In today’s evolving markets, there are products and services so unique that sometimes it becomes difficult to create a “go to market” strategy. A CIO colleague of ours that has developed a product that has potential to be sold to 3 different customer types: end users, institutions and corporate clients.  Entering new market segments requires a lot of industry insight and experience in bringing varieties of products and services to market, which this colleague has never done before.  As a big fan of Shark Tank, we set up our own tank and brought in an investor we know who is constantly evaluating product and company investment opportunities.

Prepping for the Dive

The new product has already received national

accolades from IT insiders along with an official industry patent; the next step is to push the product mainstream.
Even though its CIO creator and his team of technical specialists collectively have bountiful expertise, there are still skillful tactics, hidden traps, and time-saving techniques to successfully bringing a concept to market that they had not yet considered. To help take their game to the next level, we introduced the group to one of our Episodic Coaches who has held executive leadership positions on both sides of the selling table- both as a decision maker at venture capital firms who sponsor new information technology inventions, and as a check-writer at his own software firms. The insights provided by this expert coach proved to be an invaluable part of making an already exceptional product and its team even more competitive and, most importantly, profitable.

Jumping in is Half the Battle

How is the coaching provided by us different from ‘training’, a popular buzz word that usually confuses the two topics? Training involves teaching basic fundamentals to newcomers; it revolves around drilling core principles so the newcomer can get a broad understanding of the industry or assignment they have. Coaching, however, is the ongoing sharpening of excellence. And coaching is almost always by someone who is already considered either an expert or a rising star in their field. These persons don’t need to be taught basics, as they’ve already mastered the core principles; what they need is game-changing new approaches to heighten their level of success.

Whether its advice on how to manage a team, create a new product, or managing in times of crisis; being open to coaching (whether the advice is positive or negative) and feedback is crucial for today’s successful people.  Steve Jobs (Bob Campbell), Tiger Woods (Hank Haney), Michael Jordan (Phil Jackson) all had coaches that were there to help them be better at what they do.

“I think the most important thing about coaching is that you have to have a sense of confidence about what you’re doing. You have to be a salesman and you have to get your players, particularly your leaders, to believe in what you’re trying to accomplish on the basketball floor.” – Phil Jackson

You’ve Taken the Dive…Now, Capture the Moment

This most recent coaching session between the CIO inventor and our WOA Episodic Coach was an exciting reminder of how sparks can fly when several experts are brought together in conversation about an area they are all passionate and knowledgeable about. The CIO software creator left with a re-worked budget that efficiently minimized almost half of the perceived production costs, thus giving future customers a friendlier price and the inventors an increased likelihood of speed-to-market. The CIO inventor also gained a structured organizational outline that would prepare the business to scale with it’s inevitable success; preparing to grow effectively by rewarding the founding team members while still allowing space for creative newcomers was a forethought not even yet conceived by the team in their nascent stage of bringing the product to life. The clear benefit of coaching was the opportunity for a collaborative brainstorm surrounding the what ifs and how abouts. Suddenly, potential knew no limits.

Take Your Time Getting to the Top

Maurielle Balczon (5 Posts)

With her background in luxury imports/exports and previous work at an international chamber of commerce, Maurielle Balczon brings a global perspective to the dynamic inter-workings of complex business structures. She shapes and monitors the success track of each client at WOA, connects clients to extended resources within our coaching network, and serves as an in-house author writing blogs that reflect key perspectives from our practice. Maurielle is committed to leveraging her business acumen to connect leaders and entrepreneurs to the latest resources within the professional industries they serve.

The post A Master Diver’s Guide to Surviving the VC Shark Tank appeared first on Wayne O'Neill & Associates.

As much as I love new technology that helps me engage collaboratively, keeps me on the cutting edge of industry issues and client intelligence, and connects me to more people in less time, there is nothing as powerful as face to face communication.  I recently facilitated an impactful meeting between a client and one of their potential clients.  More seeds of possibilities and breakthrough opportunities gave birth during that 20 minute face to face meeting than all the previous digital communications combined.  No technology replaces real conversations, in real time, in real rooms like a face to face meeting.  Simply put, face to face communication is still key to establishing sustainable relationships with executive decision makers to produce results.

The impact of meeting in person that I have experienced personally has also been studied by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services.  In a global study of 2,211 Harvard Business Review subscribers, 95 percent of the respondents viewed in-person meetings as a key to success in building long-term relationships.

Here are some tips to cut through the clutter and be effective in face to face meetings with executives:

1.  Be Prepared.  Plan carefully and craft your message so it is concise, relevant to the specific potential client and clearly states the impact that your value proposition offers.  We coach our clients so they are well prepared before entering that critical initial meeting.  If you were scheduled for a 20 minute meeting, but at the last minute find out that you only get 3 minutes to talk with a key decision maker regarding your product or service, what would you say?

2.  Sell Yourself.  Come in confident.  Exude an aura that communicates: “I am authentic.  You can trust me.”  Workplace body language expert, Carol Kinsey Goman, suggests in Forbes magazine that to insure a positive first impression, adjust your attitude and strike a power pose for two minutes before entering the meeting room to feel more confident and competent.

