Develop a Strong Business Culture to Effectively Identify, Satisfy and Retain the Most Talented Employees

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Develop a Strong Business Culture to Effectively Identify, Satisfy and Retain the Most Talented Employees

August 10th, 2020 Mostafa Sayyadi Leave a comment

Culture is the resource that builds upon the foundations that helps organizations prosper. Edgar Schein, one of the prominent management scholars, describes corporate culture as a pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration that has worked well enough to be considered valid, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems. Corporate culture is reflected in shared assumptions, symbols, beliefs, values, and norms that specify how employees understand problems and appropriately react to them.

Executives can manifest themselves as change agents who manipulate corporate culture with the aim of improving knowledge management. Organizational culture includes three dimensions of collaboration, trust, and learning. Executives can facilitate collaboration by developing relationships in organizations. Executive can contribute to the cultural aspect of trust, through considering both employee’s individual interests and the company’s essential needs. Also, executives identify the individual needs of their employees and develop a learning culture by intellectually stimulating them to generate new knowledge and share it with others. Executives can, therefore, highly manipulate a firm’s culture to conform to the needs and expectations of strategic goals and objectives.

Knowledge management is enhanced by providing further opportunities and information sharing. Executives can enhance knowledge sharing by providing access to knowledge, and stimulate new ideas and knowledge generation, transfer an individual’s knowledge to other members and departments and improve knowledge capturing, storing, and accumulating, aiming at achieving organizational goals. Executives can propel knowledge sharing in the company to generate more innovative ideas and solutions for new and demanding issues that come up constantly in our hypercompetitive economic environment. In doing this, executives can build a strong corporate culture to share experiences gained by imitating, observing, and practicing.

Executives have found that corporate culture impacts knowledge management through facilitating knowledge sharing throughout all levels of the organization. Corporate culture focuses on defining and recognizing core knowledge areas, sharing organizational knowledge, and scanning for new knowledge to keep the quality of their product or services continuously improving. Therefore, corporate culture is an essential requirement of corporate leaning by which knowledge is shared among people.

Particularly, the three cultural aspects of collaboration, trust, and learning play a critical role in enhancing the effectiveness of corporate leaning. For example, collaboration provides a shared understanding of the current issues and problems among employees, which helps to generate new ideas within organizations. Trust towards their leader’s decisions is a necessary precursor to creating new knowledge. The key is for executives to inculcate a culture of trust and transparency of knowledge sharing within organizations so that information can be found and used instantaneously.

Moreover, the amount of time spent learning is positively related to the amount of knowledge gained, shared, and implemented. Therefore, executives can reshape, and in some cases, manipulate corporate culture to facilitate corporate leaning within departmental and business units of organizations. Executives can now see how corporate culture constitutes the foundation of a supportive workplace to share and synthesize organizational knowledge and subsequently limit the gaps between success and possible failure.

Furthermore, executives have found that knowledge management as modifying behaviors resulting in newer insight and knowledge. Changing the existing behaviors of followers generating new knowledge, and is, therefore, a key factor in improving a firm’s competitive advantage. This is a fact but it happens through the way talented employees are managed by executives. Why is this, you may ask? Because knowledge management is a process that leads to acquiring new insights and knowledge, and potentially to correct sub-optimal or ineffective actions and behaviors that cause companies to spiral out of control.

Executives need to first support this approach for knowledge management because talent management in organizations is the ultimate outcome of the knowledge management by which knowledge is created and acquired. This is done by connecting knowledge with others that want to share successes and failures. This leads to converting acquired knowledge into organizational processes and activities to improve or discontinue processes that either contribute or inhibit success. Many executives see talent management as an outcome of various factors such as knowledge management and a climate inspiring innovation and creativity within organizations. However, a more comprehensive approach needs to be introduced to put together the various aspects of potential contributions to talent management.

Knowledge management requires various processes such as knowledge acquisition, collaboration, dissemination, sharing, generation, and storage to acquire knowledge within an organization. A question remains, how can we establish the relationship between knowledge management and talent management? Well, there are scholars that highlight the strategic role of knowledge management in enhancing the effectiveness of talent management. For example, one scholar by the name of Bayyavarapu in the University of Western Ontario suggests a learning-based approach to talent management to understand how knowledge management is related to various practices of talent management. More importantly, the effective implementation of talent management requires the sharing of best practices and experiences among employees.

