Decision Toolbox Blog: Blog/News

By Kim Shepherd, Chief Executive Officer
And Tom Brennan, Senior Writer

Ignore Culture at Your Peril, Part 4 of 4

In the first part of this series I explained why I’m passionate about convincing people that culture is as important as any other aspect of a successful business. Then I described 10 characteristics of great culture. Now that we’re at the last post, my message is this: great culture starts with the WHY. I know, I’m ignoring my own advice. Let’s just say I saved the best for last.

Passion lives in the WHY, and passion motivates people to be exceptional. Author Simon Sinek gave a great presentation at TEDxPugetSound in 2009. He says that too many organizations start with the more tangible things, like the WHAT (products or services) or the HOW (logistics, business models, etc.). You can watch the video at here.

But those who excel, those who defy expectations, start with the WHY. One example is Apple. There are other computer companies who have access to the same resources, but Apple continues to innovate in ways that others don’t. Apple doesn’t just lead markets, they create them. That’s because their business model puts the WHY at the core and then develops the HOW and WHAT out of the WHY.

WHY Do You Do It?

The WHY is not to make a profit. That’s a result, Sinek says. The WHY is deeper. Think about your own situation. WHY do you work where you do? I’m not asking why you became a recruiter or a .NET developer or a financial analyst. True, you probably chose your profession because of some passion. You didn’t discover the WHY after you’d gotten your degree, right?

But you can be any of those things at any company. WHY did you bring your passion to your current employer? Do they start with the WHY? Is their WHY aligned with yours? If so, I’ll bet dimes to dollars that you’re very happy with your job, and your employer is very happy with your performance.

Show Me the Money Passion

For me it’s a lot of things, and money isn’t all that high on the list. More important are things like the fact that I’m having a blast. I don’t have to do it — I get to do it. Another reason: at Decision Toolbox (DT), I can give back to the community. In my life that’s not separate from work. At DT we don’t believe in work / life balance, we believe in life balance. It’s all integrated. For example, my work with organizations like Girls, Inc. and Working Wardrobes allows me to help people improve the quality of their lives, and it’s also a great way to network.

We shared Sinek’s WHY presentation at our last nationwide all-staff gathering, and then asked all our people to write down their WHYs. Not one of them wrote, “It pays the bills.” Here’s a sampling:

• A Recruiter: “Love DT’s culture, flexibility and support.”
• A Director: “I want to feel like I am part of something that makes a difference.”
• Recruiter: “I’m in control.”
• Media specialist: “It is very important for me to spend time with my children, and DT allows me the flexibility to attend football, basketball and other activities.”
• Recruiter: “Recruiting with a conscience.”
• Writer: “I get to partner with DT, not be an employee.”
• Recruiter: “Single parent . . . DT changed our lives. I’m never leaving.”

If that last one didn’t move you, you probably should have an EKG. With that kind of passion — and the WHY at the core — DT has been thriving for 20 years, even through the ups and downs that caused others in our space to close their doors. I hope is your #1 takeaway is this: manage your P&L rationally, but manage your culture passionately.

Follow Kim on Twitter and LinkedIn.

By Kim Shepherd, Chief Executive Officer
And Tom Brennan, Senior Writer

Ignore Culture at Your Peril, Part 3

A lot of business leaders think culture is squishy. They don’t like squishy. They’re more comfortable with data in spreadsheet rectangles. But culture makes up MORE of the foundation of a successful business than sticks and bricks do. Employees don’t come in to your company every day because of the paint on the walls or the water in the cooler. They come because of culture.

As I wrote in my last post, culture is the framework employees use to create meaning and purpose, and THAT’S what motivates people to give their best. We’re proactive about that framework at Decision Toolbox (DT), and it helps us put some nice numbers in those spreadsheet rectangles. As a continuation of my last post, here are five more ways to create great culture.

