Hot Topic Friday: June 28

Friday Newsletter Personal leadership

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Happy Friday! Here are my June 28 Hot Topics and how they relate to advancing leadership or culture.

Hot Topic 1: The World’s Most Comfortable Shoes.

Source: The Wharton School. 

What It’s About: Purpose driven organizations like the shoe company Allbirds can be socially conscious AND financially successful. Allbirds was founded to sell high-quality and stylish shoes, AND reinvent the footwear business model by reducing its carbon impact at scale. Since their launch in March 2016, Allbirds has been named “the world’s most comfortable shoe” by Time, and sold more than one million pairs. Co-founder Joey Zwillinger wants to shine a light on other purpose-driven founders. This March, in collaboration with Wharton Business Radio, he launched Purpose Built, a monthly radio show and podcast to meet the people behind some of the most successful and socially-conscious brands.

Why It’s Important: It is becoming imperative for leading organizations to go well beyond creating shareholder value. People want to work for a company they are proud to be part of. As Zwillinger states: “It’s table stakes now that if you’re starting a business that there should be a purpose to it — that is better for society. I thought it would be interesting to get a lot of examples and to talk to entrepreneurs and business leaders who have taken that approach and are on the path to being successful.” Part of the movement to consciously creating great cultures will be establishing or reconstituting purpose-driven institutions that advance us as humans. Leaders like the founders of Allbirds are paving the way! Go Joey. P.S. I have two pairs of Allbirds and they are my most comfortable shoes! 

Hot Topic 2: Coach Yourself First, Dummy! 

Source: Ed Batista. 

What It’s About: The Art of Self-Coaching is a course that Professor Ed Batista designed and teaches at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He launched it in 2015. He defines self-coaching as the process of guiding our own growth and development, particularly through periods of transition. The entire syllabus of the course including readings and slide presentations are included here. (They are full of insight and wisdom).

Why It’s Important: I’m a fan of people getting career coaches etc., however the people who are most valued in organizations are those that are self-taught, self-developed learners. They know how to coach themselves and have a well developed framework for super fast learning and unlearning. How can you really coach others if you are not fully capable of coaching yourself first? Consider taking or auditing the course. 

My Weekly Wine Recommendation (Thanks to Vivino):

Luce Della Vite Toscana IGT 2015.

[Picture and ratings provided by Vivino.]

And finally! Here’s Cecil’s Bleat of the Week!

“Doing nothing requires effort. Over time, that effort is greater than the effort necessary to improve, or move somewhere better. The trick is to redirect energy.”Dr. Max McKeown

Bye for now!

– Lorne Rubis

Incase you Missed It:

Monday’s Lead In podcast.

Tuesday’s blog.

Wednesday’s Culture Cast podcast.

Also don’t forget to subscribe to our site, and follow Lorne Rubis on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter for the latest from our podcasts, blogs, and all things offered on LorneRubis.com.

Culture Cast – Ways That Culture Rots From the Inside Out

Personal leadership Podcast

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In season 3, episode 21, Lorne and Lynette discuss how organization cultures rot from the inside out. What type of details do you notice about the culture that exists at your work that can indicate whether it’s rotting from the inside out? Lorne and Lynette make a list. 

All that and more on this episode of Culture Cast. 

Please feel free to subscribe to this YouTube channel, follow this podcast on Soundcloud, as well as iTunes, and Lorne and Lynette’s social media platforms for all the latest Culture Cast uploads and announcements.

Lorne Rubis is available @LorneRubis on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Lynette Turner is available on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn as well as through her site, LynetteTurner.com.

We look forward to sharing Season 3 of Culture Cast: Conversations on Culture and Leadership with you every Wednesday.

Culture Boot Camp Report

Abundance Accountability Personal leadership Respect

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At key times during the culture and disruption initiative I’m leading, I’m going to share the strategy, tactics, pivots, etc. with our followers so we all might learn together. It will be authentic, messy and hopefully instructive. Please join us with the overall objective of inspiring a movement to create even greater workplaces and organization cultures. Everyone has the right to thrive in a great workplace. Each of us has an obligation to make it so.

The Challenge: The last blog outlined the importance of a great start to the Boot Camp. That’s important. However one has to land the rest of the content so that it has serious impact, and the participants really connect. The cohort included 25 selected culture champions and about 25 experts from other areas of the college. So how might you do it?

What We Did: The first key content area was to define what organization culture is, and then to observe it in action elsewhere. We asked the cohort to virtually explore six other company cultures virtually (eg. Waffle House to WestJet). By being cultural anthropologists it’s amazing what you can observe by searching online. The next core content focus was to present a cultural framework. In this case it is my 10 Key Elements to Build Adaptive and Extraordinary Cultures.

The important understanding underlying this framework is to think of applying the 10 Elements as a system. Each element is uniquely important AND connects with all other elements to accelerate the culture. The learning included a review of important points underpinning each element followed by sub group exercises and discussion to bring the element to life. We concluded by arming our culture champions with a construct to conduct a cultural listening campaign across the entire college using the 10 elements as a guide. This blog doesn’t do justice to the content, process and amount of planning by all. However, I hope you get the drift.

