Core Values: An essential part of core ideology or not?

The most misunderstood, misguided and misrepresented part of an organization’s core ideology is often the core values. These values, which often give lip service to such things as: “We respect each other as equals,” “We seek diversity and diverse points of view,” etc. rarely manifest themselves within the organization they are written for. Why? For one, exactly because they are “written for” an organization and not with the input of the employees but, equally important, it’s because the management team is not equipped with the tools, the coaching and the know-how to help all members of the organization live these values day in and day out.

Why do core values matter anyway? If they permeate an organization, core values can help with recruiting employees, retaining employees, attracting and retaining new customers and creating customer loyalty. It’s impossible to ignore the importance of these values. It must be said that every company HAS core values — they just may not be the ones the senior leadership team created!

There is no better example of a company living it’s core values than Starbucks.  For anyone, facilitator or leader, attempting to create a set of core values and infuse them into the organization, I recommend reading the little book called  How Starbucks Saved My Life, by Michael Gates Gill.  This book provides a rare glimpse into a company that is actually living it’s values. I was amazed (and I think you will be to!) at how successfully Starbucks has created a culture of respect for each other, listening, and attention to the customer by bringing their core values to life in each and every store.

So, how does a facilitator or company/organization leader help leadership teams live their core values?  Here’s a short list of tips I have learned along the way:

1) Gather input from the organization. Use an anonymous survey tool to find out where things are really at and how far away you are from the values you would like your organization to embody.

2) For each of the values, determine how committed the leadership team is to actually “living” that value day in and day out. Articulate what it means to “live” the value.  Set aside those values that not everyone is willing to commit to.

3) Articulate what the organization will look like when all the values are being actively “lived” by all in the organization. Create a vivid description using picture and words to communicate your vision to the organization

4) Create and implement a communications plan so that every single person within the organization knows how they should live each of the values and what that means for their everyday interactions with co-workers, leadership and customers.

5) Set up a consistent reward and staffing structure.  Reward ALL employees based on how effectively they convey the organization’s values. Hire only those people whose own values are congruent with the organizations.

This little book, How Starbucks Saved My Life, is a powerful depiction of the impact an organizations values can have on both the success of the overall entity and, even more importantly, the happiness of the employees who are out on the line serving customers.

Click on this link to see the core values of another successful company:  Zappos

http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/21/news/companies/obrien_zappos10.fortune/index.htm

Cindy Diamond

IGNiTE . . . fueling creativity and innovation

Facilitating Team Building in a Time of Uncertainty

Most of today’s organizations function in a team setting. These may be cross functional or functional internal teams, client service teams made from internal and external service providers, or other member compositions.  Stability is an essential component to the success of these teams. Why? Because teams go through many stages before they become high performing — namely:  forming, storming, norming and finally, performing.  Stabilty makes teams more efficient and effective at doing their jobs.

In today’s recessionary, lay-off laden environment, stability is simply not a reality. Does this mean organizations are going to suffer from less efficient and less effective teams? Most likely. Now, more than ever, organizational leadership must prioritize team building amongst it’s highest goals or risk suffering an even greater setback from the loss of team members and the environment of uncertainty we are in.

Why team building? Because trust has suffered a great blow in organizations and this hinders cooperation amongst teams that have been newly formed or have lost or changed members. Organized team building sessions, with the assistance and direction of an objective, outside facilitator,  helps team members build trust with each other. Specific trust building activities, such as sharing personal histories, viewingthe situation from each others perspectives and understanding motivations leads to an increase in cooperation, admiration, and, ultimately, trust. Once this trust has been established, teams can develop shared goals based on the passions of individual team members.  Cooperative, trusting team members will then be able to work together to meet the team goals and help each other embrace their passions and contribute their best to the team.

Teams that spend a lot of time “forming” and/or “storming” typically don’t move the needle on accomplishments as quickly as teams that are high performing. The essential difference between these stages is trust and, as a by product, cooperation and shared goals.  The relatively small investment of time and money it takes to bring in a facilitator and set aside a few days a quarter for team building will pay back multiple times in the efficiency realized by teams that work well together and have developed a team perspective on where they want to go and how to get there. And, after all, in the end it’s all about the people!

