The art of asking questions is the source of all business success.
Whether you’re running a business, an aspiring entrepreneur, or somebody with big dreams, achieving requires that you have goals, plans, and a way to hold yourself accountable. If you really want to stay on track, a weekly check-in can be a valuable tool.
Spend some time every week with these important questions and keep your momentum going!
1. What did I learn from last week? If you’re determined to learn, no one can stop you. If you’re unwilling to learn, no one can help you.
2. What was my greatest accomplishment last week? Every accomplishment gives you a win, lending you confidence and motivation.
3. What have I struggled with in the past that might affect the upcoming week? Today’s struggle is developing the strength you need for next week.
4. What’s the first thing I want to accomplish this week? If you know your number one goal, you can spend your time concentrating on your priority.
5. What can I do right now to make this week go well? Good planning makes your odds of success much higher.
6. What can I do right now to make the week less stressful? If you know what stresses you out and you see what’s on the horizon, you can brace yourself for pressure.
7. What was the last week’s biggest waste of time? Identify the useless things that take up your time so you can avoid them.
8. How will I make sure that what I want to achieve gets done? What can you do this week to make sure you’re moving toward your goals? Make a plan for the groundwork to be in place.
9. Why is this something I want to achieve? Staying in touch with your why leads you naturally to your how and what.
10. Have I been sabotaging myself? Keep a careful watch out for your inner saboteur. Don’t let it set you back or slow you down.
11. What have I been putting off? Everyone procrastinates–but what do you really need to get started on?
12. What opportunities are still on the table? Try not to let an important opportunity get past you.
13. What do I want to change? Stay committed to your goals but flexible in your approach.
14. What steps are complete? Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another.
15. Is there anything more I need to be doing? Anything you haven’t already tried is fair game. You never know!
16. What do I think is stopping me? Forget all the reasons it won’t work and believe the one reason it will.
17. What roadblocks do I expect? Plan your detours in advance and a roadblock is no big deal.
18. What obstacles are getting in the way of my success? Remember, obstacles are the things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.
19. What should I be doing differently? Don’t be afraid of looking for a better way. Be afraid of not exploring anything new.
20. How am I making an impact? Are you doing what you were born to do?
21. What am I most grateful for? Even in the darkest hour, here is always something to be thankful for.
22. Is there anyone I need to thank? Who do you need to appreciate and acknowledge?
23. How will I know I’ve achieved success? Success is not the key to happiness; happiness is the key to success. If you love what you’re doing you will be happy AND successful.
24. What am I looking forward to? The answer to this question will get you motivated for next week and help you stay energized.
Spend some time with yourself every week taking stock, and you’ll never feel out of touch with where you are, where you want to be, and what you need to be doing.
A data-driven look at the link between the strategic moves of new CEOs and the performance of their companies highlights the importance of quick action and of adopting an outsider’s perspective.
The success of CEOs is deeply linked to the success of the companies they lead, but the vast body of popular literature on the topic explores this relationship largely in qualitative terms. The dangers of these approaches are well known: it’s easy to be misled by outliers or to conclude, mistakenly, that prominent actions which seem correlated with success were responsible for it.
We tried to sidestep some of these difficulties by systematically reviewing the major strategic moves (from management reshuffles to cost-reduction efforts to new-business launches to geographic expansion) that nearly 600 CEOs made during their first two years in office. Using annualized total returns to shareholders (TRS), we assessed their companies’ performance over the CEOs’ tenure in office. Finally, we analyzed how the moves they made—at least those visible to external observers1 —and the health of their companies when they joined them influenced the performance of those companies.2
The results of this analysis, bolstered by nearly 250 case studies, show that the number and nature of the strategic moves made by CEOs who join well- and poorly performing companies are surprisingly similar. The efficacy of certain moves appears to vary significantly across different groups of companies, however. What’s more, the sheer number of moves seems to make a difference, at least for CEOs who join poorly performing companies. Also, external hires appear to have a greater propensity to act.
These findings have important practical implications for new CEOs and the boards that hire them: focus early on a few bold moves well suited to the context of your company, and recognize the value of the outsider’s perspective—whether or not you are one.
Surprising similarities
The starting point for our analysis was a group of nearly 600 CEOs who left S&P 500 companies from 2004 to 2014 (identified in the annual CEO Transitions report produced by Spencer Stuart, the global executive-search and leadership-consulting firm).3 For each CEO’s first two years, we gathered information—from a range of sources, including company reports, investor presentations, press searches, and McKinsey knowledge assets—on nine strategic moves that chief executives commonly make.
We expected that CEOs taking the helm at poorly performing companies, feeling compelled to do something to improve results, would have a greater propensity to make strategic moves than those who joined well-performing organizations. To learn whether this idea was true, we looked at how each company had been performing relative to its industry counterparts prior to the new CEO’s arrival and then subdivided the results into three categories: well-performing, poorly performing, and stable companies.4 When we reviewed the moves by companies in each of these categories, we found that new CEOs act in similar ways, with a similar frequency, whether they had joined well- or poorly performing organizations. CEOs in different contexts made bold moves—such as M&A, changing the management team, and launching new businesses and products—at roughly the same rate (Exhibit 1).
Exhibit 1
Contextual contrasts
Although new CEOs transitioning into companies that have been performing well and CEOs transitioning into companies that have been performing poorly make similar moves with a similar frequency, that doesn’t mean those moves are equally effective. We measured the performance of companies by excess TRS over a CEO’s tenure. At companies where chief executives made strategic moves early on, we found striking contrasts between organizations that had been performing well when the new CEO took charge and those that had been performing poorly:
Organizational redesign was correlated with significant excess TRS (+1.9 percent) for well-performing companies, but not for low performers.
Strategic reviews were correlated with significant excess TRS (+4.3 percent) for poorly performing companies but were less helpful for companies that had been performing well.
Poorly performing companies enjoyed +0.8 percent TRS when they reshuffled their management teams. But when well-performing companies did so, they destroyed value.5
We recognize that excess TRS CAGR does not prove a causal link; too many other variables, some beyond a CEO’s control, have an influence. But we do find the differences that emerged quite plausible. It stands to reason that troubled companies would enjoy special benefits from major overhauls of management or strategy. Organizational redesigns are challenging for all companies and may, in some cases, be premature for organizations in significant flux.6 Also plausible was the finding that cost-reduction programs appear to improve a company’s TRS relative to those of its counterparts for both well- and poorly performing organizations, though the effect is strongest for weak ones.
A final point on context is that the bar for top performance varies significantly by sector. In some, such as investment services and automotive, the TRS CAGRs of top-performing organizations with new CEOs are more than 16 percent above those of their industry counterparts. In other sectors, such as media and telecommunications, a CEO’s company must outperform the market by only a few percentage points to be classed in the top quintile. The implication is that new CEOs seeking to calibrate their starting points and to prioritize strategic moves should look beyond top-level performance metrics to understand what it will really take to beat the market.
Bold bouncebacks
We also sought to compare the number of major moves that new CEOs made in parallel at well- and poorly performing companies. Well-performing companies had no discernible pattern. But in poorly performing ones, CEOs who made four or more strategic moves at the same time during their first two years achieved an average of 3.6 percent excess annual TRS growth over their tenures. Their less bold counterparts in similarly bad situations could claim just 0.4 percent excess annual TRS growth.
These findings are in line with earlier McKinsey research7 showing how difficult it is to reach higher levels of economic profit without making substantial strategic or operational shifts. That has also been our own experience working with new CEOs on turnarounds.
Outside views
When the time comes to appoint a new CEO, corporate boards face a difficult question: promote an executive from within or choose an outsider? We turned our own lens to this issue and found that the performance of outsiders and insiders differed significantly. Externally appointed CEOs have a greater propensity to act: they were more likely to make six out of the nine strategic moves we examined. The size of the gap in frequency—in other words, the chance an external CEO would make a particular move minus the chance an internal CEO would do the same thing—was much greater for the moves external CEOs opted to make (Exhibit 2).
