Latitude – Navigating Business Culture

Welcome Back! In Season 2 we are revisitng some of our favorite episodes for all our new listeners, this is REWIND WEDNESDAY!

In this episode, Rod and Brian interview the Founder and President of Creekmur Wealth Advisors. This highly successful business has grown since its inception to now serving over 1700 client households, managing over $420M of assets, and advising on $1B.

Episode Summary:

John shares how better understanding, acting on, and actively managing their culture like an investment has created differentiation and much success. He describes his organization's culture with this simple formula.

Culture = The sum of all the decisions all of his employees make to serve people

Join us for this real-life success story of an organization deciding the best way forward was to chart a different course than others.

Whiteboard Notes:

Reflection Questions:

• What concept or idea that John shared:
  • Reinforces something you are currently doing to navigate business culture effectively?
  • Presents a new/different perspective that is worthy of further discussion for possible execution?

This episode features a conversation with a partner of a private investment firm managing nearly $300B in investments. Their key principles of Integrity, Transparency, Teamwork, and Keeping Clients First have differentiated and distinguished them both as a provider and employer.

Whiteboard Notes:

Reflection Questions:

1. How transparent is your organization when dealing with clients and employees?
2. What is your organization's tolerance level for individuals who put themselves ahead of clients, customers, the overall organization, and fellow employees?
3. Are there any relationships (internal or external) that are imbalanced between transactional and interpersonal? If so, what impact is this having on performance?

This episode features Magellan Executive Partner's two corporate governance experts. They will share how and why corporate governance for any size organization (profit or non-profit) will help build an environment of trust, transparency, and accountability to be a more sustainable, resilient organization.

Whiteboard Notes:

Reflection Questions:

1. Would your organization benefit from developing and/or refreshing its' Board's charter – the roles and responsibilities of the board members, chair, and other key roles to ensure clarity and alignment?
2. How confident are you regarding the effectiveness of your Crisis Management Plans?
3. When was the last time your Board did a self-assessment on its' overall effectiveness?
4. How effective is your new board member orientation?
5. If your organization currently does not have a board, would it benefit from an "advisory board" that provided guidance to Executives and helped identify potential risks/blind spots and their mitigation?

Season 2, Episode 1 addresses a simple but powerful question – What is the purpose of your organization? Unlike your mission that describes what you do and for whom, a purpose provides the reason or reasons you exist – the why.

Purpose drives performance and perspective. It can help create passion, spark energy, and accelerate excitement for the future. Learn more, including a significant, more inclusive change in the definition of the 'purpose of a corporation' by an association of CEOs at The Business Roundtable.

Whiteboard Notes:

Reflection Questions:

1. Is this a good time to:
   1. Create and/or revise your organization's purpose statement?
   2. Make sure our purpose is something all of your key stakeholders can align and support?
   3. Clarify how your organization's values and purpose complement each other?

Please join us for episode #31 as we 'connect the dots' after interviewing an outstanding group of executives over the past six months on our podcast. This episode focuses on some key stories that 'stuck' with us.

Why is that important? Research at Stanford University concluded that "our brains are not hard-wired to understand logic or retain facts for very long. Our brains are wired to understand and retain stories."

Whiteboard Notes:

Reflection Questions:

1. What stories do your employees share that preserve and pass on crucial organizational knowledge and values? These stories keep your current culture alive!
2. What stories does your organization use to help employees better understand other people and their perspectives?
3. Everyone has a story to tell. How does your organization encourage, capture, and share some of their compelling stories?

10 high-performing executives

20 great reminders on leadership & communication

30-minute investment of your time

Please join us for episode #30 as we 'connect the dots' from interviewing an outstanding group of executives over the past six months on our podcast.

Whiteboard Notes:

Reflection Questions:

1. What percentage of your total workforce's capabilities (skills, knowledge, effort) are you currently tapped into? What is this untapped human capability costing your organization?
2. What ongoing processes do you use to actively listen to employees' opinions, concerns, and wants/needs?
3. Coachability requires self-reflection, honesty, and awareness that you have some blind spots. They are common and natural. How coachable are you?

During the past year, we have been honored to have had a dozen high-performing executive guests on our Latitude podcast. One of the fundamentals they all discussed was a passion and discipline to create organizations that do common things uncommonly well.

Please join us for episode #29 as we 'connect the dots' from these 12 leaders' insights regarding mission, vision, values, strategy, and culture.

