DO YOU FACE THESE CULTURE CHALLENGES IN YOUR COMPANY OR TEAM?by Richard Parkes Cordock SMASHWORDS EDITIONCopyright © Richard Parkes Cordock 2012 First Published 2012 by ELW Publishing Bath, UKThank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome potx

As a CEO, SVP, Board Member or member of the Senior Management Team, you'll have a clear vision of how you want to take your company forward.. Tom is the CEO of a mid size software compa

DO YOU FACE THESE

CULTURE CHALLENGES

IN YOUR COMPANY OR

TEAM?

by

Richard Parkes Cordock

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Copyright © Richard Parkes Cordock 2012

First Published 2012 by ELW Publishing Bath, UK

Thank you for downloading this free ebook You are welcome to share it with your friends This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the bookremains in its complete original form If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author Thank you for your support.

1

Do You Face These Culture Challenges In Your Company or Team ?

2

Your senior management team and employees are not fully aligned

3

You know your teams could work better together ( for the benefit of your customers )

4

You know your employees could be more accountable and take more responsibility

5

You know your employees ' motivation , morale and engagement could be better

6

You know communication and collaboration could be more free flowing within your company

7

You know you could provide a more remarkable customer experience

8

You know you could be more entrepreneurial , innovative , creative and relevant as a company

9

Enterprise LEADER

1 Do You Face These Culture Challenges In Your Company or Team?

Your company's culture is too important to ignore It is everywhere in your business and affects

everything you do

Although you cannot touch it, you can certainly feel it and see it in action You know when it needs addressing even fixing

Below are seven common culture challenges companies face even those which are wildly successful

can still face these culture challenges, or know they could be a higher performing and more profitable company if they only addressed their culture issues.

Do you recognise one or more of these challenges in your company? Is your company's growth being hampered or held back from reaching higher levels of revenues and profits?

1 Your senior management team and employees are not fully aligned.

2 You know your teams could work better together (for the benefit of your customers).

3 You know your employees could be more accountable and take more responsibility.

4 You know your employees' motivation, morale and engagement could be stronger.

5 You know communication and collaboration could be more free flowing within your company.

6 You know you could provide a more remarkable customer experience.

7 You know you could be more entrepreneurial, innovative, creative and relevant as a company.

If you can relate to any of these culture challenges, Enterprise LEADER can help you

2 Your senior management team and employees are not fully aligned.

You know your employees are not aligned with your senior management team You know your company's vision, values, goals and purpose are not fully understood and shared by all your employees You know this disconnect is hurting your company's performance.

As a CEO, SVP, Board Member or member of the Senior Management Team, you'll have a clear vision of how you want to take your company forward You'll be clear in your mind about what the future looks like, and what you need to do to reach your goals

Your direct reports will understand your vision and perhaps even a level below them as well

But what about the rest of your employees?

The very people who are doing the day-to-day work? The very people who are interacting daily with your customers, or developing your products and services?

In many companies even those which are highly successful and profitable - there is a gap between the vision which is held at the senior management level, and what is understood and believed in the wider workforce

You may recognise this gap in your company too

This 'disconnect' can be a major barrier to achieving your company's goals

Example 1:

Tom is the CEO of a mid size software company, employing 400 people around the world.

Tom and his fellow VPs have a clear vision of where they want to take the company, but they know that the rest of the workforce doesn't fully understand, believe in and emotionally connect with the vision This disconnect between the Boardroom and workforce is hurting the company, as the message

employees give customers does not reconcile with the message the senior management team want

customers to receive

Solution:

By using Enterprise LEADER as a vehicle for change, the senior management team (supported by middle management) are able to explain to employees the vision, purpose and goals of the company and create alignment between the boardroom and workforce

Through the mentoring materials featured in Enterprise LEADER and the group face-to-face mentoring sessions, employees get to hear in depth the goals and vision of the senior management team, and also have a forum and framework to share their ideas and concerns back to management

3 You know your teams could work better together (for the benefit of your customers).

You know your teams could work better together You know if they helped and supported each other more, they could achieve greater results and deliver a more fulfilling experience for your customers.

You know you have great people in your company some really talented employees people who are exceptionally skilled, knowledgeable and first-class at what they do

But you know your employees could work better together as a team You know they could support each other more - and help each other out more when needed

You know they could be more unified as a team, believe more in the vision and goals of your company You know they could collectively serve your customer at a higher level

You know if they did, you'd be more successful as a business

Example 2:

Sarah is a VP in an insurance agency and runs a 'book of business' focused on the corporate transportation market She manages a team of 20 sales staff and 40 customer service representatives

Every day the sales team are on the road generating new business and the support staff are in the head office managing the accounts, taking calls, processing claims and where possible, selling additional policies

Sarah knows that calls coming into the service department often go unanswered even when other team members are available to pick them up This means that customers become frustrated by the lack of timely service

Sarah knows that if she could get her team to understand the bigger picture and work better for each other, they could give customers a greater experience and retain more customers for longer

Solution:

With the help of Enterprise LEADER , Sarah is a able to get her team together on a regular basis in an informal but structured way, to explore new ways to service their clients at a higher level

Using the structured MP3 mentoring materials and group face to face mentoring sessions, Sarah has the tools to get everyone thinking about how to give customers the best experience so they are not left

frustrated waiting on the phone and thinking about taking their business to another insurance agency This shared experience of Enterprise LEADER enables Sarah's team to get to know each other and understand each other's challenges better, facilitates communication and gets them to see how each and every one of them contributes to the customer experience - and overall department and company goals

4 You know your employees could be more

accountable and take more responsibility.