Exhibit 2
External CEOs almost certainly have a leg up when it comes to bold action. They are generally less encumbered by organizational politics or inertia than their internal counterparts. They may also be more likely to take an outside view of their companies. It’s no coincidence, in our view, that the strategic moves that have the largest gaps in the propensity to act include some of the most far-reaching ones: organizational redesign, for example, or geographic contraction.
Poorly performing companies are more likely to appoint external CEOs, and corporate performance tends to revert to the mean. But the TRS edge of outside hires was substantial: over their tenure, they outperformed their internally promoted counterparts by a margin of more than five to one—on average, a 2.2 percent excess TRS CAGR, compared with 0.4 percent.
Clearly, this performance differential is the result of multiple factors, and it’s important to note that new CEOs need not come from outside companies to cultivate an outsider’s mind-set—or to be successful in their role.8
While our results are averages across multiple organizations and industries, they do suggest a few principles for new CEOs:
Adopt an outsider’s mind-set. On average, external hires appear to make more moves during their early years. This doesn’t mean that insiders are the wrong choice for boards. But it does suggest that it’s critical for insiders to resist legacies or relationships which might slow them down and that approaches which help insiders adopt an outsider’s mind-set have great potential. Equally, there is value in having outsiders who can lean into the boldness that their status naturally encourages. Some executives have done so by creating new ways to assess a company’s performance objectively—for example, by taking the view of a potential acquirer or activist investor9 looking for weak spots that require immediate attention. Others have reset expectations for the annual allocation of resources, changed the leadership model and executive compensation, established an innovation bank, and looked for additional ways to bring an external perspective to the heart of the leadership approach.
Don’t follow the herd. On average, new CEOs make many of the same moves, regardless of starting point. They will do better, however, by carefully considering the context of their companies and leveraging more scientific ways to assess their starting points. For instance, some new CEOs take stock of the economic-profit performance of companies relative to that of their peers and, in light of the starting position, assess the odds that potential moves will pay off.10
When you’re behind, look at the whole playbook. On average, CEOs taking the helm at underperforming companies do better when they make more major strategic moves, not fewer. That doesn’t mean they should try to do everything at once, but it does suggest a bias toward boldness and action. Plan a comprehensive set of moves that will significantly improve your company’s performance, and make sure that you aim high enough.11
New CEOs take the helm with a singular opportunity to shape the companies they lead. The best ones artfully use their own transition into the CEO role to transform their companies. But this window of opportunity doesn’t last long. On average, an inflection point arrives during year three of a CEO’s tenure. At that point, a CEO whose company is underperforming is roughly twice as likely to depart as the CEO of an outperforming one—by far the highest level at any time in a chief executive’s tenure. During this relatively short window, fortune favors the bold.
Words are poor conveyers of meaning. Visualizing what a strategy looks like when successfully executed allows people to help make it a reality.
Words are poor conveyers of meaning. Pictures can be one of the most versatile tools in any leader’s toolbox. Michelangelo started the David in 1501 at the age of 26 and famously said: „I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.“ He was intensely focused on freeing the slumbering figures in the stone.
Similarly, Picasso was able to visualize and capture realism in his painting from a young age, and evolved so immensely throughout his career eventually co-founded the cubist movement.
For many of us, our best „artistic“ moments happen on a napkin sketch at the kitchen table or at a bar. We use images, lines, stars, circles and arrows to first capture an idea. Then share it with someone else. That person’s perspective and questions are what encourage us to revise the sketch and improve its clarity and meaning.
The conversation around our napkin art is what drives the a-ha moment, the excitement. You, as a leader, can use visualization and visual iteration to free the figures (or your people) slumbering within your organization, and drive innumerable a-ha moments.
Here are three ways to do just that:
1. Use visualization to create clear meaning
Pepsi’s leaders used visuals like this to help their people understand the rationale behind their changing business model.
Even the most common terms in strategic plans (words like operational excellence, customer centric, innovation, accountability, high performance, collaboration, vision) suffer from lack of meaning. Instead, define meaning with a picture. Have each member of your team draw a picture of what a high performance team looks like to them.
Compare the pictures. Then create a single image made up of the strongest elements of each person’s initial drawing. As a team, tell one story (accompanied by the picture) of what a high performance team means. Pictures drive common understanding in a way that words often cannot.
2. Use visualization to think in systems
Many of the most complex issues we face are systems issues. It is hard to understand a system unless we can see it. Consider systems such as how we make money, or how to execute our business model. It’s tough to imagine without a diagram.
One well-known manufacturer found itself with hundreds of millions of dollars painfully tied up in working capital. The company tried unsuccessfully to reduce this amount for two years.
Finally it used imagery, pictures and metaphors to illustrate where the money came from, where it went, and how much is left afterwards. The business engaged all of its people to better understand how its economic system worked. Within six months, the company had freed up $300 million of working capital. Pictures make invisible systems tangible.
3. Use visualization to frame a process
Customer acquisition, supply chain, and new product/ process development are just three examples of key business processes. Many process errors occur at the handoff points where clarity of workflow between departments and people is not always clear and co-owned.
Instead, visualize or blueprint a major process step by step and highlight the key handoffs that often become the „process busters“ for the most important processes in your organization.
If Aristotle was right when he said the soul never thinks without a picture, and if everyone is right when they say a picture is worth a thousand words, then a grand visual metaphor for achieving organizational goals can be priceless.
When a picture is clear in our mind’s eye, we can make sense of it. When it is not clear, it is nearly impossible to take action on it. So, it doesn’t have to be the Sistine Chapel ceiling, but every extraordinary leader must know how to paint a picture for their people of where they are and where they want to go.
A fatter McDonalds logo? A caffeinated bitchy Starbucks logo? What would famous logos look like if they really were affected by the products they sell?
“For work, I always spend my time going around the web looking for trends and so on,” said Schembri from his home in Malta. “I was spending my weekend searching for articles and I found one on the food damages. Later on I “met” the McDonald’s logo and immediately I thought that logo was very skinny—it was a paradox, considering how fat people become after eating their products. So I decided to modify it by myself just to laugh. The rest of the story you can imagine.”
That led Schembri to doing a series of 10 logos, like fuzzing out the ABSOLUT vodka logo into how one might see it under the influence of alcohol, to putting the Durex logo inside of a condom.
Schembri’s approach is simple; he says he speaks as a product designer. “When you design something, you always start from the brand to develop a product as close as possible to the company family feeling,” he said. “This means at least 80% of the products in the market need to reflect the brand. What happens is the brands are also usually conditioned by the product image.”
A few others include a Nestle chocolate logo covered in pimples and a Zippo logo charred with smoke. Even though his playful approach can come across as critical, that wasn’t the plan.
“The idea was not to attack the brands but to create something funny,” he said. “Funny things make people smile and when people are happy they are also more inclined to share or comment—this is what this social era is teaching us, to give an emotion is the most important thing, never mind if its positive or negative, the important thing is to make people feel something.”
He feels it’s important to comment on consumption through design. “I think people in general never like to read ‘technical informational stuff’ and the key could be to give them a message, by using a funny way to make them think about something which is very important.”
The series can still be seen as critical of consumption—and specifically the consumption of edible products, like fast food. “Smoking and drinking can be dangerous but not like eating the wrong way,” said Schembri. “A wrong diet can slowly ruin your life.”
But what about Schembri? After making a comment on all the products and their logos, does he eat McDonalds and drink Starbucks coffee? He is, after all, personally connected to the brands. “I’m not addicted,” he said. “But yes, sometimes it’s the fastest way to eat when you travel a lot.”
McKinsey & Company estimates that as much as 45% of the tasks currently performed by people can be automated using existing technologies. If you haven’t made an effort to understand how artificial intelligence will affect your company, now is the time to start.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is gaining momentum across industries with the help of companies such as IBM, Google, and Microsoft. McKinsey & Company estimates that as much as 45% of the tasks currently performed by people can be automated using current technologies — not only low-level rote tasks, but high-level knowledge work as well.
