level executives around the nation.  There are many other details we can get into if anyone has any questions.  Feel free to connect with me on @barretn via twitter or email me if you have any comments, additions or feedback that you'd like me to add in.  I appreciate your interest and time in reading Executive Decisions.

Finding Good Talent: (Series 2) Burn-Out

Burn-Out (2): In 2009, some executives changed their perspectives on what they required of their workforce, and though they chose to do this out of perceived necessity, it was often times to the detriment of the staff that still remained.  Managers in down economies will naturally expect more from their employees.  The staff that was still around were required to wear more hats, gain more skills and work more hours for less money in many cases.  The problem is that perception is always changing, the economy (whether realistically or based upon perception) is settling and the opportunities for reemployment are again increasing as 2011 continues.  Though uncertainty still remains amongst business leaders, the need to adapt and move forward hasn’t changed.

Solutions:

Social Media Fish Bowl - There is a strong movement that Social Media is causing that will push managers and business owners towards investment in the culture of the company and its people.  Good companies are figuring this out.  Some great articles have been put out by key executives including one from Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com regarding transparency and the social movement and how it will affect the company’s workforce satisfaction rates like never before. Further review of this under Social Media post coming soon. 

Rebuilding your workforce -  start investing in support staff now.  You were able to temporarily take advantage of giving more responsibility to staff members.  Don’t wait until your employees start listening to the numerous recruiting calls they receive throughout the month simply because they’re tired of the increased hours and you’re not listening. 

Reward good deeds - don’t feel as though patting someone on the back every once in a while is patronizing.  They like it and certainly it’s not above the station of the CEO to do it himself if it’s notable enough and significant enough to the company or that persons position within your organization.  They’ll remember it and tell others about it both inside and outside your organization making your job easier overall.  This may turn your employees into your best recruiters.  Note: sometimes continuous rewards go further emotionally than pay increases.  Depending on the type of work, different incentives work better than others.

Listen and Then Speak – if your staff is complaining about long hours, low pay, or too much work, understand that it took a little while to get there and if they’re speaking about it openly, you’d better believe that they are talking about it online, to their friends and family and other staff members or union reps.  If this isn’t at least addressed verbally (regardless of whether there is a solution or not), they will feel as though you don’t care.  I’ve seen a lot of CEOs that go home and stress out over these issues yet never let anyone else know that they feel anything over the issue.  This only causes resentment.

Bottom line.. don't let these points become issues.  It's really easy to slow down, listen to your staff, see how other companies are rewarding the efforts of your staff, and if you can't figure out the solution, just ask.  There are other companies and leaders out there that are dealing with the same issues or have already overcome those issues.  Use this power, it could just save the life of your company.

These are just a  few points that I wanted to share with you from conversations in the board room and with C Level executives around the nation.  There are many other details we can get into if anyone has any questions.  Feel free to connect with me on @barretn via twitter or email me if you have any comments, additions or feedback that you'd like me to add in.  I appreciate your interest and time in reading Executive Decisions.

Finding Good Talent: (Series 1) Competition

Competition: Hopefully every CEO starts out wanting to do good things with the companies they create or run.  The need for ethical and empowering leadership is greater today than it has ever been.  Keeping good workers is hard and unless your employees believe in the company and its leadership it becomes even harder.  Additionally, with LinkedIn and other social networking sites, your workforce has their resume online and available to your competition full time.  Your competition isn’t just those that directly compete with you.  For example, any time you’re seeking a great VP of Marketing, you’re competing with every other company that is seeking the same regardless of their industry.  In a series of conversations with a Social Networking executive, when a competitive organization was looking to come out with a competitive service, the original Social site paid a developer $1M dollars just to stay with them and not transfer to the new company.  They set policy in place that would offer the same retention package for any Senior Developer that received a legitimate offer from their new competitor.
            Solution:

Retention – there aren’t many examples where any of the executives I work with have to start offering $1M dollar retention packages but there are different degrees of the same problem.  In times of growth or anticipated growth, companies are out there looking for the type of talent that will take them to the next level.  Understand that if you’re not finding ways to acknowledge the efforts of your staff, reward them for going above and beyond the call of duty and finding ways to empower them and make them feel heard, you will lose them. 

Find Employee Strengths – most times, if you or your managing staff hired someone, you liked them for a reason.  If you see them as an asset yet they aren’t reaching their potential, there are plenty of “strengths finder” surveys and exercises that you can take them through so that you can figure out where to move them within your company so that they can better realize their potential as well as stimulate your business and ultimately their happiness.  This will reduce the issue of keeping them on board.

Creative Hours – some companies will give time each month for employees to come up with creative new ideas, new technical code, products, service techniques, etc that they feel will help the company become better.  This can be well worth the time of the company to embrace these techniques and ideas.  Not only does it get the mind of the workers off of mundane tasks for a bit but provides them an opportunity to use their minds and stretch their potential which they like. 

Transparency – this is covered in more detail under the “Social Media” addition to this series but some food for thought, CEOs are getting smarter.  They’re finding out quickly that with the advent of Social Media and the access their staff, competition, and customers have to company data, financials, image and influence poses many potential problems.  If you’re not ready to start embracing a society of openness and honesty as well as allow those that have influence over these details of your company to work with you in a positive fashion, you’ll die from it.  This can be a huge positive tool.  You just have to know how to use it. Your competition will use these tools against you if you don’t get with the program.

Empowering Your Staff – There are plenty of ways to make employees feel as though they have control or influence over the direction of the company.  Many companies provide internal Wikis that allow employees to communicate with each other for the purpose of providing feedback, assisting each other, innovating through shared ideas, and allow them to suggest ways to make the environment, product and service better, as well as predicting future moves by your competition. Note: I can elaborate if anyone chooses on techniques used by other leaders.  A prime example is Dell computers and the techniques they have implemented over the past few years that have created great successes for other companies to follow.

These are just a  few points that I wanted to share with you from conversations in the board room and with C Level executives around the nation.  There are many other details we can get into if anyone has any questions.  Feel free to connect with me on @barretn via twitter or email me if you have any comments, additions or feedback that you'd like me to add in.  I appreciate your interest and time in reading Executive Decisions.