How To Develop A Strategic Plan

Knowing how to develop a strategic plan that meets the needs of the organization, its’ employees and the community it serves is a wonderfully rewarding task; and it’s also no small job. Developing a strategic plan may feel as daunting as playing a game of chess against a master. Truth is, it will likely take months and you might benefit from the clarity of external help / coaching, but I assure you, you can do it and it is worth it.

So how do you go about being successful when faced with this mammoth task? My quick advice is, “Be patient, take it one step at a time – don’t skip any steps, and include as many other people as possible at every step”.

Step 1. Get Others Involved and Excited

Everyone who will be impacted by the strategic plan must care about the goals that are developed. One of the best ways to build compelling goals and buy-in at the same time is to involve as many voices / perspectives as possible.

Your first step in getting others involved and excited is to create a diverse task force.

At your first task force meeting, take a victory lap of past successes. This should help build unity, excitement, and positive energy. If there have been some challenges, acknowledge those as well… but don’t dwell on them. It’s healthy to acknowledge and take responsibility for challenges but move on once you’ve learned from them. When you talk about both your successes and challenges, frame the discussions so that you explore what went well and what you want more of, (called Appreciative Inquiry). Even challenges must have had some aspect that went well, like perhaps how the team rallied together.

Step 2. Ask Questions

I recommend reaching beyond your task force using a combination of surveys and in-person meetings to ask anyone you can for input – from your clients to your suppliers and of course your employees. Treat this as a fact-finding project. This is a time to do more listening than talking or planning. Use simple, open-ended questions like:

1. What makes us best in class today – what do we do well?

2. What made us best in class yesterday – is there any option to capitalize on that reputation / experience?

3. What are some out-of-the-box options for where we could be in the future?

4. What do our clients / customers dream of?

5. What is most exciting in our industry today?

6. (For Employees Specifically) As an employee, if you could learn or do any one thing, what would it be?

Step 3. Answer ‘Why’ Your Department / Organization Does What It Does

As you hear the answers to the questions you asked it will be tempting to start working on some of the wonderful ideas you and perhaps others have. Your excitement is terrific – but I encourage you to not go too far down that path and don’t get too invested into those ideas too quickly.

In addition to the answers and ideas your questions have raised, some of the most important inspiration for any strategic plan should also come from your mission statement and vision statement. For example, imagine your vision and mission statements were as follows:

• Vision: To become the world's most trusted, innovative, and profitable provider of data security solutions for the protection of highly critical sectors.

• Mission: To be considered a partner by our clients and to assist them to be productive, successful, and trusted by their clients.

From these two examples you can already imagine how your vision statement and mission statement will inform the important ‘What we do’ and ‘How we do it’ chapters of your strategic plan. The words ‘trusted’ ‘innovative’ ‘partner’ are just as important as ‘profitable’.  These words will give your task force a clear direction as they answer the question “Why what we do is important”. I’d suggest actually defining a ‘Why what we do is important’ statement. Empower your process by letting ‘Why’ become the foundation on which your brand and your corporate culture are built. This work will do wonders to position your strategic plan.

Simon Sinek is famous for championing the ‘Why’. And you know what? He’s right! Be sure your team knows the decisions they will make will be informed by and measured against how they relate to ‘Why’.

Step 4. Define The Goals Using The Vision, Mission and ‘Why’ Answer

As we’ve discussed, your vision and mission statements offer a guide – an opportunity by which strategic decisions can be evaluated and defended. So, empower and encourage the people in your task force to use them to define the opportunities / goals. It’s very likely that by now they have created a robust list of possible opportunities / goals to consider. That’s great! Now is the time to apply the ‘Why’ statement to the possibilities. The ‘Why’ statement should be a powerful tool that adds clarity to what to prioritize and what must change and evolve. The ‘Why’ statement will also defend and prioritize any larger change that might have to take place down the road.

A word about change and evolution. It's worth saying, some resistance to change is natural. You may even experience it yourself. But change and evolution are important to your business AND everyone connected to the business. For example, change keeps our work interesting and maintains our own personal and professional growth (evolution) and competitiveness. The way I see it, change is enviable so you might as well try to guide it (as best you can) because if you don’t try to take an active part in guiding it, you will be 100% guided by it.

The ‘Why’ that comes from exploring your vision statement and mission statement will also guide what you spend your budget on – and help you defend your requests if you are asking for an increased budget. These statements will also form the categories you and the finance team will measure including the ROI. And, if your strategic plan calls for a short-term drop in ROI, the guidance these statements offer should be able to explain how the investment is expected to catapult the company ahead of the competition.

Step 5. Delegate And Measure

Strategic plans are terrific… but once they are done, now what? Every strategic plan needs a strategic implementation protocol to turn the plan into reality. You’ve done a great job so far by including everyone in the process, and while it may feel like your job is almost done I urge you to not take your foot off the gas (as my dad would say). Many great projects and great ideas don’t reach their potential because of a lack of attention and commitment after the strategic plan is written. Instead, people get busy doing their “busy work” the same way they always have and none (or few) of the great strategic ideas get implemented. I urge you not to fall into this trap.

