Offices come with multiple benefits, including enabling colleagues to feed off each other's energy.Having an office space where you have good light and a good environment can just make you feel a little inspired, and enables you to be a bit more brave.

An Ode To The Office

<a href="https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/workforce/hopes-and-fears-2022.html">11% of US workers would prefer to work full-time in the office, and 62% said they’d like to spend at least some</a> time there. More than half (51%) of managers are also confident their <a href="https://www.goodhire.com/resources/articles/the-great-return-manager-survey/">employees would be keen to return to the office full-time</a>.The motivations may vary – some long for the sociability of the office, while others prefer a clear boundary between work and home. Companies will need to work out how to accommodate the needs of people who want to be in offices as well as those who don’t, as they map out their post-pandemic working models.

The Hidden Story: People Want To Come To Office

While many people love the flexibility that remote work brings, for others the loss of an office environment and the social contact it provides can be a major blow.Not having a routine where you get up, leave the house, and socialize and interact with other people throughout the day can massively <a href="http://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220616-is-remote-work-worse-for-wellbeing-than-people-think">affect your mental health</a>. Not to leave your house for long periods of time isn't good for you.

In Favor Of Commuting To Office Daily

In a survey of full-time remote workers, two thirds are concerned about missing out on development opportunities by being based at home.Only 40% of UK workers surveyed by employment and HR specialists are confident that office-based and home-based staff will be rewarded equally in the next 12 months.

Office Equals The Work Mode

Working in an office to learning at a university campus.Your brain automatically switches to a ‘work mode’ when you're surrounded by colleagues who are hard at work. The smell of ink from the printer, the silent tapping on the keyboards, the quiet chatter in the coffee room, all of that truly helps. It's the atmosphere of the place that puts you in the working mood and raises your productivity.

The Campus Analogy

Companies need to create a culture of communication and flexibility to meet employees’ needs. For those businesses requiring people to work remotely, that includes creating more opportunities for staff to connect via company-wide socials, regular check-ins from line managers and turning video calling into the default mode of catching up rather than email.It encourages employees to stay connected and helps reduce loneliness and fatigue.

What Companies Can Do

The loudest voices may be remote-work advocates, but plenty of other people can’t get back to the office fast enough.

Stashed ideas

The people who hate working from home

Professional level cooking is not all about the best recipe or the most innovative presentation. Instead, it is “economy of movement, nice technique and, most important, speed.” Line cooking is the real business of preparing food. It is more about consistency, mindless unvarying repetition. Chefs need the line cook to execute unquestionably without challenge.

Good line cooking

<ol><li>Artists are an "annoying, high-maintenance minority." Their efforts, convinced of their own genius, are often less satisfying to the majority of dinner customers.</li><li>Exiles want to work a normal 9-to-5 or are refugees who prefer work to poverty.</li><li>Mercenaries are people who do it for cash and do it well. Cooking is a craft, and expertly practising your craft is noble, honourable, and satisfying.</li></ol>

The three groups of line cooks

They are “lazy, undisciplined and, worst of all, high-maintenance lot, annoyingly opinionated, possessed of egos requiring constant stroking and tune-ups, and, as members of a privileged and wealthy population, unused to the kind of ‘disrespect’ a busy chief is inclined to dish out.” That is why non-Americans become well paid and sought after by other chefs. They’ve worked their way up from the bottom and know what it’s like to scrape out plates and haul garbage out to the curb.

Bourdain’s opinion of American cooks

A cook’s station and its condition is in a state of readiness. If you let your miss-emplace run down, get dirty and disorganised, you’ll quickly become overwhelmed. A typical mise-en-place contains:<ul><li>Kosher or sea salt</li><li>Crushed black peppercorns</li><li>Ground white pepper</li><li>Fresh breadcrumbs</li><li>Chiffonade parsley</li><li>Blended oil in a wine bottle </li><li>Extra virgin olive oil</li><li>White wine</li><li>Brandy</li><li>Chervil tops in ice water for garnish</li><li>Chive sticks or chopped chives</li><li>Tomato concasse</li><li>Caramelized apple sections</li><li>Garlic confit</li><li>Chopped or slivered garlic</li><li>Chopped shallots</li><li>Softened butter</li><li>Favourite ladles, spoons, tongs, pans, pots</li></ul>

