Latitude – Navigating Business Culture

According to American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC) research, identifying the right benchmarks and sources is the #1 challenge to effective benchmarking. A great source to consider for benchmarking culture, employee engagement, and collaborative leadership is in the non-profit sector.

Rod and Brian interview Julie Fleshman, President and CEO of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN). Julie shares lessons learned over the past 20+ years in leading this small start-up to nearly a $60M organization today. She also shares how effective collaboration has brought together an international group of more than 100 pancreatic cancer organizations representing 38 countries, 60 affiliates in the United States, and a continually expanding community of hundreds of pancreatic cancer thought leaders across the globe.

The challenge is great. Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers. It currently is the 3rd leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the U.S. and has the lowest five-year survival rate for cancers at just 13%.

Whiteboard Notes:

Reflection Questions:

1. PanCAN's mission is to "take bold action to improve the lives of everyone impacted by pancreatic cancer by advancing scientific research, building community, sharing knowledge, and advocating for patients." Does your organization's mission statement act as a powerful driver that informs every aspect of your organization on your purpose as well as inspires, unifies, and engages high performance?
2. Julie indicated that one of their five core values - Sparkle Spirit – is the essence of PanCAN that makes it special and unique. She defined it as the "unrelenting determination and commitment to a very hard and difficult challenge". What core values and the expected behaviors they set make your organization special and unique – differentiate it?
3. Julie shared that they must do things differently to accelerate patient progress – we must keep changing. How does your organization's culture inspire employees to accelerate progress for your customers and clients?
4. At PanCAN, collaboration is about acknowledging that "We can't do this alone." Where do you see this attitude and behavior exhibited in your organization? Inconsistently shown? What would impact your organization if your culture reinforced a stronger desire to "work together"?

Storytelling has the power to engage, teach, inspire, and motivate. Storytelling provides context for your content and makes it much more memorable.

Rod and Brian interview Doug Stevenson, President of Story Theater International. For over 25 years, Doug has been a pioneer in the science of the art of storytelling in business. This very informative session is packed with practical tips and examples, including:

• Keys to making a story more meaningful
• Doug's Story Theater Method
• Nine steps of story structure

Whiteboard Notes:

Reflection Questions:

1. Doug identified four keys to making your story more meaningful (personal story, meaningful moment, challenge or obstacle(s), and life lesson). Which are you executing well? Need some improvement in?
2. We were encouraged to look for a moment of crisis, challenge, or obstacle to build our story around. What personal story could you use to build your story around a high-performance culture and/or great leadership?
3. Doug offered a 9-step story structure (see whiteboard). What one step, if improved, would make a significant difference in your storytelling effectiveness?
4. Doug shared the importance of having a phrase that pays to challenge the listener to take action. For example, "no one is looking". My challenge to you is to always be safe, even when no one is looking. What was the last effective 'phrase that pays' you used?

Research has shown it can take 17 to 21 times of reinforcement to make a new behavior a habit.

Rod and Brian interview Kris Paquin, CVP Finance & Sales Support at Yamaha Corporation of America. In this role she has responsibilities for IT, Finance, Operations, Legal and Compliance. Kris shares how small things such as clarifying, listening, learning, and observing can generate high employee engagement and improved performance.

Whiteboard Notes:

Reflection Questions:

1. Have you established clear behavioral competencies on how things are to be done?
2. Are you tolerating any behaviors that ultimately are hurting performance and culture?#17 Recognize What You Want More Of
3. Are you creating a safe space where people can trust they can get help? How do you know?#18 Strong Relationships Drive High-Performing Cultures
4. What might you not be learning from your employees because you are too busy?
5. What are you doing to take care of yourself – so you can be your BEST for others?

Research has found that 70% of strategies fail to deliver the anticipated results, and 9 out of the top 10 reasons change initiatives fail are 'people-related.'

Episode Summary:

Rod and Brian interview Brent Douglas, President of Magellan Executive Partners. Brent shares some very practical and tactical lessons learned to maximize alignment, execution, and performance.

Whiteboard Notes:

Reflection Questions:

1. How many of your employees can successfully answer these two critical strategic questions, and what are you basing your answers on?
   1. Where do we play?
   2. How do we win?
2. What strategic adjustments, alignment, and leadership capabilities must change in order to maximize your growth potential?
3. How effective are your leaders in changing their mindset and behaviors – based on the concept of leaders trying to go up a down escalator?
4. Is your organization's strategy and overall leadership capabilities pulling growth up or pushing it down?

Research has found that leadership development is critical in many ways throughout an organization. By delaying development and not giving leaders a chance to advance and grow, the company is effectively cutting its profits by up to 7%.