A challenge many leaders have (especially new leaders) is delegation. It is important leaders do less of the ‘doing’ and instead keep everyone’s focus on achieving the strategic plan by consistently guiding, inspiring, and supporting employees and employee teams. Consistency is an important word here! Another major leadership task is to build trust with your employees / teams so they come to you quickly with challenges so you can help guide solutions and when necessary use your seniority and experience to manage roadblocks. 

Step 6. Keep Everyone Informed

From day 1, keep everyone informed what is going on throughout the strategic planning process. Even people who are not part of the task force should have a high-level understanding of the importance of each step. Transparency builds trust and lack of information builds fear!

As the strategic plan is implemented, let everyone know what they should be expecting… and why. ‘Why’ is as important throughout the implementation as it was during the planning process. ‘Why’ will continue to build alignment and commitment, not to mention personal and professional pride. Keeping everyone informed will also help minimize fear and can even inspire a willing commitment to change. For example, imagine being an employee who is faced with having to learn a new process and/or a new piece of software. Instead of experiencing fear of the unknown and worry of not looking competent, what if the message was positioned to remind everyone that the change they are experiencing will make the company they’ve chosen to work for an industry leader, AND the change will also put them at the forefront of their profession as an expert in this emerging market. WOW!

Step 7. Monitor, Keep Measuring and Course Correct

Organizations must constantly monitor, measure, and course correct their goals and strategic plan. Measurement may fall on the task force but should be an important senior level responsibility. Measurement should include that that the strategic plan is being implemented and that the defined elements of the strategic plan are staying true to the overall mission, vision, and values. Also, as I eluded to earlier, expect the finance department to play a serious role in monitoring and measuring that plans are staying on budget.  

Something unexpected is going to happen so don’t be surprised – it is part of the process. Perhaps there will be new technology you can use, or perhaps there will be a new competitor or perhaps there will be a pandemic (COVID must have taught is something). Or, it might be that the changes aren’t working the way your task force expected. As quickly as you can, get employee, client / customer and supplier feedback. You must be prepared to take their advice and adjust your game plan. Sometimes that means mid-course corrections. Other times, it means scrapping a planned project / goal and starting from scratch. That’s not defeat — it’s the ultimate sign that you value the buy-in and ideas your community have.

Conclusion

Partnering with others is important to developing a compelling strategic plan. It is also key to growing commitment and trust in the future. Partnering with others also does one other thing I love to see by leaders; it means delegation workload and sharing responsibility. The best leaders delegate responsibly.

Thank you for reading ‘How To Develop A Strategic Plan’. If you have any thoughts or questions, please let me know.

Bruce

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Discuss Values With Your Team

Values help teams and individuals know which solutions are best when they make decisions. This clarity also offers practical support to decision in the following days, weeks and even years down the road. The confidence, consistency and success values provide cannot be underestimated; this is why it’s important to discuss your corporate values with your team.

Because values provide information about what decisions are right (or wrong) and why, they build a foundation of integrity and trust between people, even when their responsibilities and experiences are very different. When values are understood conflict is reduced, decisions are made more quickly, and commitment to those decisions is high… and remains high. Values also help a company generate alignment and harmony with their employees and within their products / services. If all of that isn’t enough, in the mid and long term, aligning decisions with your shared corporate values will also decrease scope-creep (skōp·krēp; Verb: continuous changes or growth in a project’s scope), and back-pedalling (back·ped·al; Verb: to reverse one's previous action or opinion), along the project. In short, shared values increases productivity and decreases waste therefore creating a net win-win-win-win-win.

We all have doubts from time to time, but shared values provide clarity, confidence and consistency.

Defining Your Corporate Values

If updating or defining your corporate values it’s important to involve every employee in discussions. Give everyone an opportunity to share what values they think should guide the company, why those values are important, their view of what each value means and how they influence each other’s actions and decisions. This important work should not be done in isolation by one person or a small C-suite team.

There is a process for helping everyone share their input; it isn’t as complicated as it may sound. The importance of having everyone’s input means that once values are agreed upon and adopted, everyone will be committed to them – no exceptions. Everyone must also understand that should someone continue to choose to work outside of those values, they are also choosing to be dismissed – no exceptions.

For newly hired employees, it’s important to introduce the company values in a robust and intentional manner. During the interview process you will have already determined their values are aligned with the company values. Now, as part of their on-boarding, take the time to share how important values are within your corporate culture, how they will be expected to use them in their work and even how your values were defined (companywide review). To be fair, this discussion should also include the impact on their career aspirations should they choose to work outside of those values.

When your corporate values are clear, making decisions becomes easier.

Does Your Company Share Your Values?

