My CEO Life

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/. 

Read more…

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:

• The technology (ie screen / keyboard) was identical on every desk – this means that people can move desk and just plug in
• There were some offies but these were shared – evidently no one has their own office
• The office was decorated with lots of fun things that people had obviously bought in from home
• Casual clothes is the order of the day – and i dont mean business casual – i mean casual
• They have a free cafeteria with a great selection of food
• There are TV screens everywhere
• The office is in general very open plan
• They had a huge slide between floors – unfortunately i didnt get a chance to ride it

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.

Business always conducts employee satisfaction surveys in an attempt to find out just how happy their teams are.  Often, when they revew the results, they are looking for downside risks rather than upside positives.  In addition they will spend time reading the comments and trying to work out what the real issues are.

Now the problem with employee surveys is that not all employees believe they are anonymous and therefore dont tell you what they really think or they just don’t complete them.  Therefore you need to look at what people are doing to get a better grip on the true feelings within a team.

The first measure i would look at is absenteeism.  This is simple to measure and can provide very quick feedback on the happiness of the people in the business.  I was talking to a senior person at a business recently who said they had recently noticed a sharp increase in the number of people who are taking sick leave.  Managers need to watch this.

Secondly i would look at outstanding leave or accrued leave.  A happy business tends to have high levels of outstanding leave as employees often dont take it as they are wrapped up in their jobs.  In an unhappy work place, employees with always take their leave.

Thirdly, turn over of staff is a traditionally clear way to track an unhappy culture.  However how do you know BEFORE HAND that people want to leave?  Well in today’s world that is simple – just join linkedin and facebook and see what happens.  Now i have been on linked in for ages and have hundreds of contacts.  These contacts tend to be people that you have or are working with.  Now when someone is thinking of moving on, they ask people to recommend them.  The result is that by looking at the number of “recommendation requests” you can get a feeling for what the true culture is in a business.  Now the problem is most senior people in organisations are Baby Boomers or Gen X and they dont embrace social networking sites.  This is where they are missing a great chance to track the actions, rather than words, of those they work with.

OK … i am now off to answer all those recommendations requests

In many of my discussions with staff over the years, there seems to be an inbuilt expectation that a business is going to actively train and educate you with your long term career in mind.  Well i hate to break it to you, but that is probably not the case.  If a business is offering training and education, it is probably because they have an immediate skills shortage or they have a statutory obligation to ensure that everyone has good OH&S training (for example).

So what should you do?  Well the first step is to take charge of your career.  Perhaps a good way to think about yourself is as a business.  So what are the things a business needs to be successful?  A vision of where it wants to be, finance to make sure it gets there, the right skills and capabilities to achieve the vision, good sales and marketing of tyhe business, and of course a great product.

So lets apply these to yourself.  What is your vision in life?  When they are chiseling your tombstone, what will they write on it?  The vision may be to have a lasting impact on those around you or perhaps something far greater, to change the world.  What ever that vision is, that should be your guiding light and everything you do should be building towards delivering that vision.

Now to achieve the vision, you need a product to sell – you.  When you think about a product, what is the product that you are offering a potential employer?  How do you package it up and how do you continue to improve it?  That is where education and training come into play.  You need to actively think about what improvements are needed and then just do it.  It is always good to package them into something that is attractive to the business and try to get them to fund it but at the end of the day, you just have to do it – even if you have to pay for it yourself!

Now the last thing i want to talk about is how you market yourself.  Now this is an interesting topic.  Firstly – this is NOT about being political.  That is just about short term gains – does anyone know of many politicians that truly stands the test of time? 

So this is about how you market yourself (the product) externally and internally within an organisation.  

External marketing is important as you want to make sure that you are constantly on people’s radar in case they are looking for someone just like you.  This is where sites like linkedin and facebook are excellent.  Recruiters today are scouring them for great candidates and it is important that you manage your brand on these pages. 

Internal marketing is about getting on and doing your job, delivering each and every time, making sure that you lead where you can and most importantly making sure you, the product, shines through.  Internal marketing is NOT about politics, sucking up, taking credit for other people’s work, big noting yourself and so on – you will be found out!

The bottom line – its your career – take charge and make the most of it!

More tomorrow

Each year we hold a conference for all staff.  This year we are actually holding two – one in Brussels and one in Melbourne.  The main reason we do these conferences is to ensure that everyone is connected with the business.  We want people to understand the culture, to live the culture, to know where we are going and to be fully engaged in what is happening.

We spend a bit on these conferences – including flying people in from around the world.  However after doing 15 of them, i can say that it really does create enormous value for the business.  People walk away from them pumped, happy,engaged and ready for what ever we throw at them. 

The conferences are not heavy on the theory or slides, however there is a consistent message that we are trying to get across. 

I would recommend that every company does these … there is no substitute for people being connected to the business!

I think we have created a great culture at the REA Group.  The question is, what makes this a great culture … what are the elements and how did we do it?