I promised you a transparent trip with me. We are sending out a feedback survey to all participants… Stay tuned. I will share the good, the bad and ugly. Thanks for joining us for the ride. While every journey is unique my intent is to share a road map you can broadly follow in driving a better culture where you work. 

Think Big, Start Small, Act Now,

Lorne

One Millennial View: I’ve enjoyed this journey so far. It’s great that the cohort was able to explore real examples of other organization culture in action. I’m excited to see how they respond to the 10 Elements, and go about applying them in their listening campaign. 

– Garrett

Blog 990

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis

Lead in With Lorne – Find the Magic Moments

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Welcome to another Lead In With Lorne. This week, Lorne discusses finding and cherishing the magic moments that take place in everyday life. We discuss two parallel stories.

One story is the tragedy that recently happened with country singer, Granger Smith, and his family losing their three year old son, River Kelly Smith, in an unthinkable drowning accident.

The other is the story of Julia “Hurricane” Hawkins, the 103-year-old woman that is breaking records at the National Senior Games.

One is a short life, one is a long life, but the message and lesson to “cherish the magic moments” no matter what amount of time you live remains the same in both.

Enjoy it on the YouTube video embedded below, or audio listeners can hear it on SoundCloud now too. We hope it enriches your Monday!

Kindly subscribe to the YouTube channel and SoundCloud to make sure you start your week with a leadership story.

Lorne Rubis is available @LorneRubis on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Hot Topic Friday: June 21

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Happy Friday! Here are my June 21 Hot Topics and how they relate to advancing leadership or culture.

Hot Topic 1: The Rise of Zombie Firms.

Source: The New York Times.

What It’s About?: The Bank for International Settlements, the global financial foundation that serves central banks, says low rates are driving the rise of “zombie firms,” which don’t earn enough profit to cover their interest payments and survive by repeatedly refinancing their loans. Holy Cow! Zombies now account for 12 percent of the companies listed on stock exchanges in advanced economies, and 16 percent in the United States, up from 2 percent in the 1980s.

Why It’s Important: We know what zombies do. They eat healthy organizations surviving in the “zombie state” for longer, depleting the productivity of these companies by competing with them for capital, materials and labor. From flat and fast there are also the fat and slow, and as noted in the source article: “Resulting in larger market dominant corporations, declining competition and fewer start-ups, which together undermine and slow economies already hindered by falling growth in the working-age population.”  You, me, all leaders, and certainly boards of directors have a responsibility to ensure organization cultures and strategies support agile and rapid adaptive institutions. If your company goes zombie, everyone has a part in getting that ugly. Fight for staying healthy.

Hot Topic 2: The Big Chuckle.

Source: Big Think.

What It’s About: Research has shown that a sense of humor can improve our mental and physical health, boost our attractiveness, and improve leadership skills. This article explores different types of humor, underscores the importance of it, and debates whether it can be taught . Note that Stanford offers classes on humor in the B school to help leaders become more successful (at least some credible folks think you can teach, value and learn it).  

Why It’s Important: Read the zombie article above if you don’t think we need more laughter. Geez. The last organization I was at declared it a value to laugh and have fun everyday. It was promoted and existed throughout the organization. Our executive floor was sometimes disruptive with the loud laughter bouncing off the walls. It is so important. How can crabby, humorless workplaces be a place we want to be at, let alone produce value? Have you ever seen grumpy workers make customers happy? Have fun. Be authentic and intentional. What’s your workplace like when it comes to having fun everyday?

My Weekly Wine Recommendation (Thanks to Vivino):

Juggernaut Hillside Cabernet Sauvignon 2016.

[Picture and ratings provided by Vivino.]

And finally! Here’s Cecil’s Bleat of the Week!

“Two muffins are in an oven. One muffin says ‘man, it’s hot in here.’ The other muffin says ‘holy crap! A talking muffin!’” – Anonymous

Bye for now!

– Lorne Rubis

Incase you Missed It:

Monday’s Lead In podcast.

Tuesday’s blog.

Wednesday’s Culture Cast podcast.

Also don’t forget to subscribe to our site, and follow Lorne Rubis on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter for the latest from our podcasts, blogs, and all things offered on LorneRubis.com.

Culture Cast – The Importance of Colliding With Others

Personal leadership Podcast

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In season 3, episode 20, Lorne and Lynette discuss the importance of collisions. Spending regular time with other people is crucial, and these days it seems more and more rare to interact and strike a real impact with our coworkers. This is a discussion on the significance of cultivating interactions.

All that and more on this episode of Culture Cast.

Please feel free to subscribe to this YouTube channel, follow this podcast on Soundcloud, as well as iTunes, and Lorne and Lynette’s social media platforms for all the latest Culture Cast uploads and announcements.

Lorne Rubis is available @LorneRubis on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Lynette Turner is available on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn as well as through her site, LynetteTurner.com.

We look forward to sharing Season 3 of Culture Cast: Conversations on Culture and Leadership with you every Wednesday.