Champion Organization Defined, Does Yours Stack Up?

This morning at a client meeting I was challenged to define a Championship Organization so the company leadership could get a grasp on the concept. That was unusual for me. Usually I’m the one asking the question of the client to get them to focus on what they want to create that is different, better and/or special from where they are at.

The question challenged me to come back to my office and define it for myself sothat I can better articulate it to my clients, here is what I came up with.

Championship Organization Defined:

A Championship Organization is one that stands out from the rest by continually striving to achieve something unique and special from others in its field. A Champion Organization is one that is exceptional in the way it operates, exceptional in the way it treats its employees, exceptional in the way it serves it customers, and exceptional in the way it interacts with its community, and doing it all with a high level of integrity.

The Championship Organization does it in a way in which all stake holders are:

• Enthused to participate,
• Empowered to contribute in their own unique way, and are
• Engaged in contributing to fulfilling the Vision & Purpose of the organization by consistently interacting with other stakeholders according to agreed upon values and behaviors.

Is that the type of organization or company culture that can thrive? If an organization were to fulfill that definition would it or could it be considered operating at a Championship level?

I think so, what about you? Feel free to leave a comment about what you would add or subtract to make my definition even better.

To read about five key traits that Champion Organizations should require of individuals they hire and retain read this article at www.SkipWeisman.com titled - How a Champion Culture Can Give You a Competitive Advantage

Does Your Company Have a CYA Culture?

I realized yesterday while facilitating a clients’ senior leadership team meeting that they were stuck in the old style CYA culture. You know, “Cover Your A##.”

I asked if they ever went on a construction job site and just gave out praise to the workers and the site supervisor pointing out specific areas where they were excelling or ahead of schedule. In return there was a blank stare, then a comment:

“Well, in our business if the work is done and done well, its a waste of time to rehash that stuff. We need to keep moving forward and make sure the things that aren’t done to spec need to be addressed while focusing on the next phase of the project. Looking back acknowledging things already done never had any value before.”

I could tell a light bulb had gone off in this individual’s mind while another team member chimed in, “you know we’re always looking for pictures of the good work we do and we can never find them because all we take pictures of are the problem areas so we can make sure we don’t get blamed for them or to show our sub-contractors what they need to fix. I sure wish we had some nice, photos of finished projects so we can use ‘em in our newsletter, and on our website and stuff!”

Again, more CYA. So much time is spent in corporate America covering rear-ends that the good work everyone is doing goes unnoticed and un-appreciated.

I’d like to propose a new CYA culture - “Celebrate Your Achievements!”

There is not enough of it!

This does not mean to get soft and open your company to lawsuits, lost revenue, re-doing jobs that eat into profit margins because of a lack of identifying areas that need to be addressed. What it means is taking some time throughout the day, week, month to be open to looking for, and acknowledging and recognizing, the individuals who are doing good work.

It can be as simple as a private pat on the back, or a public recognition at a monthly team breakfast or lunch with a gift certificate as a reward. You can determine what is most appropriate for your situation and budget.

I believe this type of CYA Culture will improve morale and productivity while gradually breaking down the cynicism and lack of trust in most organizations as workers begin to feel appreciated for their contribution.

5-Steps to Create Effective Strategic Alliances To Explode Your Business

A little over twelve months ago I began to get concerned about the direction the economy was going. I made a pro-active decision to shift my marketing strategy into high gear and being that like most small businesses with limited marketing funds I had to get creative. So, I decided to begin marketing a marketing idea among a group of business associates whom I trusted and respect, the concept of Strategic Alliances.

Strategic Alliances are a powerful marketing approach that allows you to leverage your value and maximize your efforts and energy. We’re only halfway through 2009 and I can pretty much guarantee this is going to be my best year of my eight years in business.

Basically, the way I view Strategic Alliances is that they are one or more businesses that offer complimentary products and services that have significant to a similar target market. For my business which focuses on improving the bottom-line and company culture of businesses my ideal strategic partners are in the following industries: commercial insurance, commercial banking, commercial lending, accounting, bookkeeping and payroll services, advertising specialty firms, web and internet marketing companies, and traditional advertising/marketing/pr firms.

Here are some tips for getting started on adding Strategic Alliances to leverage your marketing efforts:

STEP 1
Brainstorm the types of businesses that go after similar target markets with complimentary products and services.

STEP 2
Identify the specific components of your product and service offerings that you could proivde as a “value added” offer to your alliance partners (e.g., I offer a 2-2 1/2 hour introductory workshop for the clients and prospects of my alliance partners, which is a $3,000 retail value).