3.  Assess the Mood of the Day.  Keep your antenna up.  Your intuitive side needs to sense where the executive is at on that specific day.  What kind of mood is the executive in…stressed, light-hearted, focused?  Who among the executive’s team seems to be the influencer?   If possible, choose a seat where you have good eye contact with the executive.  Pay attention to nonverbal cues.  Eye contact transmits energy, indicates openness and interest.  According to Carol Kinsey Goman in Forbes, “Research shows it takes an average of three hours of continuous interaction to develop the same level of rapport that you can get with a single handshake.”  So make sure your body language reflects confidence, openness and authenticity.

4.   Develop a Rapport.  Build a connection.  Discover common ground and common pathways from life experiences that put you in a position to relate to each other in a way that can be mutually enjoyable and authentic.

5.  Listen and Understand What Your Client Needs.   Throughout the meeting, you are trying to shape a proposal that meets their needs effectively with great impact.  Explore, ask questions, keep asking more questions and get to the heart of what matters.  After uncovering what really matters, tell the story of how your product or service adds value and impact for the greater good of your client.  Your conversation will then be memorable and mutually beneficial.

6.  Follow Up in Personal Ways to Keep the Connection.  Pick up the phone and connect with the executive.  Sometimes a phone call will accomplish more in a few minutes than a multitude of emails.

For more tips on how to connect and engage in impactful ways with senior executives, read our blogs, such as:  “I Confess…I’m a SuperConnector (But, You Can Be Too!)” and “What Senior Executives Wish You Knew”

Wayne O'Neill (52 Posts)

Wayne is the CEO of Wayne O'Neill & Associates. An experienced executive, having spent twenty-five plus years in the project delivery industry with such companies as PSA/Dewberry, Bovis, and Gilbane Building Company, Wayne founded the firm to help bridge the gap between service providers and business executives. Wayne, by questioning, demonstrating, cajoling and pushing his clients, has developed a unique ability to crystallize concepts that ultimately help clients identify new ways to compete and grow.

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In this month’s issue of Harvard Business Review, Michael Raynor and Mamtaz Ahmed from Deloitte tackled the question: “How do we know what makes a company exceptional?”  In their research, they studied 25,000 companies who traded on the U.S. stock exchange between 1966-2010 and measured the Return On Assets (ROA) that reflected stable and consistent performance.  They identified two superior groups of companies:

1)  174 companies were in the top 10 percent called Miracle Workers

2)  170 companies were in the top 20-40 percent called Long Runners

The research reported, “Exceptional companies, it turns out come in all shapes and sizes.”  For example, 3M,  ”with its legendary innovation” made the list as well as a one product company, WD-40.  McDonalds made the list with locations all over the world.  At the same time, Luby’s cafeteria chain was exceptional with 43 locations.

The conclusions from this study, resulted in 3 Basic Rules:

1.  Better before cheaper – Companies who succeeded competed on their uniqueness before their price.

2.  Revenue before cost - These companies prioritized their efforts on gaining revenue before reducing their cost.

3.  There are no other rules.

Some interesting observations from this study:

• Customer focus was NOT the key.
• Innovation and Risk-Taking were NOT the major factors.
• Miracle Workers made deals that would leverage their “nonprice positions” and gave them higher revenue.

Every company in America has to make a choice whether to compete on nonprice benefits or reduced costs.  The research stated, “Miracle Workers overwhelmingly adopted the former (nonprice benefits).   Average Joes typically compete on price.  Long Runners showed no clear tendency.”

In general, here is a formula from the study:

Greater Uniqueness (brand, style or reliability)= Exceptional Performance (more often).

Strategic emphasis on Lower Prices=Less Performance

The study revealed that “Miracle Workers typically rely much more on gross margins than on lower costs for their profitability advantage, whereas Long Runners are likely to depend on a cost advantage.”  This means that greater performance is enhanced more often by value than lower price.  When companies compete on price, there will always be one more company who figures out a strategy to undercut the price.  Exceptional companies are not led astray by seeking after short-term cost cutting that might destroy the highest priority…value.

Translating Rule #2 is the ability to obtain profits by higher revenue.  In a sample of nine Miracle Workers, eight used revenue to drive performance, and six of the eight relied on higher prices to achieve their revenue levels.

In conclusion, many competing factors drive exceptional performance, including: operational excellence,  leadership styles and development, corporate culture and reward systems.  However, in this study, the exceptional companies were persistent to prioritize a position of value unrelated to low prices and create strategies for revenue-driven profitability…”everything else is up for grabs.”  This means we need to be open minded and flexible to consider the enormous options in running an exceptional company.  The next time you are in the boardroom discussing value and profits, remember to concentrate on creating value using better before cheaper and on capturing value with revenue before cost.

I’m sharing these concepts with you because when we coach, the following words seem complex but are really more fundamental in nature.  There are really only 2 choices:  better before cheaper and revenue before cost.  These concepts are important to us.  The following summary quote from the article is meaningful to our practice:

“The next time you find yourself having to allocate scarce resources among competing priorities, think about which initiatives will contribute most to enhancing the nonprice elements of your position and which will allow you to charge higher prices or to sell in greater volume…If your operational effectiveness is mostly about cutting costs, whereas if your innovation efforts are mostly about separating you from the pack, go with innovation.  But if pushing the envelope on operations is about delivering levels of customer service way above your competition’s, whereas innovation seems geared to doing the same for less, then your operations folks deserve the additional care and feeding.”

It’s well worth your time to look up this article and read it verbatim.