„Our point of view is that there is no function, no industry, almost no role that won’t potentially be affected by this set of technologies — not just every occupation, but every activity within each occupation,“ said Michael Chui, a partner with McKinsey Global Institute, in an interview. „It’s not just automating the labor that’s being done, but the work people do will have to change as well. Understanding how to take advantage of these technologies is going to be critically important.“
Even if your company isn’t actively experimenting with it, AI is finding its way in via online transactions and modern cyber-security systems, among other examples. As AI technologies and their use-cases start to take hold across industries, it’s time for the C-suite to pay attention.
If you haven’t made an effort to understand how AI will affect your company, now is the time to start.
Of course, the impact of AI is not limited to technological change and innovation. It also involves cultural evolution and, in some cases, revolution.
„Today’s leaders have time, as well as a responsibility, to understand what’s ahead of them before acting,“ said Deborah Westphal, CEO of strategic consulting and advisory firm Toffler Associates, in an interview. „It’s important to ask the hard questions, and then, using those insights, determine the best action for an organization.“
In short, AI is going to affect a lot of things in the near future, some of which have not yet been anticipated.
Organizational Intelligence Explodes
Organizations are using AI to solve problems at scale. Michele Goetz, a principal analyst at Forrester Research, estimates that most organizations only take advantage of 10% to 30% of their data, with most of that still being structured, transactional information.
„There’s a difference in what AI technology is going to bring to the organization compared to what other technologies have brought,“ said Goetz, in an interview. „[The C-suite executives] will have better visibility into market opportunities and [become aware of] threats faster. Because they can see their environment more holistically and clearly, they’ll understand partners and customers better. It’s [also] going to change the way employees work.“
First-Mover Advantage
The seeds of what some are calling The Exponential Age were planted long ago, manifesting themselves as exponential increases in processing power, storage capacity, bandwidth utilization, and — as a result of all of that — digital information. The same rule applies to machine learning.
„True AI learns at an exponential rate, evolves and sometimes even rewrites better versions of itself,“ said Walter O’Brien, founder and CEO of Scorpion Computer Services, in an interview. „Because of this factor, the first company to market can also be the first to gather the most training data material — for example, Google’s Voice recognition on cell phones. The lessons learned can be encoded as heuristics or subtle guidelines which become the IP of the company — for example, the definition of Google’s relevance scores. This all creates a barrier to competition.“
Imagine cramming 250 years of human thinking into 90 minutes. Scorpion Computer Services‘ AI platform does that.
Employees May Lead The Charge
AI is creeping into organizations in various ways, online and embedded in enterprise applications. The trend is accelerating, necessitating the C-suite’s attention, since it will at some point noticeably affect corporate culture and business strategy.
„The tipping point for the acceptance and widespread application of AI will not come from the C-suite, but from employees seeing the benefits of AI in their daily lives through applications like intelligent personal assistants and smart devices,“ said Robert DeMaine, lead technology sector analyst at global advisory service company Ernst & Young (EY), in an interview. „Like the [bring your own device] trend, employees will begin to use their own ’smart‘ personal productivity applications in the office, challenging the organization to reassess its policies. AI will change corporate culture from the bottom up, not the top down.“
Organizational Structures Will Shift
Hierarchical organizational structures adversely affect business agility and the ability to drive value from data. Similarly, the lingering barriers between departments and business units limit a company’s ability to derive additional types of value from data because data remains trapped in silos.
„Projectized“ organizations, which operate in a matrix environment, are better positioned to take full advantage of AI systems [than] vertical organizations are,“ said Armen Kherlopian, VP of analytics and research at business process transformation company Genpact, in an interview. „This is because these so-called projectized organizations can more readily gain access to resources and key business channels across the enterprise. Additionally, the levers associated with [business] value do not fit neatly into vertical groups.“
Genpact estimates nearly $400 billion of digital investments were wasted globally in 2015 because of a failure to align expected results throughout organizations.
AI Requires Context
AI systems need a lot of input to produce the appropriate output. Since each company, its culture, and its objectives are unique, AI systems need to be trained on those details in order to assist employees effectively, and to serve the needs of the organization accurately. Unlike traditional analytics systems, which can be built without regard to some of the softer organizational issues, AI requires organizations to be aware of the information they’re bringing in and why they’re bringing it in.
„There is a clear trend towards machines becoming more intelligent so that humans can work more intelligently with them,“ said George Zarkadakis. „Although machines will increasingly gain more autonomy, they will do so within the human space and within human norms and ethics.“
Organizations Have To Adapt
AI automates some tasks and assists with others, both displacing and complementing the work employees do. The C-suite needs to think about how the shifting division of labor can influence the way a company is managed and how it’s organized.
„AI is impacting many aspects of the business, from workflow management to advertising strategy. It can enable executives to make better, faster, and more accurate business decisions to streamline operations, allocate resources, understand market trends, and connect with customers,“ said Robert DeMaine, lead technology sector analyst at EY. „As a result, executives will need to be prepared to address a number of business issues, including reassessing internal operations, a changing workforce, sales and marketing strategies, and shifting investment priorities.“
It’s Not All About Technology
AI is gaining momentum as entrepreneurs, industry behemoths, and companies in-between bring AI products, tools, APIs, and services to market. However, as always, the successful application of technology isn’t simply about technology. It’s about technology, people, and processes.
„A company will be distinguished by how well it works using AI, and increasingly human-digital convergence, rather than by which specific AI technologies it chooses to deploy,“ said Deborah Westphal, CEO of strategic consulting and advisory firm Toffler Associates. „If a company only addresses the technological elements, without addressing the organizational people and process aspects, it may see a short-term gain, but will suffer in the longer term and likely be [sur]passed by those companies that addressed the internal questions first.“
Employee Empowerment Is Necessary
Companies have worked toward democratizing the use of data analytics, enabling managers and employees to make better decisions faster. As the velocity of business continues to accelerate at scale with the help of AI, even more employee empowerment will be necessary.
„AI and greater human-digital convergence magnify the strengths and weaknesses of an existing corporate culture, particularly with respect to how much autonomy is afforded to an organization’s people,“ said Deborah Westphal of Toffler Associates. „Given a faster rate of change and near real-time environment in which to make decisions, an organization’s people who don’t have the necessary autonomy will find that its processes, no matter how good, will break down quickly and its ability to serve its customers [will be] compromised.“
Learn By Doing
Companies successfully using AI make a point of investing in people and talent. They also actively encourage innovation and experimentation so they can learn quickly from mistakes and capitalize on opportunities, hopefully faster than their competitors.
„Hire talent that knows how to do this. Start experimenting with it and learn how to use it,“ said Michael Chui, a partner with McKinsey Global Institute. „I don’t think this is something you plan for five years and then get started. It’s something you learn by doing. When you see something working, the ability to scale is important.“
Expect The Unexpected
AI should not be viewed as simply another technology acquisition, because different things are required to get it up and running successfully. Because the purpose of AI is to provide a superhuman analytic or problem-solving capacity, its training cannot be limited to executing mindlessly on a task.
„You can’t assume that how you train these systems is going to produce the results in the context you want them to be produced,“ said Michele Goetz, a Forrester principal analyst. „There has to be an emotional element [because] if you’re introducing AI in your call center, you don’t want to offend your customers.“
Because AI learns from itself, as well as from its human trainers, unexpected circumstances can arise which may be positive or negative.
Pay Attention To Possibilities
Data-driven companies, including IBM, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Netflix, are constantly pushing the envelope of what’s possible in order to accelerate innovation, differentiate themselves, and, in some cases, cultivate communities that can extend the breadth and depth of AI techniques and use-cases. It’s wise for C-suite executives to understand the kind of value AI can provide, and how that value might help the company achieve its strategic objectives.