Episode Summary:

Rod and Brian interviewed Lou (Coach) Roddy, who shares some key best practices, lessons learned, and stories from his years coaching leaders around the world. Grab a cold glass of tea, a comfortable chair, and a notepad and listen to the wisdom and power of concepts such as leaders should always:

• 'Eat last'
• 'Confront the bear!'
• 'Remember that just because you are on 3rd base, don't assume you hit a triple.'
• 'Practice, practice, practice CCT'
• A delightful and informative exchange packed full of nuggets.

Whiteboard Notes:

Reflection Questions:

1. How effective are your organization's leaders at coaching and being coachable? How do you know?
2. Is it time for your organization to re-evaluate its leadership and culture playbook?
3. Is sophistication bias hindering leadership development?
4. What issues are limiting the human capabilities in your organization?

Leadership, employee engagement, and building/sustaining an organization's culture are all contact sports – each requires people to work in parallel and are reliant on each other to be successful. Building and maintaining professional relationships is critical.

Episode Summary:

Special guest Kelly Wojda, – recently retired VP of Global Learning and Development at Caterpillar Inc., shares her perspectives and experiences on the importance of building strong relationships, setting clear leadership expectations, and recognition (non-financial reinforcement) in driving high performance. Examples are shared from her diverse leadership roles.

Whiteboard Notes:

Reflection Questions:

1. What impact would it have on your overall organization's performance if more employees "loved what they were doing?"
2. How safe is your organization – physically and psychologically? How do you know?
3. Intelligent failures are usually the result of "efforts to learn or try something new that one can't possibly do perfectly the first time." How are failures viewed in your organization?
4. What impact would After Action Reviews have on your organization's ability to capture both best practices and lessons learned? What wastes would be minimized or avoided? What common tools or techniques does your organization currently use to capture these?

Commitment requires sacrifice, purpose, and determination. It can't be assigned. It needs to be a personal choice at every level of the organization. Ultimately, an organization's Executive Team must model and coach commitment to make it 'stick' in their culture.

Episode Summary:

Special guest Victor Davis – SVP of Supply Chain at Royal Cup Coffee and Tea, shares his perspectives and experiences on the importance of business culture, core values, the overall Employee Experience, and leading in the Digital Age. Examples are shared from his different leadership positions at Royal Cup and Amazon.

Whiteboard Notes:

Reflection Questions:

1. How well has your organization integrated business culture and core values with tangible, robust processes
2. What overall grade would you give your organization's leadership in effectively:
   1. Seeking to understand its employees' wants/needs?
   2. Gathering information from employees by effective high-touch and high-tech solutions?
   3. Aligning objectives and commitment to 'common' goals?
   4. Actively coaching to close the 'gap' in undesired performance and/or behavior?
   5. Recognizing and reinforcing desired performance and behaviors?

Culture determines whether healthy relationships can naturally develop and thrive in an organization. What is your organization proactively doing to assist professional, quality relationships to thrive in your workplace?

Episode Summary:

Rod and Brian discuss a simple assessment of key processes to help determine if your organization is developing and nurturing healthy boundaries and relationships. More and more employees are seeking out and staying with organizations that have exceptional workplace cultures where strong relationships flourish.

Whiteboard Notes:

Reflection Questions:

1. Can you comfortably say that each of the factors shared in this episode is very consistently done in your organization? If not, then what waste is created and/or relationship strained?
2. Consider the MIT research study that was shared, which identified 5 attributes that had the largest negative impact on culture. Is your organization inadvertently allowing some of these to develop under certain leaders?

The research is compelling. Only 1 in 4 employees feel they received meaningful recognition and praise for doing good work in the last week. 70% of employees report their most meaningful recognition had NO $ value. Non-cash recognition provides a higher return on investment than cash by almost 3-1.

Episode Summary:

Rod and Brian share examples, stories, and solutions to four major missed opportunities many organizations struggle with to maximize the potential benefits of non-financial reinforcement to motivate employees and improve their performance.

Whiteboard Notes:

Reflection Questions:

1. When was the last time each of your employees felt they received meaningful recognition?
2. Do your recognition efforts provide clarity as to what specific performance and/or behavior you would like repeated?
3. Is recognition in your organization viewed as a management-only task or something expected from everyone to both give and receive?

Research has found that hopeful employees are 14% more productive and up to 69 times more likely to be engaged than their counterparts.

Episode Summary:

Rod and Brian explore key areas that all employees want to feel hopeful about in their workplace. They then suggest three specific things individual leaders can do to help create a culture of hope. Without HOPE, the possible looks impossible, and we forget 'why' we do things.

Whiteboard Notes:

Reflection Questions:

1. In your organization, are most employees hopeful or doubtful about the key areas identified in this episode?
2. How well is leadership effectively executing the three recommendations individual leaders can do to help create a culture of hope? How do you know?