Knowledge management improves organizational processes by sharing knowledge that can increase both follower engagement and personal development. Executives can, in fact, enhance knowledge management when they would like to concentrate on sharing knowledge to empower followers in order to build a learning climate. Most importantly, in knowledge management, knowledge is managed through “learning by doing” which is more engaging. Executives around the globe realize that they play a critical role to achieve the best learning climate and for improving knowledge management that creates learning and growing the organization.

Engaging followers and getting them to participate in knowledge management activities is an important part of talent management. Thus, knowledge management positively impacts the effectiveness of talent management through facilitating knowledge sharing by all executives and employees of the organization. Shared knowledge can contribute to the development of a learning organization in which people continuously grow and develop both personally and professionally. Executives require people who are engaged and inspired to meet the demands of day-to-day operations.

For now, executives can develop conducive learning climates that foster collaboration and knowledge management in which knowledge is shared and exploited. Unshared knowledge is like lettuce in the refrigerator—if eaten and shared, everyone enjoys it, if not, it could go bad and not have any use. Executives found that shared knowledge enables companies to improve knowledge management, and that talent management is highly dependent on stimulating continuous learning within organizations. Thus, executives play a crucial role in elevating talent management by enhancing knowledge management to empower employees to pursue organizational goals.

The following figure provides a snapshot of how executives steering corporate culture enhance knowledge management and talent management.

In conclusion, insufficient consideration of the impact of knowledge management on the organization’s talent management has been also exposed. Thus, I suggest that scholars take our ideas and continue to conduct research using executives as the focal point so that academic scholarship can meet the needs of managerial implications at the higher echelons of organizations worldwide.

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Mostafa Sayyadi works with senior business leaders to effectively develop innovation in companies and helps companies—from start-ups to the Fortune 100—succeed by improving the effectiveness of their leaders. He is a business book author and a long-time contributor to business publications and his work has been featured in top-flight business publications.

Archives, Executive Education, Global Trade Daily

How Global Leaders Formulate and Execute Corporate Strategies to Meet External Challenges

August 2nd, 2020 Mostafa Sayyadi Leave a comment

Any organizations have plans going well into the future. Strategic goals spanning five to fifteen years while short-term goals are more tactical and are just as important. Two prominent scholars that are well known in the Academy of Management – one of the largest leadership and management organizations in the world, by the names of Charles Hofer and Dan Schendel see strategy as a “fundamental pattern of present and planned resource deployments and environmental interactions that indicates how the organization will achieve its objectives.” Another scholar, Kenneth Andrew, describes strategy as a pattern of decisions and plans which are directed at interacting with the external and internal environment and effectively and efficiently allocating capabilities to achieve organizational objectives.

There are different typologies of strategies and one typology of these existing typologies that can create better results for companies when compared to others. Much of what I share comes from my experience as a senior management consultant in San Diego, California.

In my experience working with more than 30 Fortune 100 companies, executives consider the four dimensions of corporate strategy including analysis, pro-activeness, defensiveness, and futurity. Analysis strategy is defined, by Venkatraman, as “the tendency to search for problems and their root causes and generates better alternatives to solve them.” When executives analyze strategy, they can create more knowledge and find the best solution using a problematic search of various options. This type of strategy also stimulates companies to apply information systems in their decision-making processes in order to investigate various alternatives and options. Also, executives analyze strategic milestones to meet the goals of employee development.

An analysis strategy can develop opportunities for employee development by assessing current situations in detail. This strategy provides new and more innovative solutions for organizational problems as they arise. To develop this strategy, executives can particularly contribute to the development of a workplace in which there is/are:

-Emphasis on effective coordination among different functional areas.

-Extensive use of information systems to support decision making.

-Comprehensive analysis undertaken when confronted with an important decision.

-Use of planning techniques.

-Effective deployment of management information and control systems.

-Use of manpower planning and performance appraisal of senior managers.

Pro-activeness is a strategy element used by executives who take a proactive approach to search for better positions in the business environment. As executives use the pro-activeness strategy which refers to finding new opportunities and proactively responding to current challenges in external environments, they can enhance their span of control. To cultivate a pro-activeness strategy, executives can contribute to the development of a workplace in which there is/are:

-The constant search for new opportunities.

-Attempt to introduce new brands or products in the market.

-The constant search for businesses that can be acquired.

-More effective expansion of capacities when compared to our competitors.

-Strategic elimination of those operations that are no longer profitable in later stages of life cycles.