Reference:

“3 Rules for Making a Company Great” by Michael Raynor and Mamtaz Ahmed, Harvard Business Review, April 2013

“The Three Rules:  How Exceptional Companies Think” forthcoming book by Michael Raynor and Mamtaz Ahmed

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One of my favorite books, The Tipping Point:  How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference  by Malcolm Gladwell, defines “connectors” as “the people in a community who know large numbers of people and who are in the habit of making introductions. ”

Based on in-depth research analyzing how trends are sparked and take hold, Gladwell studied different industries, fields and disciplines and identified three key factors that each play a role in deciding whether a particular trend will “tip” into wide-scale popularity.

3 Key Factors Influencing What Trends Become Popular:

• Law of the Few - A few key types of people must champion an idea, concept. or product before it can reach “the tipping point” and become widely popular.
• Stickiness factor - Though hard to define, its presence or absence is usually unconventional, unexpected, and contrary to traditional “wisdom” or current practices.
• Power of Context – An extremely important factor in determining whether a trend will become popular is the context such as changes in a neighborhood or social group.

Though it is easy to be completely consumed by various day-to-day obligations, demands and aspects of the business, it is critical to remember the human connection side of business.  After all, you have such a limited amount of time!  If you are depending on one connection to introduce you to all the connects you need to grow your business, it is like fishing by yourself, with one pole…What will you catch?….one fish.  However, if you cast your net wider and network with strategic alliances who are key decision makers, but not your competitors, you can get multiple introductions and catch many fish.    We can coach you to cast your net wider, network strategically, and catch bigger fish from the sea of possibilities.

The post I Confess…I’m a SuperConnector…(But, You Can Be One Too!) appeared first on Wayne O'Neill & Associates.

A long-term career full of lessons learned gives seasoned leaders deep smarts, but who is going to take on that knowledge as the organization continues to grow over time?  How will critical content be transferred even after the current leadership’s tenure is over?  All levels of the organization feel they own a piece of the business but, without a plan for the continuity of knowledge, the hard won work may quickly unravel as senior leadership take on other avenues in life.

In organizational theory, knowledge transfer is the practical problem of passing along information from one part of the organization to another.  It seeks to organize, create, capture or distribute knowledge and ensure its availability for future users.  If it were merely a matter of communication, then a memorandum, e-mail or meeting would accomplish the intellectual sync.  So why does there always seem to be an epic disturbance when top leadership turns over to a new generation, which frequently results in a temporary yet unfortunate implosion of the business rhythm?

The truth is that critical knowledge is both technical and contextual, and so for a company to perpetuate the important lessons learned from both facets, what is actually required is the legacy planning of an organization’s experiential capital.  Legacy planning, as a part of knowledge transfer, is an ongoing process that involves participatory decision-making which intermingles current leadership and those strategically chosen to be included from the incoming generation.  Candidly, knowledge transfer is so much more than a statement of fact catalogued on some document.  That memo or email is just a snapshot of something that was relevant at a particular moment in time, and will most likely go unacknowledged into the oblivion of the internet once sent unless it is given greater context.  Beyond instantaneous relevance, legacy planning ensures intellectual, experiential and behavioral consistency progressively moving forward.

In our practice, Wayne O’Neill & Associates sees four pivotal choices that organizations have with knowledge transfer and legacy planning:

1.  When growth strategies are set at an executive level (which is most often older), are you ensuring that the mid-level managers or sales /operations teams (which are often younger) understand why the senior executives are moving in this direction?  This is an opportunity to bring cohesion between strategy and execution.

2. Is the senior leadership team engaging in conversation with mid-management and sales/operations teams who are working most directly with clients to gather their technical and experiential lessons-learned about the current needs of the markets they serve?  This is an opportunity for sales growth and product or service development.

3.  Is the organization actively pursuing intergenerational conversations as part of their decision-making process, and allowing for mentoring over time?  This is an opportunity for leadership evolution.

4.  Are there easily accessible, tangible means to supplement the pivotal conversations senior leadership is having so that everyone in the organization can participate in some way?  This is an opportunity to have cutting-edge input and to be accountable to the organization’s primary stakeholders- it’s team.

Knowledge transfer is complex because so much of it resides in individual networks, tools and tasks.  In addition, the lessons learned are often unspoken, inferred, highly intuitive, or hard to articulate.  Wayne O’Neill & Associates recognizes the complexities of managing knowledge transfer and brings such issues to the forefront with clients so that they can be leveraged as a catalyst for growth.  What others often see as a challenge, we see as a game-changing opportunity.

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With so much information and so much technology today, the key question that Larry Beasley of Wayne O’Neill & Associates posed in an interview following the ENR FutureTech Conference was:  “How do you find the right data and how do you use it more collaboratively?”

According to ENR speakers, it is time to look at everything digitally in a building and apply exiting technology.  Big Data has uses beyond our imagination and we can benefit from it if we use it to interact with the built environment.  For example, keynote speaker, Dave Bartlett, vice president of IBM’s Smarter Buildings group who leads IBM’s Smarter Buildings initiative, presented a case study the company developed with the Los Angeles Unified School District. The study combined a smart phone photo application with GIS data and allowed students and teachers to document maintenance issues in the district’s facilities. “People are the smartest sensors we have,” Bartlett said.  Another example is the City of Boston who has real time aware buildings.  With smarter buildings , we have smarter houses, offices, parking facilities, companies and cities.