Mise-en-place is a cook’s workstation

<ul><li>When to Eat Out: Tuesday is a great day to eat out. The chef is well-rested after a Sunday or Monday off.</li><li>Be polite to your waiter or waitress: “he could save your life with a raised eyebrow or sigh.”</li><li>The brunch menu is usually made of “old nasty odds and ends”</li><li>Bread has likely been recycled from someone else’s table.</li><li>Good restaurants are clean, cooks and waiters well-groomed, dining room is busy.</li><li>The scrap ends of sirloin that have been pushed constantly to the back of the pile are served to people who want their meats cooked “well done”.</li></ul>

Tips On Eating Out

<ul><li>A decent chef’s knife</li><li>A flexible boning knife. Get one made by Global.</li><li>Pairing knife</li><li>Offset serrated knife</li><li>Plastic Squeeze Bottle</li><li>Toothpicks</li><li>“A thin metal ring, or cut-down section of PVC pipe about an inch and a half tall and laying inches across for pretentious food presentation.</li><li>Pastry bag</li><li>Mandolin</li><li>Pots and pans</li><li>Stockpots, saucepans, and thick-bottomed sauté pans are nice to have</li><li>Ensure they’re heavyweight</li><li>Never wash a non-stick sauté pan. Wipe it clean after each use. Don’t scratch the surface. Use a wooden spoon or non-metallic spatula.</li></ul>

Essential kitchen tools

Good food is most often, simple food. Some of the best cuisine in the world is a matter of three or four good, fresh ingredients.Basic Kitchen Ingredients<ul><li>Shallots - Use for sauces, dressings, and sauté items.</li><li>Butter - In a professional kitchen, it’s almost always the first and last thing in the pan.</li><li>Roasted garlic. Sliver it for pasta. Smash it with the flat but don’t put it through a press.</li><li>Chiffonaded parsley for garnish. </li><li>Stock is the backbone of good cooking.</li><li>Demi-glaze</li><li>Cervil, basil tops, chive sticks, mint tops, etc.</li></ul>

How to cook like a professional

<ul><li>Your chances of seeing a return on your investment are about one in five. </li><li>Some people go into the restaurant business because of ego. Friends encourage you into it because you’re good at hosting dinner parties.</li><li>The most dangerous is getting into the business for love. </li></ul> Smart restaurant owners know from the start what they want. They are capable of doing well, and know how much it will cost them at the outset. They also have a fixed idea of how long they’re willing to lose money before they pull the plug.

Smart restaurant ownership

Runners dress like waiters and are paid out of the house payroll, but their loyalty lies with the chef and the kitchen. This person has dedication and speed, can quickly gauge what’s going on, can carry multiple plates and remember position numbers.A night porter has to clean the restaurant after service, take out the garbage, clean and scrub the insides of the ovens, and hose down the kitchen.

Restaurant roles

<ul><li>Be fully committed.</li><li>Learn Spanish. The backbone of your staff will be speaking this language.</li><li>Don’t steal.</li><li>Always be on time.</li><li>Never make excuses or blame others.</li><li>Lazy, sloppy and slow are bad.</li><li>Assume the worst. Be amused by what you see and suspect.</li><li>Avoid restaurants where the owner’s name is over the door.</li><li>Think about your resume</li><li>Read</li><li>Have a sense of humour.</li></ul>

How to become a chef

Kitchen Confidential is an insider’s look into the life in the culinary trade from Chef Anthony Bourdain.

After twenty-five years of 'sex, drugs, bad behaviour and haute cuisine', chef and novelist Anthony Bourdain has decided to tell all. From his first oyster in the Gironde to his lowly position as a dishwasher in a honky-tonk fish restaurant in Provincetown; from the kitchen of the Rainbow Room atop the Rockefeller Center to drug dealers in the East Village, from Tokyo to Paris and back to New York again, Bourdain's tales of the kitchen are as passionate as they are unpredictable, as shocking as they are funny.

Kitchen Confidential

Upward of 30% of our time at work is spent in meetings. That’s a significant chunk of time, but it shouldn’t be too alarming.After all, meetings are vitally important to the success of any organization. Presidents and their cabinet members decide whether or not to go to war in meetings. CEOs and their board of directors choose whether to expand into new markets or shut down a regional branch in meetings. Meetings are the lifeblood of every organization.Yet the paradox of meetings is that we generally don’t like them. In fact, some of us despise them.

