Blind Spots

How the Worst Leaders Destroy Trust in the Workplace

How the Worst Leaders Destroy Trust in the Workplace

Guest post by Jim Haudan

I’ve interacted with dozens of executive teams in my career, and it always happens. The seven, 10, or more men and women on the executive team each have an IQ of 160, but their IQ as a team and with trust seems like a whopping 22.

Why is the team total always less than the sum of the parts?  Why do so many teams seem to drift to a place where the culture is soft on the difficult issues and strained among the people? If there is a single factor that most contributes to the erosion of trust in the workplace (and makes teams seem less intelligent than they are), it is this: the “absence of the assumption of positive intent” of others.

Looking at that thought from the opposite side, the one behavior that has the potential to immediately elevate the performance of individuals and teams is “assuming positive intent” of others. Assuming positive intent is the ultimate performance driver, but it is more uncommon than common.

For example (and this is just one of many): A CEO confessed that whenever he worked with his executive team he would tell himself stories about the motives, agendas, and driving intents of his leaders.

It was this assumption of intent that created his reality and basis for interaction with them. As a result, it took the team five times as long to try to get aligned on the most critical imperatives for the business rather than actually working on them!

So you can see how the lens through which you view others’ intents can really color the trust factor–and therefore the whole culture and even productivity–of your organization. Here are a few ways to check your intent meter.

Pick up a copy of Jim’s latest book:  What Are Your Blind Spots?: Conquering the 5 Misconceptions that Hold Leaders Back

1) Avoid the “other guy” trap

Most of us are guilty of getting distracted by or frustrated with what someone else should have done. Resist the temptation to make assumptions based on limited information about individual circumstances.

Assuming positive intent gives other people the benefit of the doubt. It replaces judgment with curiosity. Listen with the intent to understand and not the impatience to reply.

2) Stop conspiracy theories

We have been conditioned to be suspicious. From stranger danger to 21st-century terrorism, we often lean toward believing people don’t have our best interests at heart, and we act accordingly.

In the case of strangers and fear of terrorists, this is understandable; however, relationships flourish when we don’t assume intentions that aren’t there. At work, and even at home, assume positive intent until proven otherwise and watch how rapport, communications, respect, and trust grow.

3) Take away the anger

Indra Nooyi, chairman and CEO of Pepsi, tells the story of learning the power of positive intent from her father. She says, “When you assume negative intent, you are angry. If you take away the anger, you don’t get defensive and scream.”

When we are calm and level headed, we have a higher emotional quotient (EQ), and our ability to collaborate and be productive skyrockets, along with our happiness.

Assumption of intent. Build trust with it, and its impact on your workplace can be massive.

In fact, assuming positive intent is the single behavior that high-performance teams choose time and again to set as a goal when crafting a new set of behavioral standards for the future. How’s your intent meter reading?

About Jim Haudan

Jim Haudan is Co-Founder and Chairman of Root Inc. Root Inc., the organizational change expert on helping companies create leadership alignment, execute strategies and change successful, build employee engagement, and transform businesses.  He is a sought-after business presenter who has spoken at TEDx BGSU, Tampa TEDx, and The Conference Board. His latest book, What Are Your Blind Spots?: Conquering the 5 Misconceptions that Hold Leaders Back is co-authored with Rich Berens is CEO and Chief Client Fanatic of Root Inc. The book equips readers with the tools needed for a personal leadership reset. You’ll discover how to increase engagement, productivity, and growth in your own organization.

blind spots

blind spots

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contact Us Today to help overcome your blind spots!

We provide Extraordinary Development, leading to Growth Exponentially. EDGE is a Service Disabled Veteran owned Human Resources Development performance consulting firm, focusing on three primary areas to help you achieve exponential growth. Our focus is in the areas of Leadership Development, Talent Management, and Organizational Development. We don’t want to be seen as consultants working on your organization, we want you to feel like we are working with you in your organization through the delivery of solutions that are transparent, practical, robust, and long-term.

Visit www.whereleadershipbegins.com to learn more.

This piece originally appeared on the Root Blog.

For the Love of Feedback

Those that know me well, know that I am a huge fan of feedback. I love feedback of all kinds and constantly ask for it to get better and make changes to how I approach things, train others, speak, teach, etcetera. My colleagues at a previous employer even called me the Feedback King.