„Machine learning techniques are what make a company like Amazon truly successful. Being able to learn from historical data in order to recommend to a given shopper what [she] may buy next is a key differentiator. Yet, the real ‚Deep Learning‘ techniques are still just emerging,“ said Mike Matchett, senior analyst and consultant at storage analysis and consulting firm Taneja Group, in an interview. „Google will not just win ‚Go‘ championships, but will drive cars with [AI], optimize their data center with [AI], and in my opinion, will try to own the global optimization clearing house for the Internet of Things.“
Change Is At Hand
The composition of the C-suite is changing to take better advantage of data. Data-savvy executives are replacing their traditional counterparts, new roles are being created, and leaders generally are finding themselves under pressure to understand the value and impact of data, analytics, and machine learning.
„As the C-suite becomes increasingly filled with analytical minds and more data scientists are hired, a cultural shift naturally takes place. Some of the new, fast-growing executive roles [include] chief data scientist, chief marketing technology officer, [and] chief digital officer. All are aligned with the growing demand and anticipation for AI,“ said David O’Flanagan, CEO and cofounder of cloud platform provider Boxever.
At many levels, non-traditional candidates are displacing traditional roles. For example, the Society of Actuarial Professionals is actively promoting the fact that although most actuaries work in the insurance industry, there are non-traditional employment opportunities, including data analytics and marketing. O’Flanagan expects more members of the workforce to have backgrounds in fields of study such as econometrics.
The cofounder of cosmetics subscription service BirchBox interned at NBC Universal as a summer associate for digital distribution in 2010 — the same year she started her company while an MBA student at Harvard Business School.
The CEO and co-founder of Periscope, the live video-streaming app, completed two internships before starting college in 2007. He was a summer intern at a media agency and then spent a year interning at software company Autodesk before getting a degree in computer science from Stanford University.
The Warby Parker co-founder and co-CEO was an intern for consulting firm McKinsey & Company in the summer of 2009. He started the eyewear company in 2010 while pursuing an MBA at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.
REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
4. Sean Combs
Better known as Puff Daddy, P.Diddy, or just Diddy, the hip-hop artist interned at Uptown Records in New York after dropping out of Howard University. He was eventually fired from the record label and started his own successful venture in 1993, Bad Boy Records.
Chip Somodevilla / Getty
5. Bill Gates
The billionaire and Microsoft founder had an interest in more than just technology from early on. He was a congressional page for his state legislature in Seattle and later a congressional page for the House of Representatives in 1973, at the age of 18.
Diane Bondareff/Invision for Staples/AP
6. Lori Greiner
The Shark Tank and QVC host started out as a journalist before jumping into entrepreneurship. She interned for The Chicago Tribune while still an undergraduate student at Loyola University Chicago.
Taylor Hill/Getty Images
7. Elizabeth Holmes
The controversial founder of Theranos interned at the Genome Institute in Singapore doing research on SARS the summer after her first year at Stanford University. Before completing her sophomore year, she dropped out to work full time on her health-tech startup.
Steve Jennings/Getty
8. Ryan Hoover
The founder of Product Hunt, a site that curates new products, started as a social-media marketing intern at e-gaming site InstantAction while still a student at Oregon University.
He rose to marketing analyst and product manager in 2010 before moving to mobile game startup PlayHaven and later starting his own venture in 2013.
Justin Sullivan / Getty
9. Steve Jobs
The Apple founder had a voracious hunger for knowledge since childhood. At 12, he cold-called Bill Hewlett asking for frequency counterparts. The Hewlett-Packard founder agreed to give him the parts and offered Jobs a summer internship at HP as well.
Paul Morigi/Getty Images
„Shark Tank“ investor Daymond John speaks on stage at the Thurgood Marshall College Fund 27th Annual Awards Gala at the Washington Hilton on November 16, 2015 in Washington, DC.
10. Daymond John
The ‚Shark Tank‘ host and founder of the hip-hop inspired clothing brand FUBU was an apprentice electrician working in the Bronx at 10 years old.
The 73-year-old fashion designer and founder of her namesake fashion label started her career working for Mademoisellemagazine the summer after graduating from Syracuse University in 1964.
Sarah Jacobs
12. Payal Kadakia
In 2002, she started her first career in finance while still an undergraduate at MIT with a summer internship at investment bank J.P. Morgan. She interned at consulting company Monitor Group (now Monitor Deloitte) the following year. It wasn’t until 2011 that Kadakia founded her membership program for fitness classes, originally called Classtivity — now ClassPass.
13. Andy Katz-Mayfield
The co-founder of shaving company Harry’s started his career as a college intern at management consulting firm Bain & Company — where he met co-founder Jeff Raider. He later worked in marketing and business operations for the National Basketball Association. The duo launched Harry’s in 2013.
Getty / Steve Jennings
14. Max Levchin
The serial entrepreneur who co-founded PayPal, social app developer Slide, and online lending startup Affirm started his career in the Soviet Union. At 13, the Kiev native worked at a local college computer lab as a programmer in exchange for access to the computers after hours.
The co-founder of online wedding registry Zola and former senior director at Gilt Groupe was a marketing intern at Yahoo while pursuing her MBA degree at Stanford University. The Singapore-born entrepreneur also worked at an education startup while still an undergraduate at the University of New South Wales in Australia.
16. Kavin Mittal
Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, the founder of Delhi-based messaging app Hike Messenger held several internships while completing a master’s in electrical engineering at Imperial College London.
He was an associate vehicle engineer intern for McLaren Racing, an associate technology manager at Google, and a summer analyst at Goldman Sachs.
AP Photo/Jack Plunkett
17. Elon Musk
The billionaire entrepreneur and Tesla Motors founder held several internships before making it in the big leagues. He was a summer intern at the Bank of Nova Scotia, while still at Queens University in Ontario; an intern at Microsoft Canada; and a video game programmer for Rocket Science Games. Musk later moved to California to start a PhD in physics and interned at Pinnacle Research, an energy storage startup.
Lucas Jackson/Reuters Pictures
Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel.
18. Evan Spiegel
The Snapchat founder and CEO worked as an unpaid intern for Red Bull after high school. Later, while completing a degree in product design at Stanford University, he interned at biotech company Abraxis BioScience and worked at software company Intuit.
Reuters/Philippe Wojazer
19. Kevin Systrom
The Instagram co-founder and CEO worked as a technical and business intern at podcasting platform startup Odeo — created by Evan Williams and Noah Glass, who later cofounded Twitter — where he created the Odeo Widget and „otherwise caused trouble.“ He was still an undergraduate at Stanford University at the time.
Gary Vaynerchuk
20. Gary Vaynerchuk
The VaynerMedia founder and #AskGaryVee Show and DailyVee host started out his career bagging ice for $2 an hour in the basement of his family store, Shopper’s Discount Liquors.
He later transformed it into the successful retailer Wine Library before launching his social-media consulting agency and YouTube series.
Tools and techniques to help companies transform quickly.
Way back when (pick your date), senior executives in large companies had a simple goal for themselves and their organizations: stability. Shareholders wanted little more than predictable earnings growth. Because so many markets were either closed or undeveloped, leaders could deliver on those expectations through annual exercises that offered only modest modifications to the strategic plan. Prices stayed in check; people stayed in their jobs; life was good.
Market transparency, labor mobility, global capital flows, and instantaneous communications have blown that comfortable scenario to smithereens. In most industries — and in almost all companies, from giants on down — heightened global competition has concentrated management’s collective mind on something that, in the past, it happily avoided: change. Successful companies, as Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter told s+b in 1999, develop “a culture that just keeps moving all the time.”
This presents most senior executives with an unfamiliar challenge. In major transformations of large enterprises, they and their advisors conventionally focus their attention on devising the best strategic and tactical plans. But to succeed, they also must have an intimate understanding of the human side of change management — the alignment of the company’s culture, values, people, and behaviors — to encourage the desired results. Plans themselves do not capture value; value is realized only through the sustained, collective actions of the thousands — perhaps the tens of thousands — of employees who are responsible for designing, executing, and living with the changed environment.
Long-term structural transformation has four characteristics: scale (the change affects all or most of the organization), magnitude (it involves significant alterations of the status quo), duration (it lasts for months, if not years), and strategic importance. Yet companies will reap the rewards only when change occurs at the level of the individual employee.