How do you know if the company and/or team you work with share your personal values? This is an important question for all employees. My first recommendation is to explore how you feel.

• Do you trust your leader and your team members? 

• Is your work-life balance in balance or out of alignment?

• Are you recognized for your competence and experience?

• Do you have the opportunity to learn and grow?

• Do you feel respected?

To experience success and peace / pride in our lives I believe there should be virtually no a difference between how we act in our personal lives and our professional lives.

If employees are a good fit they will not only complement each other’s values, they will also strengthen and help each of us grow personally and professionally. This doesn’t mean we must all have similar education and experiences, or that we will begin to look and sound alike; we actually know the opposite is true and that diversity makes each of us and company more successful. That is another amazing benefit of values. People with very different backgrounds, experiences and personal and professional (career), interests can still share very similar values and therefore easily share a common bond.

Conclusion:

One of the best investments a business can make is to help each employee consistently live the business values. In addition to all the benefits values offer to the team and the company, understanding the corporate values provides great benefit to each employee as we reflect what is important in what we work on as well as how we work. When our values are strong and shared, we will consistently make ethical decisions we can be proud of.

Ethics are the moral principles that govern our actions… the things we say and do as well as the decisions we make. In business, a company’s values and ethics should be aligned. If they are not, it is likely their values are written somewhere on their website but not supported… and more importantly employees are struggling which means the corporate brand and reputation is at risk.

Values are with us all the time and are tested most of all during difficult times. These are also the times when they are most important in guiding our decisions.

Thank you for reading about the importance of discussing values with your team and how values build a foundation of integrity.

Bruce

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Bruce is Corporate Trainer, Keynote Speaker and Executive Coach.

Bruce Mayhew Consulting specializes in customized Email Etiquette Training, Leadership & New Leadership Development, Generational Differences, Time Management Training and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada. Bruce is also an Executive Coach to a few select clients.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.

The Importance Of Building A Supportive Company Culture

A supportive company culture is a living, breathing, dynamic space. It is an environment where ideas, responsibilities, respect and mutual support ebb and flow between leaders, employees, suppliers, clients and more. It is a place where trust and loyalty are nurtured carefully. And all supportive corporate cultures are built on a foundation of purpose; a shared understanding of the company vision, mission and values. Metaphorically speaking, purpose is where you are going, and corporate culture is how you are getting there.

Everyone from the most junior employee to the most senior has a responsibility to support the company culture; it is not the sole responsibility of the leadership team, HR or the social committee. A healthy, supportive corporate culture is a symbiotic relationship that involves everyone. It grows out of the big and small decisions we make, how we act, what we say, how we say it, how we treat each other and what part we play in our community. We are all ambassadors of our corporate culture as well as our own personal and professional reputation (brand).

The following are opportunities where each of us can contribute to a supportive company culture. And, while all of these are great opportunities, we must recognize it would be impossible to ever develop a complete list. So, I encourage you to consider these suggestions but to also consider what other ways you and/or your company could use to create a supportive company culture.

Company Examples: Adding to a supportive company culture:

Companies with supportive company cultures know most employees want to be proud of where they work and want to help the company be the best it can be. Yes, there will always be an employee who doesn’t care and only wants a paycheck, but truthfully, there are far fewer people like this than we may think. Most people who have checked-out simply don’t feel valued, respected and supported (3 from a list of most common reasons), but put them in a space where the corporate culture is rich and they will thrive.

To help proud employees do their best work, the following are examples how great leaders add to a supportive company culture:

1. ·      Offer employees fair wages with respectful benefits

2. ·      Strive to be sure employees feel:

   • Valued

   • Appreciated

   • Trusted

   • Involved

   • Empowered

3. ·      Encourage employees to ask questions

4. ·      Employees believe they contribute / their work is important

5. ·      Employees feel a level of control / Autonomy

6. ·      Provide employees opportunities to better themselves

7. ·      Empower employees to work when they are at their best

8. ·      Employees are:

   • Mentored

   • Challenged

   • Promoted

   • Encouraged to enjoy interests outside of work

9. ·       Be a good corporate citizen

Leadership Examples: Adding to a supportive company culture:

While it is everyone’s responsibility to build and support the company culture, leaders really do play an important role in what happens throughout the company and/or within their team. Even a leader within a company with a questionable company culture can create a happy, creative, productive and loyal corporate micro-culture when their team feels their respect and trust.

So, what can a leader do within their company and/or team to develop a supportive corporate culture?

1. Include everyone on your team to define team values and/or to discuss what the current team or organization values impact them and how they approach their work. Note: Even though your company may have defined values, I don’t think there is anything wrong with sitting with your team to not only review them… but to add one or two that your team may want to also adopt.

2. Explore openly with your team how every decision and/or action supports (or does not support) the company’s core values, beliefs, mission and vision.