Yellow Card

ROTC Yellow Card – Click to see larger

I believe my love of feedback started when I was developing in ROTC to be an Army Officer. In ROTC we had to complete the Cadet Self-Assessment Reports or yellow cards. These yellow cards were required after every mission and assignment when we were in some form of a leadership role. Yellow cards were a summary of our performance while in the leadership role and was detailed using the well-known STAR model, where we would describe the Situation, assigned Task, the Actions taken, and the Results.

 

Blue Card

ROTC Blue Card – Click to see larger

At the same time the student cadre or leader would complete a blue card called the Leadership Assessment Report. This report was where they rated behavior actually observed and recorded their counseling, and would measure certain attributes, skills, and actions.

We would then meet for a quick counseling session to compare notes and discuss my performance. The discussions focused on things I did well and where I needed to improve, along with actions I planned to take to sustain or change the behavior.

As a cadet and as student cadre I experienced both sides of giving and receiving feedback. This practice, however, did not end with my commissioning. This practice of feedback continued through my time in all my professional military schools. Whether it was at the Infantry School or at the Combined Logistics Captains Career School doing peer evaluations through leading soldiers, teams, and units on active duty with counseling, evaluation reports, and pulse and climate surveys. Feedback was a constant and always encouraged.  I encouraged it despite rank and protocol, as long as it was done respectfully and with the proper intent.

Another powerful means of giving and receiving feedback that I still find extremely valuable today is the After Action Review or AAR.  The Army training circular shares that:

The AAR is a professional discussion of an event, focused on performance standards, that enables soldiers to discover for themselves what happened,why it happened, and how to sustain strengths and improve on weaknesses. It is a tool leaders and units can use to get maximum benefit from every mission or task.

The AAR in a corporate or professional setting can be executed in the same way, as a structured debrief process for analyzing what happened, why it happened, and how it can be done better by the individuals involved and those responsible for the project , event, or situation. 

Take a look at the link provided below for more info on how to conduct an AAR.

You’ve probably already seen these, but here are some tips I’ve learned over the years about feedback:

  • Never, ever give someone harsh, critical, developmental feedback in the presence of others. This can be extremely embarrassing to the person receiving the feedback.  Find the right time and place to pull them aside in private.
  • Only give feedback on the things that you heard someone say or behaviors you saw someone do.  Giving feedback from a 3rd party, on something you did not hear or see can be a slippery slope and deteriorate trust.
  • Make feedback a dialogue.  Avoid making assumptions. Make sure to check your information and biases, giving the benefit of the doubt to the other person.
  • Allow yourself to be emotional.  Deal with your emotions, allow yourself some time to be mad, angry, sad, upset, …., and then comeback and deliver the feedback.  Use that time to also prepare, write down what you want to say, focusing on what the things said or done, and as a result how they made you feel and the outcome.
  • Be specific.  Vague feedback might seem insincere or calculating.  Saying “I don’t remember exactly what you said, but it … ” diminishes its impact severely.
  • Be Timely.  Give feedback, both positive and developmental feedback, immediately but no more than 5 days after it happens.  Don’t put it off as not urgent if it’s good. Don’t avoid it or put it off if it’s not so good.
  • Avoid the feedback sandwich, “you did great, but here’s what you did wrong, but I thought you did great”.  You can give both positive and developmental feedback in the same conversation, however, you have to finish one type of feedback before giving the other.  In other words, get through the STAR for positive or developmental before giving the other.
  • Always ask for feedback, for everything you do.  Asking for feedback as a leader builds a culture that asking for feedback is encouraged and more than likely when you give it will be also be received well.
  • When you ask for it, do something with it.  Change your behavior and/or change your own self-perception.  Asking for it without doing something with it is disrespectful and can lead to a lack of trust.
  • Listen.  Ask questions. Admit your mistakes.  Listen to learn how they perceived your behavior, ask questions for clarification and examples, admit your mistakes.

Delivering feedback is a skill that must be fostered and developed.  Delivering positive feedback is easy, yet too many leaders don’t do a very good job at it.  Developmental feedback is not always easy to deliver, accept it.  Your best bet will be to find someone to rehearse if it’s going to be emotional.

Early in my career I learned the valuable lessons and gifts of feedback.  Feedback can be one of the most powerful tools for anyone to learn how to use.  It might be clunky at first, but It’s never too late.

 

 

References:

ROTC Blue Card

ROTC Yellow Card

TC 25-20: A LEADER’S GUIDE TO AFTER-ACTION REVIEWS


 

EDGE- Where Leadership Begins is a Human Capital Consulting firm, focusing on three primary areas to help you achieve exponential growth.  We can serve you in many ways, however our focus is in the areas of Talent Management, Organizational Development, and Leadership Development.