Defensiveness recommends undertaking defensive behaviors that manifest themselves in enhancing efficiency and in cutting costs while maintaining continuous budget-analysis and break-even points. Executives can take an offensive approach and in this case, they employ a defensive strategy. A defensive strategy utilizes modifications in order to efficiently and effectively use organizational resources, decrease costs, and control operational risk. Some executives feel that a defensive strategy, while necessary, sets a negative connotation on their span of control. A defensiveness strategic approach, in fact, enhances organizational learning through reusing commercial knowledge. To foster this strategy, executives can particularly contribute to the development of a workplace in which there is/are:

-Regular modifications to manufacturing/service technology.

-Use cost control systems for monitoring performance.

-Use of current management techniques to ensure that we move smoothly at the required level.

-Emphasis on product/service quality through the use of work improvement teams.

Futurity is reflected in the degree to which the strategic decision-making process takes a two-way approach—-an emphasis on both long-term effectiveness and shorter-term efficiency concurrently. Executives use a futurity strategy to expand the growth opportunities available to companies to close the gap between success and failure. Futurity strategy implements basic studies to identify and actively respond to the changes that occurred in the external environment and provides better outcomes. To create a futurity strategy, executives can contribute to the development of a workplace in which there is/are:

-Specific criteria used for resource allocation which generally reflect short-term considerations.

-Emphasis on basic research to provide us with a competitive edge for the future.

-Key indicators of operations forecasted.

-Formal tracking of significant and general trends.

-Regular analyses of critical issues.

This article summarizes my experience as a senior management consultant and is about getting the information needed to be successful in the right hands of executives worldwide. The key for executives is that by channeling organizational processes into corporate strategy, and employing a supportive strategy that executives can continue to prosper.

Success is, therefore, dependent upon how executives formulate and execute corporate strategy. Executives can now see how they can cultivate an effective corporate strategy, which can enable superior performance to achieve business objectives and satisfy careers.

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Archives, Global Trade Daily, Special Reports

5 Reasons Company Leaders Resist Needed Change – Even During This Crisis

July 16th, 2020 Edwin Bosso Leave a comment

The thought of change can be scary, even more so during the type of crisis we’re experiencing now with the COVID-19 pandemic. Although there are business leaders who are already implementing change in response to the challenging economic and operational landscape, many others are not.

“Sometimes the writing is on the wall and organizations are triggered to change,” says Edwin Bosso, Founder and CEO of Myrtle Consulting Group and the ForbesBooks author of 6,000 Dreams: The Leader’s Guide To A Successful Business Transformation Journey. “In fact, members of the organization often are keenly aware that something needs to be done. However, despite that, management does not act, and the cost of inertia can be high.”

According to Bosso, there are five reasons why leaders resist change and, as a consequence, struggle to move their company forward:

They confuse important versus urgent. Leaders sometimes confuse the terms important and urgent. “Important issues are those that do not necessarily have an explicit deadline, like urgent issues, but can effectively have some impact, large or small, on a business,” Bosso says. “The confusion sets in when owners and managers spend too much time putting out fires rather than planning. For example, the company may know that it is important to upgrade its operations. But it doesn’t become urgent until later on when the company looks at the output of its competitors that have completed transformation projects and have become a lot more cost-competitive.”

They lack courage/leadership abilities. Successfully initiating and executing a change process involves numerous leadership skills. “It can be intimidating taking on such a challenge that, to some leaders, may seem like moving a mountain,” Bosso says. “Others are better prepared to take risks, confront reality, envision a better way, make plans, and then act on those plans to lead a change.”

They misalign the incentives. The incentive to change or transform organizations can be misaligned with the incentives of people who are in charge of leading those transformations. “Misalignment of personal incentives can cause us not to act, even when we know it’s the best thing for the company,” Bosso says. “When we are in line for a promotion and higher pay, we certainly don’t want to take on risks that can potentially work against us.”

They lack support and/or resources. Not being afforded the requisite tools or the consensus for necessary transformation can leave a leader feeling powerless. “This is a set of obstacles that many leaders run into,” Bosso says. “The powerlessness can come from the lack of company means, organizational backing, human capital and resources to support the cost of a transformation. After a while, they run out of energy, or time, to make the case.”

They lack a method. It’s not uncommon for leaders to know the difference between where their company is and where it could be, but they don’t know how to proceed. “In such situations, leaders often freeze up and put off the impending need to change, or they approach it through trial and error,” Bosso says. “Having a methodology is beneficial when taking on such an effort. Some leaders take the time and effort to learn what needs to be done, while others bring in experienced people to provide a method for leading a smooth and successful transformation.”

