Carlos Smith’s Post

Culture is simply the way your employees feel about your company. Sure, policies and values can inform those things, but really, the thing that makes the biggest difference is how you treat your people. https://lnkd.in/eX34vNFY

Leaders tend to think that culture results from a set of policies and values. Really, though, culture is simply the way your employees feel about your company. Sure, policies and values can inform those things, but what makes the biggest difference is how you treat your people.

Transparency and communication are important levers in organizational culture! I’ve been through a number of “right-sizing” initiatives that involved substantial change. (By the way, have you ever noticed right-sizing always means down-sizing, not up-sizing?) I found some of the toughest challenges involved how the change was communicated to the workforce. The messaging is not only for those who are directly affected, but for those that remain, and are closely watching how those directly affected are treated. This passage from the article struck me: “They're also bad, however, for employees who may not have lost their jobs but now live with the uncertainty that they might.” Leading large orgnaizations is difficult, and presents executives with many tough choices. However, honest communication with your team will buy some patience and understanding as you guide the ship through change. Say what you can say at the time, and at the very least, acknowledge the impact that uncertainty can have on the team. Commit to sharing all you can as circumstances allow. #opencommunication #transparency #organizationalculture

Love this: a company must be, first, a platform for human contribution, not a corporate blender "Were more leaders to be guided by the science of change, or by the stories that people on the front lines share, they would quickly discover that it is stability that is the foundation of improvement. Only once we begin to honor people’s psychological needs at work, by thinking twice before launching into the next shiny change initiative and by paying more heed to the rituals and relationships that allow all of us to point our efforts in a useful direction, can we begin to do justice to the idea that a company must be, first, a platform for human contribution if it is to be anything else at all." https://lnkd.in/gTfYmjhc

TUESDAY TRAINING TIPS: Keep your team on track amid cost-cutting, layoffs, and uncertainty. We're all feeling this in one way or another. As Leaders, we feel like the weight of the world is on our shoulders and in many ways, it is. Guess what? Our teams are feeling it too! According to this HBR article, there are useful things within our control we can do to help ease the tension a bit. Principles to Remember: Do 💡 Seek out ways to provide team members with more autonomy, growth experiences, and opportunities to do meaningful work. 💡 Devote more time to individual check-ins to make sure your team members have the information and resources they need to do their jobs. 💡 Pay special attention to keeping your star employees engaged — amid uncertainty, you want team members who are focused on the future of the industry. Don’t 🛑 Allow yourself to become a stress case; if you’re not taking care of yourself, your team will feel it. 🛑 Ignore your team members’ fear and anxiety — be open to talking about their concerns and emphasize the benefits of working through hard things as a team. 🛑 Bog down your team members with low-value work; instead, make sure they’re focused on meaty, worthwhile tasks that engage them. #leadershipeffectiveness #team

I've been through way more layoffs in organizations in the past 30 years than I enjoy thinking about. When I do think about them, there is a knot in the pit of my stomach, then, the experience of low-level panic and overwhelm as I either think about losing my livelihood, dealing with other people losing theirs, and the pressure on those left behind to pick up the pieces. The impact of layoffs on the continued health and productivity of an organization is profound. Rarely have I seen a company get a lot better quickly after a layoff. Most often companies continue the downward spiral unless something radical happens within the organization to preserve culture and mitigate the chaos that comes from real, lived trauma. And if you don't understand the impact of trauma on people, you should learn about it. Fast! The past 18 months of ongoing layoffs in tech have been particularly brutal. Worse than I've ever seen or participated in as a leader. Not just the scale of job loss and personal disruption, but the tension from the long-term experience of incremental, surprising "RIFs" that have happened in some of our seemingly most successful organizations. I wonder what this is doing to our knowledge workers. How is this impacting their values, their ability to connect and commit when they are in a role, and their views of our current constructs of work in general. I can't help but think perhaps this is the beginning of the acceleration of a more conscious generation of skilled knowledge workers who have a more well-rounded understanding of what it means to be in the workforce today. Many of our boomer and silent generation parents had their jobs for a lifetime. Not in this climate. #millenials are changing all of that. I see an opportunity for individuals to evolve their own perspective of personal stability, corporate allegiance, and attitudes to the "grind." Scott Scottgalloway1 made a very salient point on the podcast Pivot the other day. "There is no such thing as loyalty to an organization. It's an entity, not a human." As leaders we should stop even thinking about using that term. It's going to be an interesting decade for sure! #futureofwork Future Ready CMO