Many senior executives know this and worry about it. When asked what keeps them up at night, CEOs involved in transformation often say they are concerned about how the work force will react, how they can get their team to work together, and how they will be able to lead their people. They also worry about retaining their company’s unique values and sense of identity and about creating a culture of commitment and performance. Leadership teams that fail to plan for the human side of change often find themselves wondering why their best-laid plans have gone awry.
No single methodology fits every company, but there is a set of practices, tools, and techniques that can be adapted to a variety of situations. What follows is a “Top 10” list of guiding principles for change management. Using these as a systematic, comprehensive framework, executives can understand what to expect, how to manage their own personal change, and how to engage the entire organization in the process.
1. Address the “human side” systematically. Any significant transformation creates “people issues.” New leaders will be asked to step up, jobs will be changed, new skills and capabilities must be developed, and employees will be uncertain and resistant. Dealing with these issues on a reactive, case-by-case basis puts speed, morale, and results at risk. A formal approach for managing change — beginning with the leadership team and then engaging key stakeholders and leaders — should be developed early, and adapted often as change moves through the organization. This demands as much data collection and analysis, planning, and implementation discipline as does a redesign of strategy, systems, or processes. The change-management approach should be fully integrated into program design and decision making, both informing and enabling strategic direction. It should be based on a realistic assessment of the organization’s history, readiness, and capacity to change.
2. Start at the top. Because change is inherently unsettling for people at all levels of an organization, when it is on the horizon, all eyes will turn to the CEO and the leadership team for strength, support, and direction. The leaders themselves must embrace the new approaches first, both to challenge and to motivate the rest of the institution. They must speak with one voice and model the desired behaviors. The executive team also needs to understand that, although its public face may be one of unity, it, too, is composed of individuals who are going through stressful times and need to be supported.
Executive teams that work well together are best positioned for success. They are aligned and committed to the direction of change, understand the culture and behaviors the changes intend to introduce, and can model those changes themselves. At one large transportation company, the senior team rolled out an initiative to improve the efficiency and performance of its corporate and field staff before addressing change issues at the officer level. The initiative realized initial cost savings but stalled as employees began to question the leadership team’s vision and commitment. Only after the leadership team went through the process of aligning and committing to the change initiative was the work force able to deliver downstream results.
3. Involve every layer. As transformation programs progress from defining strategy and setting targets to design and implementation, they affect different levels of the organization. Change efforts must include plans for identifying leaders throughout the company and pushing responsibility for design and implementation down, so that change “cascades” through the organization. At each layer of the organization, the leaders who are identified and trained must be aligned to the company’s vision, equipped to execute their specific mission, and motivated to make change happen.
A major multiline insurer with consistently flat earnings decided to change performance and behavior in preparation for going public. The company followed this “cascading leadership” methodology, training and supporting teams at each stage. First, 10 officers set the strategy, vision, and targets. Next, more than 60 senior executives and managers designed the core of the change initiative. Then 500 leaders from the field drove implementation. The structure remained in place throughout the change program, which doubled the company’s earnings far ahead of schedule. This approach is also a superb way for a company to identify its next generation of leadership.
4. Make the formal case. Individuals are inherently rational and will question to what extent change is needed, whether the company is headed in the right direction, and whether they want to commit personally to making change happen. They will look to the leadership for answers. The articulation of a formal case for change and the creation of a written vision statement are invaluable opportunities to create or compel leadership-team alignment.
Three steps should be followed in developing the case: First, confront reality and articulate a convincing need for change. Second, demonstrate faith that the company has a viable future and the leadership to get there. Finally, provide a road map to guide behavior and decision making. Leaders must then customize this message for various internal audiences, describing the pending change in terms that matter to the individuals.
A consumer packaged-goods company experiencing years of steadily declining earnings determined that it needed to significantly restructure its operations — instituting, among other things, a 30 percent work force reduction — to remain competitive. In a series of offsite meetings, the executive team built a brutally honest business case that downsizing was the only way to keep the business viable, and drew on the company’s proud heritage to craft a compelling vision to lead the company forward. By confronting reality and helping employees understand the necessity for change, leaders were able to motivate the organization to follow the new direction in the midst of the largest downsizing in the company’s history. Instead of being shell-shocked and demoralized, those who stayed felt a renewed resolve to help the enterprise advance.
5. Create ownership. Leaders of large change programs must overperform during the transformation and be the zealots who create a critical mass among the work force in favor of change. This requires more than mere buy-in or passive agreement that the direction of change is acceptable. It demands ownership by leaders willing to accept responsibility for making change happen in all of the areas they influence or control. Ownership is often best created by involving people in identifying problems and crafting solutions. It is reinforced by incentives and rewards. These can be tangible (for example, financial compensation) or psychological (for example, camaraderie and a sense of shared destiny).
At a large health-care organization that was moving to a shared-services model for administrative support, the first department to create detailed designs for the new organization was human resources. Its personnel worked with advisors in cross-functional teams for more than six months. But as the designs were being finalized, top departmental executives began to resist the move to implementation. While agreeing that the work was top-notch, the executives realized they hadn’t invested enough individual time in the design process to feel the ownership required to begin implementation. On the basis of their feedback, the process was modified to include a “deep dive.” The departmental executives worked with the design teams to learn more, and get further exposure to changes that would occur. This was the turning point; the transition then happened quickly. It also created a forum for top executives to work as a team, creating a sense of alignment and unity that the group hadn’t felt before.
6. Communicate the message. Too often, change leaders make the mistake of believing that others understand the issues, feel the need to change, and see the new direction as clearly as they do. The best change programs reinforce core messages through regular, timely advice that is both inspirational and practicable. Communications flow in from the bottom and out from the top, and are targeted to provide employees the right information at the right time and to solicit their input and feedback. Often this will require overcommunication through multiple, redundant channels.
In the late 1990s, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, Charles O. Rossotti, had a vision: The IRS could treat taxpayers as customers and turn a feared bureaucracy into a world-class service organization. Getting more than 100,000 employees to think and act differently required more than just systems redesign and process change. IRS leadership designed and executed an ambitious communications program including daily voice mails from the commissioner and his top staff, training sessions, videotapes, newsletters, and town hall meetings that continued through the transformation. Timely, constant, practical communication was at the heart of the program, which brought the IRS’s customer ratings from the lowest in various surveys to its current ranking above the likes of McDonald’s and most airlines.
7. Assess the cultural landscape. Successful change programs pick up speed and intensity as they cascade down, making it critically important that leaders understand and account for culture and behaviors at each level of the organization. Companies often make the mistake of assessing culture either too late or not at all. Thorough cultural diagnostics can assess organizational readiness to change, bring major problems to the surface, identify conflicts, and define factors that can recognize and influence sources of leadership and resistance. These diagnostics identify the core values, beliefs, behaviors, and perceptions that must be taken into account for successful change to occur. They serve as the common baseline for designing essential change elements, such as the new corporate vision, and building the infrastructure and programs needed to drive change.
8. Address culture explicitly. Once the culture is understood, it should be addressed as thoroughly as any other area in a change program. Leaders should be explicit about the culture and underlying behaviors that will best support the new way of doing business, and find opportunities to model and reward those behaviors. This requires developing a baseline, defining an explicit end-state or desired culture, and devising detailed plans to make the transition.
Company culture is an amalgam of shared history, explicit values and beliefs, and common attitudes and behaviors. Change programs can involve creating a culture (in new companies or those built through multiple acquisitions), combining cultures (in mergers or acquisitions of large companies), or reinforcing cultures (in, say, long-established consumer goods or manufacturing companies). Understanding that all companies have a cultural center — the locus of thought, activity, influence, or personal identification — is often an effective way to jump-start culture change.
A consumer goods company with a suite of premium brands determined that business realities demanded a greater focus on profitability and bottom-line accountability. In addition to redesigning metrics and incentives, it developed a plan to systematically change the company’s culture, beginning with marketing, the company’s historical center. It brought the marketing staff into the process early to create enthusiasts for the new philosophy who adapted marketing campaigns, spending plans, and incentive programs to be more accountable. Seeing these culture leaders grab onto the new program, the rest of the company quickly fell in line.