3. Be approachable

4. Practice empathy

5. Be crystal clear with your expectations

6. Agree that no question is a bad question. Better people ask for clarification than do something unexpected eh?

7. Demonstrate trust by giving employees the opportunity to figure things out for themselves. This often develops a greater sense of responsibility, pride and confidence in the employees (or teams) and makes their work important to them. 

8. Demonstrate you value suggestions from employees and suppliers as much as you do from other leaders.

9. Provide employees and teams the autonomy and decision-making ability they need to be accountable. Leaders need to support their team while also helping them be responsible and accountable for their work. Accountability develops greater sense of responsibility, pride and confidence. It will help them grow and be better at their work in the future. Remember, leaders do not make every decision; they trust employees who are experts and/or closer to the work.

10. Reward when people and/or teams are accountable. 

11. Encourage and praise employees who collaborate well with others. This doesn’t mean only reward extraverts; introverts are often some of the best collaborators.  

12. Take onboarding new employees seriously, help them learn the language, the culture and the organization. Consider matching new employees with internal mentors.

13. Help your company and team be a good corporate citizen.

14. Respect our environment.

Employee Examples: Adding to a supportive company culture:

During my career I have had some great bosses – I’ve also had one really bad boss. This bad boss created a terrible team culture even though the overall corporate culture was quite good. Thankfully, there were a few of us on the team who banded together to support each other and to find ways to do our best work within the toxic storm our leader created.

Ways in which employees can add to a supportive company (or team) culture include:

1. Know what the company’s core values, beliefs, mission and vision are. Try to use those as goal posts for the decisions you make.

2. Demonstrate you recognize everyone has a voice and their ideas are valued.

3. Always enjoy a good laugh, but never at someone else’s expense. Mutual respect is critical.

4. When you are wrong or makes an error, admit it and move on. Being accountable shows respect for yourself and your colleagues. A culture of accountability also develops trust.

5. When someone else is wrong or makes an error, move on. Ask them if they would like your support to find ways to minimize / correct the damage. 

6. When someone else has a better idea, give them credit and help them / the team develop it further. Be an example of integrity, honour and respect of other people and ideas.

7. Be respectful with your language.

8. Help your company and team be a good corporate citizen.

9. Respect our environment.

Toxic workplaces cause psychological and physical stress. This engages peoples natural instinct to protect themselves, to not share creative ideas, decreases motivation, increases absenteeism and eventually turnover.

Organizations are aways in competition to hire and retain amazing people. The best way to protect themselves from losing valuable employees is to make sure you have a supportive company culture that makes your employees… and your competitions employees… want to work for you.

Conclusion

You now have many examples how to create a supportive company culture that is an environment for growth, hard work and change while still maintaining a low stress environment. This creates one of the best places to work where productivity and loyalty are high while conflict and turnover are low. When we have a great company culture, employees trust each other and can be their true authentic self. When we trust and respect each other we share good ideas, crazy ideas, we look out for each other and everyone wins. 

BONUS:

Two deeper dives into how companies and leaders can build great a great corporate culture.

1.     Build a solid employment brand. It starts with understanding what makes your organization unique. Once you have it, promote it; find every opportunity to talk about the company brand. Write articles, post employee survey results, sit on panel discussions, talk with reporters in addition to the more common approach of building a great career website and distributing job openings in both typical and non-standard places. Make sure that everyone knows yours is a great place to work.

If you’re a good employer, employees will want to work for you. Existing employee loyalty will go up and when you do need to hire new people you will be attracting talent that want to work for your company versus have to find a job.

Now is the time to be further developing your corporate culture because you can bet your competition is.

2.     Consider sabbaticals or approved / arranged boomerangs. We all know what a sabbatical is. In office terms a boomerang is when an employee leaves a company and then later returns to work for the company.

Imagine offering an agreed upon leave of absence like sabbaticals and boomerangs to employees who meet or exceed expectations to achieve a personal goal or gain new skills. 

Neither sabbaticals or boomerangs need to be for a year. Why not let them be can be as flexible as required. And, perhaps you can arrange employees spend some time in the office so you don’t lose all productivity. For example, imagine having a strong employee who requests a 3-month sabbatical to take a few courses or earn a professional certificate to help them further their career. Depending on their schedule they may even be able to work 2-days a week. Or imagine letting an employee take a 2-month boomerang to take their dream vacation.

Offering flexible options will provide a clear example of how you trust and value employees while giving them some autonomy. Employees who negotiate sabbaticals and boomerangs are going to be even more valuable when they return because they will always have a fresh perspective and likely be more hard-working than ever. If nothing more, they will be more loyal. And let’s be clear, in most cases you will save thousands of dollars versus the high cost of recruiting new talent in highly competitive business environments and opportunity lost when valued employees see no other way to get ahead than to quit… or worse, to not take a dream course or vacation, feel resentful about it and stay.

Whenever you can, create a workplace where employees feel comfortable being themselves and is built on mutual respect and mutual benefit.