While exploring how these next waves of technology innovation in design and construction improve life and the industry, Beasley gained these 5 insights:

1.  Re-image the built environment.  “It makes good business sense to re-imagine the built environment,” said Bartlett.  He stated that one can gain 200 times the original construction value for work done in a building.   “New inventions are not needed as much as applying current technology,” said Bartlett.  “The goal should be a built world that is aware of the environment and the desires of its occupants, and supplies services only as needed. This scenario does not necessarily require elaborate systems, just well-thought-out ones.

Bartlett offered three keys to-imaging the built environment:

A.  Add sensors and controls to the world’s buildings

B.  Interconnect sensors and controls

C.  Make sensors and controls intelligent.

With a rapidly growing world population of 7 billion people, it is important to re-image the built environment in ways that are more sustainable.  In NYC alone, 40% of the energy and 50% of the water is wasted in buildings, stated Bartlett.   For more information on this, go to:  www.asmarterplanet.com

As one example of an opportunity for significant savings, Bartlett mentioned air-handlers that are triggered by CO levels, rather than by formulaic standards for air exchange. Another is to use data analytics to share energy more efficiently to reduce peak demand and maintain high levels of capacity. He stated that there is a phenomenon going on right now as revolutionary as the original internet was: the internet of things.  Bartlett said.  “It is time to reduce building energy waste by creating an intelligent built environment. Embrace the idea.  Champion it. Spread it.  I think this is a movement.”

2.  Bring the Right Information  at the Right Time to the Right People who need it ASAP.   According to speaker, James Barrett of Turner, a North America-based, international construction company, who work on 1,200 projects a year for a volume of $8 billion, we already have the right information.  We need to bring all this information down to a useful level.  Then we need to get that information to the people who need it as soon as possible.  The challenge is that there is a ton of information and it is hard to measure the return on this information and its use .

3.  Automation in Construction.  Behrokh Khoshnevis, professor at University of Southern California, cited a study being done at USC and looking at the potential for automation in construction.   Rapid Fabrication Tech. ( Futurist )  is working with USC regarding this on site automation for construction, which is the last frontier for automation which could lower time  and cost.   Through robotics, barriers can be overcome.  However, are we ultimately facing the elimination of jobs in the construction market?

4.  Rise of the Super Subcontractor.  A panel on “The Rise of SuperSubs” yielded a provocative discussion on putting subcontractors—such as HVAC designers whose 3D models already interface directly with fabrication systems—as project leaders, rather than architects or general contractors whose models do not. “I would prefer to work closer with trade subcontractors,” said Gerald Hartford, principal at Hartford Engineering, San Diego. “I want to take that product that we develop as designers and move it as close to fabrication as we physically can.”

As Darren Hartman of  Thornton Tomasetti pointed out in the discussion about who is at risk and who is responsible?  Plus, there is a huge need for coordination and more integration of ALL of the team.  Hartman also discussed how many BIM drawings need to be done.  Plus, Building Information Design intent for BIM and language needs clarification.  He suggested that you pick the best suited parties and push the risk to those parties which also brings value to the process.

Jim Bratton of Dynalectric pointed out that trade knowledge is necessary, isn’t that some of the existing information isn’t  that good.  GC’s  selling BIM as the great enabler, and that nobody is enforcing or changing the paradigm.  He says the construction system needs to change with more trade integration.   This poses the question:  How does this make us more of an integrated team?  We need to bring the design and construction teams (general, sub and trades) together.

5.  BIM Collaboration in the Cloud should drive us to more standardized data and broader collaboration.  This was the main point of the ENR conference!

Although technology is exploding in all directions, construction technology is elevating to new levels.

• Rampant growth of smart devices on job sites.
• Explosive development of construction technology apps.
• Growth of cloud computing, helping to manage large project files with faster networks that connect far-flung work crews.
• Collaboration and web services are becoming the norm on more and more projects and transforming how the industry operates.
• Construction firms are seeing the value of deploying web services, which can be broadly defined as a set of protocols that help apps to interact over web-connected devices.
• Web services are helping project teams use their smart devices to work with smaller slices of data from a larger building information model file and work with it in the field. From the data captured on jobsites, they are developing new work processes that save time and money.

The construction technology industry needs to foster more collaboration as they attract information and remember to be successful.  The object is:  get it to the people in the field who need it most, in an easy to understand format, and when they need it .

The post Insights from Engineering News Record (ENR) FutureTech West 2013 Conference appeared first on Wayne O'Neill & Associates.

Whether you are trying to hire just the right person to your team or work more effectively with leadership, you need to appreciate the qualities that each generation brings to the table.   Compare the four generations to better understand their values and expectations.  By taking time to understand where each generation is coming from, you can learn to draw upon strengths, decrease frustrations, and work more effectively together.