1. Great culture hires right then lets go. In recruiting, take your time, hire people who are smarter than you, and then get the h#!! out of the way. Forbes contributor Mike Myatt wrote an interesting piece saying that competency-based leadership models are incomplete. In addition to competency, you need to cultivate your people’s “ability to align purpose, vision, values, character and commitment” with competency.

2. Great culture builds exponential energy. It’s hard to stay disgruntled when all around you are shooting off fireworks. Those A players you hired? They help shape your culture. They set the bar high, motivate their colleagues and generate momentum with great ideas. Your culture should encourage people to rev the company’s engines, and reward them for doing so.

3. Great culture welcomes like family. Invest in onboarding and you’ll see the returns. When a new team member starts at DT, we send a giant fortune cookie that says, “We predict a very bright future for you at Decision Toolbox.” We let them know they have the freshest eyes, and that makes them one of the most important people on our team . . . please tell us what you see that’s missing or inefficient or redundant. Not only does that set the stage for them to engage and participate, but it also sends a loud and clear message that they are valued.

4. Great culture isn’t afraid to make mistakes. Everyone screws up. If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough. But if you think about it, there’s great power in screw-ups. If you screw up good and then share it, no one will EVER screw up that way again. So at DT we celebrate the screw-ups with a Boo-Boo of the Month award, a Starbucks gift card for the biggest mistake. That helps ensure that people come to management for help in smoothing over any rough spots, and it gives everyone a chance to learn.

5. Great culture PIECEs it together. Passion, Integrity, Ethics, Compassion and Empathy — you need them. I wrote in my last post that you build your business with your head, but create culture with your heart. It can be hard to switch back and forth, so why not integrate them? At DT every dollar of our advertising budget goes to support nonprofit organizations. It gives us visibility, allows for networking and, most importantly, lets us give back to our community. We also have a unique channel partner Nonprofit Relief Program. The channel partner chooses a nonprofit and DT donates 8% of our first TWO years of revenue with a company brought in by that channel partner. The channel partner gets revenue, DT gets business and — most importantly again — we all get to give back.

Hopefully that squishiness is starting to look a lot more substantial. In the final post of this series, coming up, I’ll delve deeper into the WHY: why people work for your company, and how the quality of WHY separates great companies from merely good ones.

Follow Kim on Twitter and LinkedIn.

By Kim Shepherd, Chief Executive Officer
And Tom Brennan, Senior Writer

Ignore Culture at Your Peril, Part 2

Every CEO says “People are our most important resource,” but a lot of them don’t really believe it. So I’m singlehandedly trying to make up for that by being the Chief Evangelical Officer for culture. In Part 1 of this series I argued that executives shouldn’t ignore culture. Heck, “not ignoring” isn’t enough!

Culture is not an afterthought; it’s the heart and soul of a great company. At Decision Toolbox (DT) we treat our culture like a plant that needs regular attention and care, and it makes a HUGE difference in our success. So what does great culture look like? Here are five characteristics, and in my next post I’ll share five more.

1. Great culture starts with respect. You build your business with your head, but you create culture with your heart. Employees give us almost half of their waking hours. Ask your heart this (and tell it to be honest): shouldn’t those be some of the best hours of their lives? Your culture should respect every employee, acknowledge their potential and recognize their contributions. It’s the framework that employees use to create meaning and purpose, for better or worse. What meaning and purpose are your people creating?

2. Great culture always respects time. At DT mutual respect is strong and that means not wasting one second of anyone’s time. If someone is late to a DT meeting, they have to sing. In front of the whole group. But it’s not a punishment, it’s fun. And guess what? People are hardly ever late. We recently had an all-staff phone conference starting at 11 AM and all 93 people who were supposed to be on the call were there at 10:59.

3. Great culture isn’t afraid to flatten the hierarchy. As CEO, my client is my staff. Their clients are our customers, but my job to set them up for success as they take care of those customers. Another example: our proprietary ATS, Recruiting Machine, was designed by our fabulous IT team. But from day one, our Recruiters have been kicking the tires and providing feedback. They don’t adapt to the technology, the technology adapts to them. And it’s a great system because of that.