STEP 3
Identify individual businesses from #1 above that you already have established relationships with. Then grade those relationships on an A, B, C scale for those that you have a high “know, like, trust & respect” factor.

---

NOTE: Notice that two of my upcoming speaking events, August 5th & August 6th, in the column to the right are Strategic Alliance programs!

---

STEP 4
Create your offer to your Strategic Alliance partners in a way that they can easily see the benefits of offering your expertise as a “value added” service to their clients/prospects. Always craft the pitch so that it focuses solely on the value the SA partner receives by joining forces with you.

---

*side note here: these Strategic Alliances are all around you, once the Reticular Activating System in your brain is engaged by understanding this concept you will begin to notice them. I just noticed one this morning as I was watching the US Open Golf Championship on NBC-TV. When the network cut away to its “Sports Update” at the top of the hour the anchor read a story about the Wimbledon Tennis Champions starting in two-days and that defending Champion Rafael Nadal withdrew due to an injury. This was a valid news story any network would have announced, but particularly pertinent since NBC-TV hosts the Wimbledon Tennis TV coverage. After the story, the announcer told the audience to pick up a copy of USA Today on Monday, the first day of the Wimbledon Tournament to get all the tournament news including a feature on 5-Time Champion Roger Federer. Behind the announcer was a very prominent USA Today logo. It clearly shifted from a true news story to a cross-promotion with the newspaper. Another example is when Disney releases a new animated movie, or the latest Star Wars, Star Trek or Super Hero movie comes out. The Hollywood production houses always partner with fast food restaurants like McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, etc. and the soft drink companies because they are catering to similar targets, families and kids.

---

STEP 5
Begin calling your “A” list, letting them know that you have identified them as your first choice as someone you’d like to work with in their industry and that if they decide they are not interested you have other competitors of theirs you will be reaching out to.

Results for me have been truly outstanding. I’ve delivered eight SA workshops in the last 10 months which has exposed me to over 300 new business prospects. It has brought me two significant clients this year I wouldn’t have secured otherwise, allowed me to sellout a “open enrollment” workshop that I offered mostly to those new members of my database which allowed me to net about $3,000 for a one-day program, and finally I’m meeting next week with three new prospects for consulting projects directly related to my Strategic Alliance marketing efforts.

That’s all there is to it, other than delivering on your promise in the Strategic Alliance, of course. Get started. If you have any questions feel free to e-mail me at Info@SkipWeisman.com

Do Gen Y Workers Fit With a Championship Corporate Culture?

I just read a great article by Sarah Newton, who is an expert in Gen Y issues (You can find her at www.GenYGuide.com ). This article, which is worth the few minutes to read is titled “Has your company got a culture that is Young Worker Friendly?.”

This struck a particular chord with me for two reasons. One is that I used to work in an industry that relied heavily on high school and college students in the summer months, minor league baseball. This generation was responsible for, well, pretty much everything that impacted the bottom line performance of our business. They were probably 80% or more of our concessions operation, they were a significant portion of our merchandising sales during ballgames, they helped to park cars, and they provided the manpower to run our in-between innings contests that kept fans entertained as the teams changed sides.

Yet, despite the importance these team members played in our operation, we through them into the fire of the season with limited orientation, limited training and limited discussion on what the expected behaviors were for a team member. Then, we exacerbated the issue by not dealing with issues as they came up and we enabled behaviors, and it became a slippery slope. It was “only” a summer job we rationalized for these kids and we just accepted this as the way it had to be and plowed through the two-and-a-half months ’til they left us to go back to school.

I lived this insanity for 20 years in the business. It wasn’t until I got out and started working with other organizations that fell into the same trap that I woke up. An even deeper challenge is that companies do this not just with GenY workers but most all of their employees.

Few companies I’ve found, especially small to medium sized businesses, recruit, interview, hire, orient, train, set performance expectations, and manage to those expectations effectively. And, they wonder why performance is lacking in their company.

The ironic thing is that most business leaders in these situations spend more time putting out fires and confronting issues caused by the lack of systems for managing performance that if they just invested time on the front end doing the things they should be doing, it would be no less than an even trade-off in time, energy and financial resources, and I believe it would pay handsome dividends at the end of the year in lower employee turnover, higher productivity and lower raises/bonuses because people will not demand as much compensation when they are working in an enjoyable work environment.

Anyway, enough of my rant. Much thanks to Sarah Newton for getting me started this morning.

P.F. -FYI, for those of you out there uncertain about the value of Social Media and things like Twitter. I found Sarah through Twitter as I search “Company Culture” tweets and her tweet came through to me and I responded.