For me, a great culture has the following characteristics:

Candid

Being candid is very important to any organisation.  You need to be able to express your views in an open and trusted way.  It is by doing this you are able to understand what is really happening in a business and therefore get to the root cause of problems.  One of the best proponents of this was a guy who worked for me called Scott Holmes.  He is one of the founders of realestate.com.au Ltd and will openly and honestly tell you what he thinks – no matter who you are.

A-Political

Politics can kill an organisation.  I am not talking about diplomacy but real hard core politics.  People jockey for position by how they present themselves to the CEO in the hope that they get the nod over someone else for a role.  I cant stand this and honestly can see right through it.  Over the years i have had many people do this and eventually they are found out.  The secret is handling them carefully as they are the sort that will “white ant” you behind your back.

Fun

If you are working 10 hours a day you have to have fun.  Our team knows how to have fun.  We work hard and play just as hard.  The play can be anything from having a quite drink in the evening through all out warfare in the office using nerf balls.  It doesnt matter – it bonds people and helps them let off steam.  We have also installed TV’s in the office so that we can keep up to date with that is happening – especially the olympics!

Respectful

This is probably the most important thing in corporate life.   You have to have respect for others in the business and their circumstances.  Not everyone can work the same hours, not everyone has the same passion.  However by understanding this, you will get more out of people and therefore create a better culture for the business.  For example my PA lives in Sydney while i live in Melbourne.  We see each other once a month (maybe) but we are totally in sync and i trust her completely.  We just use the telephone / blackberry / email / messenger to keep in touch.

Power of the Thought

It is not about position, it is about thought.  It is so important in any culture that the best thoughts rise to the top and that no matter who has them, they are respected.  Too many businesses have the hierachy in place so if the top guy doesnt have a good thought, no one does.  This doesnt work and leads to long term cancer for a business unless you have a really smart person at the top of the business.

Passionate

You cant beat passion.  We have so many wonderfully passionate people in the business and it is this passion that allows us to reach new heights.  People just get the job done – they dont complain and often dont even need to be asked.  They just do it.  If there is one thing that is critical – it is passion.  You cant create it but you can destroy it.

Risk Taking

You need a culture that is more risk taking than not.  Why?  Well it is simple – without risk, there is no return and for many small and medium sized businesses, you need to create strong returns.  Therefore encouraging people to take risks will help you get there.  We have a saying in the business – beg forgiveness, don’t seek permission.  Embrace it and people will do amazing things.

Open

Being open in a business is critical.  If a CEO is open in what they do, then everyone will feel like they can be open too.  In the early days when the business was on its knees, we spent a long time educating people as the performance of the business including the cash flow position.  When they knew what this was they were able to understand why we were not doing things and they were also able to bring forward practical ideas to keep the costs down or to grow the business.

Honest

In a business as in life it is super important to be honest.  Too often people rely on either avoidance of bad news or on half truths to just get through the day.  Dont – be open and honest.  It doesnt matter if you have mad a mistake, we all do, just own up to it and learn from it and get on with life.

Integrity

This goes without saying.  You must have integrity in everything you do.  For a business, the CEO must lead with this from the top.  If they dont, then the rot sets in and it is hard to manage a business where there isnt integrity.

I hope these views on culture provide you with some insight into how i view what a great culture is.  Next time we will look at how you build and more importantly maintain this type of culture.

Now here is an interesting question – “How do you teach the employee’s within your organization about the company’s Core Values and at the same time ensure that your fostering that culture throughout the organization?“

I am not sure “teach” is the right word to use.  I think that you can not create a culture however you must use your best efforts to shape the culture.

Now shaping a culture is quite difficult, especially once you go through 150 or so employees.  (I have 350 employees today).  Therefore it is important that while you are small, you get the basis of the culture right and as part of that, get the core values right.

So, firstly you must decide what type of organization you want to run.  It can be open and egalitarian, it can be hierarchical, it can be dictatorial – it is up to you.  Why?  Well for one simple reason – what you do will determine what is acceptable behavior.

We see it in all walks of life.  It is ok for the US Government to spy on its citizens so what do we see Hewlett Packard doing – spying on its Board members and even the press.

So, what ever you want the place to be, live it in everything you do.  It is by experience that people learn what is right and wrong within the organization.  Work on your lieutenants as they must also live the culture.  If you it right, it will spread like wildfire.

So take my business.  I think it should be egalitarian so i don’t have an office, i don’t fly business and the rest economy, i don’t have any special favors – we are all equal.  We openly value great ideas not position.  I openly chastise those that try to ingratiate themselves with me and we praise great ideas – no matter where they are from.

Other things i do is travel to other offices and just work there for the day amongst the team.  I take people to lunch, shout them beers and just let them know, by action, that i am a normal guy and very approachable.

The best form of teaching is to live the culture and being a CEO, you are always under the spot light …