9. Prepare for the unexpected. No change program goes completely according to plan. People react in unexpected ways; areas of anticipated resistance fall away; and the external environment shifts. Effectively managing change requires continual reassessment of its impact and the organization’s willingness and ability to adopt the next wave of transformation. Fed by real data from the field and supported by information and solid decision-making processes, change leaders can then make the adjustments necessary to maintain momentum and drive results.
A leading U.S. health-care company was facing competitive and financial pressures from its inability to react to changes in the marketplace. A diagnosis revealed shortcomings in its organizational structure and governance, and the company decided to implement a new operating model. In the midst of detailed design, a new CEO and leadership team took over. The new team was initially skeptical, but was ultimately convinced that a solid case for change, grounded in facts and supported by the organization at large, existed. Some adjustments were made to the speed and sequence of implementation, but the fundamentals of the new operating model remained unchanged.
10. Speak to the individual. Change is both an institutional journey and a very personal one. People spend many hours each week at work; many think of their colleagues as a second family. Individuals (or teams of individuals) need to know how their work will change, what is expected of them during and after the change program, how they will be measured, and what success or failure will mean for them and those around them. Team leaders should be as honest and explicit as possible. People will react to what they see and hear around them, and need to be involved in the change process. Highly visible rewards, such as promotion, recognition, and bonuses, should be provided as dramatic reinforcement for embracing change. Sanction or removal of people standing in the way of change will reinforce the institution’s commitment.
Most leaders contemplating change know that people matter. It is all too tempting, however, to dwell on the plans and processes, which don’t talk back and don’t respond emotionally, rather than face up to the more difficult and more critical human issues. But mastering the “soft” side of change management needn’t be a mystery.
Author Profiles:
John Jones is a vice president with Booz Allen Hamilton in New York. Mr. Jones is a specialist in organization design, process reengineering, and change management.
DeAnne Aguirre (deanne.aguirre@strategyand.us.pwc.com) is an advisor to executives on organizational topics for Strategy&, PwC’s strategy consulting business, and a principal with PwC US. Based in San Francisco, she specializes in culture, leadership, talent effectiveness, and organizational change management.
Matthew Calderone is a senior associate with Booz Allen Hamilton in the New York Office. He specializes in organization transformation, people issues, and change management.
A useful definition of change management that I use is:
‚the coordination of a structured period of transition from situation A to situation B in order to achieve lasting change within an organization‘.
(BNET Business Dictionary)
To help you in your search for a definition of change management here are others I’ve found to be useful:
The systematic approach and application of knowledge, tools and resources to deal with change. Change management means defining and adopting corporate strategies, structures, procedures and technologies to deal with changes in external conditions and the business environment. SHRM Glossary of Human Resources Terms, http://www.shrm.org.
Change management is the process, tools and techniques to manage the people-side of business change to achieve the required business outcome, and to realize that business change effectively within the social infrastructure of the workplace. Change Management Learning Center
Change Management: activities involved in (1) defining and instilling new values, attitudes, norms, and behaviors within an organization that support new ways of doing work and overcome resistance to change; (2) building consensus among customers and stakeholders on specific changes designed to better meet their needs; and (3) planning, testing, and implementing all aspects of the transition from one organizational structure or business process to another. http://www.gao.gov/special.pubs/bprag/bprgloss.htm
…a systematic approach to dealing with change, both from the perspective of an organization and on the individual level…proactively addressing adapting to change, controlling change, and effecting change. Case Western Reserve University
Change management is a systematic approach to dealing with change, both from the perspective of an organization and on the individual level. searchsmb.com
Change Management is an organized, systematic application of the knowledge, tools, and resources of change that provides organizations with a key process to achieve their business strategy. Lamarsh
The systematic management of a new business model integration into an organization and the ability to adapt this change into the organization so that the transformation enhances the organizational relationships with all its constituents. bitpipe.com
Change Management: the process, tools and techniques to manage the people-side of change processes, to achieve the required outcomes, and to realize the change effectively within individuals, teams, and the wider systems.
Change management is a structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state. The current definition of Change Management includes both organizational change management processes and individual change management models, which together are used to manage the people side of change. Wikipedia
Minimizing resistance to organizational change through involvement of key players and stakeholders. BusinessDictionary.com
Change management is a style of management that aims to encourage organizations and individuals to deal effectively with the changes taking place in their work. English Collins Dictionary
If you’re changing the world, you’re working on important things. You’re excited to get up in the morning. You want to be working on meaningful, impactful projects.
The role of the recruiter is no longer just to find talent. It is to understand and empathize with their applicants, and then help make their experience better.
Netflix believes the best thing they can do for employees is hire only „A“ players to work alongside them. Excellent colleagues trump everything else.
At Pixar he conceived of a program that lets employees choose from 14 classes per week, including ballet, improv, drawing, and painting skills, computer programming, belly dancing, and color theory. This keeps Pixar’s talent learning and growing, thus making better films.
the shift toward culture may be gaining prominence as small businesses struggle to compete for talent with larger counterparts in the areas of plump paychecks and generous benefits packages. They’re beginning to recognize culture for the trump card it is, particularly with millennials used to interactive, stimulating environments.“
We all fear the job that looks great on paper and is a nightmare in practice. What makes some companies great to work for and others a disaster? The answer: good workplace culture. It’s the difference between Google and Yahoo, Costco, and the Department of Corrections. Studies have shown that office culture is one of the most revealing indicators of workplace satisfaction. How can companies be intentional about building and nurturing a good workplace culture?
The short answer: Hire for the right roles. Some people believe that founders are the only ones who can create company culture. It’s true that founders are usually responsible for creating the original values. Consider how Larry Page and Sergey Brin from Google defined the way they wanted their first dozen employees to feel at work. In fact many of the best-loved parts of the culture started before Google had 50 employees.
But as a company grows, there are still opportunities for cultural recalibration. Here are seven roles of people who help define, harness, reflect, and embody culture. Think of them as the new faces of organizational culture.
1. The Gardener
Exemplar: Company Founder(s)
Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin had one intention for Google’s culture: They wanted to create a company that felt like their experience at Stanford’s graduate school. Page and Brin famously hired a chef to cook for Google’s first employees, a perk they had grown to love at Stanford University’s dining halls.
Beyond the free food, Google tried to mimic the actual experience and culture of being a grad student. Page observed, „When you’re a grad student, you can work on whatever you want. And the projects that were really good got a lot of people really wanting to work on them. We’ve taken that learning to Google, and it’s been really, really helpful. If you’re changing the world, you’re working on important things. You’re excited to get up in the morning. You want to be working on meaningful, impactful projects.“
Page and Brin are examples of founders who have helped nurture Google’s culture. Several culture theorists use the term „gardening“ when talking about fostering good workplace culture. A few years ago, the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman spoke with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos about trends in technology and leadership. Friedman wrote that Bezos believes „the job of the company leader is now changing fast. ‘You have to think of yourself not as a designer but as a gardener’—seeding, nurturing, inspiring, cultivating the ideas coming from below, and then making sure people execute them.“
Google has retained many parts of its unique startup culture because Page and Brin understood that the company’s culture needed care and nurturing. The most important thing the gardener can do is to write down the company’s cultural values and share them within the company. Page and Brin wrote Google’s values when the company was just a few years old.
2. The Sage
Exemplar: Venture Capitalist
It was 2012, and Airbnb cofounders Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk had just closed their Series C funding round with investor Peter Thiel. Thiel cofounded PayPal and now runs Palantir Technologies. Thiel is known for his business aptitude, and he frequently writes about his philosophical (and sometimes controversial) viewpoints, including his support of libertarianism and his belief that companies should operate with a flat structure and share company data with all employees. The Airbnb cofounders invited Thiel to their office in San Francisco. To help you picture this scene, it’s important to know that the conference rooms in the Airbnb office are designed to look like real Airbnb apartment listings from cities including New York, Berlin, and Hong Kong. They invited Thiel into the „Berlin Room“ (decorated with ornate baroque wallpaper and a rococo couch) to show him various metrics. In the middle of the conversation, Chesky asked Thiel what his single most important piece of advice for them was.