Cindy Diamond, Founder and CEO

IGNiTE, facilitating strategy and innovation

Developing a Vision for Your Organization: A Great Team Building Experience

building-your-companys-vision-overview-of-key-concepts3 (link to a Powerpoint presentation)

Of all the workshops and ideations sessions I facilitate,  I believe the best team building experiences are created through my vision workshops. Both new and existing teams benefit immensely from this experience. The most essential piece for the success of the workshop is the participation of senior leadership. If the senior leaders and present and are openly and honestly seeking the input of the team these sessions are wonderful bonding experiences for all involved.

I based my vision workshops off of the the HBR article on vision written by James Collins and Jerry Porras titled “Building Your Company’s Vision.”   They introduce the idea that vision is made up of “core ideology” and an “envisioned future.” When developing “core ideology,” which consists of core values and core purpose, it’s essential that the group that does the actual work in the organization has input into the ideology. Core values must reflect the values of the people who come to do the work every day; if they do not, the values are irrelevant! The core purpose articulates the reason the organization exists. The people  who come to work at your organization everyday should have a passion for doing that work. 

The “envisioned future,” which consists of a BIG goal and a vivid description of that goal help the group paint a picture of what the future looks like. It creates alignment within the group and has everyone marching toward the same goal.  Simply put, if you don’t know where you’re going, it doesn’t matter how you get there! The envisioned future gets everyone onto the same path so that efforts are synergystic and effective in moving the organization forward.

 I have attached a short Powerpoint presentation that summarizes the key concepts from the HBR article. I have added some additional examples for non-profits. I have found this way of thinking about vision to be just as effective for non-profit organizations as it is for corporations.

Please feel free to send any questions!

Cindy Diamond

President and CEO Diamond Marketing Solutions / IGNiTE

A strategy, innovation and creativity consulting firm

Facilitating Team Building for New Teams

Facilitating team building sessions is a hot topic right now!  In the age of tele-commuting, video conferencing, webinars and e-mail, teams are often decentralized and getting less face-to-face time. That, of course, makes the time spent together more valuable than ever before. If the team is not yet in a high performing mode, it’s essential that a portion of that face-to-face time is spent building the foundational elements of the team — trust being the most essential, followed by shared processes to resolve conflict, clear accountability and shared commitment to the team and the team’s objectives.  

 

I recently facilitated a team building session with a large group that shares accountability for increasing the reading standards in the state of Minnesota.  This is a new team that will meet most often in sub-groups and only infrequently as a large team. The team building exercises I’ll discuss in this post can be adapted to a variety of group sizes and team situations.

Because this was a large group, we began by dividing up into smaller teams. We grouped participants by regions as they will most often be interacting with their regional team members. Regional teams were grouped at round tables and given the following simple warm up as the opening trust building exercise:

Go around the table and share the following with your group. You have 2 minutes to talk about yourself!

• Name
• What is your role with the organization?
• What were you doing before you became active with this organization?
• How so you view your role on the regional team?
• What are you most excited about for the upcoming year (anything at all!)

During this opening exercise, team members had the opportunity to see each other as individuals. The next two exercises set the stage for team members to see how they as individuals come together to form a team. For this next exercise, each table of participants was given a picture of a bunch of jigsaw puzzle pieces. They were asked to create a list of all the ways in which the jigsaw puzzle is similar to the composition and operation of a high-performance organization (this exercise was adapted from an exercise in the book “Even More Games Trainers Play by Scannell and Newstrom).  Once all the teams had completed their lists (set a time limit!) we went around and collected the ideas from each table in a round robin style (each table contributes one idea and then on to the next table).  Here are the types of responses we got:

• There are boundaries
• Each pieces has a role in the solution
• Pieces are highly interconnected
• The whole is greater than the sum of the parts
• etc. (these teams came up with over 30 unique responses!)

This opened up the floor for a great discussion of how to work together more effectively.

The final exercise was created to help team members understand their individual role on the team and the roles of other team members. Role confusion is one of the largest sources of conflict for all teams – but particularly for new teams. For this exercise, we created in advance a number of scenarios in which role confusion is likely to occur (these were based on prior experiences). The regional teams went through each of the scenarios and discussed how they would resolve each of the scenarios. Any scenarios that the teams could not resolve in their small teams were discussed during the debrief with the larger group. After the debrief, each sub-team drafted role definitions for each of their team members.