Thank you for your interest in building a supportive company culture.

An other article you might like.

Why Trust Matters and How To Build Trust At Work

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Bruce is Corporate Trainer, Keynote Speaker and Executive Coach.

Bruce Mayhew Consulting specializes in customized Email Etiquette Training, Leadership & New Leadership Development, Generational Differences, Time Management Training and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada. Bruce is also an Executive Coach to a few select clients.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.

Build A Supportive Company Culture

A supportive company culture is a living a breathing, dynamic space. It is an environment where support for people and their ideas ebb and flow between leaders, employees, suppliers, clients, their communities and more.

A healthy, supportive corporate culture is a symbiotic relationship centred around the company’s core values, beliefs, mission and vision. Everyone from the most junior employee to the most senior has a responsibility to support the company culture, it is not a responsibility for only the leadership team or the responsibility of HR or the social committee.

Venice Italy

The following are opportunities for companies, leaders and employees to build together and add to a supportive company culture. These are all great opportunities but it would be near impossible to develop a complete list. It is likely there are some unique opportunities for your business. For example, imagine that if you are in the entertainment business what you might be able to do around a special performance or with a costumed event. If you are in the technology business what might you be able to do with a custom app or remote team solutions. Bring your teams together to brainstorm ideas.

I encourage you to consider what you can do to integrate or strengthen the opportunities within this article. I also encourage you to celebrate and share with your friends, family and like minded professionals what you and/or your company does that is not included within these lists.

Company Examples: Adding to a supportive company culture:

Supportive corporate cultures are respectful of everyone. Companies realize that employees want to be proud of where they work. Employees are also eager to help the company be the best it can be… until they feel disrespected or used. To help employees do their best work and be the best individual they can be, supportive companies don’t only take, they give back to employees, helping them be their best and be proud of what they do and the company they work for.

Companies that add to a supportive company culture:

• Strive to be sure employees feel:

  • Valued

  • Appreciated

  • Trusted

  • Involved

  • Empowered

• Encourage employees to ask questions.

• Take opportunities to let employees know they contribute and that their work is important.

• Help employees feel a level of control and autonomy.

• Provide employees opportunities to better themselves.

• Empower employees to work when they are at their best.

• Provide opportunity for employees to be:

  • Mentored

  • Challenged

  • Promoted

  • Encouraged to enjoy interests outside of work

• Let employees grow at their own pace.

• Are a good corporate citizen.

• Offer employees fair wages with respectful benefits.

Leadership Examples: Adding to a supportive company culture:

While it is everyone’s responsibility to build and support the company culture, leaders do play an important role in what happens throughout the company and/or within their team. Great leaders don’t wait – they know that even within their own team they can make a difference and create a fantastic, trusting and respective corporate culture where employees on their team are happy, creative, productive and loyal.

So, what can a leader do within their company and/or team to develop a supportive corporate culture?

• Explore openly with their team how every decision and/or action supports (or does not support) the company’s core values, beliefs, mission and vision.

• Be approachable.

• Practice empathy.

• Be crystal clear with expectations.

• Celebrate great work.

• Recognize and celebrate when employees make decisions or take actions that are inline with the company’s core values, beliefs, mission and vision.

• Agree that no question is a bad question. Better people ask for clarification than do something unexpected eh?

• Demonstrate trust by giving employees the opportunity to figure things out for themselves. Opportunity often develops a greater sense of responsibility, pride and confidence in the employees (or teams) and makes their work important to them. 

• Listen. Leaders demonstrate they value suggestions from employees and suppliers as much as they do from other leaders.

• Provide employees and teams the autonomy and decision-making ability they need to be accountable. Great leaders help employees and teams be responsible and accountable for their work. Accountability develops greater sense of responsibility, pride and confidence in the employees (or teams) work in similar ways that opportunity does. Accountability will help employees grow and be better at their work in the future. Remember, leaders do not make every decision; they trust employees who are experts and/or closer to the work.

• Reward when others are accountable. Celebrate accountability. Turn it into a positive team building and / or learning experience.

• Encourage and praise employees who collaborate well with others. This doesn’t mean only reward extraverts; introverts are often some of the best collaborators.  

• Take on-boarding new employees seriously, help them learn the language, the culture and the organization. Consider setting new employees up with internal mentors for a short time.

• Help the company and team be a good corporate citizen.

• Respect our environment.

Employee Examples: Adding to a supportive company culture:

During my career I have had some great bosses – I’ve also had one really bad boss. He created a terrible team culture within a more or less very good corporate culture. Thankfully, there were a few of us on the team who baneded together to support eachother and to find ways to do the best work we could do within the perfect storm our leader created every day.

Ways in which employees can add to a supportive company (or team) culture include:

• Know what the company’s core values, beliefs, mission and vision are. Try to use those as goal posts for the decisions they make.

• Demonstrate they recognize everyone has a voice and their ideas are valued.