Builders (1922-1946) tend to be:

• Civic minded and value duty, tradition, and loyalty
• Practical and built most of the U.S. infrastructure
• Dedicated Work Ethic – Produce quality work
• Leadership by hierarchy with command and control
• Respect authority, seniority and job titles
• Seek approval of authority before making decisions
• Willing to sacrifice personally for their country and company
• View work as an obligation, but like to be honored with plaques & symbolic records of achievement
• Expect courtesy
• Change=something’s wrong
• Build a legacy
• Linear work style – go from A to B to C -  used to sitting at a desk and working 9 to 5

Baby Boomers (1946-1960) tend to be:

• Team oriented yet value individuality and tolerance
• Optimistic outlook on the future
• Focused and take pride in being hard workers
• Like recognition for accomplishments
• Driven / strong work ethic – committed to do whatever it takes to get the job done, compete, and excel
• Love/hate view of authority
• Respect hierarchy and seek to discover alternative ways to get results
• Vision how things ought to look, feel or be in order to accomplish the end result.  (Other generations sometimes view this as micro-managing.)
• Like to be “hands-on” involved
• Willing to make sacrifices for the good of the “the company” or “the project”
• Relationship oriented; soul searchers
• Leadership by trying to form consensus, but will move on, if consensus is not attained because the overall purpose or mission is more important than the consensus.
• Change=calculated risk takers; change agents
• Build a stellar career
• Structured work style

Gen X (1960-1980) tend to be:

• Self-reliant; independence holds a strong value
• Pragmatic and value being savvy
• Skeptical outlook of the future
• Unimpressed view of authority
• Reluctant to make commitments
• Must require them to attend meetings or they may leave
• Constantly seeking the best technology, adventure holidays, extreme sports, toys and time off
• Outcome oriented, yet flexible and adaptable if the given specific goals and some resources
• Balanced work ethic – want “a life” – value time to play and be healthy to balance out work
• Leadership must show competence in order to be worth listening to
• Dislike being micro-managed by boomers.  Believe in doing their job without needing daily praise or feedback
• Thrive when given projects they can control, prioritize and juggle
• Change=potential opportunity
• Build a portable career
• Informal work style

Gen Y / Millennials (1980-2000) tend to be:

• Confident, frank and open about their expectations and desires
• Value authenticity and autonomy
• Hopeful outlook of the future
• Polite view of authority
• Inclusive relationships and diversity is the norm
• Expect feedback on demand
• Want flat governance and expect higher levels of hierarchy to listen to their viewpoints and suggestions
• Optimistic and goal-oriented, especially with work they consider meaningful
• Committed to collective action for the greater good
• Enjoy collaboration, networking, and multitasking
• Digitally native fast-learners and embrace emerging technologies
• Well educated; seek mentorships, training, and knowledge to eliminate ignorance
• Expect work-life balance within their day
• Determined work ethic – used to having their opinions solicited, listened to and acted upon
• Like open avenues for education and skills building and organized group outings
• Eager to add value by offering new solutions and creatively leveraging technology – flips roles by teaching superiors how to use technology
• Respect leaders who demonstrate competence
• Leadership by pulling together inclusively
• Change=improvement
• Build a parallel career
• Fluid work style – may arrive to work “late,” leave during the day to run errands, submit reports remotely and work from home at night.

In answering the question, “How can I get different generations to work together?”, Kathy Caprino, founder/president of Ellia Communications and author of Breakdown, Breakthrough, recommends

5 Steps that Lead Generations to Effectively Collaborate, Support and Contribute:

1.  Learn & Understand - Study the values and motivations of each generation.

2.  Respect - The key to working together is respect for all individuals, and their right to their own beliefs, values, customs, and ways of operating.  Create a culture that values multi-generational perspectives in order to draw upon the strengths of each.  Be open minded about how work is performed.  When faced with the conflict between generations, instead of choosing to escalate and assert one’s position, seek to understand and find common ground.

3.  Share & Explore – Build a structure for open, candid dialogue and exchange between employees through such avenues as:   lunch-and-learn programs, networking and socializing opportunities, off-sites, training and educational programs.  Create pathways for communication and education that encourage everyone to address their generational problems directly with those they work with.   For additional information on how to keep employees happy and productive, check out our blog:  “Employee Satisfaction…Does it improve your ROI?…Is it worth the investment?”

4.  Leverage through Collaboration - Instead of trying to hide or suppress differences, pair up individuals of different generations in teams, and allow them to discuss how they see their shared projects and how they would execute them.  Help them complement each other’s styles and capabilities to collaborate in a way that makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

5.  Bridge the gaps – No one generation or individual has all the answers.  There are gaps in individuals’ capabilities, views, values and priorities.  Bridge the gaps by helping each generation understand the value that each generation brings to the table.  Do not tolerate anyone labeling another “wrong” for expressing one’s views.  As a co-worker, you don’t have to adopt someone else’s style, but in order to move forward, identify the differences and find a way to integrate how work and progress will be viewed, executed and achieved.  As the leader, empower each individual to bring their authentic self to the table and let them know they are valued as an individual but expected to collaborate as a team.  Demonstrate how collaborating as fully as possible with others brings innovation and grows your business.

The point is that each generation possesses skills and drivers that can be complimentary to a team and has a treasure chest to offer any organization today.  The challenge to any CEO – whether a Baby Boomer, Gen X, Gen Y or Millennial – is how to maximize those individuals’ potential, and how to do so in harmonious, mutually respectful teams.