Meetings: The Necessary Evil

<ul><li>Too many meetings are just plain boring. They’re tedious and uninspired.</li><li>The leader is too focused on agendas and ending on time to notice a lack of engagement.</li><li>Most meetings have an aftertaste of being drained.</li><li>The worst part of participating in a mind numbing meeting is the lack of a commensurate return. This contempt festers when we invest time and energy into an activity that drives insufficient clarity or resolution.</li></ul>

Meetings Are Boring And Ineffective

We can sit at attention silently for hours in a dark theatre, but somehow can’t make it through a 30-minute project status meeting without checking our email. What’s the key difference? Drama.Drama is the driving engine of every movie. Over the years, screenwriters have mastered the art of conflict to draw you in and keep you entertained.

Allowing For Drama

The hook is the first key to injecting drama into a meeting. As the leader of the meeting, it behooves you to ensure that you set up the meeting within the first 10 minutes such that your team understands and appreciates what is at stake.You may need to illustrate the consequences of a bad decision, highlight a competitive threat, appeal to the meeting participants’ commitment to a larger mission, or remind them of the impact their decision has on their clients, employees, or society at large.

Injecting Drama: The Hook

An intelligent group of diverse people will seldom agree on issues that matter. It’s natural and productive for disagreement to unfold. Working to resolve those differences and compromise on a unique solution is interesting, productive, and fun.When you avoid these disagreements and stifle debate, you bury resentment and frustration that will fester and manifest itself in other forms of unproductive personal conflict, or politics. You have deprived your team of actively engaging in the meeting and working towards a better solution.As a leader, you must have the courage to mine for conflict.

Mine for Conflict

Sometimes the group in attendance will be reluctant to challenge each other in active debate. One tactic you can use to mine for conflict in this situation is to give real time permission. At the start of the meeting, a leader may announce that the topic is expected to drive conflict, and that meeting members are encouraged to debate and challenge one another.Acknowledging the discomfort associated with conflict, while still challenging the group with your expectation up front, is a great way to diffuse tension and set the meeting up for a healthy and engaging debate.

Give Real-Time Permission

A meeting without contextual structure leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. One generic meeting format is a surefire recipe for ineffective meetings.Without context, some team members will believe that the meeting should have been shorter and focused on tactical day-to-day issues, while others will be upset that the meeting didn’t allow enough time to have a thorough strategic discussion. You cannot satisfy both at the same time. We must be disciplined to structure our meetings with the purpose to cater towards a specific business need.

Providing Context with Structure

The daily check-in is a 5-minute standing meeting where the team gets together in the morning to clarify the actions they intend to take that day. It provides a forum for ensuring nothing falls through the cracks and the team is informed and aligned with what everyone else is doing. You will be amazed by how just 5 minutes in the morning will drastically reduce the number of superfluous emails between team members sent throughout the day.The rules for the Daily Check-In are simple. 5 minutes. Standing. Everyday.

The Daily Five Minute Check-In

The Weekly Tactical is analogous to a weekly staff meeting, but the focus is more disciplined. The Weekly Tactical is focused exclusively on tactical issues of immediate concern.The rules for the Weekly Tactical are as follows: Everyone always attends. It is facilitated with a sense of discipline and structural consistency.

The Weekly Tactical

Lightning Round: A quick, around-the-table reporting session in which everyone communicates their two or three priorities of the week. Each person is given 60 seconds.Progress Review: Next, the group should routinely review the reports on critical business information or metrics. This should take no longer than five minutes.Real-Time Agenda: The agenda for a Weekly Tactical should NOT be set before the meeting, but only after the lightning round and progress review have taken place.

The Three Components Of The Weekly Tactical Meeting

It’s where the executive team grapples with complex and critical issues that will fundamentally influence the direction of the business.The length of the Monthly Strategic will vary depending on the topics addressed. But the rule of thumb says that it will require at least two hours, and should not cover more than two topics.This type of meeting requires a prepared agenda and upfront research or preparation by the team members. It is imperative that the leader mines for conflict in these meetings and that the team engages in constructive debate as they work to arrive at the best solution.

The Monthly Strategic

An effective Quarterly Offsite Review is an opportunity for executives to step away from the immediate issues that normally command their attention, and free them to review the business from a more holistic, long-term perspective.In these offsite meetings, the team may review their strategic direction in light of their competition or industry trends. They may evaluate the strength of their own team or the strength of their organization with a personnel review.

