Hot Topic Friday: August 30

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Happy Friday! Here are my August 30 Hot Topics and how they relate to advancing culture or leadership.

Hot Topic 1: A Loss of Luck.  

Source: Forbes

What It’s About: This article discusses the unexpected early retirement of Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck, and examines the question of why and when people quit their jobs. Luck’s decision sparked a flurry of criticism as many fans accused him of being a “quitter” or “loser.” They felt he disappointed them, or somehow didn’t live up to an implied promise that he would bring the Super Bowl to Indy. 

What It’s Important: It is important for all of us to have the courage to do what is best for ourselves first. The following is from Frank Reich, the Colts’ Head Coach: “Someone asked me a question the other day, ‘is there any sense that you felt like Andrew is letting down the team?’ And the answer was an emphatic no. When Andrew spoke to us the other day, he spoke of how the cycle of injury and pain and rehab, injury, pain, rehab, injury, pain, rehab, over four years had taken its toll. It had essentially sucked the passion, the joy, the fun out of football. So, Andrew did the right thing. He did the right thing for himself, and he did the right thing for the team. He did the courageous thing, and he did the honorable thing.” Sometimes the right thing to do is to QUIT. When you are miserable and the joy is completely sucked out of you in your work, and you can’t or will not be able to change the situation, do the right thing for yourself (and your team). QUIT! You’re worth it. 

Hot Topic 2: Get Uncomfortable When Learning

Source: Harvard Business Review, Peter Bregman

What It’s About: Peter Bregman is the CEO of Bregman Partners, a company that helps successful people become better leaders. In this article he emphasizes that great leaders are also great learners, and that part of that is being more than ok with discomfort. Consummate learners actually seek it out. 

Why It’s Important: Most of us want to be excellent, life long learners. Yet we have different confidence levels and are unique in our ability to deal with discomfort. Bregman suggests, “First, know that it’s brave to be a beginner. Understand that it takes courage and vulnerability to expose your weaknesses and try new things. Then look for learning situations where the stakes are low.” This is practical and great advice. Courage, vulnerability and associated feelings involve personal risks. Who wants to be embarrassed? Feel silly? Yet being a naive learner involves putting oneself out there and requires practice. When we seek out lower risk situations, and realize that the worst case scenario is personally very manageable, we become more comfortable to keep raising our hand. Get uncomfortable. It’s good for us. 

My Weekly Wine Recommendation (Thanks to Vivino):

Double Canyon Cabernet Sauvignon Horse Heaven Hills 2015. 

[Picture and ratings provided by Vivino.]

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

“Be challenged instead of complacent.”Dan Schawbel

Bye for now!

– Lorne Rubis

Incase you Missed It:

My latest Lead In podcast.  

My latest blog.

Season 3 of Culture Cast

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.

Wahkôhtowin WE ARE ALL RELATED

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Note: Refreshing intentional values is a key part of the culture journey. This is NOT a 1980’s re-do activity. It’s much more meaningful. This connects with last week’s blog

The Challenge: Going deep on refreshing our values is hard work. The chair of a board I’m on and I exchanged emails on that very matter recently. Enlightened board members get it and govern accordingly. A values “check in” challenges us to the core if we’re serious about the exploration. As we undertook this initiative when I was Chief People Officer, our CEO was the lead investigator. We visited other advanced companies, learned what values they framed, why they did so, and how they were implemented. It was a rigorous focus that took several months. It was business, not fluff!

What We Can Do About It: It is definitely beneficial to visit other companies. Although, if we’re not careful, it can become a thesaurus exercise. In this spirit, I strongly suggest also looking beyond the boundaries of commercial enterprises. For example, in my geographical area there is much to learn from thousands of years of wisdom from the First Nations Cree. The Cree way, wahkôhtowin, is described as the safe path leading to healthy and balanced relationships between all of us, through what the elders describe as the Seven Sacred teachings. These are sometimes referred to as the Seven Grandfather teachings. These lessons are foundational to Cree traditions and in the heart of most Indigenous People in Canada. The seven sacred values are

1. Peyak: Respect.

2. Nîso: Courage.

3. Nisto: Truth.

4. Newo: Honesty.

5. Nîyânan: Wisdom.

6. Nikotwâsik: Love.

7. Tepakohp: Humility.

If one digs into the narrative of each of these Cree values, it is profound. While I’m a proponent of building a unique recipe of values particular to each company, I would happily exchange uniqueness to conformity if each workplace adopted these. They are based on so much historical wisdom AND the Cree present them as an interconnected system. Hence we are all related through these seven teachings! How profoundly cool is that? 

Wahkôhtowin… Think Big, Start Small, Act Now! 

Lorne 

One Millennial View: We often turn to history for present guidance and wisdom. It’s great to recognize that values like the seven listed above are still available for us to encourage, share and be interconnected with. While companies fight to become as modern as possible, sometimes foundations should be built on something ancient. 

– Garrett 

Blog 997

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis

Lead In With Lorne – The Benefit of Humble Pie

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Welcome to another Lead In With Lorne. This week we’re discussing the benefit of being served some humble pie, and how we can learn, improve and approach things with a more valuable perspective when we receive a helping. 

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: August 23

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Happy Friday! Here are my August 23 Hot Topics and how they relate to advancing culture or leadership.