You know your employees could take more ownership and responsibility You know they could be more accountable for their actions You know if they were, your customers would ultimately receive a more rewarding experience

As a business leader you are used to taking responsibility and ownership of problems You are used to thinking like a business owner You know that your actions and decisions have a direct impact on your customers' experience

But not everybody in your company thinks this way Not everybody is accountable and answerable for their actions

Imagine the rich experience your customers could receive if every employee in your company took full accountability, responsibility and ownership of their work, and thought like business owners rather than employees

Example 3:

A major international 4 star hotel chain notices that it is receiving an unusually high number of negative reviews on Tripadvisor.com for three of its hotels in the same city Guests complain that staff are

unhelpful, unresponsive and unaccommodating

David is a new area manager charged with turning round the performance of these hotels which have over

400 employees between them

David knows that he needs to find a way to make every employee in the company take more ownership and responsibility for their work, and ensure that customers consistently receive a 4 star experience

Solution:

By using Enterprise LEADER as a vehicle for change, David is able to take all 400 of his employees on a journey of personal, professional and business development

With the case-study approach of Enterprise LEADER, David is able to explore the problems faced by Amroze Technology (the company featured in Enterprise LEADER), and identify why they had some of their problems

David is able to get this employees to see similarities between Amroze Technology and their own

company, and identify areas and strategies for improvement

5 You know your employees' motivation, morale and engagement could be better

You know you have three types of employees in your company: 1 Some superstars who are fully engaged 2 Some disengaged employees who are holding you back from reaching your goals, and 3 Some 'middle men and women who neither over-perform nor under-over-perform' You know if you can help this middle group step-up and fulfil their potential, you can take your company to another level.

As much as you want to believe that ALL your employees are fully motivated, driven, passionate,

engaged and deliver their best work - the reality is this is seldom the case

More likely, the engagement of your workforce follows the statistics suggested by the research company, Gartner Group

Gartner suggests that typically only 20 to 25% of the workforce is fully engaged, motivated, passionate and working for the good of the company

Gartner suggests that as many as 20% of a workforce are unmotivated, disengaged and damaging your company This leaves the remaining 50 to 55% of employees who can be referred to as 'middlemen' and 'middle women' These are people who neither over perform, nor under-perform and provide a

tremendous opportunity to improve the performance and profitability of your company

There is a clear one to one relationship between the engagement of your employees and the profitability

of your company

By simply working on your company's culture you can quickly turn middlemen and women into high performing employees who help drive the profitability and performance of your company forward

Example 4:

Telco Inc is a large telecommunications company servicing millions of B2C and B2B customers George

is a SVP and on the Board of Telco Inc George is aware that for many of his employees, working on the phones is just a job and nothing more

George knows that his call centre employees are the direct connection between the company and the customer and are the face and voice of the brand

He also knows that their lack of enthusiasm and engagement is damaging the customers' experience and having a negative impact on Telco Inc's brand In a highly competitive market space, Telco Inc cannot afford to let this happen

Solution:

Since George has his entire team in one building, it is easy for him to use Enterprise LEADER as a catalyst for change and a vehicle to better engage his workforce

He gets his high performing superstars to act as leads in mentor groups and uses the structured materials and face to face group mentor sessions Through the face to face mentor sessions employees are given a platform to voice their thoughts and ideas and explore new ways to make their work more meaningful and engaging

Very quickly George notices high levels of enthusiasm, passion, motivation and morale in his workforce which translates through to a better experience for Telco Inc's customers

6 You know communication and collaboration

could be more free flowing within your company.

You know if your employees understood more what was happening throughout your company, they'd feel more connected to your business They'd also be better placed to solve problems and collaborate on new ideas.

Talk to any of your senior managers, and chances are, they'll tell you that they are great at

communication They'll say, "We keep our employees well informed and involved in everything that is going on."

Now have the same conversation with any of your employees and more likely than not, they'll tell you

"Our senior management are poor at communicating with us!", or "We don't know what's going on in our company, or in other departments or teams."

In many companies - possibly yours too managers never really know how employees 'feel' , because they never take the time to really 'talk to them! at an emotional level' All too often, managers never really know their employees (or employees know their manager) and so employees feel disconnected and uninvolved Work just becomes 'work' and employees' motivation and morale starts to drop

Could communication be better in your company? Is there room for improvement? Would better

communication lead to better results?

Example 5:

Two large engineering design consultancies have recently merged to become one of the biggest

engineering design companies in the world with offices in 20 countries

With any merger comes uncertainty, redundancies and a clash of cultures In order to make the merger work and gain the desired economies of scale, the new CEO recognises that effective communication is key

More specifically, he knows that he needs to get the vision of the senior management team out of the boardroom and into the heart of the workforce and to get the newly merged teams (from company A and company B) talking to each other and feeding their thoughts, ideas and concerns back up to the

boardroom

Solution:

The CEO decides to role out Enterprise LEADER across the 20 international offices Reporting directly

to the CEO, Emma is given responsibility for the worldwide role-out of Enterprise LEADER

Emma in turn works closely with each country's regional director and helps them design and implement a tailored roll-out schedule which means every employee in every country gets to go through the Enterprise LEADER program within 3 months of the launch date

For the CEO this means that very quickly after the merger, employees get to understand exactly what the new company is about, and what the vision and goals of the company are They also get to meet their new co-workers and have a platform to share their ideas, thoughts and concerns with senior management