The Quarterly Offsite Review

Meetings are the nexus of all business decisions and activities. We need to remember that meetings are human. They require a personal touch. Rigid rules and agendas will never solve our meeting dilemma. Leaning out the process by eliminating the number of meetings we have won’t help either. Reducing the amount of face to face communication only guarantees more confusion and lack of clarity.It’s with the help of drama and context that leaders stand to reclaim a productive meeting culture.

The Bottom Line

Casey McDaniel had never been so nervous in his life. In just ten minutes, The Meeting, as it would forever be known, would begin. Casey had every reason to believe that his performance over the next two hours would determine the fate of his career, his financial future, and the company he had built from scratch. “How could my life have unraveled so quickly?” he wondered. In his latest page-turning work of business fiction, best-selling author Patrick Lencioni provides readers with another powerful and thought-provoking book, this one centered around a cure for the most painful yet underestimated problem of modern business: bad meetings. And what he suggests is both simple and revolutionary. Casey McDaniel, the founder and CEO of Yip Software, is in the midst of a problem he created, but one he doesn’t know how to solve. And he doesn’t know where or who to turn to for advice. His staff can’t help him; they’re as dumbfounded as he is by their tortuous meetings. Then an unlikely advisor, Will Peterson, enters Casey’s world. When he proposes an unconventional, even radical, approach to solving the meeting problem, Casey is just desperate enough to listen. As in his other books, Lencioni provides a framework for his groundbreaking model, and makes it applicable to the real world. Death by Meeting is nothing short of a blueprint for leaders who want to eliminate waste and frustration among their teams, and create environments of engagement and passion.

Death by Meeting

Managers struggle with strategic planning — to the extent that some experts claim that there’s no such thing. Actually, strategic planning is a very useful part of the toolkit, provided you can avoid the stumbling blocks. <ul><li>The key is to recognize that a strategic plan is not a to-do list but rather a set of ideas that you will certainly change. </li><li>Given that, it’s important to build change into the process. </li><li>Finally, don’t tie your strategic plan too closely to your budget.</li></ul>

Strategic Planning: Key Takeaways

Strategic planning has been branded a “big lie.” One reason is that what really unfolds for an organization is not the same as what was articulated in the strategic plan to begin with. The result “emerges.” In other words, the plan needs updating as time progresses.Another criticism is that what takes place in “strategic” planning isn’t “strategy” at all. Business-as-usual takes over and the creative thinking behind bold business moves becomes sidelined. For these and other reasons strategic planning has long been scheduled for a big “fall.” That prediction was made nearly 30 years ago.

A Big Lie All Along

You need to not only accept volatility but also recognize your inability to come up with the perfect plan. Change your strategy mindset.Even if we thought we’d found the perfect plan, it wouldn’t be the answer for very long. The business’s circumstances are changing so fast.

Stumbling Block 1: Unrealistic Expectations

Don’t get stymied by overemphasizing “planning” in your company’s strategy development.Strategic planning is a way of making sense of an uncertain future. That’s not to say the future will turn out exactly as planned. Nor does it mean no plan at all since even an often-changing plan produces preparedness.

Stumbling Block 2: Wrong Model

Budgeting takes place within the context set by the strategic plan. The point at which the budget is set is the same point at which executive and shareholder expectations are put in place. Now circumstances change. And in a flexible planning environment, so does the strategic plan. Loosen the coupling between budget and plan.

Stumbling Block 3: Budget Override

Strategic planning won’t disappear anytime soon. It’s a way of shaping how to negotiate a changing future. Everyone needs that.A strategic plan is also not a set-and-execute document. Developing it involves a responsive process of continual anticipation. It’s a way to contemplate changing circumstances. Without a plan, you lack preparedness.So, your strategic plan will be “wrong.” That’s ok. Go ahead and make one anyway.

A Plan Is Important Even If We Deviate From It

Managers struggle with strategic planning — to the extent that some experts claim that there’s no such thing. Actually, strategic planning is a very useful part of the toolkit, provided you can avoid the stumbling blocks. The key is to recognize that a strategic plan is not a to-do list but rather a set of ideas that you will certainly change. Given that, it’s important to build change into the process. Finally, don’t tie your strategic plan too closely to your budget.