References:

“3 Things to Look out for when Making a Job Offer to a Gen Y”  by Adwoa K. Buahene, March 21, 2013 ngen: the next generation of people performance

http://www.ngenperformance.com/blog/gen-y/3-things-to-look-out-for-when-making-a-job-offer-to-a-gen-y

“How Can I Get Different Generations to Work Together?”  by Kathy Caprino of Work Reimaged http://workreimagined.aarp.org/2013/01/how-can-i-get-different-generations-to-work-together/?goback=.gde_4466073_member_208847130

“Defining a Generation:  Tips for Uniting Our Multi-Generational Workforce” by Dan King of Career Planning and Management Inc.   http://www.careerfirm.com/generations.htm

“Generational Differences At Work” http://www.slideshare.net/lbusby/i-m-ok-you-re-ok-r15-generations-at-work

“Generations in the Workplace in the United States & Canada” Catalyst  May 1, 2012  http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/generations-workplace-united-states-canada

“Conflict and Generations in the Workplace” by Jamie Notter, ASTD -world’s largest professional association dedicated to training and development,  March 6, 2013

http://www.astd.org/Publications/Blogs/Workforce-Development-Blog/2013/03/Conflict-and-Generations-in-the-Workplace

The post Managing Multiple Generations for Effective Collaboration & Contribution appeared first on Wayne O'Neill & Associates.

Most experts say that real job satisfaction is more than benefits or perks.  In the Inc. magazine, February 2013 issue, Teresa Amabile, Harvard business school professor, director of research, and co-author of “The Progress Principle:  Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work” says, “Of all the things that contribute to a happy workday, the one thing that stands out from my research is making progress on meaningful work.  Feeling like you are able to move forward on a daily basis engenders real joy.” 

Fast Company’s March 2013 article “Not a Happy Accident:  How Google Deliberately Designs Workplace Satisfaction”  confirms that Google has enviable employee perks such as:  free food, gym memberships, free haircuts during work hours, Wi-Fi-outfitted shuttle rides to work, plus bowling alleys, billiard tables, Lego rooms and permission to bring pets to work.  According to Fortune’s 2013 listing of “100 Best Companies to Work For”, Google placed #1 for the fourth time not just for the 100,000 hours of subsidized massages it doled out in 2012.  New this year are three wellness centers and a seven-acre sports complex, which includes a roller hockey rink; courts for basketball, bocce, and shuffle ball; and horseshoe pits. Though this generosity is appreciated, Google says that the re-engineered HR is what ensures their happy and profitable workplace.

What did Google do to grow in such a short time from a  two-man startup to an organization with over 34,000 employees in 40 different countries?  With this phenomenal workforce expansion, one wonders:  How has Google successfully managed and integrated all these new people while concurrently motivating them to be consistently loyal, ambitious, innovative, and productive?

Their productivity is indeed noteworthy considering that just 15 years ago, Google’s search engine, now used around the world over 100 billion times a month, didn’t exist.  Few can parallel Google in the profound impact their inventive achievements have made on human life in such a short period of time with such products as:  Google Maps, Gmail, Translator, Google Earth, and Android.    Larry Page and Sergey Brin cofounded the firm with the soaring ambition of making the world’s information available to everyone.

What few know is that Google has devoted the same level of intellectual firepower it used to create self-driving cars to discovering, refining, and implementing leadership practices that optimize human performance in the workplace.  Contrary to traditional leadership practices which squeeze as much out of people while paying them as little as possible, Google holds an authentic reverence for its employees and seeks to not just appeal to their uber-developed (top) minds in motivating performance, but also to their very human hearts.

“Imagine a world where most organizations were the best place to work. Imagine what we could be getting done on the planet if it were true.” quote by Karen May, VP of people development, Google

Google’s groundbreaking model of leadership has helped its stock appreciate by over 650% since the firm’s IPO seven and a half years ago.  In comparison, the Dow Jones average is up by just 44% in the same time frame.  Mark Crowley, former Senior Vice President at Washington Mutual, one of the country’s largest financial institutions, spent time with Google’s leadership and highlighted his lessons learned in the recent Fast Company magazine.   Here is a summary of his findings along with what we have discovered in our practice:

How to Design Workplaces for High Satisfaction and Productivity:

1.  Attract and retain great talent.  Invest in your people.  Take good care of your employees.  Ask employees what they desire and need, listen to their responses, and act upon them.  A study on what employees want from employers revealed these desires in Inc.com’s Infographic “What Makes Employee’s Unhappy“:

• Men want money and promotions
• Women want reduced hours or flexible hours
• Gen-Xers want a higher job title
• Millennials want more training
• Others want benefits plus perks like free beverages, a tablet or Smartphone for personal use or free massages    For more on what each generation values and expects, check out our blog:  “Managing Multiple Generations for Effective Collaboration & Contribution.”

2.  Be highly selective in hiring, purposely recruit ambitious people with proven track records of high achievement.  Appeal to the top minds to motivate top performance, drive extraordinary innovation and build remarkable brands.  By hiring top people, you harness energy rather than have to coax it out of them.

3.  Appeal to the human heart.  Employees are more likely to be loyal to a company when leaders fully support and authentically value them.  What does #2 ranked “Best Companies to Work For” in 2013 do?  With two artists in residence on staff, the perk-friendly, privately held data analytics firm SAS takes creativity seriously and this year added an organic farm for SAS’s four cafeterias.

4.  Make “being a great place to work” part of your DNA and culture. Investigate companies that are considered “best places to work”, connect with their leaders, and emulate them.

5.  Consistently do the right thing.  When leaders choose to make a habit of making wise and ethical decisions, it anchors trust.  When they walk the talk, and communicate the ups and downs effectively, it demonstrates transparency and inclusion.

6.  Ensure people have inspiring work.  The jobs people are asked to perform often lack variety and challenge.  When work becomes too routine or repetitive with few opportunities for growth and personal fulfillment, it can decrease employee spirit.  One of the unique perks that Google leaders give every employee –regardless of job title or pay level–is the opportunity to devote up to 20% of their work week to a project of their choice. Typically, Googlers choose to help out on some other company venture, but the pursuit is ultimately up to each employee.