• Always enjoy a good laugh, but never at someone else’s expense. Mutual respect is critical. Toxic workplaces cause psychological and physical stress. This engages peoples natural instinct to protect themselves, to not share creative ideas, decreases motivation, increases absenteeism and eventually turnover.

• When you are wrong or make an error, admit it quickly, help find a solution and move on. Being accountable shows respect for yourself and your colleagues. A culture of accountability also develops trust.

• When someone else is wrong or makes an error, offer to help find a solution and move on. Ask if your support to find ways to minimize / correct the damage would be helpful, don’t push your way in.

• When someone else has a better idea, give them credit. If appropriate, help them / the team develop it further. Be an example of integrity, honour and respect of other people and ideas.

• Be respectful with your language.

• Help the company and team be a good corporate citizen.

• Respect our environment. 

Conclusion

When our workspace creates a space where employees feel comfortable being themselves. When we have a great corporate culture, employees trust each other and can be their true authentic self. When we trust and respect each other we share good ideas, crazy ideas and we look out for each other. This is the best environment for growth, hard work and change while still maintaining a low stress environment. This creates one of the best places to work where productivity and loyalty are high while conflict and turnover are low.

Negative cultural issues can have long-standing effects on your workforce’s wellbeing and performance. Leaders who do not realize this are setting up the company, the employees and suppliers and of course themselves for failure.

BONUS:

Two deeper dives into how companies and leaders can build great a great corporate culture.

1.    Build a solid employment brand. It starts with understanding what makes your organization unique. Once you have it, promote it; find every opportunity to talk about the company brand. Write articles, post employee survey results, sit on panel discussions, talk with reporters in addition to the more common approach of building a great career website and distributing job openings in both typical and non-standard places. Make sure everyone knows yours is a great place to work.

If you’re a good employer, employees will want to work for you. Existing employee loyalty will go up and when you do need to hire new people you will be attracting talent that want to work for your company versus have to find a job.

Now is the time to be further developing your corporate culture because you can bet your competition is.

2.    Consider sabbaticals or approved / arranged boomerangs. We all know what a sabbatical is but a boomerang in office terms is when employee leaves a company and then returns to work for the company at some later date. Imagine offering an agreed upon leave of absence like sabbaticals and boomerangs to employees who meet or exceed expectations to achieve a personal goal or gain new skills.

Sabbaticals and boomerangs don’t have to be for a year. Why not let them be can be as flexible as required, and perhaps you can still arrange employees spend some time in the office so you don’t lose all productivity. For example, imagine giving a strong employee who meets expectations a 3-month sabbatical where they work 1 or 2-days a week and use the extra time to take a few high-intensity courses or earn a professional certificate to help them further their career. Or, imagine letting an employee take a 2-month boomerang to take their dream vacation.

Offering flexible options will provide a clear example to all employees that you trust and value them. And, when you have an employee who has returned from a sabbatical or boomerang they will have a fresh perspective and likely be more valuable and hard-working than ever. If nothing more, they will be more loyal and you will save a ton of time, money and intellectual knowledge versus the high cost of turnover and hiring new employees. Think about it, can you advertise for, interview, hire and train a new employee in 2-months… or even 6-months? Usually no. We see time and time again when a valued employee sees no other way to get ahead than to quit… or worse, they stay and feel resentful and not appreciated.

Thank you for reading this article, please be well. Happy communicating and happy leading.

Bruce

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About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Bruce is Corporate Trainer, Keynote Speaker and Executive Coach.

Bruce Mayhew Consulting specializes in customized Email Etiquette Training, Leadership & New Leadership Development, Generational Differences, Time Management Training and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada. Bruce is also an Executive Coach to a few select clients.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.

Advice to build an inspiring corporate culture that energizes your corporate strategy.

Advice to build an inspiring corporate culture that energizes your corporate strategy.

A first step to building an inspiring corporate culture that energizes your corporate strategy (if there ever is a first step), is to be comfortable that corporate culture and corporate strategy are two very different things that enjoy a symbiotic relationship.

Corporate Strategy answers the question, “What do we do?” It offers direction for employees to follow by defining goals and objectives. It is the Vision and Mission of the company. Strategy is tactile and easily measured using accounting tools like Net Income, Return-on-Investment (ROI), Sales Growth and Net-Conversation Rates.

Corporate Culture answers the questions, “How do we do it?” and “Why do we do it?” It encompasses energy and passion, fuelling excitement that employees, clients and suppliers will give to the corporate strategy (and feel from the corporate strategy). Corporate culture defines whether the journey is exciting, gratifying, sustainable and something to be proud of, or a lack of culture (or a negative culture) can make the exact same work discouraging, repetitive and exhausting. 

A strong corporate culture rallies people behind the strategy and can quite literally drive exponential success. But, strategy with a mediocre culture will never reach its full potential.