3 Stumbling Blocks Of Strategic Planning

Transparency has become nothing but a buzzword thrown around in leadership circles. The word’s meaning has been diminished by its indiscriminate—but seemingly essential—use in boardrooms, interviews, and emails.

A Useless Buzzword

A transparent workplace moves beyond the hierarchical companies of the past that thrived on departmental silos and need-to-know, reactive information sharing. Leading with transparency, managers eliminate murky processes and vague expectations that lead to disconnected, ineffective employees.Some cultivate a culture where employees are invested in their own professional outcomes and devoted to the organization’s overall success. This happens when there is a misalignment of incentives.

The Gap: Transparency Vs Visibility

If leaders aren’t projecting transparency, then what are they projecting? And how can managers lead with the openness and honesty needed to foster an engaged workforce?  When many leaders say “transparency,” they mean “visibility.” Too often, managers want a unidirectional look into employees’ activities, especially in remote or hybrid work models. Instead of providing accountability on both sides of the managerial fence, leaders want a single pane of glass view.

Selective, One Way Accountability

A truly transparent approach must go both (actually, all) ways. That means: no one’s goals, targets or outcomes are shrouded in secrecy.Managers should amplify information, particularly the enterprise’s direction and each employee’s role and responsibilities in advancing it forward. Committing to transparency over visibility requires a high degree of leadership vulnerability. Leaders have to share the good news with the bad, own misguided decisions and force hard conversations. At times, they must be willing to admit failure.

The Real Meaning Of Transparency

There’s a reason why high-performing enterprises put a premium on strategic alignment: it’s the vehicle of authentic transparency.  Aligning a workforce starts with a defined organizational vision and mission and a strategy for how the enterprise will reach those goals. These essential elements provide the framework for every role and responsibility within the enterprise. Indeed, even tasks should track back to the clearly articulated overarching organizational goals.

The Solution: Workforce Alignment

The entire workforce should have insight into the goals of other departments and how each employee supports the other in pursuit of a common organizational goal. Such alignment enables valuable cross-functional collaboration and plain old mutual understanding.

Inter-Department Transparency

But before workforces can deliver on strategic alignment, leaders need to communicate the information and make it readily available to every employee.With an actual picture of what success looks like, employees can work toward goal achievement and better deliver on the organizational strategy. And that creates the employee engagement and investment organizations want and the meaning and impact knowledge workers need.

Strategic Alignment

Instead of dropping “transparency” or any other corporate buzzwords, leaders should focus on workforce alignment as a less abstract way to engender mutual trust, inspire employee buy-in and build high-performing teams. A culture rooted in transparency is necessary, but workforce alignment is the best way to get there.

Selective transparency is not transparency.

Gtmhub’s Jenny Herald notes that employees feel the disingenuous use of the word. Just about half of employees don’t believe that their employers are open and upfront.


Transparency is BS. Ditch the buzzword and align your teams this way

"It’s really not that difficult to decipher your innovation culture by looking at leadership behavior, organizational structure, business processes, metrics and incentives, rewards and recognition, and the stories and symbols that reinforce (or inhibit) innovation. By understanding the things that shape norms, values, and behavior, it becomes possible to influence them—and to create a culture of innovation."

Culture is the collection of unwritten rules, norms, and values that influence people’s behavior. When it comes to innovation, especially disruptive innovation, an organization’s culture can be either the rocket fuel or death knell of an organization’s ability to grow and thrive.A culture of innovation is an environment that promotes freethinking, an entrepreneurial spirit, and sustainable value creation at all levels across all functions of an organization.

A Culture of Innovation

Products, services, and even business models become commodities over time. If organizations do not continually invent and reinvent their competitive advantage, they risk being disrupted into obsolescence.Culture is the only sustainable competitive advantage. It’s the invisible secret sauce that drives employee engagement, innovation, business growth, and continuous reinvention.

Competitive Advantage Is Temporary

Every organization must unlock its innovation culture in its own unique way. What works for Google and Apple might actually kill innovation in other companies. Effective best practices must be artfully adapted to the unique personality of your organization.

Unlocking The Right Kind of Innovation Culture

"For many companies, coming up with ideas often isn’t the problem. The challenge is turning ideas into something real that delivers an impact. This is where metrics can make the difference between no ideas, lots of ideas that go nowhere, and real innovation."