4. Great culture is fluent in tribal-speak. Did you read Terri Davis’ recent blogs on managing perception in communication? Good stuff. At DT we want our people’s perception to be that we’re ALL part of the tribe, insiders who share a common vision and a common language. Here’s a real email I sent to my Chief Recruiting Officer:

“Our CP just landed a chunky monkey. Please send the Green Flag, iceberg it, and flag the cockroach committee. Dog has fleas.”

If you know what that means, welcome to the tribe. ‘Nuff said.

5. Great culture remembers to re-apply often. You can’t just slap a little culture on and then spend all day under the fluorescent sun of Planet Cubicle. You’ll get burned. You have to keep slathering it on. At our last nationwide All-Staff meeting we asked everyone to write down why they work at DT. It was part of a culture-building exercise specific to that meeting, but we’re still using to reapply our culture. Every Wednesday we send out “Humpday Why” emails, sharing a couple of co-workers’ Whys with the team. The Whys include things like, “Recruiting with a conscience” and “I get to be a partner with DT, not an employee.” Meaning and purpose, baby!

The goal is to create the best environment possible, the kind of environment YOU want to work in. And it’s more than just good sense, it’s the right thing to do. Next post: five MORE characteristics of great culture. Absolutely free. How’s that for a chunky monkey?

By Kim Shepherd, Chief Executive Officer
And Tom Brennan, Senior Writer

Part 1: Culture is the Essential Glue

I present to a lot of different groups and when I say, “Culture is the essential glue,” I get a lot of deer-in-the-headlights looks. Even people in our own business, in recruiting and HR, push culture down the priority list. Hey, you can always put up some posters, right? Like that cat hanging from a tree saying, “Hang in there!”

But it IS the essential glue. It’s just as important as your marketing strategy or R&D or the ERP system you choose. At Decision Toolbox our culture is so robust that it helps shape our business plan. Over the next four posts, I’ll give you my take on why culture is so important, share 10 characteristics of great culture, and explain why culture is all about putting “the why” first.

Love ‘Em and Keep ‘Em

To me, a great culture is about having fun and loving your work, but I’ll lead off with a reason that resonates with most people: it can save you money. How? It’s crucial to retaining your top talent, and replacing talent is expensive. A 2008 SHRM study estimates that the total cost, including recruiting, training and loss of productivity, could run as high as “90% to 200% of an employee’s annual salary.” Ouch.

At Decision Toolbox we put culture first and it works. We have a lot of people who have been with us for at least 5 years, and quite a few who have 8 years with us (by the way, if you’re keeping score, the national average is 4.6 years, according to the US Bureau of Labor). All but one of my C-level execs have been with DT at least 10 years.

Enough numbers. HOW does great culture keep people on your team? At DT it does so by helping people love their work, and I’ll give you an example.

At our last nationwide All-Staff gathering, we asked everyone to write down why they work at DT. Similar reasons came up again and again: they love our flexible virtual model (everyone works from a home office) and the fact that they are more like partners than employees. But one of the biggest reasons is that working at DT means being part of something special and unique. Jay Barnett, our founder, boils it down to this: “Recruitment is too important not to be done really well. Work is too time consuming to not be loved.”

Respecting Me Respecting You

I could write about DT all day, but there are other great examples out there. If you shop at Trader Joe’s, you’ve probably noticed how upbeat their people are. They’re bagging my groceries and they’re smiling and having fun . . . not like the baggers at some other places. That enthusiasm makes us respect them, don’t you think?

It’s because Trader Joe’s culture is unique and goes deeper than Hawaiian shirts. It helps their people respect themselves by helping them feel they are part of something that’s bigger than themselves and something that’s unique. TJ’s culture even comes across in their marketing: while other grocers promote freshness or low prices, Trader Joe’s promotes quirkiness and fun.