The team building session I describe here was a 2 hour session. It had the right amount of energy and movement to keep participants engaged and energetic. By the end of the 2 hours participants understood the benefits of working together with their team, felt a higher degree of comfort with their role on the team, and had begun to build trust with their new team members.

Cindy Diamond, Principal and Founder

Diamond Marketing Solutions / Ignite

Fueling Creativity and Innovation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10 Reasons to Hold Retreats to Build Your Business

I read this article on the Brandchannel.com website at http://www.brandchannel.com/brand_speak.asp?bs_id=197 and thought it was worth sharing with others interested in facilitation as well as with corporate teams seeking to conduct multi-day meetings to achieve a specific objective. While this article specifies “marketing teams,” most of the ideas are applicable to any team. The article text is included in full underneath my comments. Team retreats, much like those discussed in the Leoncini book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, can be a real boost to productivity and team building. While team building is typically a secondary objective, it often becomes the biggest catalyst for increased productivity and success. Retreats are unique in that they allow teams to take time to thoroughly discuss ideas, to come to mutual understanding by seeing issues from others points of view and because they allow the facilitator enough time to work with team members on trust building. Trust is the foundation upon which high performing teams are built. Without it, team members spend an abundance of time and energy on political games and competitive maneuvering instead of seeking cooperation and maximizing team synergy.   Another benefit of the retreat is really getting out of the mindset of the corporate day-to-day world and giving team members the time and space to think creatively and to envision the future. A skilled facilitator will structure this time so that it is somewhat less structured than the typical corporate meetings yet structured enough to provide multiple ways into the creative tasks allowing creativity to flow naturally for participants. I thought this article was a good reminder of why and when it’s important to get out of the corporate meeting room and spend some time in a more relaxed environment working, creating, ideating and playing with your team members.   — Cindy Diamond, Diamond Marketing Solutions & Ignite   Ten Reasons to Hold Marketing Retreats to Build Your Business and Your Brand by James S. Twerdahl July 14, 2008 issue Management retreats can be a very powerful tool for effecting change in organizations and brands. They do need careful planning and thoughtful and experienced facilitation, but properly done they can really help take your brand or organization to the next level. They are particularly important for those who are responsible for creating, building and maintaining brands. Here are the principle reasons to consider a marketing retreat for your organization.

 