Hot Topic 1: Hey Shareholders! You Are No Longer Everything. 

Source: The New York Times

What It’s About: Nearly 200 chief executives, including the leaders of Apple, American Airlines, Accenture, AT&T, Bank of America, Boeing, BlackRock and others representing some of America’s largest companies, issued a statement that redefines the purpose of a corporation. This NYT article claims, “No longer should the primary job of a corporation be to advance the interests of shareholders.” The group known as the Business Roundtable, declared companies must also invest in employees, deliver value to customers and deal fairly and ethically with suppliers.

Why It’s Important: Holy cow. What took these folks so long to arrive at this conclusion? DUH! Those of us committed to building great cultures and the importance of caring for all stakeholders have always known this to be true. However, better late than never as the saying goes. Now CEOS, let’s start doing stuff to show you mean it. (I wonder if Wells Fargo, Audi, Disney and other members of recent reported scandals signed it)? 

Hot Topic 2: Employee Happiness and Business Success. 

Source: The Economist

(Preface: I’m almost embarrassed for The Economist publishing this now. I had to double check that it wasn’t August 1960 versus August 2019. Seriously). 

What It’s About: A study by Gallup, covering nearly 1.9 million employees across 230 separate organizations in 73 countries found that employee satisfaction had a substantial positive correlation with customer loyalty, and a negative link with staff turnover. Furthermore, worker satisfaction was met with higher productivity and profitability. The research also showed that improvements in employee morale precede gains in productivity, rather than vice versa. 

Why It’s Important: My first dumbfounded reaction is, “No S%#t.” You mean Gallup has to gather data from almost 2 million workers to come to that conclusion? Our followers could have confirmed the same outcomes for no cost. Why do so-called leaders, executives and shareholders still need convincing? It’s like somehow The Business Roundtable referenced in Hot Topic 1, and the esteemed Economist had an epiphany within the same week. So here we are, approaching 2020, and maybe we’ve finally turned the philosophical corner on investing in PEOPLE and CULTURE for greater, sustainable results… Well at least while business is good and shareholders are happy. Thank goodness bots and machines are easier to manage. Oops, sceptical not cynical. 

My Weekly Wine Recommendation (Thanks to Vivino):

Flight & Feathers No. 37 Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford Napa Valley 2017. 

[Picture and ratings provided by Vivino.]

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

“The beginning is the word and the end is silence. And in between are all the stories.” Kate Atkinson

Bye for now!

– Lorne Rubis

Incase you Missed It:

My latest Lead In podcast.  

My latest blog.

Season 3 of Culture Cast

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.

An Advanced Organization’s Values Can Kick Butt 

Abundance Accountability Personal leadership Respect

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Hi, we’re back after a summer break! Thanks for joining us again. As always we’re sharing with you our most valued and authentic insights relative to culture and leadership. 

The Culture/Leadership Challenge: I keep an Enron values cube on my desk as a reminder of how hollow, empty and cynical organizations’ values can be. Enron, of course, was an energy company that reached dramatic heights at $90+/share in 2001 and disintegrated into bankruptcy almost overnight based on unethical leadership and systemic fraud. The infamous values cube beautifully captured so-called Enron values (like integrity), that were obviously anything but what the company really stood for. The western business world is populated by stated values. They are usually well intended, yet rarely well applied. At worst, they are symbols of contradiction and fuel cynical distrust among employees and stakeholders. 

What to Do About It: The main thing about declaring values is that they need to be a unique recipe and a non-negotiable guide for EVERY person’s core behavior in an organization. It’s not the quantity (people believe that there should be only three or four), because it’s not about recital similar to a 5th grade memory contest. It’s not simply a memory game. It is about a deeply held belief that the behavior associated with all the values is a system, and fundamental to the success of the business. It’s obviously not the only element of business success, however it is a vital component. The secret sauce is fully integrating the values into the soul of the institution, and to introduce them to help people become better human beings first and foremost. How can we resist investing in that which makes us better? People ask me if people bought into the 11 stated values of an organization I was previously at, and my answer is always “yes.” Every single value we declared and reinforced made us better as individuals AND as a group. Furthermore, it is important for people to recognize that consistently living a value is life long exercise. One is never “done” achieving the necessary self-awareness and emotional maturity to truly live the value set in the moment every day. We stumble and celebrate how much more consistent we become. The commitment is relentless, everyday learning at a very personal level. Leadership needs to set the example and reinforce this. Every employee needs to commit from the inside out. When one can execute on this, you really have done something important for the culture. 

Think BIG, start small, act now. 

Lorne 

One Millennial View: I mean, no one can deny that core values are important and crucial for all of us, and great organizations to possess. That doesn’t mean it’s not difficult, disciplined, and painstaking to uphold. As mentioned above, there will be times of falter, but if we don’t have values then what do we have? 

– Garrett 

Blog 996

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis 

Lead In With Lorne – Say ‘Thank You’ to a Career Friend From the Past

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Welcome to another Lead In With Lorne, we’re back! Thanks for letting us enjoy a bit of a hiatus, and speaking of saying “thank you,” this week we want to encourage everyone to say thank you to a career friend from the past. Someone has likely been there to help you bounce things off of in your career, and it’s a cool sentiment to let them know that hasn’t been forgotten. 

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.