For more information, visit our website www.whereleadershipbegins.com or contact us at 414-301-3343.

 

With all the DISC assessments, which one do you choose?

The original of course! Capital D, little “i”, capital S and C.

10997194_10153195037719309_5396767266025743694_o“Increased precision through adaptive testing makes this the best DiSC on the market. Don’t settle for imitations!”

The original DiSC assessment (now called Everything DiSC) developed by Dr. William Marston, a physiological psychologist with a Ph.D. from Harvard, studied how an individual perceived him or herself in a situation, the resulting emotions of the perception, and the likely subsequent behavior.

His work focused on directly observable and measurable psychological phenomena. He was interested in using practical explanations to help people understand and manage their experiences and relationships.

His 1928 book, Emotions of Normal People, Marston explains his theory on how normal human emotions lead to behavioral differences among groups of people and how a person’s behavior might change over time.

Marston’s model has two critical dimensions:

  1. the situation is perceived as either favorable or unfavorable
  2. the individual perceives him or herself as more or less powerful than the situation

Marston theorized that the behavioral expression of emotions could be categorized into four primary types, stemming from the person’s perceptions of self in relationship to his or her situation. These four types were labeled by Marston as Dominance (D), Inducement (I), Submission (S), and Compliance (C).

It wasn’t until Walter V. Clarke, an industrial psychologist, used Marston’s Theory to be the first person to build an assessment instrument. In 1956 he published the Activity Vector Analysis, a checklist of adjectives which asked people to mark descriptors they identified as true of themselves. The tool, used by Clarke since 1948, was intended for personnel selection by businesses. The four factors in his data (aggressive, sociable, stable and avoidant) were based on Marston’s model.

About 10 years later, Walter Clarke Associates developed a new version of this instrument for John Cleaver. It was cleverly called Self Discription. Instead of using a checklist, this test forced respondents to choose between two or more terms. Factor analysis of this assessment added to the support of a DISC-based instrument.

Since then is has gone through several updates and modifications, while remaining true to its original founder. In the 1970’s it was called Personal Profile System® (PPS), then in the 1990s the PPS 2800, which became known as DiSC Classic. In 2003, Inscape Publishing pushed the envelope further and developed an online version, DiSC Classic 2.0, which provided a richer feedback report and has been the standard bearer until 2007.

The Everything DiSC® product family, launched by Inscape Publishing in 2007, and now a brand of Wiley since 2013, was created to make the DiSC assessment even more valuable to its users. They did this by including the improved measurement technology of adaptive testing, making the tool more precise than ever. The increased precision and higher level of personalization result in a better experience for Everything DiSC users.

Everything DiSC harnesses the power of the third generation of the DiSC® model—one of the most widely used, scientifically-based approaches to assessing personality and developing critical interpersonal business skills. With programs for leadership, sales, management, and workplace development, Everything DiSC programs are in-depth, specialized, and easily customizable to fit clients’ needs.

EDGE Business Management Consulting, LLC an Authorized Partner for Everything DiSC, is a Human Capital Consulting firm, focusing on three primary areas to help you achieve exponential growth. We can serve you in many ways, however our focus is in the areas of Talent Management, Organizational Development, and Leadership Development.

DiSC vs. MBTI – Fill out the form and you’ll be given immediate access to information.

For more information, visit our website www.edgebmc.com or contact us at 414-301-3343.

HR’s Business Case for Talent Management

Today’s global economy is forcing a shift in the role human resources plays in organizations, moving from a transactional-administrative role to a strategic partner and facilitator of an organization’s most important asset – its people. However, projects in human resources and their functions may find it particularly difficult to obtain funding, and are typically one of the first things to be cut when budgets are tight. This unfortunate reality is principally due to human resource’s inability to align a credible business case followed by positioning it with key executives as having a quantifiable, direct impact on the bottom-line of the organization. Breitfelder and Dowling (2008) suggest human resources sits in the middle of some of the most compelling and competitive battlegrounds in business, where organizations deploy and fight over that most valuable of resources, their talent. Therefore, building a business case for talent management has become a strategic imperative for human resources professionals that will buttress an organizations ability to achieve its goals and objectives and in due course improve the performance of the bottom-line.