<ul><li>Metrics give us direction. Leaders set goals and measure progress; often this focus on easily measured metrics like speed, efficiency, accuracy, or profits. </li><li>Innovative behaviors are difficult to quantify, and most companies don’t have innovation metrics. What we decide to measure determines what we get. If we don’t measure innovation, we won’t get it.</li><li>To create an innovative culture we need to promote and measure inventive behaviors in leadership, employees, and customers. Establishing these metrics is a process unique to each company, there are no standards. </li></ul>

Measure What’s Meaningful

Measuring profitability and the support of your customers is important, but it doesn’t tell you what specific behaviors will lead to more profits and more satisfied clients in the future. Your metrics need to define the end goal and encourage innovative practices. Innovation metrics that define the end goal may include the number of clients who trade up to next-generation products or services, the business generated in new customer segments, or revenue from new markets. Metrics like these define goals, identify opportunities and promote innovation.

Define the Outputs

Once you have defined the end goal, you need to give people specific goals to reach our larger goals. Every employee should be aware of the importance they play in achieving the company’s goals and how they share responsibility for innovation. <ul><li>Communicate trust and acceptance of new ideas. Policy and business practices should align with words that encourage trust, learning, creativity, and innovation. </li><li>On a leadership level, you should set goals that support innovation by focusing on the future instead of on daily operations.</li></ul>

Define the Inputs

"Measuring innovation also involves setting specific goals that will help fuel the process—the things you do internally to help you hit your targets. When you give people targets, they take on responsibility for hitting them. And in the process, they produce experiences and success stories that then reinforce more experiences. The goal is to jump-start this kind of positive feedback loop."

Here’s a model that any organization can apply to set up its definition of innovation and take a portfolio approach to allocate its time and effort:<ul><li>70% Incremental innovation: small changes in processes, products, services, strategies, etc.</li><li>20% Sustaining innovation: major advances in the core business for existing customers and markets.</li><li>10% Disruptive innovation: breakthroughs that change the game (new biz models, products, services).</li></ul>Connecting your innovation intent to all three types of innovation helps link innovation to both the current and future direction of the organization.

The Three Types of Innovation

Here are some examples of innovation intent statements that can do just that: <ul><li>Finance: To deliver financial insight that drives strategic business decisions, new market opportunities, and the innovation process.</li><li>HR: To recruit and grow top talent that shapes the future of our company and that transforms the industry.</li><li>IT: To provide tools and services that deliver insight for employees that accelerate innovation and optimize the customer experience.</li></ul>

Every Function Should Have Its Own Definition of Innovation

Without the focus an innovation intent provides, people tend to think innovation belongs to someone else (such as Research and Development) and assume it isn’t part of their job. The lack of a thoughtfully defined innovation intent also makes it difficult for leaders to create specific programs, processes, metrics, and rewards that shape values and behavior, because specific expectations and measures of success usually aren’t clear beyond the call for “more ideas.”

How Innovation Intent Shapes Culture

** WINNER of BEST BUSINESS BOOK, International Book Awards ** Every purchased copy of the book includes access to the free downloadable Invisible Advantage Toolkit! The Invisible Advantage shows how any organization can create a culture of innovation--an environment that promotes freethinking, an entrepreneurial spirit, and sustainable value creation at all levels and across all functions. This book isn't just about the importance of an innovation culture, nor how to emulate the ''innovation untouchables'' like Google and Apple. It's a complete tool kit that anyone can use to uncover the unique, hidden drivers of innovation and then introduce fresh, intuitive approaches tailored to their organization's specific environment. To get the free Invisible Advantage Toolkit, email your receipt to toolkit@leapfrogging.com to get a download link that contains: 1. Free Video: Download the Culture as Competitive Advantage video to help make the business case for creating a culture of innovation. 2. Free Questionnaire: Get proprietary survey questions to assess your current culture of innovation. 3. Free Interview Guide: Get proven interview questions to engage key stakeholders in 1:1 discussions to assess culture and build momentum for change. 4. Free PDF Poster: Get a Large Format PDF Poster that you can print to help facilitate working sessions to design your own culture of innovation. 5. Free PowerPoint Template: Use the PowerPoint Template to define and communicate your current-state and future-state culture of innovation.