Whiteboard Notes:

Reflection Questions:

1. Research shows most US organizations have a mission, vision, core values, and strategy. However, employee understanding drops off significantly in actually knowing and actively living them. How would your organization stack up in knowing and living these critical foundational goals/objectives? How do you know?
2. Ultimately your workplace culture is shaped by the stories both told and untold. What stories are your employees sharing both inside and out? Do they accurately describe the way you do things and why they are important?
3. Do you have a clear plan in your organization regarding when to:
   • Buy talent (hire)
   • Build talent (train and develop)
   • Borrow talent (contract, temps, consultants)
   • Redeploy existing talent (move internally)

What do businesses, non-profits, and the military have in common? It's important to have teams and mission-focused leadership.

Please join us for episode #28 of Latitude: Navigating Business Culture. Our special guest is Mike Bosley, a multi-talented, hands-on leader who has been a 3X soldier-of-the-year in the Oklahoma Army National Guard, owner of several businesses, on non-profit boards, and teaches graduate business courses on Business Performance Excellence. He's also currently an executive partner at Magellan Executive Partners.

We will discuss the criticalness of mission, people as the greater multiplier, metrics compared to reality, and critical leadership principles.

Whiteboard Notes:

Reflection Questions:

1. Do your employees believe your mission is worth fighting for with their heads, hearts, hands, and habits?
2. Have you maximized your organization's human capabilities and capacity? How do you know?
3. When was the last time your key metrics were critically examined against reality?

Gallup research shows that just a 10% improvement in employees' connection with the mission or purpose of their organization leads to more than an 8% decrease in turnover and more than a 4% increase in profitability.

Please join us for episode 27 of Latitude: Navigating Business Culture. Our special guest from India is Shridhar Venkat, CEO of The Akshaya Patra Foundation (TAPF). Guided by a vision and driven by values, TAPF is the world's largest NGO-run school meal program. Their vision is that no child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger. Their mission is to feed 3 million schoolchildren DAILY in India by 2025.

Some key milestones since their inception in 2000 include:

• Operating over 70 industrial kitchens; servicing 24,000+ schools; and serving over 2.2 million fresh cooked meals on all school days with the help of 9000+ 'Hunger Warriors' (employees)
• Served over 4 billion meals since start-up
• Been selected as a Great Place To Work In India for 8 consecutive years
• Featured by Harvard Business School, IIM, MIT Technology Review, Forbes, CNN, BBC, National Geographic, and Discovery Channel

Find out how simplicity, clarity, and boldness have created this exceptional organization and record-breaking performance.

Whiteboard Notes:

Reflection Questions:

1. Do the terms and descriptors used to describe different roles in your organization positively reinforce your desired culture? Example: Hunger Warriors at TAPF.
2. What policies and procedures in your organization send a strong signal that leadership respects and trusts its employees? Example: "No questions asked day off" at TAPF
3. What stories would employees share about your organization that describe the 'heart' of what your organization stands for? Example: a paper chef's hat at TAPF.

This episode features an interview with former Caterpillar Vice President and Corporate Officer, Tom Bluth. Tom shares some great examples from his time in China, France, and the U.S. where key lessons in leadership were learned. Discussions will cover topics such as the importance of core values; leadership expectations; keeping your finger on the pulse; and perspective. He also shares a powerful poem that his father left him on leadership. (see speaker notes)

Whiteboard Notes:

Reflection Questions:

1. Is your organization's culture and its' people a competitive advantage? How do you know? If it is, then how are you leveraging it? If it is not, what corrective actions are being taken?
2. Where have you seen in your organization a leader's tone and behaviors fundamentally change a situation in a positive way? Make a situation worse?
3. What different perspectives and viewpoints has your internal network provided you?
4. How often do you take time to find a balcony, away from so many daily demands, and look at things from a different angle and perspective?
5. Who are the true bridge builders in your organization? How can you further leverage their special gift?

Here's the poem Tom referred to in this podcast

THE BRIDGEBUILDER by Will Allen Dromgoole

An old man going a lone highway

Came at the evening cold and gray

To a chasm vast and deep and wide,

Through which was flowing a sullen tide

The old man crossed in the twilight dim,

The sullen stream had no fears for him;

But he turned when safe on the other side,

And built a bridge to span the tide.

"Old Man," said a fellow pilgrim near,

"You are wasting your strength building here.

Your journey will end with the coming day,

You never again will pass this way.

You've crossed the chasm, deep and wide,

Why build you this bridge at eventide?"

The builder lifted his old gray head,

"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,

"There is following after me today

A youth whose feet must pass this way,

The chasm that was naught to me

To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be;

He, too, must cross in the twilight dim,

Good friend, I am building this bridge for him."