Being Intentional Matters

Having an intentional corporate culture is like being part of a great orchestra with many musicians committed to playing the same music at the same time at the same tempo. Sure, the string section will be playing one aspect of the concert (finance), the wind section will be playing another (production), the horns will be playing another (sales) and the percussion will be playing yet another (marketing), but together they are all excited to bring their best to a shared goal.

When a team have shared commitment and trusted leadership to guide them along the path of vision, mission and values they become high-functioning / high-value and their individual expertise shines. Staying with the example of the orchestra, if the musicians didn’t have a shared goal and a conductor they trust, their efforts would almost always be disorganized with a risk of chaos. Alternatively, working together they can all bring their unique expertise and experience to the project and create beautiful music.

Leadership Responsibility

Supporting the corporate strategy and corporate culture are two of the most important responsibilities of a leader.

As I said earlier, strategy and culture should live in balance – a symbiotic relationship. This balance should guide and align everyone’s actions and decisions whether they are collaborating as a team of 10 people or are working on their own. And while the company will have one overarching culture, great leaders know that within the company many micro-cultures will likely exist. For example, the legal department will likely have a strong sense of policy and structure while the R&D and marketing departments will likely have far more creativity and agility. But even with these differences, all employees should still experience work that is exciting, gratifying, sustainable and something to be proud of.

How you and I experience culture is always changing. Every new person on your team or in your working group will add a bit of their own flavour as they share into your corporate culture. Over time, as your company / industry changes your corporate culture will adjust a bit as well. Every company and every team will have a unique culture; you will never be able to duplicate the culture somewhere else, but that is OK just create a new great culture. So, embrace what you are experiencing but don’t hold on too tightly – expect it to change and let it change.

A word of caution; many companies move the responsibility for corporate culture to their HR team. There are real challenges with this. Sure, HR should be involved as a partner – a member of the team. But, without the unconditional input, collaboration, financial support and implementation commitment of department leaders, real impact within each department and across the organization is not possible. Healthy corporate culture limps along when it becomes only HR’s responsibility at no fault of people in HR. 

More About Corporate Culture

Because corporate culture is more elusive, I want to spend more time talking about it.

As I mentioned earlier, when exploring corporate strategy and corporate culture, strategy is what we are most familiar with. Corporate culture is far more abstract and even mysterious within organizations because it is usually a reflection of softer skills like trust, respect, transparency, diversity and inclusion, reward and recognition. But a healthy culture also positively impacts many important processes like how we hire, who we hire, how we treat advancement opportunities and so much more. Aspects of organizational hierarchy, authority and consistency are also culture attributes.

Regardless of how it is built, culture drives engagement and productivity through camaraderie, loyalty, learning, commitment – a willingness to proudly go the extra mile and lend a helping hand at a time of need or crisis. These are always driven by culture and rarely driven by strategy. Culture lives within each of us but because it is more personal it must be nurtured.

Examples of a good corporate culture are high measurable levels of:

1. Communication

2. Respect

3. Recognition

4. Purpose

5. Impact

6. Trust (built upon reliable communication and respect for example)

7. Morale

8. Competency

9. Autonomy (requiring a flexible culture for example)

10. Motivation / Inspiration

11. Training / Professional Development

12. Innovation (requiring a stable and interdependent culture for example)

13. Transparency

14. Inclusion

15. Diversity

16. Comfortable Workspace (workspace safety is a Hygiene quality)

The question is, how do you get these? How do you drive engagement and productivity by investing in corporate culture?

Every item on the list above (and more) are the result of specific intention… a strategic goal to embrace corporate culture and to build that culture one brick at a time – one step at a time. And it does take time. Some wins will be quick – some not so much.

How To Develop a Healthy Corporate Culture

For widespread corporate success the leadership team have to be 100% onboard. You are likely going to need to adjust virtually every element of your organizational structure; from job descriptions to training and development to performance measurement, HR policies, internal and external communication, new employee on-boarding, workplace flexibility, hierarchy and more. Once the leadership team is on board an organization needs to successfully embrace and develop a corporate culture and include the following steps.

1. Be an organization that embraces, supports and rewards change. Everyone says they hate change but change you must… and in reality, people hate ambiguity and feeling lost – not change – so communication is critical.

2. How will you involve everyone in the process, building trust, commitment and accountability?

3. How will you determine what is working that you want to keep and what needs to change – like using an employee survey?

4. Develop or refresh / update your vision, mission and goals.

5. Identify your company values, what they mean and how everyone can represent them. Everyone gets measured by them… even your top salespeople and your COO. Nobody gets a pass.

6. Share what is expected. Everyone has to know what is expected. From you most recent hire to your longest serving employee to your customers, suppliers and investors. Share the road map of what is changing and why. Be crystal clear about what new behaviour is important and why as well as what past behaviour isn’t and why.

7. Introduce what your reward and recognition structure will look like in the new culture. How are you going to help employees make the transition and what is available for employees who choose to not make the transition?