What is Talent Management?
The term talent management was conceived many years ago and initially referred to the programs used to manage and develop the top talent in an organization. Today, it has transformed into a key strategic and sustainable competitive advantage for organizations who are looking to recruit and retain talented employees throughout an organization. Where it was once for only the hand-picked few is now for many employees throughout an organization. Talent management today can be viewed from a holistic and strategic view and may be defined as a method to optimizing human capital through integrated organizational processes designed to attract, retain, develop, motivate and deploy employees, with the goal to create strong culture, engagement, capability, and capacity that meets current and future organizational objectives. Avedon and Scholes (2010) suggest talent are employees with strategic importance to the purpose and objectives of the organization. However, in today’s workplace it has expanded beyond the strategic few at the top to the strategic many deep and wide in the organization.

Building the Business Case
When building the business case, human resource leaders must structure it in a way that business leaders can understand the need. Building the business case for talent management begins by defining a strategy in the context of the business strategy. In other words, the strategy should help the organization to achieve its business goals through focusing on its talent. Business leaders understand the need to make money and talent management, when done well, makes money (Bersin, 2012). Therefore talent management needs to move away from just being a human resources project or program and forward towards being a true sustainable business strategy.

Strategy is about change and should not stand alone as a management process (Kaplan and Nadler, 2001). A talent management strategy needs to describe what the changes will be and how the changes will happen. Strategy maps can help by describing the changes an organization would like to bring about and, just as importantly, the systems and processes that ensure those changes happen. Kaplan and Nadler (2001) see strategy maps explaining what will be different and how organizations change in a cohesive, integrated and systematic way. In that same vein, human resource leaders will face a nearly impossible challenge to persuade executives to fund a business case for a talent management strategy if it fails to reflect a genuine understanding of the business. Consequently, strategy is also about a series of choices to do things differently than competitors so to provide a unique and attractive value proposition to attract, manage, develop, motivate and retain key people. (Kaplan and Nadler, 2001). Mapping a talent management strategy will be integral in demonstrating how an investment in talent management processes and programs can deliver value to the organizations customers and the bottom-line.

Organizational Benefits
Organizational benefits of a talent management strategy will vary depending on the industry and mission, vision, and goals of the organization. Bersin (2011) adds that talent management is not something to copy from a book and that the strategy will be unique to the organization as well as the benefits. However, a structured talent management strategy will systematically close the gap between the current human resources in an organization and the talent it will ultimately need in order to respond to business challenges in the future (Smith, Wellins, and Paese, 2011). Closing this gap will mean the organization will be able to remain competitive and retain key talent, attract new talent, and assemble plans for key roles and people in the organization in order to allow for proper development experiences. According to a study by The Hackett Group, Inc. (2010), they found that organizations with strong talent management strategies were like to see an increase in their bottom-line earnings by 18 percent. Additionally a Bersin study from 2010-2011 showed that organizations deployed strategic talent management saw twice the revenue of other organizations, 40% less employee turnover, along with 38% higher levels of engagement (Bersin, 2011). So, the evidence is clear, organizations that spend money and time on strategic talent management efforts will see their investment essentially pay for itself.

Conclusion
Organizations that deploy effective strategic talent management practices truly understand that talent is a key competitive advantage. Building the business case will be the hardest part for human resources professionals, however, they can help themselves by genuinely understanding the business and seek and give guidance to the executives who generally do not want to invest their time in these processes. Building the business case and coupling it with a strategy map will provide for a simple and powerful way for the human resources professional to demonstrate value and communicate visually how the strategy can be executed. Additionally, it will be critical for the human resources professional to decouple the strategy from being just a human resources initiative but instead a whole organization or business initiative. Doing this will allow for human resources to be viewed as a true strategic business partner. When organizations leverage strategic talent management practices they can project confidence to their market and remain nimble and flexible regardless of the market conditions.

