Interesting Aspects of Bravery - Slack and Diversity Edition

The Corporate Bravery post for this week focuses on two interesting areas of thought around management concepts.

1. The first is a Harvard Business Review spotlight of a study on the results of companies led by CEO's with daughters. According to the researchers, of the 367 public companies where personal information could be identified for the current chief executives there was a strong correlation between  the social responsibility of those companies and the fact that the chief executive had a daughter.

You can see some of the aspects reviewed and the results were impressive for most of the areas reviewed. The strongest being a more diverse workforce and the lowest being human rights with even still a 1% improvement.

In Corporate Bravery we talk about the trust of leaders and having leadership that cares about the individuality of the team goes a long way toward building trust, eradicating a culture of fear and improves performance.

2. The second piece was a Time Magazine piece on the company Slack. For those of you not using slack, it is a team messaging app that is helping teams and entire organizations communicate more effectively and in real time. I find myself using it more with my startups and it has been helpful. 

The article mostly paints a picture of typical fast growing start-up culture. But some of the quotes from a recent company gathering brought to mind the question about how it is possible to keep a company moving toward a culture of bravery when so many new people are being added and ultimately shaping the culture of the startup every day.

The article concludes focusing on a plan that the founder, Butterfield, has to spread the wealth from an increasing valuation and ultimately an IPO or acquisition, to the rank and file. While ultimately not a cure all for culture it speaks to some core values that they are creating as a company.

Do you have any thoughts or experiences you would like to share around keeping your fast growing company's culture strong?   



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The Point of the Amazon NY Times Article

There has been a lot of conversation about the recent New York Times piece on Amazon.com. While there has been some negative backlash from Bezos and insiders at Amazon, it appears, based on other accounts that the author's perspective on the culture at Amazon is closer to reality than fiction.

But as this Fast Company article points out, why has this article about work culture in the tech industry created so much buzz? Isn't it true that Amazon's culture just mirrors that of silicon valley or other great technology centers in the United States?

For many in the business press it is seen as yet another example of a 'win at all costs' culture that typically drives disengagement and an unhappy workforce. Typically I would decry the kind of behavior and attitudes embodied in the Amazon culture. For example, take a look at this early quote in the article:

At Amazon, workers are encouraged to tear apart one another’s ideas in meetings, toil long and late (emails arrive past midnight, followed by text messages asking why they were not answered), and held to standards that the company boasts are “unreasonably high.” The internal phone directory instructs colleagues on how to send secret feedback to one another’s bosses. Employees say it is frequently used to sabotage others.

This is the kind of fear inducing behavior that creates corporate politics run amok - similar to what I discuss in this my Slideshare on corporate politics.

However, I have a different perspective on this particular story. Understand that I am not condoning this type of behavior or even the culture that has been created but it can make sense for a company like Amazon. Take a look at this quote from the story about the conflict that employees feel about the culture:

However, more than 100 current and former Amazonians described how they tried to reconcile the sometimes-punishing aspects of their workplace with what many called its thrilling power to create.

I contend that Amazon has actually done a wonderful job of creating alignment with the culture, hiring & people practices and the brand they are creating in the eyes of their customers.

In my forthcoming book, Corporate Bravery, I argue that one of the hallmarks of fearful vs brave organizations is alignment of these three aspects of culture.

According to the article Amazon has very clearly defined core values (of which they are quizzed and expected to be able to recite and they have a clearly aligned hiring process as shown in the following two quotes:

To be the best Amazonians they can be, they should be guided by the leadership principles, 14 rules inscribed on handy laminated cards. When quizzed days later, those with perfect scores earn a virtual award proclaiming, “I’m Peculiar” — the company’s proud phrase for overturning workplace conventions.

The process begins when Amazon’s legions of recruiters identify thousands of job prospects each year, who face extra screening by “bar raisers,” star employees and part-time interviewers charged with ensuring that only the best are hired.

Which leads to a process where employees begin to internalize the culture. According to one person interviewed for the article "she and other workers had no shortage of career options but said they had internalized Amazon’s priorities."
Again, I am not advocating Amazon's culture or the individual aspects of the culture that has made it what it is today. I am just saying that the article paints the picture of a company that has one of the most aligned core values, hiring practices and communications that I have ever seen.

Where Amazon runs into criticism (and the article chronicles), is in the moral / human cost of this culture.  If you could only have this type of alignment that values the employee as a human and recognizes their own individuality (coincidentally another fear factor chronicled in Corporate Bravery) then you have a great example of building a corporate culture.

The Female Executive You Probably Never Heard Of

Lynn Tilton is the focus of our current post on corporate bravery and there are a lot of brave things to spotlight her for.  Being a single mom and building a private equity empire or focusing on saving American manufacturing jobs could be the focus of her bravery.  But I am using this post to spotlight her individuality.

Lynn Tilton runs the Patriarch Partners private equity firm.  An $8 billion company that has bought or heavily invested in over 70 - largely manufacturing - companies.  If you want a detailed history of how she got where she is (and it is truly a triumph of the American dream) then go to her Wikipedia page.

As I have been writing my book on corporate bravery one of the key aspects of a brave culture that eschews fear-based management is a support of individuality.  Not just for the people who work for the organization but also the organization's identity itself.

As it relates to Lynn's views on her own individuality and how it translates to women in the workforce as a whole:

“I’ve gotten used to [walking in heels like this]. When people talk about me as a Wall Street, stiletto-wearing chick … the stiletto part is right, but I really don’t consider myself Wall Street. I take pride in being an industrialist. I understand that people write about what I wear and what I look like because it’s an anomaly. But to only focus on those things is to really miss who I am. I’m trying to show women that they need to be women in a man’s world.”

And then in terms of the fund's strategy and the laser focused clarity on creating jobs in situations where smaller companies have lost their focus on their core product and their marketplace:

We feel strongly about buying companies that others would throw on the trash heap, as a way to create jobs, to give people the dignity of work. And what I’m hoping is that I’m going to help make manufacturing sexy and exciting again.

Ursula Burns - Xerox CEO

Meet Ursula Burns, the current CEO at Xerox.  She was the first African American woman to head a Fortune 500 company and the first woman CEO to succeed a woman CEO.

While those accomplishments alone would be strong enough to qualify as a trailblazer, there are many other things about her ascension to Xerox that buttress that label.  I was introduced to her recently by the BusinessWeek issue on interviews.  During the interview she had a couple great quotes that hit at a couple of factors that influence the level of fear in an organization and influences the culture of corporate bravery among managers and leaders.

The first is individuality which she embraces and nurtures.  On that aspect she has this to say about how that aspect of corporate culture at Xerox helped her become the leader she is today,

Q: You’ve said Xerox (XRX) was a company where you could grow into yourself. What does that mean?A: They didn’t try to spend a lot of time trying to make me into something else—kind of fit into whatever would have been a normal hire. When I first entered the company, they just thought I was smart and said, “You go do some stuff.” And they kept giving me things to do. 

She continues in the interview with a great response to a question on failure,

Q: And you’ve said it takes a long time to recover from mistakes.A: We’re going to make mistakes. We just try to make mistakes where you can make them fast, so you’re not five years into the damn thing and realize, “Oh my God, that was a bad move. And we just threw billions of dollars after it.” Fail fast and make sure that you fail early. So the challenge is this whole balance.

While they may not embrace mistakes they understand that mistakes are a key part of the trial and error process that creates breakthrough products, services, and business models.  It appears to be a culture that doesn't punish mistakes and stifle creativity.