The Invisible Advantage

Building a strong and healthy workplace culture takes time, consistent action, a commitment to communication, transparency, and buy-in from everyone at all layers of the organization. Many organizations believe having a mission, vision and value statement will bring their culture to life. Thus, they remain hands-off with the expectation their employees and formal statements will do the work for them. This is how toxic cultures manifest and spiral out of control resulting in a publicized scandal that destroys a company’s reputation.

Workplace Culture: What It Isn't

Workplace culture needs to be prioritized from the very beginning and worked on every single day. It’s not exclusive to a select few individuals or departments rather to everyone from contract workers, hourly, full-time, entry-level, board members and even the C-suite. Toxic or healthy, a culture sets the tone of how individuals communicate, interact and work as well as the beliefs, behaviours and values they embody.

Prioritizing Culture

Fear-based cultures are more common than one may think.In a fear-based environment:<ul><li>Mistakes are punished and good deeds go unnoticed</li><li>Employees live in fear of whether or not they’ll have a job tomorrow</li><li>Rumours are more credible than what’s communicated by leadership</li><li>Employees are afraid to speak up and tell the truth for fear of retaliation or being ignored</li><li>Management relies on threats and humiliation</li><li>Little to no support from management</li><li>Unclear goals and expectations</li></ul>

Myth 1: A Fear Based Culture Creates Instant Results

Employees who live in fear of being reprimanded are less likely to take risks and be inspired to think out-of-the-box. Consequently, this keeps the company from achieving great outcomes and gaining a competitive edge. Encouraging employees to take risks has a far greater outcome than embodying a fear-based culture.

Beyond Fear

Free food, discounted gym memberships and beer taps don’t make a culture.A healthy workplace culture focuses on:<ul><li>creating a sense of belonging and a diverse environment</li><li>improving teamwork</li><li>investing in employee development</li><li>empowering employees to bring their whole selves to work</li><li>celebrating differences</li><li>having difficult conversations to bring awareness to tough topics and social issues</li><li>consistent communication</li><li>creating a safe space for employees to feel comfortable speaking up about issues and concerns</li></ul>

Myth 2: It’s Only About Social Events And Fun Perks

The biggest misconception is that the HR department is in charge of creating and maintaining the workplace culture. While HR plays a significant role, it’s the responsibility of everyone to keep it going. Leadership especially plays a major role in influencing and inspiring others to buy-in. Employees can tell if their commitment is authentic or only empty words.Also, when employees notice that C-suite members are exempt from the same rules and policies in which others are being held accountable, a disconnect is created and loyalty is lost.

Myth 3: It Needs To Come From HR Not Leadership

Creating a culture without involving your employees is just as bad as winging it and hoping it turns out okay. Culture cannot be created artificially and it doesn’t happen overnight. It requires consistent attention, nurturing and evaluation. More importantly, employees need to be included in the process. Otherwise, initiatives and benefits are implemented that don’t make sense for the culture.To prevent wasted time and money, companies should seek feedback from their workers and take the time to learn what they want.

Myth 4: Culture Doesn’t Require A Lot Of Effort

The simple act of recognizing and showing appreciation to your workers goes a long way. When employees are appreciated, their happiness at work increases and they’re much more likely to go above and beyond for their employer.Employers often shy away from celebrating employee wins and milestones because they feel it’s useless. However, doing so empowers workers to be more productive, innovative and inspires them to produce great work.

Myth 5: Celebrating Milestones Is A Waste Of Time And Money

Many companies overlook the importance of hiring until it’s too late and they’re not happy with the culture that transpired. Each individual plays a monumental role in shaping the culture. One wrong hire can poison an entire workplace. Without a strategy, companies risk making unethical, discriminatory and poor hiring decisions.Putting the responsibility on employees to build a culture is unfair and promotes division. It’s up to HR and the hiring team to ask the right questions to make sure the individual will add to the culture.

Myth 6: Culture Forms On Its Own From The People Hired

Toxic or healthy, a culture sets the tone of how individuals communicate, interact and work as well as the beliefs, behaviors and values they embody.

6 Common Misconceptions About Workplace Culture That Are Hurting Your Employee Experience

Companies that build great organisational cultures know what elements make the culture unique. When employees receive regular recognition, they feel encouraged to speak up, and team members feel like they belong. There are five elements to a great organisational culture:<ul><li>Recognition</li><li>Values</li><li>Employee voice</li><li>Leadership</li><li>Belonging</li></ul>

Great organisational cultures are built

Recognition makes team members feel supported and part of the team. Employees want to feel that their contribution matters. When they do, they engage more and are more productive. Some organisations limit recognition to special occasions, but this fails to impact employees. Instead, instil a culture of frequent monetary and social recognition.

