In tough economic conditions, every business goes through a review of operations and for many of them, they will have to let some people go. I have recently gone through this with my new business and there are some salient lessons that can be learned in downsizing.
Yesterday i wrote some thoughts about the use of instant messenger in the work place and this stirred up strong debate, much of which is really around the trust we should place in our employees. Therefore following on from this i thought it would be good to explore just how much power we can gained from placing trust in people.
I have found that the more i trust people to get on with their jobs the better the work environment becomes and more importantly the more that gets done. Lets explore two extremes – first is a place with strong trust and the second is one without it.
The short answer is nothing! However i am hearing more and more about companies either banning or strong suggesting that employees dont use messenger and other similar applications. This got me to thinking – why?
For me, banning messenger is like banning the phone or email. I guess in days gone by bosses were banning email and the internet however imagine work life today without either of these.
The real issue is trust and understanding.
I was chatting with a few folk the other day about different styles that CEO’s have. Some wander around and chat, some roll up their sleeves and get deep into the hot issues, some just look at the numbers from their desk, while others cant help but micro manage.
This got me to thinking, can a CEO really manage a business from his / her desk or do they really need to get out amongst the people?
I received the following email from a reader in Italy and i thought i would reprint it as i think it is a well thought out piece on the importance of culture and how many companies are approaching the management of people. I would love the thoughts on this article. Here it is …
While reading about your experience, I’ve been strucked by how you point out not to the fact in itself (indeed the risk is part of the game) but on the way things have been managed, fully conflicting with the culture you had been building within the company over the years. Not a question of “what”, but of “how”.
How often is it that you get invited to a meeting that goes on and on and on. You get there and there is no formal agenda, the other attendees are late, some don’t know why they have been invited, there is no real leader of the meeting and an hour or so later you leave with no real outcomes and you are left wondering what that was all about.
Well i think there should be a different approach – the 30 minute meeting. In fact, if it can be shorter, thats even better.
The other day i wrote a post about politicians emerging where there is a leadership gap. (Click here to read it). In it i looked at some different types of people within a business and what happens when things change. The article identified 4 types of peope – worker bees, survivors, aspirants and politicians. Well the article stirred some discussion and Alain in Luxembourg wrote a great email all about the Worker Bee Politician Mutation. Here it is …
Working for a business takes up a significant part of every day and when you are travelling it can take up even more time however how often is it that you end up working with people that you just don’t get on with. Well i think a question that is important to ask yourself in any interview is “does this person pass the beer test?”
During my time with the REA Group we grew the business from operating in just one culture – Australia – to one operating across many different cultures – from Australia and New Zealand through to the English and European cultures. When we started a small office in Shanghai and acquired Squarefoot in Hong Kong, we further enriched the cultural mix.
Now the challenge i always had was do i change my style to adopt to the various cultures or do i maintain, as much as possible, my approach to doing business and help move the operating cultures in each of the countries to a more common culture. I made the choice that i would, where possible, adopt the second approach as i felt it was more important that we had a unique REA Group culture rather than half a dozen different cultures.
“How did you make this happen”, i hear you ask. Well first and foremost i lived the cultural values that i have written about before http://myceolife.com/2008/06/what-makes-great-culture/.
I had the opportunity today to visit the San Francisco offices of Google. They are fantastic. I was given a guided tour and saw just how the Google guys do it. A couple of things i observed were:
So it made me think about how important open plan is to the culture of a business. In many businesses, management have their own offices and sometimes, they have their own floors. Often they have an office with a secretary sitting out the front. I always remember doing a study at the National Australia Bank in Melbourne in the mid 90′s and there the senior management had their floor and even an express lift from the carpark to that floor. These senior management floors still exist today in many large businesses.
Now, for me, this is old world culture – a representation of the baby boomers and not in alignment with what Gen X or Y expect. At the REA Group we went for open plan. I had a desk just like everyone else and i think it helped create a very open culture. Quite often people would just walk up to my desk and have a chat. I found i could keep in the loop and openly participate in discussions that were randomly happening around me. If a private meeting was required, people can go to a separate meeting room and then have their discussion.
I would recommend to any business that wants to build a open, fun, engaging, happy culture that they think about the structure of the office and how they keep it open and equal.
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