The story’s similar at Starbucks. The average tenure of their Baristas is six years! They make coffee for a living and earn something close to minimum wage, but they LOVE their jobs. I’ve ordered lattes at other coffee houses without really noticing the person behind the counter, but Starbucks Baristas stand out. I naturally respect them because they clearly respect themselves, and respect comes from the culture.

Great Culture is Intentional

In successful companies, culture is intentional. It makes sense to recruit people who already have strong self-respect, for example, but a lot of companies seem to be good at deflating that quality. DT, TJ’s and Starbucks deliberately pump it up. You take an intentional approach to managing your P&L or controlling inventory, right? You owe it to yourself — and your employees — to do the same for culture.

Next up in this series: five characteristics of great culture (hint: hanging posters is not one of them. Goodbye, kitty!).

By Terri Davis, Director of Client Relations And Tom Brennan, Senior Writer

Part 4:    Turning negatives into choices

This is the final installment in a gripping, big-budget four-part mini-series on the importance of shaping the perception of the people we communicate with. The ideas apply to just about any communication or interaction: between a company and its market, a provider and a client, manager and employee, and others.

The plot so far: in Part 1 I made a case for taking a deliberate approach to shaping perception. Part 2 outlined a strategy for ensuring that, in any interaction, the other person comes away with a positive perception. In part 3 I focused in on laying the groundwork for making it easier to handle interactions involving the negative. But let’s kick it up a notch: what if we could transform negatives into choices?

Choice is Powerful

Choice gives us greater control over outcomes. More significantly, having no choice means having no power, so even when the choices aren’t ideal, having some options is better than having none. As we head into an example, imagine a scale measuring emotional response to any given situation, with +10 indicating “I am delighted” and 0 indicating “This is some serious %^()$#!+.”

Now imagine you are managing a project, at a recruiting firm, to build a pipeline of Customer Service Reps for a client. Up until now the project hasn’t delivered the number of qualified, available and interested candidates that you — and the client — expected. Based on candidate input and market research, you’re 98% sure that low pay is the issue. You schedule a conversation with the client.

Zero or Hero?

You could start the conversation by saying, “You’ll never fill these roles unless you offer more money.” But that’s almost guaranteed to ensure the client registers a 0 on the response scale. And the client’s perception is likely to be that (1) you can’t get the job done and (2) you’re not helping them achieve their goals.

That approach essentially eliminates choices. What if you share your insights and then recommend some options? The client’s emotional response may not be +10, but it should be higher than 0 . . . and the client’s perception should be that you (1) know what you’re talking about and (2) have good ideas to help them achieve their goals. Borrowing from a recent post by Decision Toolbox (DT) Founder Jay Barnett, you might even turn the negative into a selling point. How? Recommend an approach that markets these openings as an opportunity for candidates with little or no experience to gain the skills and launch a new career.

Another example: DT’s leadership team is proactive about managing our employees’ perception of us; for one thing, we want our people to know that we value their ideas. In fact, Recruiting Machine (RM), our proprietary ATS / CRM / ERP (I could go on) system, has been shaped over the years by input from the recruiters and clients who use it.

Like Those Ideas

We have a “wish list” of almost 600 suggestions to improve RM, contributed by the team, and the list is visible to everyone. Until recently, the IT team prioritized the suggestions. But it’s hard to feel your ideas are valued if your suggestion is #377. So we put a “Like” button next to every suggestion in the list. Employees now have the option of actively campaigning to drum up support among their peers (“If you want a quick snapshot of where you are with each project, vote for this tool!”).

My key message here is to be deliberate about how you communicate and manage perception. You’ve seen it before in DT’s blogs, but it’s worth repeating: Design what you want, or deal with what you get.

By Terri Davis, Director of Client Relations
And Tom Brennan, Senior Writer

Part 3: Managing Perception when the Negative Arises

In Part 1 of this blog series, I made a case for deliberately managing perception in interactions — between recruiter and hiring manager, vendor and customer, and others. In any interaction each party comes away with a perception of the other as well as of the relationship, the outcome and more. In Part 2 I outlined a strategy for managing perception to ensure your interactions result in the kind of perception you want. To see some examples of how NOT to manage interactions, see Nicole Cox’s blog series on the Top Ten Mistakes Hiring Managers and Candidates Make During the Courtship Period.