7. Allow employees freedom and control of their time with accountability.
Over a 40-year period, Sir Michael Marmot studied the health of Great Britain’s government workers.  He discovered that employees who had the least control over their work lives consistently had the poorest well-being and the highest mortality rates. His conclusion is that giving people greater control over when and how work gets accomplished leads to more optimal health and performance.

“One of the tenets we (Google) strongly believe in,” says Prasad Setty, VP of people analytics and compensation, “is if you give people freedom, they will amaze you.”  

Allowing employees greater discretion on work hours and when it’s time to play, take a break, or work out is a progressive and controversial idea.  Google admits that in the absence of self-motivated employees, they would be playing defense and worrying about people taking advantage of all their freedom.  But, at Google, all that autonomy comes with true accountability and employees routinely exceed management’s expectations for producing exceptional work.

8.  Motivate and inspire employees by establishing a meaningful mission, giving them a significant voice, and true influence within the workplace.
Google mission today is to make people’s lives better through technology and to do great things.  Employees find these uncommon aspirational ambitions especially motivating and inspiring.  But doing significant work alone is insufficient to sustaining employee drive and commitment. Google’s leadership team believes what’s equally important is giving people true influence in how the firm is run.

“If you value people, and you care about them as whole people,” says Karen May, VP of people development at Google, “one thing you do is give them voice, and you really listen.” Google collects employee feedback on everything from how they prefer to be compensated, to the design of new bicycles used throughout the expansive headquarters campus.  Every Friday without fail, company leaders, including Page and Brin, conduct employee forums and respond to the top 20 most-asked questions.

But the transparency goes even deeper. Employees are given extraordinary access to company information, along with the trust that they’ll always use it for good. When the firm formally surveys its workers each year, not only do 90% of them participate, but they ultimate see not just their own group’s results, they see everyone else’s (though privacy is protected). And when the firm takes action on the feedback employees collectively provide, they share all of that too.

“All of this defines the employer-employee relationship very differently” says May. “It creates a different kind of experience being here, and also then creates opportunities for us in what we try to solve together for the world. I think all those add up.”

In reality, few businesses ever have been built with employee happiness as its cornerstone.  But in setting its sights on making employees contented, Google was not seeking a competitive advantage as much as it was trying to ensure its own sustainable success.  According to May, “It’s less about the aspiration to be number one in the world, and more that we want our employees and future employees to love it here, because that’s what’s going to make us successful.”

Is this the future of workplace leadership?  Would these uncommon practices and philosophies work in every organization?  Hard to determine without first trying.  Remember what Google CEO Larry Page once said, “Almost everyone who has had an idea that’s somewhat revolutionary or wildly successful was first told they were insane.”

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1.  Increase in “EB-5″ Program - U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services administers an Immigrant Investor Program, also known as “EB-5,”  to stimulate the U.S. economy through job creation and capital investment by foreign investors. Under this program, certain EB-5 visas are set aside for investors in Regional Centers designated by USCIS based on proposals for promoting economic growth.

2.  Growing opportunities for private financing - Click here for details on business growth opportunities through public private partnerships

3.  More corporations are partnering with University Research Parks - University Research Parks have talents, innovation and funding.   Investors have the ability to  mentor, connect and provide seed.

Advice from Dr. Mung Chiang, PhD, “Couple early…Couple stronger. “  The challenge is determining the worst pain point using the least amount of cash and that sometimes that simple ideas are the cheapest and simple ideas are not in the DNA of university professors.  What makes university entrepreneurship so hard is that there is no team of CEO/CFO/CMOs and not knowing where the venture capital and angel investors live.  Investors want a team because success or failure is always one standard deviation above or below the line.  For more ideas and examples of partnerships, click here and read “Creatively Funding Higher Education in Today’s Market.”

4.  Escalating angst around intellectual property protection  – Who owns the intellectual property? the company who funded the research, the university where the new discovery/innovation took place, the student or team of innovators?

5.  Research to application to commercialization needs to go faster.  Speaker, Tim Bour, MBA, Executive Director of the Innovation Center of the Rockies said that researchers  do not have a robust enough tech transfer staff to optimize the engagement process of entrepreneurial companies…the root of jobs coming online is too slow.  Like a farm team for venture capitalists, faculty/tech transfer program manager / advisor or entrepreneur can then be commercialized.  The key need is an investable CEO player.  According to Tim Bour, incentives are needed to get innovation to go faster…from 15 years to 60 days.

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One man who taught us to think different and see opportunities even in life’s setbacks was Steve Jobs.  Here’s a quote from “Tribute to Steve Jobs Think Different” on YouTube:  “Here’s to the ones who see things differently.  They are not fond of rules and have no respect for the status quo.  You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you cannot do is ignore them.  Because they change things.  They push the human race forward.  While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.  Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

3 Recommendations for Innovation by Steve Jobs:

1.   Trust that the Dots will Connect in the future.  Follow your curiosity and intuition.  “You have to trust that the dots will connect down the road in order to give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well worn path and that will make all the difference. “  quote by Steve Jobs

2.  When Life Hits You in the Head with a Brick, Don’t Lose Faith.  Find what you love and do it.

3.  In order to Do Great Work, Love What You Do and Don’t Settle.

Thinking differently requires change and change demands disruptive thinking.  The term “disruptive” means “breaking apart”.  Disruptive thinking, therefore, invites creativity that breaks away in order to break into new markets.  For example, through a disruptive dialogue between Herb Kelleher and Rollin King, the concept of Southwest Airlines was born.  Southwest Airlines became a disruptive innovation with its pared-down, unconventional business model that focuses on punctual arrivals and departures, and no-frills, yet friendly service.  Southwest Airlines offers a great value and dependability for a specific segment of the market that has helped the airline to thrive in a time when many others are failing.   Southwest Airlines continues to succeed by daring to be different. 