References
Avedon, M. J., & Scholes, G. (2010). Building Competitive Advantage through Integrated Talent Management. In Silzer, R. F., & Dowell, B. E. (Eds.), Strategy-driven talent management: A leadership imperative (73-116). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Bersin, J. (2012, January 22). The Business Case for Talent Management: Steve Ballmer Agrees. Retrieved from http://www.bersin.com/blog/post/2012/01/The-Business-Case-for-Talent-Management--Steve-Ballmer-Agrees.aspx
Breitfelder, M.D., & Dowling, D.W. (2008, July-August). Why Did We Ever Go Into HR? Harvard Business Review, 86, 39-43.
Kaplan, R.S. & Nadler, D.P. (2001). Building Strategy Maps. In Kaplan, R.S. & Nadler, D.P. The Strategy- focused organization: How balanced scorecard companies thrive in the new business environment (pp. 69-105). Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation.
Smith, A.B., Wellins, R.S. & Paese, M. (2011). The CEO’s Guide To: Talent Management A Practical Approach. Pittsburgh, PA. Development Dimensions International. Retrieved from http://www.ddiworld.com/ddiworld/media/booklets/ceoguidetotalentmanagement_bk_ddi.pdf?ext=.pdf
Study Finds Experienced Talent Management Brings Higher Earnings & Other Benefits. (2010). HR Focus, 87(3), 8-9.

Need to Communicate Better? Focus on Synergy

The time we spend communicating is immense, whether it’s face-to-face, email, video, phone, social media, an individual or a networking group, a formal or an impromptu discussion, every interaction must produce results and accomplish its purposes efficiently, effectively and generate as much action as possible. The key to generating maximum action is to focus on generating synergy when we communicate.

Synergy is the interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.

Simply put synergy means the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The relationship which the parts have to each other is a part in and of itself – the most empowering, unifying and exciting parts.

synergy chalkThe essence of synergy about valuing the mental, emotional, and psychological differences between people. The key to valuing these differences is to realize that all people see the world, not as it is, but as they are, commonly known as perception.

When focused on synergistic communication you are able to develop creative possibilities, including better solutions and services. If synergy isn’t achieved, even the effort will usually result in a better compromise.

Focusing on synergy enables us to be more participative rather than suppressive in our communication. Especially so when making decisions about how to achieve a goal or complete work, make it a habit to ask for others ideas. Be genuine and open to others ideas and their possibilities, build on them and use them.

Dr. Steven Covey in his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People shares that in Habit 6:

Synergy lets us discover jointly things we are much less likely to discover by ourselves.

When we focus on synergy in our communication we generate trust. High trust leads to high cooperation and communication. Leading to better results in many aspects including our business and personal relationships and balance sheets.

Let us show you how we develop synergy with our Syn-EDGE-y Communication Model.  Visit our website at www.edgebmc.com today.
synergy comm model.2

Leadership is Freak’n Hard

A guest blog post – by Bill Treasurer

A few years ago, while facilitating a leadership development workshop, I asked the CEO of a multi-billion dollar construction company to share a little known secret with the budding leaders in the room. He scratched his chin, waited a beat, and then said,

“Leadership is freak’n hard.”

Except he didn’t use the word freak’n.

There certainly is no shortage of leadership advice in the world, most of it peddled by consultants who have never actually been in a leadership role. Read any leadership blog today and you’re bound to get a bullet-pointed list of “just do this” advice, as if being a leader was as easy as a clicking on plug-and-play app.

The result of all this cheap advice is that leadership, as a concept, becomes attractive. If it’s easy, after all, and if a person can make more money in a leadership role, everyone should aim to be a leader. Were the cheap advice actually true, of course, there would be more actual leaders.

Construction Instruction

The truth about leadership, as the construction company CEO reminded us, is that being a leader is anything but easy. Here’s why:

  • It Takes Experience: You can read all the bullet points you want, but until you actually lead others, you won’t be a leader. Stop reading and start leading.
  • Your Job is Discomfort: Ginny Rometty, the CEO of IBM, put it best, “Growth and comfort don’t coexist.” Your job as a leader is to bring about growth through change. By definition, that requires you to make people uncomfortable.
  • Speed and Accuracy Don’t Mix: Decisiveness is a hallmark of leadership. Leaders need to render fast decisions, lest they become bottlenecks. Rarely will you have enough perfect information to make a perfect decision. Translation? Decisions come with risks.
  • You’ll Have a Bull’s-eye on Your Back: Oscar Wilde once said, “Whenever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority.” Especially in America where independence is a virtue. Leadership requires a certain degree of control over the behavior of others. Yet what self-respecting person likes to be controlled?
  • It Takes Humble Confidence: If you get too big for your leadership britches, you’ll lose people’s loyalty in a heartbeat. But if you aren’t confident, you’ll be seen as weak. You’ll need to be simultaneously confident and humble.

