Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “culture”
About 15 years ago, I was sitting at an office dinner party, and the company president was giving an emotional speech about the importance of company culture. The speech was inspiring, revolutionary, and confusing. Confusing because I was unsure what he meant by culture. Did he mean the behaviors he would like to see in the organization? The camaraderie and …
When I take a quick scan of any Best Places to Work list, I pessimistically always wonder whether these places would be on the list if they weren’t profitable. Do you feel having a great culture mandates that you must also have a healthy bottom line? Does big profit always precipitate enviable culture? While I haven’t taken the time to do …
Let me first start by saying I love being an HR professional. I love the insight that the profession gives you into a company and its employees. But as HR people know, this insight can often be a double-edged sword. Instead of being coaches, we often become referees, and instead of ambassadors of our organization, we become law enforcement to …
In today’s hot job market nearly all of us are trying to “build a better mousetrap so the world will beat a path to our door,” as the saying goes. We are all authoring our employment brand, and trying to one-up our competitors. And a lot of that work revolves around understanding and then documenting/describing our culture. Culture is such …
I’ve been doing a lot of performance work for some client companies lately. As you might expect, I’m trying to push the companies to get out of the mindset that the performance review transaction is the reason for the process. Repeat after me: The reason you do any type of coaching or performance management is to migrate employees. If you’re …
Recently, I was lucky enough to go to a private screening of a new documentary, “Pursuing Happiness.” The director, Adam Shell, shared wonderful stories of the people he interviewed in his attempt to find the happiest people in America. “Who is the happiest person you know?” was the question he and his production partner posed. My friend who hosted the …
The more holiday seasons I work, the more I feel like Clark Griswold. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, the character certainly will. It’s the role Chevy Chase played numerous times, but most memorably in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. A major plot point was how Clark was anxiously waiting to hear how large his Christmas Bonus was going to …
2019 is just around the corner and HR leaders everywhere are making their New Year’s resolutions. I’m not talking about false promises to lay off gluten, flatten that spare tire around the midsection, call grandma in Sheboygan more often, eat more kale, blah blah blah. That’s all well and good, but how about making a collective resolution to your employees and …
Ariana Grande proclaimed “God is a Woman,” Keith Urban sang about “Female,” and Jesse J begged girls to feel elevated and say “I am a Queen.” Fearless Girl is on the move to the NY Stock Exchange; Sheryl Sandberg focused headlines read “Fall from Grace” for her part in Facebook’s mishaps, and a new study shows a 51% wage gap …
As I think back on my career and recall the times I had the best work experiences—where I was connected and engaged the most—it almost always involved a crisis or a pressure-filled project. I can vividly remember working on a big Chrysler account or a huge GM Parts incentive program. We worked 24/7 for weeks. In one case, we slept …