Disruptive thinking drives innovation causing the birth of a new kinds of products or service that captures a share of industry value, which, otherwise, will go to industry incumbents.  Renée Mauborgne & W. Chan Kim talk about this kind of disruptive innovation in the opening pages of their international bestseller book, Blue Ocean Strategy:  How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant when they refer to “Cirque du Soleil” as a unique combination of theater and circus. This hybrid show draws new and different kinds of customers who enjoy the imaginary world of drama, dance and creative acting, along with daring feats, extreme dexterity, graceful synchronization, and extraordinary acrobatic circus performance, plus a variety of art forms from around the world that attract a whole new audience.

But where do you start?  How do you come up with a disruptive innovation?

In Daniel Goleman’s book, The Brain And Emotional Intelligence: New Insights, he talks about brain studies, and the role of the neocortex and the subcortex in terms of decision making and creativity.  He sites a study done of California entrepreneurs who built businesses from nothing, into huge amounts.  And they were asked, “How do you make your decisions?” They all said essentially the same thing. They were voracious gatherers of data. They had very broad nets, things that other people wouldn’t think might be relevant. They delved into the numbers, they looked into everything, and then they would check it against their gut feeling.   What that means is that the first part of the process is cortical, associated with the cerebral cortex: the part of the brain that thinks in words and numbers.  Then you check that against your gut feeling.  If the numbers looked good, but it didn’t feel right, then these entrepreneurs didn’t go forward.  If the numbers looked good and it felt right, then these entrepreneurs moved forward.   In other words, it is good to “trust your gut.”

Goleman, well known for emotional intelligence, explains why gathering data, then checking it with your gut feeling is a good idea.  There’s a primitive part of the brain in the brain stem that gathers decision roles. As we face a decision point, it summarizes your life experience relevant to the topic, and sends you a message. The problem is it has no connection to the part of the brain that thinks in words. It sends the message to the gut. The GI tract. So when you say trust your gut, it’s actually literally true.

Brain studies measuring EEG brain waves during a creative insight reveal a very high gamma activity spike 300 milliseconds before an answer comes to us.  Goleman explains, “Gamma activity indicates the binding together of neurons, as far-flung brain cells connect in a new neural network – as when a new association emerges.  Immediately after that gamma spike, the new idea enters our consciousness.  This heightened activity focuses on the temporal area, a center on the side of the right neocortex.  This is the same brain area that interprets metaphor and “gets” jokes. It understands the language of the unconscious what Freud called the “primary process”: the language of poems, art, and myth. It’s the logic of dreams where anything goes and the impossible becomes possible.”

How can we best mobilize this brain ability to innovate? 

1.  Link up:  Concentrate intently on the goal or problem.  Grapple with the problem.  Focus intensely.  Define the problem, then immerse yourself in it.

2.  Let go:  Mentally relax.  Go get a drink of water, eat a snack to get your glucose up, do yoga, take a power nap or go for a walk.  Trying to force an insight can inadvertently stifle a creative breakthrough. If you stress too much, feel excessive pressure to produce or just think too hard or too long, you may lose the ability come up with fresh perspective or new way of seeing things, let alone generate a truly creative insight.

Experiencing high alpha rhythm, your mind will move into a state of openness, of daydreaming and drifting, which is needed in order for the brain to be receptive to new ideas.  Once you allow your brain to relax, the stage is set for novel connections that occur during the gamma spike of spontaneous creative insights that seem to come out of nowhere.   The “Aha” moments come just after “down time” where the right hemisphere of the brain connects to other parts of the brain, collects more information and puts them together in creative, novel organization.

How can we increase the likelihood of a gamma spike where creative insight occurs?

Remember that moment of pure joy that often comes after the creative insight?  One creative idea can multiply into a team of even better ideas if the leader remembers that creative ideas are like fragile buds that need to be fed and nurtured so they can blossom.

• Make use of all your 5 senses to get inspiration for creative ideas.
• Identify your area of strength and include a diverse array of people in your think tank because people have creative strengths in different areas.
• During brainstorming, do not allow any negative comments to follow a new idea.  That will kill creativity.
• If you need innovation and you tend to be critical or cynical, hold your tongue.   Refine and dissect the idea later, not on the onset because the flow stage is where maximum productivity occurs.
• The final stage is implementation, where a good idea either sinks or swims.

Daniel Goleman in his article “Maximize Your “Aha!” Moment” shared this example:  “I remember talking to the director of a huge research lab. He had about 4,000 scientists and engineers working for him. He told me, “We have a rule about a creative insight: if somebody offers a novel idea, instead of the next person who speaks shooting it down – which happens all too often in organizational life – the next person who speaks must be an ‘angel’s advocate,’ someone who says, ‘that’s a good idea and here’s why.’”

Link up and let go to expand creative insights to navigate in tomorrow’s unchartered waters.

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