Here's One Great 21st Century Idea to Help Create a Champion Culture At Your Company

Here’s a great blog post from an employer law firm that discusses a new way to provide employee feedback. It will totally transform how annual performance reviews and individual performance feedback is provided, using Twitter. It’s Brilliant and could be the wave of the future if forward thinking companies find a way to  make it work, a must read:

Using Twitter to Manage Performance 

What do you think?

Who Cares If Your Company Is a "Champion Organization?"

Eight weeks into working with one of my clients to help lay the foundation of a Champion Organization at his company he asked me a very provocative and interesting question as I was leaving a recent leadership team session.

He said, “Skip, does anyone really care if we have a champion organization here. You know, our employees, our vendors or customers, is this really worth the effort beyond lowering my own stress level?”

There is only one answer to that question.

The question kind of put me on the spot, what am I supposed to say to that, “no, all the time, money and energy you’ve invested doesn’t really matter at the end of the day.” The only ethical answer I could give “yes.”

But, I can see why he asked the question. When you are in the beginning stages of transforming a negative workplace culture to a Champion culture there are growing pains/ At times when some people respond and others don’t. Everyone is different and gaining buy-in has to be done on an individualized basis. It can see like a daunting task as we move through the process. 

I explained that there are a number of stages that will take time to sink in that have to worked through for various constituencies. Each will have to have a reason to get excited about the initiative, we have to continue to reach deep and tap into the WII-FM (What’s In It For Me) for each individual on the team. It will be more important for some than for others. For the ones that don’t jump on board some time in the not too distant future there will be the equivalent of a major league sports’s trading deadline. 

There is a very low threshold for what is expected in the industry in which this company operates. Over the years the entire industry has developed an approach and a culture in which confrontation and conflict is the norm and expectation. It’s going to take time to change the impression that this company is just like the rest but eventually and not too far into the future, the customers and clients will begin to notice.

Here’s what will make it happen quicker:
1) Company leadership team must be the exemplars of the attitudes, behaviors and communication style we’ve decided are consistent with the image the company wants to put forth;

2) The expectation must be set with all employees and team members that moving forward the new Values/Behaviors are the new culture;

3) Any deviation from the expected behavior from among leadership team members or other employees must be addressed and adjusted immediately (all team members will be held accountable to the same expectations and in the same manner);

4) Training and coaching of individuals to bring their interpersonal skills up to the expected standard may have to be provided.

5) Client, customer, sub-contractors and referral sources should be communicated with at the beginning of each project to set the tone and expectations on the new terms with the new approach, so that they know what to expect regarding the interactions with the company moving forward.  Setting the expectation on the front end and then fulfilling them will go a long way towards building the new belief as to what’s possible in this industry.

By following the five steps outlined above, my client will be setting a new tone and become a leader in its industry for changing the entire culture of that industry, one client and one employee at a time.

I’m working on a very exciting project.

Southwest Airlines' Champion Culture Fosters Creativity & Fun

This YouTube video below says it all. 

For years Southwest Airlines has been touted as an airlines with a different experience for its employees first, which fosters a unique experience for its customers. Here’s one outstanding example:

This Article Shows Many Companies Tolerate the Opposite of a Champion Culture

This article in Inc. Magazine discusses workplace bullying, the numbers sited here are frightening and can kill a company’s bottom line, a must read for any business owner:

http://www.inc.com/news/articles/2009/05/bully.html

How a Champion Organization Addresses Developing Leaders for Successful Succession Planning

One of the three (3) key tenets in creating a Champion Organization is Developing Leadership Throughout. Today an article came across my e-mail from Fortune Magazine on how Proctor & Gamble, a Fortune 500 stalwart, develops its leaders so as to be ready when key positions open.  Just three months ago a void was created at P&G when its global business units president Susan Arnold announced her departure ahead of expectations at the age of 55.

This Fortune article discusses the future of CEO A.G. Lafley, and how P&G develops its future leaders and hires mostly from within.

Small and medium sized business leaders can learn a lot from P&G’s approach and should, if they haven’t already, begun developing their own internal leadership development and career path program. This topic came up two weeks ago in a leadership team session with one of my clients’ and we’ve begun discussing developing just such a program.

Online or Offline, Building a Champion Is Always About the Fundamentals

A colleague posted a note and a link to an article by Bob Burg, a business networking and referral expert. I thought it was an outstanding commentary on how business success whether it be on line or offline, always comes down to the fundamentals. 

Readers of this blog know that I believe becoming a Champion Organization is always about mastering the fundamentals. Burg reinforces this idea when it comes to social media networking, it’s worth a read. Here’s the link

Next Page »