Like it or not, a lot of our interactions involve negative situations, such as resolving a disagreement or critiquing performance. Many of us are not comfortable in these interactions, whether we’re delivering or receiving the negative. However, managing perception may be even more important in these kinds of interactions than in the positive ones. In How to Say Anything to Anyone: A Guide to Building Business Relationships That Really Work, Shari Harley stresses the importance of establishing direct, candid relationships BEFORE those situations come up.

According to Harley, your partners “can work with you, around you, or against you.” Which one applies to you? It depends on your relationships, and communication is an important part of any relationship. In Part 1 I stated that effective communication is the result of deliberate acts. Harley offers four steps — acts — to lay the groundwork for direct and candid relationships. And that should make it easier to handle interactions involving the negative.

(Per)Mission: Possible

Even when things are spelled out in a job description or service agreement, it’s worth spending a few minutes with the relationship partner to ensure both sides are on the same page. Three of the steps probably are familiar to you: clarify the (1) goals, (2) roles and (3) expectations. The fourth however, is a little unique, so I’d like to spend some time with it: (4) permission to provide feedback.

Harley recommends that we explicitly give and request permission to provide feedback, even if it is negative. In our culture we tend to walk on eggshells, keeping negative feedback to ourselves. That may be courteous, but is it helpful? David Harder, founder of Inspired Work, Inc. and a long-time friend of DT, says “Irritation is a great motivator for change.” Of course, neither David nor I advocate that you deliberately irritate your colleagues or clients (save it for your kids!).

Give It? Get It? Good.

Early in any relationship, then, let the other person know you value their feedback. You might say to a client, “Let me be candid and say that there are going to be challenges along the way. We’re not perfect. But as long as you provide me with feedback, we should work well together.”

At the same time, ask the other person for permission to provide feedback. You might tell a direct report, “I know there will be positives and negatives as our relationship moves forward. Do I have your permission to give you feedback, even when it is negative?” This might take a direct report by surprise; as the boss, you have that authority, but consider the direct report’s perception after you’ve asked permission.

Crack-a-Lackin’ Eggshells

There always will be those who take offense to feedback, but most people appreciate it. Feedback is the data we need to “course-correct” and guide our careers, our business results and our lives. It’s also like food for relationships: healthy input means healthy relationships. You can walk on eggshells, but if you never crack any, you’ll never enjoy an omelet!

In my next post I will perform some daring acts of pretzel logic and explore how to turn negatives into options.

In case you missed our previous blog posts here and here, Kim Shepherd recently spoke to a sold out audience of over 100 members of the National Association of Women Business Owners – Orange County on a topic that is near and dear to her heart – the importance of building cultural glue.

In her trademark storytelling style sprinkled with humor and packed with real-life examples, Kim shared thought provoking insights for building strong culture such as:

• The importance of respect, and what we can all learn from a grocery bagger
• What is tribal speak, and why you should learn it
• Why embracing the concept of the virtual workforce is recommended, even if you don’t have one
• How to build exponential energy with just a small spark
• Why you should celebrate mistakes
• What is your Why, and why you should have one

We’ve assembled a collection of clips from the speech to share with you below.  Hope you enjoy!

By Terri Davis, Director of Client Relations
And Tom Brennan, Senior Writer

Part 2: F.I.R.E.: A Hot Framework for Managing Perception

I’ve been writing about the importance of perception in communication and interactions — so important, in fact, that we should be proactive about managing that perception. This notion applies to how companies are perceived by customers, how individuals are perceived by peers, how managers are perceived by direct reports . . . almost any interaction you can think of. In my previous post I suggested that the first step is asking yourself, “how do I want to be perceived in this interaction?”