Thiel is an example of a sage, a wise veteran who has been through the trenches of starting a company before. The most important thing a sage can do is to remind a company to focus on culture. Founders often feel like they have no time to focus on company culture, when it is actually the most important thing they should be focused on. Jerry Colonna, a former venture capitalist at Flatiron Partners and current CEO coach, is known as the Yoda of Silicon Valley. His Yoda wisdom? „Even if you are not intentional about your culture, you will still have one.“
3. The Empathizer
Exemplar: The Recruiter
Let’s say I’ve just stayed at an Airbnb, and I’ve had a great experience using the service. I’m on the website, leaving a review, and I navigate down to the careers page. I already have a job I love, but I’m just curious (we’ve all been there). Within two minutes, I have learned what Airbnb’s cultural values are and specifically what traits and values Airbnb is looking for in candidates. But what really hooks me is learning what it’s like to work at Airbnb. I see that employees get to have „fireside chats“ with industry leaders and musicians like Will.I.Am. I learn what it’s like for employees to work at Airbnb every day. And not just employees, in the generic sense. Specifically, videos on what it’s like for interns, developers, and even moms to work at Airbnb. There’s also a huge section on what the engineering culture is like (hilariously, at nerds.airbnb.com).
Airbnb has carefully mapped out what comes next. Jill Riopelle, head of recruiting, used a design technique called journey mapping to gain empathy for the candidates going through Airbnb’s job application process. She hosted a brainstorming session in the Airbnb lunch room, and asked Airbnb employees to reflect on their own best and worst hiring moments. Next, they brainstormed how they wanted applicants to feel at each point and mapped out the ideal process for both the applicant and the hiring team. Based on these ideas for an „ideal process“ Airbnb made the communication process with applicants more high touch (applicants get more updates, and aren’t wondering when the company will respond). When applicants first apply, they receive a warm acknowledgement message via email. The email „outlines next steps and suggests what candidates could do in the interim (watch company culture videos, read our FAQs, and more).“ Airbnb started offering rejected applicants a chance to get feedback on the phone, which helps applicants stay positive toward the company, even if they didn’t get a job. The result? The company has more people applying a second time around, but with more experience and understanding of which roles would be right for them. It’s as if the recruiter is offering an olive branch, or playing the role of a coach or therapist.
The role of the recruiter is no longer just to find talent. It is to understand and empathize with their applicants, and then help make their experience better.
4. The Talent Guru
Exemplar: HR Manager
In 2009, Netflix published its seminal culture deck. Ostensibly an internal-only document that was slipped out to Slideshare, it immediately drew massive attention from the business world. The person behind this deck was former chief talent officer Patty McCord. McCord was willing to question all the old-school rules of traditional HR. In 2014, Harvard Business Review published McCord’s approach to „reinventing“ human resources. McCord helped Netflix attract top talent by coming up with a new approach: „Hire, reward, and tolerate only fully formed adults.“ Netflix believes the best thing they can do for employees is hire only „A“ players to work alongside them. Excellent colleagues trump everything else.
McCord let go of people whose skills no longer fit with the company. To keep their „A“ players happy, she instituted policies that provided freedom, responsibility, and excellent benefits that are flexible around employees’ needs. Instead of creating benefits packages based on HR rules and policies, McCord created benefits packages based on the company’s values and employees‘ core motivations.
The role of the chief talent officer is no longer to blindly push through outdated HR policies. Instead, talent gurus must reinvent the company’s policies to match the company’s cultural values and employees‘ personal values. Most importantly, talent gurus create the narrative that defines how a company aligns its actions (the what) with its values (the how).
5. The Dean
Exemplar: Learning and Developing Leader
Here’s how Randy Nelson describes himself on his LinkedIn page: „I work with organizations to make the best use of the people, wisdom, and skills they already have, want to attract, and need to develop. I help build amplifiers out of groups, using appropriate and dynamic mixtures of training and education, traditional skills, and innovative technology, flexible programs, and high standards. In addition to increased productivity and effectiveness, hijinks and shenanigans sometimes result.“
Nelson was the dean of Pixar University for 12 years, and now he is the director of Apple University. Nelson’s role is creating professional development programs that not only train employees but actually help educate employees. At Pixar, he conceived of a program that lets employees choose from 14 classes per week, including ballet, improv, drawing, and painting skills, computer programming, belly dancing, and color theory. This keeps Pixar’s talent learning and growing, thus making better films.
Pixar president Ed Catmull writes in his book, Creativity, Inc., that the magic of Pixar University „wasn’t that the class material directly enhanced our employees’ job performance. Instead, there was something about an apprentice lighting technician sitting alongside an experienced animator, who in turn was sitting next to someone who worked in legal or accounting or security—that proved immensely valuable. In the classroom setting, people interacted in a way they didn’t in the workplace. They felt free to be goofy, relaxed, open, vulnerable. Hierarchy did not apply, and as a result, communication thrived. Simply by providing an excuse for us all to toil side by side, humbled by the challenge of sketching a self-portrait or writing computer code or taming a lump of clay, Pixar University changed the culture for the better.“
Deans can play the role of fostering collaboration and creativity. They can help employees regain the mindset of being students again. When we’re learning, we retain a sense of possibility— and that sense of possibility is integral to Pixar’s whimsical success.
6. The Storyteller
Exemplar: Collective Voice of Individual Storytellers
How does Ideo attract talent and clients? Ideo has widely shared stories about the firm’s „special sauce“—its processes, rituals, and values. Ideo’s leaders have published a dozen books, several sets of tools, and countless videos and articles about what it’s like to work at Ideo. You might think that by sharing its proprietary methods Ideo could lose business. Who is to say that another consulting firm won’t just copy what Ideo is doing?
In reality, publishing this information has only attracted more talent and more clients to Ideo. In fact, most of Ideo’s talent and clients come to Ideo, rather than Ideo seeking them out. The company has a very small recruiting budget, and only has a few recruiters (for a firm of 700 people, this is unusual). Instead of constantly attending recruiting fairs, Ideo aims to reach potential talent through stories. Ideo’s currency is in stories. Thus, it understands the tremendous value of having more than just one set of individuals sharing stories. Ideo encourages all employees to be storytellers.
Stories humanize companies. The role of the storyteller is to share his or her company’s inner personality and narrative with the broader world. At Ideo, there is room for many different voices, all sharing their own personal story as it relates to Ideo’s larger narrative. Ideo’s most well-known stories include books by Ideo founder David Kelley and his brother, Tom Kelley, CEO Tim Brown, and partner Jane Fulton Suri. But many other Ideo authors tell stories through videos, articles, case studies, and podcasts, including Fred Dust, David Aycan, Diego Rodriguez, Paul Bennett, Sina Mossayeb, Joe Brown, Roshi Givechi, Ingrid Fetell Lee, Ashlea Powell, and Duane Bray, to name a few. Each story has helped clarify and exemplify Ideo’s collective culture, mindsets, and values.
7. The Questioner
Exemplar: The Diversity Lead
A huge part of a company’s organizational culture is its hiring practices. Trying to increase diversity is like trying to change culture: Both are much harder to do when a company has become a midsize or large company. If a company is intentional about its culture and diversity when it’s small, the value of diversity will be baked into the company’s DNA.
Enter Slack: a company that started thinking about diversity when it was only two years old. Slack is a workplace communication and messaging app used by organizations like the New York Times, NASA, Airbnb, Buzzfeed, and Spotify. Slack was cofounded by four white men, but CEO Stewart Butterfield made diversity a priority once the company reached 40 employees. Slack was growing quickly, and they needed to hire quickly. When companies need to hire quickly, there is a tendency to hire people who come from employee networks, which leads to hiring people who are similar to current employees.