According to Bosso, leaders must understand that there will never be a perfect time for change, but also that often the right change only happens if they force the issue.

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Edwin Bosso, the ForbesBooks author of 6,000 Dreams: The Leader’s Guide To A Successful Business Transformation Journey, is the founder/CEO of Myrtle Consulting Group (www.myrtlegroup.com). Bosso specializes in operations improvement and change management, and his project history includes work for major brands such as Heineken, Texas Petrochemicals, T-Mobile, Anheuser-Busch, Rohm and Haas, Campbells Soup Company, Kellogg’s and Morton Salt. A wide range of assignments has taken him throughout Asia, Europe, and North America. He completed his undergraduate education at The Hague Polytechnic in the Netherlands and earned an MBA from Rice University in Houston.

Archives, Global Trade Daily, Special Reports

Want Employees To Love What They Do? Here Are 4 Ways To Get There.

October 14th, 2019 Shawn Burcham Leave a comment

Bosses might want to take notice if employees view their jobs as “the daily grind.”

A disgruntled and disengaged workforce can undermine production and harm customer relations, while a happy, engaged workforce does the opposite.

“If you take care of your employees, they will be better prepared and far more motivated to take care of your customers,” says Shawn Burcham (www.shawnburcham.com), founder and CEO of PFSbrands and author of Keeping Score with GRITT: Straight Talk Strategies for Success.

“Ideally, you want employees who think and act like owners.”

Burcham says one of the first steps toward cultivating such an environment is to communicate openly with employees. And that may be even more crucial today because newer generations entering the workforce want to know the “why” of what they are doing.

“Millennials value truth and honesty,” Burcham says. “They also are looking for personal growth, education, and continuous learning. If companies want to scale, then they need to embrace millennials and work to create an environment where they are engaged.”

He suggests four ways leaders can help their employees love what they do:

Have fun at work. People spend more hours at their jobs than doing just about anything else, Burcham says, so the time might as well be enjoyable rather than drudgery. Some simple ways people can have fun at work include cracking jokes, decorating their work areas, or celebrating employee birthdays. For Burcham, the work itself is fun. “As a leader, I want to provide an environment conducive to having fun,” he says. “I also let our employees know that it is up to them to make having fun a reality within their job and their department.”

Coach them up. All employees must be willing to learn at a pace consistent with the company’s growth, Burcham says. “Usually, we hire people with a skillset that enables them to scale with us,” he says. “Sometimes, though, we have employees who are challenged to ‘make the leap’ with us. When that happens, we work with them to find a role on our team where they can excel. We want to provide them with every opportunity and tool we can to help them adapt.”

Maintain a positive attitude. Most successful people exude a positive attitude, are optimistic, and have a never-quit personality, Burcham says. “Who wants to work in an environment of doom and gloom?” he asks. One way to cultivate an upbeat workplace is to strive to hire only “A” players, people who want to be the best at their jobs and take pride in making positive contributions. “But anyone can be or become an A player,” Burcham says. “It simply revolves around having a positive attitude along with a desire to learn and constantly improve.”

Show appreciation. Employees want to know that the bosses – and their coworkers – appreciate them, so it’s important to find ways to show them. Burcham says at his company new hires are welcomed by dozens of emails from their team members before they even arrive for the first day of work. When they start, two or three dozen employees gather to greet them with a high five. “For our team, it’s all about gratitude,” Burcham says. “It’s not, ‘I have to go to work today.’ It’s, ‘I get to go to work today.’ ”

“I think the real key,” Burcham says, “is to hire people who are already motivated and then put them in an environment where they can excel. Engaged employees are fun to work with and they will go the extra mile for their customers as well as their peers.

Shawn Burcham (www.shawnburcham.com), author of Keeping Score with GRITT: Straight Talk Strategies for Success, is the founder & CEO of PFSbrands, which he and his wife, Julie, started out of their home in 1998. The company has over 1,500 branded foodservice locations across 40 states and is best known for their Champs Chicken franchise brand which was started in 1999. Prior to starting PFSbrands, Burcham spent five years with a Fortune 100 company, Mid-America Dairymen (now Dairy Farmers of America). He also worked for three years as a Regional Sales Manager for a midwest Chester’s Fried chicken distributor.

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Business Betrayals: Protecting Yourself From Workplace Treachery

August 8th, 2019 Elaine Eisenman and Susan Stautberg Leave a comment

Betrayal in business can come in many forms.