During over a decade of my career at #Google, I've attended numerous All Hands, Town Halls, Management Meetings, Strategy Meetings, Team Meetings, TGIFs, etc., where leaders took center stage to #communicate. The best leaders wisely steered clear of these classic communication blunders that only serve to demotivate and drain their teams: 🧐 Vague and Fluffy: "Our goal is to hit the ground running and have the best year yet." - Ah, the old say-a-lot-without-saying-anything trick. 🚪 Distant and Closed Off: "This is what we decided will happen. OK, thanks." - How about employee input or bottoms-up feedback? No time for that now! 🍭 Fake Positivity Over Empathy: "Change is a constant — even though it's nerve-wrecking, annoying, and might erase your job — but hey, we love change here, don't we? Hell yeah we do." - Sugarcoating 101. 🔒 Black Box Communication: "Right now, we can't share anything, but trust me, we've thought this through deeply. I'll keep you updated, of course." - Spoiler: They won't. 🔄 Inconsistency: "Last week: 'We're growing our team!' This week: 'Just kidding, layoffs it is.' But remember, we're all family here." - Talk about mixed messages. 😭 Overly Negative: "Our competitors are going to crush us if we don't..." - Ah, the sweet scent of impending doom. 🌈 Unrealistically Positive: "The sky's the limit, no obstacles exist, the moment is now!" - No acknowledgement of tail winds, challenges, risks. 🧀 Cheesy Clichés: "Together, we have the talent and determination to move mountains, reach for the stars, and turn our dreams into reality!" - Eye-roll Communication from leaders can make or break team morale. When in doubt, #overcommunicate, get real, show respect! It's simple but so often forgotten. We want transparency and genuineness from our leaders. Secrecy breeds anxiety and mistrust. Even saying "I don't know" or "I don't have enough information yet" is a sign of respect for your employees. They'll appreciate your honesty and reciprocate with trust and respect. Sure, balance is key. You don't need to share every thought, hope, or fear. But striking the right balance is crucial for building trust and keeping those communication lines wide open. What's the least helpful piece of communication you've experienced? Drop a comment below and share; I'd love to hear your stories! -------------------------- Enjoy my posts? 👉 Follow and 🔔 ring the bell and 🗞 subscribe to my weekly newsletter 'The Leadership Rise' for even more in-depth insights. #Leadership #Communication #TeamManagement #ExecutiveCoaching #TransparencyInLeadership #LeadriseCoaching

Have we as humans collectively lost our humanity? The news of the mass layoffs sweeping the U.S. makes me wonder if we have indeed lost our humanity. According to the latest Global Culture Report by O.C. Tanner, empathy at work has a huge, positive impact on an individual’s connection to their workplace and manager. Employees who feel that their experiences and challenges are seen and valued on a personal level are more likely to be highly engaged in their work and trust that they are supported. This also increases employee retention, with O.C. Tanner speculating that employees can picture themselves staying in their organisation for an extra 2.5 years when their leaders are driven by empathy. Don't get me wrong, being empathetic doesn't mean that you never make tough decisions to deliver bad news to your teams. It's how we deliver it, manage the consequences, and prioritise humanity that's important. Click the link below to read my full article which was featured in People Management in the UK. https://lnkd.in/gD7hBzk5 #empathy #leadership #layoffs #humanity

A recent post by Business Insider suggests that it’s a tough time to be a manager in tech right now.  I would argue that it’s a tough time to be a manager anywhere these days given layoffs, return to work mandates, and burnout.  Here’s what we know: managers are the key levers for success in any organization.  Yet, short sighted organizations are failing to build the capacity of arguably their most valuable resource.  How do we solve this challenge? Our team at Manager EQ believes that there’s a way to build the capacity of your managers, strengthen organizational outcomes across lines of difference, and grow your revenue + impact from this investment.  Interested in learning more?  Check out our one pager (https://bit.ly/managereq) about our upcoming training and talk with a member of our team to set up a call to learn more.  Aliyah Abdur-Rahman, Jacinta Williams, Audrey H. #buildingcapacity #managementtraining #leadershipdevelopment

What keeps us up at night? Blame culture? Missed deadlines? Failure? Aleix Morgadas, from across the Atlantic pond, steps up to admit he had some misconceptions about strategy and culture. Then he describes his journey to systemically correct the culture using several tools. Strategic DDD was one set of principles that were applied to figure out the context of the real business need. Aleix's *learning* advice may seem counter intuitive at some level, but he even dispels that and shows how learning and targeting real needs prevents a lot of rework and gets us to a solution faster. Hope you get what you need to avoid or recover from whatever keeps you up at night.