Slack’s vice president for people and policy, Anne Toth, is trying to break that cycle. She released a diversity report, which is unusual for such a young company. At the time of the release in September 2015, the company only had 250 employees. Its first strategy for breaking the cycle is to continuously look at its diversity hiring numbers and then make immediate adjustments, rather than waiting until the end of the year. According to PBS, Toth asks questions like, „Are we promoting women and people of color at the same rate? Are we retaining them at the same rate? Are we paying them equitably? Are they as engaged as other employees across the board?“
Slack’s second strategy is to change the types of questions interviewers ask candidates. Slack has stopped asking questions that produce answers that cannot be objectively evaluated. For example, one problematic question is, „What do you do for fun?“ What a candidate does for fun isn’t relevant to that candidate’s ability to do work. Not only is this question not helpful for an interview, but it can actually lead to unconscious bias.
Conclusion
The richness of these personas is that anyone can adopt them, regardless of specific job function. Any of these approaches would benefit almost any role or organization. For example, applying a gardening approach is a useful mindset that extends beyond founders; many other roles can help build a narrative around how the company puts its values into practice.
What are the takeaway lessons that we can learn from all of these roles, regardless of your own role? One idea is to look for ways to take on one of these faces for an activity, a project, or just a day. Alternatively you can look for ways to engage with your organization at a larger level with a new lens. At Ideo, a group of creative employees came together as „gardeners“ to create a series of videos designed to bring to life each of Ideo’s values. These videos helped plant seeds for new employees to learn about Ideo’s culture in a cinematic way. Regardless of your role, you can play a role in shaping your company’s culture. Anyone can adopt the lens of a dean, questioner, or storyteller in some capacity.
Why do these new faces matter? Workplace culture is becoming increasingly important, and increasingly shaped by a wider group of employees. Steelcase explains that „the shift toward culture may be gaining prominence as small businesses struggle to compete for talent with larger counterparts in the areas of plump paychecks and generous benefits packages. They’re beginning to recognize culture for the trump card it is, particularly with millennials used to interactive, stimulating environments.“ According to a recent study from Workforce Institute and WorkplaceTrends, employees feel they have more influence over culture than ever before (although managers and HR professionals disagree). Millennials, in particular, feel that the power to shape culture lies not with the executive leaders or the HR team but with the people doing the work. It’s clear that in order to attract, retain, and engage the modern workforce, companies need to focus on culture. Thankfully, there are an expanding number of roles and people who can help with this.
We’re curious: What other faces of culture does your organization have? How are your employees adopting these new roles and faces?
![Organizational Intelligence Explodes
Organizations are using AI to solve problems at scale. Michele Goetz, a principal analyst at Forrester Research, estimates that most organizations only take advantage of 10% to 30% of their data, with most of that still being structured, transactional information.
'There's a difference in what AI technology is going to bring to the organization compared to what other technologies have brought,' said Goetz, in an interview. '[The C-suite executives] will have better visibility into market opportunities and [become aware of] threats faster. Because they can see their environment more holistically and clearly, they'll understand partners and customers better. It's [also] going to change the way employees work.'
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![Employees May Lead The Charge
AI is creeping into organizations in various ways, online and embedded in enterprise applications. The trend is accelerating, necessitating the C-suite's attention, since it will at some point noticeably affect corporate culture and business strategy.
'The tipping point for the acceptance and widespread application of AI will not come from the C-suite, but from employees seeing the benefits of AI in their daily lives through applications like intelligent personal assistants and smart devices,' said Robert DeMaine, lead technology sector analyst at global advisory service company Ernst & Young (EY), in an interview. 'Like the [bring your own device] trend, employees will begin to use their own 'smart' personal productivity applications in the office, challenging the organization to reassess its policies. AI will change corporate culture from the bottom up, not the top down.'
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![Organizational Structures Will Shift
Hierarchical organizational structures adversely affect business agility and the ability to drive value from data. Similarly, the lingering barriers between departments and business units limit a company's ability to derive additional types of value from data because data remains trapped in silos.
'Projectized' organizations, which operate in a matrix environment, are better positioned to take full advantage of AI systems [than] vertical organizations are,' said Armen Kherlopian, VP of analytics and research at business process transformation company Genpact, in an interview. 'This is because these so-called projectized organizations can more readily gain access to resources and key business channels across the enterprise. Additionally, the levers associated with [business] value do not fit neatly into vertical groups.'
Genpact estimates nearly $400 billion of digital investments were wasted globally in 2015 because of a failure to align expected results throughout organizations.
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![It's Not All About Technology
AI is gaining momentum as entrepreneurs, industry behemoths, and companies in-between bring AI products, tools, APIs, and services to market. However, as always, the successful application of technology isn't simply about technology. It's about technology, people, and processes.
'A company will be distinguished by how well it works using AI, and increasingly human-digital convergence, rather than by which specific AI technologies it chooses to deploy,' said Deborah Westphal, CEO of strategic consulting and advisory firm Toffler Associates. 'If a company only addresses the technological elements, without addressing the organizational people and process aspects, it may see a short-term gain, but will suffer in the longer term and likely be [sur]passed by those companies that addressed the internal questions first.'
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![Employee Empowerment Is Necessary
Companies have worked toward democratizing the use of data analytics, enabling managers and employees to make better decisions faster. As the velocity of business continues to accelerate at scale with the help of AI, even more employee empowerment will be necessary.
'AI and greater human-digital convergence magnify the strengths and weaknesses of an existing corporate culture, particularly with respect to how much autonomy is afforded to an organization's people,' said Deborah Westphal of Toffler Associates. 'Given a faster rate of change and near real-time environment in which to make decisions, an organization's people who don't have the necessary autonomy will find that its processes, no matter how good, will break down quickly and its ability to serve its customers [will be] compromised.'
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![Expect The Unexpected
AI should not be viewed as simply another technology acquisition, because different things are required to get it up and running successfully. Because the purpose of AI is to provide a superhuman analytic or problem-solving capacity, its training cannot be limited to executing mindlessly on a task.
'You can't assume that how you train these systems is going to produce the results in the context you want them to be produced,' said Michele Goetz, a Forrester principal analyst. 'There has to be an emotional element [because] if you're introducing AI in your call center, you don't want to offend your customers.'
Because AI learns from itself, as well as from its human trainers, unexpected circumstances can arise which may be positive or negative.
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![Pay Attention To Possibilities
Data-driven companies, including IBM, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Netflix, are constantly pushing the envelope of what's possible in order to accelerate innovation, differentiate themselves, and, in some cases, cultivate communities that can extend the breadth and depth of AI techniques and use-cases. It's wise for C-suite executives to understand the kind of value AI can provide, and how that value might help the company achieve its strategic objectives.
'Machine learning techniques are what make a company like Amazon truly successful. Being able to learn from historical data in order to recommend to a given shopper what [she] may buy next is a key differentiator. Yet, the real 'Deep Learning' techniques are still just emerging,' said Mike Matchett, senior analyst and consultant at storage analysis and consulting firm Taneja Group, in an interview. 'Google will not just win 'Go' championships, but will drive cars with [AI], optimize their data center with [AI], and in my opinion, will try to own the global optimization clearing house for the Internet of Things.'
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![Change Is At Hand
The composition of the C-suite is changing to take better advantage of data. Data-savvy executives are replacing their traditional counterparts, new roles are being created, and leaders generally are finding themselves under pressure to understand the value and impact of data, analytics, and machine learning.
'As the C-suite becomes increasingly filled with analytical minds and more data scientists are hired, a cultural shift naturally takes place. Some of the new, fast-growing executive roles [include] chief data scientist, chief marketing technology officer, [and] chief digital officer. All are aligned with the growing demand and anticipation for AI,' said David O'Flanagan, CEO and cofounder of cloud platform provider Boxever.
At many levels, non-traditional candidates are displacing traditional roles. For example, the Society of Actuarial Professionals is actively promoting the fact that although most actuaries work in the insurance industry, there are non-traditional employment opportunities, including data analytics and marketing. O'Flanagan expects more members of the workforce to have backgrounds in fields of study such as econometrics.
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TheIdea – The Innovation Agency 