Now let’s get down to some practical tactics. In Beyond the Obvious: Killer Questions That Spark Game-Changing Innovation, Phil McKinney describes a framework for approaching innovation. I’ve had success applying it to innovating around perception management. He calls his framework F.I.R.E., which stands for focus, ideation, ranking and execution.

Light it Up

Before the interaction, try to focus to clarify three key points: (1) the issues that need to be addressed, (2) the outcomes you want to achieve, and (3) the perception you want the other person to take away from the conversation. That perception impacts where the relationship stands and how the other person judges you, your efforts, your expertise, etc.

During the interaction, ideate (don’t you love that word? Still, it is pretty close to “idiot,” so be careful!) so that you can come up with a solution that works for everyone. This might include brainstorming new product ideas, huddling with peers to share insights, interviewing a job candidate to explore goodness of fit, or other interactions. Ideate with the other person, of course, but you also need to do some internal ideation.

Stay on Your Toes

Before, during and after the conversation, rank ideas, issues and objectives to keep priorities straight. Yes, it is a lot of thinking during a conversation, but it helps to keep your eye on the prize, especially because the prize can change. For example, suppose you’re a recruiter trying to tempt a candidate with excellent benefits. If the candidate says that her hot button is not benefits but the opportunity to make an impact, then you need to re-rank.

That leads to the final tactic: during and after the interaction, execute on these tactics, adjusting as you focus, ideate and rank. If you keep pushing benefits after the candidate has told you something else is more important, she might perceive that this position is not a good fit . . . the exact opposite of your goal!

#1 Takeaway: Positive Perception

If you’ve followed the advice, every interaction should end with the other person coming away with a positive perception. Maybe they feel good about the solution the two of you came up with, or about your collaborative approach. Of course, not all interactions end in a win-win, but even if you have the unfortunate task of terminating an employee, you can shape the employee’s perception of the interaction — they may not be happy, but they can come away feeling that you treated them with respect.

A good example of the kind of situation that deserves this deliberate focus is when a recruiter, let’s call her Betty, wants to ensure not only that hiring managers (HMs) perceive Betty as a value-adding partner, but also that HMs engage as active partners in the recruitment process. DT Founder Jay Barnett recently posted a series on the importance of recruiting hiring managers as partners, and F.I.R.E is a great guideline for challenging conversations, such as convincing a HM to loosen up on requirements.

In Part 3 I’ll take on the challenge of managing perception when there are negative issues involved.

Kim Shepherd has been a television journalist, a director of entertainment for Club Med, an entrepreneur, and a CEO, but the latest addition to her eclectic skill set is a stint as a…runway model?

Yes, you read that right.  On Mar. 15, actress Susan Claassen hosted a runway and luncheon event at Westin South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, Calif. “Edith Head to Toe: Runway Styles that Really Work” to benefit Working Wardrobes, an Orange County based non-profit dedicated to helping men and women overcome difficult life challenges and successfully re-enter the workplace.

Shepherd, as the Chairwoman of Working Wardrobes, donned her heels and hit the runway.  All in the name of a good cause, of course. Here you can see her discussing her strategy for striking a pose with Claassen, as her alter ego Edith Head, Academy Award winning favorite costume designer of many prominent stars during Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Work it, Kim!

The members of the National Association of Women Business Owners – Orange County received a treat this week at a sold out speaking event featuring Decision Toolbox’s own CEO Kim Shepherd.  As mentioned in our previous blog post, Kim shared insights on why and how to successfully build cultural glue in their organizations.

Here are some photos from the event, courtesy of Julie Diebolt Price Photography.  A fun time was had by all!

Pictured from Left to Right are Linda Smith Union Bank, VP and Branch Manager; Kim Shepherd, CEO Decision Toolbox; Jennifer Heinly, J&J Consulting; Barri Carian, Carian Consulting

Kim Shepherd speaks to NAWBO-OC

Kim shares a fun story with members of NAWBO-OC