A supervisor who gives specific directions for a project, then lays the blame squarely on you when things go awry. An employee who fails to inform you of a high-end client’s unhappiness, leaving you blindsided and feeling the CEO’s wrath when the client cancels a contract.

In such scenarios, the person betrayed can feel angry, devastated and perhaps unsure whether to ever trust anyone again, say Elaine Eisenman, PhD, and Susan Stautberg, co-authors of Betrayed: A Survivor’s Guide to Lying, Cheating, & Double-Dealing. These two successful business women say they themselves have experienced betrayal professionally and personally.

“In all relationships we trust others, believing that while they will look out for their own best interest, they will also respect ours,” Stautberg says. “Unfortunately, that’s not always so.”

In business, there’s no guarantee that even a good friend or family member deserves your confidence.

“Regardless of how well you know someone, treat any business arrangement with due diligence,” Eisenman says. “Motives can be hidden, even with the best of friends.”

So, how can business leaders and their employees avoid betrayals that can harm them and their organizations? And how should they handle the fallout if they are betrayed? Eisenman and Stautberg offer a few suggestions:

Learn to trust wisely. Blind trust can make you an easy target because you ignore the potential for human nature’s darker side, Stautberg says. But it’s also ill-advised to assume no one can be trusted ever. What you’re after, she says, is “wise trust,” which allows you to weigh each situation, assessing whether there is low or high probability of betrayal.

Listen to what your gut tells you. So-called “gut feelings” act as an early warning system. “Ignore those feelings at your own peril,” Eisenman says. She shares the story of a woman named Ingrid, a chief finance officer in the public sector who was involved in the recruiting of a comptroller who came highly recommended. Ingrid preferred to handle reference checks herself, but that was HR’s job so she backed off, even though something told her this job candidate’s credentials were too good to be true. She shouldn’t have ignored her instinct because after he was hired the comptroller was charged with white-collar crimes committed in another state. For Ingrid, this became a triple betrayal – by colleagues who tried to make her the scapegoat, by HR, who didn’t perform a thorough background check, and, of course, she was betrayed by the man she hired.

Don’t seek revenge immediately – if at all. Planning revenge continues to provide the betrayer with power over you rather than allowing you to take that power into your own hands. It’s more productive to distance yourself from the betrayal and shore up your emotions with rational thoughts. That will help you begin to derive lessons from the traumatic event.

If you are betrayed, there is no need to beat up on yourself. “It is critical to recognize that what you are feeling is completely normal,” Eisenman says. “If you blow the event out of proportion, exaggerating its impact on all aspects of your life, you’ll only postpone your recovery.”

“The key to moving forward is self-compassion,” Stautberg says. “Get yourself to a safe space, both physically and emotionally, and get some sleep. Being rested will help you think clearly and you’re going to need your wits to survive.”

Reactions to stress differ. So, don’t worry if your immediate reaction includes anger. Try to balance it and take the energy to hold onto your power. Surround yourself with friends. Have the courage to move forward and leave the past behind. Learn to pivot. Eisenman and Stautberg discovered that the formula for success is creating a new positive, self-confidence about work and informed risk taking. Learn how to BOUNCE – Be Bold, Optimistic, Undaunted, Nimble, Courageous, and Empowered.

Elaine Eisenman, PhD, co-author with Susan Stautberg of Betrayed: A Survivor’s Guide to Lying, Cheating, & Double Dealing, currently serves as an independent Board Director for DBI, Inc. (NYSE), as well as for AtmosXR and Miravan, both privately held companies. She is the Managing Director of Saeje Advisors, LLC, an advisory firm for high growth ventures. Former Dean of Executive and Enterprise Education at Babson College, she works closely with CEOs and their executive teams to create cultures that accelerate growth. She is a frequent speaker on the topic of turning risk into opportunity.

Susan Stautberg is Governance Advisor to the portfolio companies of Atlantic Street Capital, a private equity firm. She is also President and CEO of PartnerCom Corporation and Chair Emeritus of the WomenCorporateDirectors Education and Development Foundation (WCD). Susan addresses groups around the world, including leading business schools and CEO conferences. She has written or been featured in numerous articles including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Financial Times and her on-air experience includes Oprah, The Today Show, CBS Evening News, CNN and many others.

Develop a Strong Business Culture to Effectively Identify, Satisfy and Retain the Most Talented Employees

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