1.   To reaffirm your company and product brands and overall strategic direction. Markets served by virtually all organizations are changing at an incredible pace. While mission and vision statements and the overall positioning of your brand should be designed for the long-term, it is critical that they periodically be reviewed and reaffirmed. Changes in technology, competitive activity, the world economy and any number of other factors can necessitate change in your brand positioning. At the very least, the near term strategic direction must be reviewed and adjusted to account for the changing reality. And, there are still a great many companies who have not formally set forth their brand positioning statements—a retreat is an ideal time to do so.  2.   To unify management. Even the best management teams can lose focus on overall goals as individual managers work in their respective areas. Retreats can be a good way of re-unifying the team and making sure that everyone is embracing the same overall objectives, goals, and brand engagement strategies. Retreats are also an ideal way of integrating new managers with older team members. Both in formal meetings and at breaks, meals and recreation times, participants can get to know one another much better and form bonds that are tough to forge when involved in day-to-day operations.  3.   To solve disputes and mediate tensions. Tensions and disputes arise in all organizations. Rather than letting them fester and become destructive and counterproductive, open discussions in non-threatening retreats, can be a good way of letting people share points of view and resolve conflicts.  4.   To identify issues. In the daily heat of battle, issues that have not been resolved often come up. Issues that cross departmental lines can remain unresolved because it takes unified actions to attack them. In a well managed retreat, issues can be identified, analysis can begin, and initiatives or action plans set to resolve them.  5.   To brainstorm and be creative. Away from the fray of day-to-day activities without phones ringing and e-mails to be answered, it may be possible to foster higher levels of creativity. Group creativity sessions can be highly synergistic as one person plays off of another’s idea.  6.   To develop new products and programs. In addition to brainstorming for new products and programs, healthy discussion about new directions can take place and plans laid. Because new products and programs typically involve actions from many departments, retreats can be a good way of outlining the plans and assigning responsibility, setting overall timetables, establishing budgets and other activities from the “big picture” perspective.  7.   To face and resolve crises. Even the best brands may periodically have to deal with crises of one kind or another. Typically when a crisis occurs, there are several hurried meetings to try and deal with the immediate situation. It is often helpful to get away from the immediate issues to assess the situation overall and make sure the organization is realigned not only to deal with the issue but not have it impact future growth and development of the brand.  8.   To provide management training. A key part of many retreats is on-going management training either from internal resources or from outside speakers brought in to address specific topics. Many retreats have themes and in keeping with the theme, speakers can discuss industry best practices, new trends or other areas to improve managers’ effectiveness individually and as members of the team. Retreats are also excellent ways of orienting new leaders in their new roles in the organization.  9.   To reward and recognize outstanding efforts. An important element in many retreats should be to recognize those team members who have really made great contributions. Discussing their successes and accomplishments, if done properly, can help motivate others and build a sense of team. Clearly the accomplishments praised have to be ones that contribute to the team overall, but acknowledging someone who has helped the team can really encourage others to do so as well.  10.   To build consensus. If done well, the first nine points should all be helping to build consensus and a unified sense of where the brand is going. This last point is highlighted as a summary because often organizational leaders may meet resistance in fostering change. Even though a leader can exert their organizational authority, it is often much more important to “sell people” than to “tell people.” Retreats can often be used to expose all sides of an issue and allow the team to reach the best possible conclusions. When reached as a group with everyone buying-in, the likelihood of success can be much greater than if the direction is dictated. Brands are organic and continue to evolve and change over time. Constant monitoring and reassessment are necessary to optimize the long-term returns from your brand.

James S. Twerdahl is the managing director of James S. Twerdahl & Associates.

Facilitating Team Building Sessions using The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

I recently faciltitated a team building session for a senior management team at General Mills. The team consisted of nine individuals, each with a senior leadership role within the same function.   The team was seeking to build trust and relationships by gaining a better understanding of team dynamics, their role on the team and insight into the styles and preferences of the other individuals on the team.

I based the process for this team building workshop on Patrick Lencioni’s book titled “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.”  In his book, Lencioni discusses the following 5 team dysfunctions: absence of trust, fear of conflice, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability and, finally, inattention to results. Each must be addressed in order to overcome the dysfunctions. We decided to address “trust” in this initial workshop.

Prior to the workshop, all team members were asked to read this book and to fill out a survey that would help identify the strengths and weaknesses of the entire team. In addition, each participant filled out a Tracom Social Styles Profile. The combination of these two tools helped the team understand where the team as a whole needed to focus and how to better work with one another.

The Social Style Assessment that each team member completed identifies four behavioral styles, each with positive and negative attributes related to productive work relationships. The model charts behaviors on two scales related to an individual’s assertive and responsive behaviors. When combined, those scales reveal the four quadrants of behavioral patterns, or Social Styles: driving, expressive, amiable, and analytical. The key concept of applying Social Style is understanding Versatility, a measure of how well a person works with others.

The process of the workshop focused on a combination of trust building exercises, where particpants were asked to gradually reveal more about themselves — both personally and professionally, and understanding the team dynamics.

After participating in this Team Building Session, team members  have a better understanding of and appreciation for:

1.      The overall team dynamics and how each individual plays a role in those dynamics. 

2.      Team dysfunctions in the areas of trust, conflict, commitment, accountability and results and a foundation for beginning to build a more cohesive, high functioning team.

3.      Their individual social style and how it affects the way they interact with and are perceived by team members.

4.      Their degree of versatility as it relates to their social style and how it influences their behavior.

5.      The styles of team members and how they relate to individual strengths and weakness.

6. Tools for working with the different social styles and becoming more versatile, and thus more effective as a team player,  in their own styles.

I would recommend The Five Dysfunctions of a Team to almost any group seeking to increase team performance and results and create more effective relationships.

—- Cindy Diamond, Principal Diamond Marketing Solutions & IGNiTE