Recognition is the biggest driver of employee engagement

The core part of your organisational culture should be your company values. Start by laying out your company values. Use easy language that everyone can understand. Then encourage team members to live those values. Train leaders and managers how to show your company values in their actions and the team will follow.

Values

Employees should feel comfortable in expressing their opinions. Then employers can analyse the feedback and apply the insights to improve business outcomes. Ensure managers are able to encourage and accept feedback while also providing confidential channels for anonymous feedback. Then use the information to spot opportunities and guide managers to act on the results.

Employee voice

The leadership will define the business. If your employees believe in the leadership, you're set up for success. But if there's a disconnect, employees may disengage or leave. Ensure your leaders are examples in all areas of your company, such as recognition and wellness, and emphasize the need to maintain open communication.

Leadership

Developing a sense of belonging needs a varied approach. <ul><li>Welcome employees with a great onboarding process and align them with your culture.</li><li>Take the time to encourage honest feedback and incorporate it. This helps team members feel known.</li><li>Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) should be a priority.</li><li>Employees should be empowered to do their best work and recognised for it. They should be coached rather than micromanaged.</li><li>Create strong relationships with team building activities and create an accepting and psychologically safe working environment.</li></ul>

Belonging

Find out the 6 elements of organizational culture your company should prioritize to make the employee experience exceptional.

5 elements of a great organizational culture

Alison Wynn, JoAnne Wehner, and Katherine Weisshaar worked on a study to show that there are bigger biases in the evaluations of people's personalities, future potential, and mentions of exceptionalism.  Their study used a code that allows them to identify the employee behaviors that managers noticed and the ones they rated highly, hence its name "viewing and valuing social cognitive processing model".

The Study of Gender Biased Performance Reviews

A poorly defined evaluation process opens the door for gender biases to shape performance evaluations. It could have managers use a criteria with no clarity on how to measure them so they then draw from cultural ideas about the different kinds of people.  Although supervisores notice women's behaviors in the workplace when conforming to gender conventions, it does not result in rewards, often it's noted in their review that they need to improve their technical skills -- making them suffer professionally.

Ill-defined protocols perpetuate bias

There are plenty of areas where women have an advantage over men and the workplace is one part of that. Other studies show that managers view men who have only part-time work experience as less hirable than women with the same experience due to gender expectations.  In addition to that, researchers found that managers hesitate to overtly criticize and use harsh language women even when needed while men receive them.

Gender biases hurt men too

Although gender biases continue to persist in the workplace, it would be helpful in reducing gender biases if:<ul><li>we tie evaluations to performance</li><li>the evaluationprocess if transparent</li><li>hold managers accountable for reviews that apply gender biases in reviews</li><li>managers having a clear criteria for evaluating employees and this criteria be applied to all employees</li></ul>

Fixing gender biases in performance evaluations

The Language of Gender Bias in Performance Reviews

It’s raining meteors this monsoon, with the Perseid Meteor Shower starting mid-July and peaking around the end of August.
Considered the best meteor shower of the year by NASA, The Perseid Meteor Shower is best seen from the countryside, away from light pollution.

Coming Up At The Sky Above You

The illusion in the sky is that the Perseus Constellation is streaming the shooting stars, but it is just a way to pinpoint the location of the meteors in the sky.This meteor shower is an annual affair from mid of July till the end of August, with up to a hundred meteors per hour.

The Shooting Stars From Perseus

The Perseid meteor shower, one of the year's most spectacular skywatching events, is active from Wednesday to Aug. 24. Here's how to see the shooting stars.

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Alexandria Q.
@aleqq

The people who hate working from home

Kitchen Confidential

Death by Meeting

3 Stumbling Blocks Of Strategic Planning

Transparency is BS. Ditch the buzzword and align your teams this way

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

Alexandria Q.@aleqq

The people who hate working from home

Kitchen Confidential

Death by Meeting

3 Stumbling Blocks Of Strategic Planning

Transparency is BS. Ditch the buzzword and align your teams this way

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Alexandria Q.
@aleqq