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A Note from Linda ...

Congratulations. You have just been made President of your company (if you're not there already).

I know you want to make a difference. I know you want to create a high performing, high functioning company. But with so much pressure to cut costs and increase earnings, what's a leader to do!

What makes a great company great?

Successful leaders create great companies by embracing a strong values-driven culture that puts their people first. They have the foresight to see the link between their people and the bottom line.

So now that you're President what leadership impact will you have on building a great company?

My best,
Linda Yaffe
Certified Executive Coach

"In today's high paced, high stress, high stakes world, ONLY companies that are firmly founded on a value system that is properly modeled and adhered to can be successful." -- John Maxwell

Leadership Practices for Building a Great Company

In the last few years several books have addressed why some companies are more enduring than others. What distinguishes the great from the merely good? What contributes to sustaining success in today's rapidly changing economic environment? Built to Last, Good to Great, Hidden Value, The Knowing-Doing Gap, and Peak Performance are just a few of the books that are providing answers.

Really great companies, even in bad times, place people and values first. An obsession with stock prices can obscure vision and cause companies to lose their way. The link between people and the bottom line is becoming more apparent. Organizations that succeed over time are those that have a strong values-driven culture. They are people-centered organizations who balance values and business.

The quality of the interaction with and among employees drives the quality of the products and services. A focus on treating employees with warmth, dignity and respect pays off in how customers are treated and consequently in how the business performs.

Many organizations forget the connection between customers, employees, and financial results. If you want to have great business results, you must have customers who love your products and services—customers who believe that they're getting excellent treatment from the company. In order to do that, you have to have employees who are motivated, committed, and using their talents on behalf of the organization.

As Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines is fond of saying, "We put our employees first, our customers second, and our shareholders third. In that order it works and out of that order nothing works."

Where's the Evidence?

A wealth of empirical evidence shows the effectiveness of a people-centered approach that delivers value to the customer, the employee, the organization, and the shareholders. While the details of studies that measure the affect of employee performance on bottom line revenues can be complex, the overall results are impressive. Consider the following research (cited by O'Reilly and Pfeffer in Hidden Value: How Great Companies Achieve Extraordinary Results with Ordinary People, Harvard Business School Press, 2000.):

One study using multiple samples and measures found that a change of one standard deviation in an index of human resource management practices produced increases of $20,000 to $40,000 in stock market value per employee. Another study reported that companies that were one standard deviation higher in their use of high-performance work practices enjoyed more than $27,000 in increased sales per employee, $18,000 in increased market capitalization and $3,800 in profits as well as a decrease in employee turnover.

Similar results are found internationally. In Germany, a study found that companies that place employees at the core of their strategies produced higher shareholder returns than industry peers. And Korean enterprises discovered from one research study that "dedicated positioning strategies appear to be executed more effectively where organizations exhibit a high level of commitment to their employees."

Three Common Themes

According to Pfeffer and O'Reilly in Hidden Value, three common themes underlie the things that successful companies do to develop and tap the potential of their people:

1. The company has a clear, well-articulated set of values that are the foundation for management practices that provide for the company's competitive success.

2. The company has a remarkable degree of alignment and consistency in the people-centered practices that express its core values.

3. Senior managers in these companies (not just the founders or the CEO) are leaders whose primary role is to ensure that the values are maintained and constantly made real to all of the people who work in the organization.

The most visible characteristics of successful companies are their values and the fact that the values come first even before stock price. Why are values so important? Because money by itself isn't sufficient for motivating long-term high performance. Most of us need to believe that what we are doing makes a difference to others and that our work is important. We also want to feel that we are valued as people. We want to be respected for who we are, not simply for what we do.

As we continue into this new century with new uncertainties, companies will need to draw on the full creative energy and talent of their people. Why should people give full measure? Confronted with an increasingly mobile society, cynicism about corporate life, and an expanding entrepreneurial segment of the economy, companies more than ever need to have a clear understanding of their people and their values in order to make work meaningful and thereby attract, motivate and retain outstanding people. There must be a balance with people, values and business in order to create sustainable results.

15 Questions to Ask to Create a People-Centered Organization

When core values are clearly defined and articulated, they become living values that get communicated and reinforced continually. In the absence of repetitive reminders of these values other implicit and negative values can take over, such as individual ambition at the expense of team work. The only insurance against such undermining is to reinforce values in both language and actions.

John Miller authored QBQ! The Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability in Business and in Life, (www.qbq.com). He suggests asking some questions in order to stay connected with core values:

1. How can I reinforce and communicate our core values on a daily basis?

2. How can I create and communicate a clear vision for the part of the business that I manage?

3. What can I do to help others understand how our values drive our strategies?

4. How can I provide the people with whom I work with clear performance objectives that support our values?

5. How can I create an atmosphere in which people feel included and valued?

6. What can I do to ensure that everyone is heard?

7. How can I help my people succeed?

8. How can I show people they're important to our success?

9. What can I do to maximize the talents of those who work with me?

10. How can I help people learn from their mistakes?

11. What can I do to ensure that people have the knowledge, skills and tools they need to be successful?

12. How can I build better relationships with my customers?

13. How can I increase the value my customers receive?

14. How can I build better relationships with my suppliers?

15. What can I do to build strong relationships with the local community?

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WorkingMatters' principal, Linda Yaffe, a Leadership Development and Certified Executive Coach, uses her senior and executive level management experience to help you achieve your business and career goals.

Whether you are jump-starting a business, advancing your career, an executive or president, Linda’s coaching expertise will provide you with the essential focus, skills and behaviors needed to perform, advance and lead in today’s business environment.

As well, Linda works closely with companies like yours focused on "high potential grooming and leadership performance enhancement" geared toward your top talent and next generation of leaders.

Linda delivers bottom-line benefits to individuals and organizations focused on moving to the highest levels of learning, performance and achievement.

In addition to coaching, Linda delivers Leadership Workshops to small and large businesses.

Linda abides by the strict code of confidentiality and adheres to the highest standard of ethics in accordance with the International Coach Federation.

For more information, please contact Linda by email at LYaffe@WorkingMatters.com

 
 
 


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