8. How will you be sure you hire the right people? Culture should be one of the first assessment criteria used to screen potential candidates. Will you use methods like Behavioural Event Interview when hiring to remove unconscious bias and support diversity and inclusion?

9. How will you support your leaders and ambassadors? Everyone looks up to someone. Leaders have to be on board and know how the corporate culture impacts their department so they can support their team. They should also know how the corporate culture impacts the other departments so they recognize how the culture is defined in that space and can align their team accordingly. This step also allows leaders to be able to properly support employees who have official or non-official leadership roles.

One Person Can Make A Difference: You Can Too

If you are a leader please don’t throw up your hands and say, “I’m just one person – my this isn’t on the corporations’ radar. I can’t do anything on my own.” I’m here to confirm you can make a difference. Yes, it will be more difficult and likely not as successful than if the whole company was with you, but I’ve seen whole departments quickly turn a low morale and low productivity team into a high-performing award-winning team when a new leader came in, even though the leadership above didn’t change or did the pay grades or budget or anything else.

Trust, transparency, open dialogue and respect are four of the most powerful culture shifters and when team members see / feel these in action great things begin to happen, which begin to compound / collect and significantly energize the mindsets and motivation of the team.

Conclusion / Recap

Don’t let things get too complicated. Let’s just remember corporate culture and corporate strategy are symbiotic whether we acknowledge corporate culture is there or not. Strategy provides direction by outlining the ‘what’… the companies vision and mission – around them is defined the goals. Culture provides direction by outlining the ‘how’ and ‘why’… guided by the pride and values the company and therefore the employees will stand by, honour and emulate.

Seriously, keep it simple. Great cultures are easy for everyone to describe and everyone to understand no matter if they are an employee, supplier or customer. I usually recommend to clients to keep their values list to 6 words and their mission / vision statements to two sentences each. This clarity helps everyone focus on what matters because it lets people understand the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’… something that Simon Sinek talks about extensively. And because people understand the why they have passion and commitment. This is why research like Deloitte Australia research by Deloitte Australia shows that when financial services companies focused on culture instead of compliance their compliance levels actually improved. 

High levels of employee engagement and employee training correlate with closely aligned views of what the cultural characteristics are and how to represent them.

For organizations that are looking to embrace their corporate culture and make it intentional, it will be important to see how structure and reorganization from leadership to discussions to messaging to financial commitment can support the desired culture and vice versa.

Thank you for reading. I will enjoy your comments / suggestions.

Bruce

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Bruce is Corporate Trainer, Keynote Speaker and Executive Coach.

Bruce Mayhew Consulting specializes in customized Email Etiquette Training, Leadership & New Leadership Development, Generational Differences, Time Management Training and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada. Bruce is also an Executive Coach to a few select clients.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.

What Are Soft Skills?

Soft skills are some of the most important skills we can have. More and more of the top companies are recognizing that by exploring the power of soft skills is where / how a company really can thrive and demonstrate their corporate values.

I am not surprised at all that when we look at soft skills, many of the top ones are also found when looking at many companies’ corporate values. For example:

1. Communication Skills

2. Empathy and Compassion

3. Teamwork

4. Creative thinking

5. Adaptability

6. Dependability

7. Listening Skills

8. Teamwork

9. Work ethic 

10. Leadership (made up of motivation, time management and many others)

The reason hard skills have been so popular is because they are easy to measure and there is little room for ‘interpretation’… which means it is easy to predict outcome and streamline performance. On the other hand, soft skills are largely intangible and difficult to quantify… but this doesn’t make them any less important.

While trust in a person’s skill is one thing, soft skills help build trust in a person’s character and when these skills are shared among the team, soft skills build trust in a supportive office culture. And now, in today’s ultra-competitive world with four generations in the workplace (and sometimes five), when we look at some of the best, most successful leaders, nearly all have many qualities including… an awareness of and skill in exercising their soft skills.

Conclusion:

Without a doubt, in today’s workspaces, because soft skills demonstrate how we communicate with colleagues and customers, how we manage our time, how we solve difficult solve problems, and overall how we manage our work, soft skills are important for all work at all levels.

Question:

Now that we’ve discussed many of the most important of them, which of them are you most skilled at using… and perhaps more importantly, let me ask you this, “What soft skills do you need to exercise a bit more than you currently do?” Remember, your most important job is to stand out by doing your job well and gaining a reputation as being trustworthy, dependable and easy to work with. 

Thank you for reading. I hope you have enjoyed.

Bruce

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Bruce is Corporate Trainer and Executive Coach.

As a Corporate Trainer Bruce Mayhew (of BMC) specialize in customized Time Management Training, Email Etiquette Training, Leadership & New Leadership Development, Generational Differences and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada. Bruce is also an Executive Coach to a few select clients.

BMC helps your greatest assets think productive and be productive.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.