Faced with the hard realities about leadership, the first decision an aspiring leader should make is whether they really want to lead. Here are a few questions to help you discern your answer:

  • What attracts you to the concept of leadership? Why do you want to lead?
  • On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 equating to “very thin” and 10 equating with “very thick”, how thick is your skin? When people second-guess your decisions, how upset are you likely to get?
  • How comfortable and fast are you when it comes to taking risks? What is your greatest failure and what did you learn from it?
  • What natural skills, talents, and abilities will make you a good leader? What skills, talents, and ability do you still need to develop?

The real attraction of serving in a leadership role isn’t the potential for making more money, or having people at your beck and call. The real attraction should be the positive difference you may be able to make through your leadership influence.

Whenever I ask seasoned leaders what they are most grateful for about being a leader, the most common answer is the chance to make a difference in people’s lives. That’s the leadership reward for all that freak’n hard work.

 

BTBill Treasurer is the Chief Encouragement Officer of Giant Leap Consulting and author of Leaders Open Doors, which focuses on how leaders create growth through opportunity. 100% of the book’s royalties are being donated to programs that support children with special needs. Bill is also the author of Courage Goes to Work, Right Risk, and Courageous Leadership, and has led courage-building workshops across the world for NASA, Accenture, CNN, PNC Bank, SPANX, Hugo Boss, Saks Fifth Avenue, and the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and many others. Contact Bill at btreasurer@giantleapconsulting.com, or on Twitter at @btreasurer.

 

Impact of Culture on Global Businesses

Like a personality is to an individual, is culture to organizations. Culture impacts every aspect of an organization from its top executives to its newest employee to its latest office environment in India. Organizational Behavior author and Management Professor John Schermerhorn asserts organizational culture is the collective values, beliefs and norms that develop over time and guide the behaviors of those who are part of the organization. Another way to make concrete an abstract concept is to think of culture as the glue that binds and shapes how employees execute the organization’s vision and mission and how customers and communities perceive the organizations value. With the explosion of the global business environment the impact of culture is even greater than before. Therefore organizations that are conducting business in global locations must work to become a local company and integrate the local culture into their business practices. When they succeed they can reap huge rewards, but when they fail they may leave a mark that may be unrepairable to the members of that culture and their own business.

In order for organizations to reap rewards and potentially increase their value, leaders of the organization must focus on becoming a localized organization. When leaders adapt their business practices to match the culture and exert effort to avoid any potential misinterpretations of cultural customs, they are demonstrating a level of respect to the culture and building a foundation of trust. When organizations make the decision to go global, the impact on organizational development (OD) is just as imperative as sales or logistics. In a training capacity, OD should take into consideration language barriers and cultural differences in the context of how content is delivered. Change management also becomes a major element for OD, they must taking into consideration how the culture deals with and delivers change. According to Dr. Dan Denison, Chairman & Founding Partner, Denison Consulting, organizations that value culture and respect members’ participation may generate a return on their investment almost twice as high as those organizations that fail to consider culture.

Organizations that recognize and value culture, especially in a global business environment tend to have exponentially better performance in their respective markets. Organizational culture directly affects performance management in large part due to the climate the culture creates. Dr. Benjamin Schneider, professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, shares that climate focuses around two critical areas 1) how the organization behaves on a daily basis and 2) what the goals are of the organization, these then reveal and make visible how employees understand policies, practices, and rewards. Blake Ashforth of Wayne State University, reinforces that culture, a collective idea of values, beliefs and norms, determines the climate’s policies, practices, and rewards that are considered relevant by its members. An example of this would be if an organizational culture supports a climate of providing a reward, such as a bonus, for a high level of performance. However, in the global business environment, organizations must ‘customize to the culture’ their performance management and rewards, for instance employees in many European countries prefer to receive time off from work, where in Asia employees may prefer additional monies.

For business leaders to continue to be successful in a global environment there are many strategies they can use to develop and manage their organizations. On such strategy this must include the recognition of not just one corporate culture, but their host country culture and that there are many subcultures. Author Guy Saffold suggests that when recognizing the many subcultures, business leaders recognize the varying cultural features spread throughout the organization and their cross-sections of interactions. Saffold adds, it is critical for leaders to understand that culture creates the climate of the organization and climate also acts in a way to modify culture. Claremont Graduate University Professor of Management, Vijay Sathe, shares that with a better understanding of an organization’s culture, management can appropriately enter, deviate from, and change the culture needed to continue their success in the global business environment. While organizational culture remains an abstract concept to many, it’s important for business leaders and employees alike to embrace the culture or find one that is best suited to meet and challenge their professional and personal goals.