"You Belong Here"

Photo by Amer Mughawish on Unsplash

Greetings -  

I hope you, your families and friends continue to be well, safe and healthy. 

This will be my final publication for the near term, so I am providing more content than usual to bridge the next couple of weeks. Our daughter embarks this week on a fully remote transition (at least for a month) into a new high school here in the Bay Area. Lots of change and new adventures await us!

This week, the Articles and Podcasts sections focus exclusively on corporate culture, and its profound effect on our feelings of belonging, connectivity, perceived value and worth for the myriad gifts we bring to our craft and our desire to give discretionary effort in services to our leaders and organizations. The Articles section is roughly divided into 3 sub-sections: 1) the key attributes and components of culture and why culture is a vital differentiating factor to both attract and retain talented folks and successfully grow your business; 2) the power of and need for truly inclusive workplace environments, especially in our current, and what will likely be our ongoing, remote work environments. There are multiple perspectives here on why and how we need to get beyond diversity and inclusion to a sustained sense of belonging. "Dear White Boss" is a truly moving piece and is relevant now as when it was originally published (read it first and then guess the date... I was way off); 3) and finally, there are points of view on cultural pitfalls to avoid (or at least mitigate), as well as a series of pragmatic articles for creating, sustaining and evolving the culture that you want (e.g. conducting organizational culture mapping, fostering mentally healthy workplaces, revamping hiring best practices, providing proactive onboarding tips for new employees, etc.) 

As always, happy reading and listening! And please stay safe and look out for your families and your community.

My best,

-kj

Articles

Why Great Employees Leave “Great Cultures." "To start, we need to get more specific in how we define culture. Great organizations and leaders know that the culture stuff is the hard stuff. Culture takes time to define. It takes work to execute. Yet, if the time is spent (1) really understanding the behaviors expected throughout the organization; (2) identifying the systems and processes that will continue to help those behaviors be expressed and sustained; and (3) shaping practices that help employees and the organization become better, then you can close your culture gaps."

Why the Most Effective Operations Managers Truly Value Great Culture. "Your organization’s ability to execute—to operate effectively and efficiently—is directly related to the health of its culture."

Making Empathy Central to Your Company Culture. "Empathy deserves its buzzy status, and leaders are wise to desire it for their businesses. But to succeed in making it part of their organization’s DNA, they must pay close attention to how cultures build and change — organically, collectively, and often from the bottom up."

Are Your D&I Efforts Helping Employees Feel Like They Belong? "People want their social group to be included and their individual self to belong. These are two different things. Managers can hit both targets when diversity initiatives do consider social identity, but inclusion initiatives focus on the individual. Managers should not only signal that a social identity is valued, but also that the individual is valued, as a person, not just on the basis of the social group they represent. Support and recognition from coworkers, particularly those in leadership positions, foster feelings of inclusion and belonging."

Sustaining and Strengthening Inclusion In Our New Remote Environment. "Thoughtful action now can help teams build new habits, strengthen connections, and encourage the growth of inclusive cultures that will better realize the full potential of all employees."

“Dear White Boss…” "We asked Caver and Livers, faculty and coaches at the Center for Creative Leadership, to write a fictional letter from a black manager to a white boss describing the miasma and what it’s like to be different in the workplace...Their letter portrays the nature of corporate life once black managers are established—the feeling that they leave some part of their identity at home and the sometimes subtle and often systemic racial biases that inhibit and alienate African-Americans."

‘How much is my silence worth?’: Amid a racial reckoning, women are rejecting NDAs. "As the chilling effect of confidentiality agreements crystallizes, some employees are refusing to sign NDAs or breaking them to speak out, risking financial and legal consequences."

4 Conversations Leaders in the #MeToo Era Should Be Ready For. "But good leadership is not just about responding to incidents when they occur. It’s also about being prepared to navigate the difficult conversations that help prevent sexual harassment in the first place. The more you practice and prepare for these uncomfortable conversations, the more likely you are to respond in ways that support your team and make your organization a positive place to work.

"The Wrong Ways to Strengthen Culture. "Good leaders recognize that although aspirational talk about culture may originate in the C-suite, the actual culture manifests in cubicles and on shop floors far from top leaders’ purview. That disconnect makes it essential that CEOs do more than talk a good game.

"Keep Your Company’s Toxic Culture from Infecting Your Team. "Cultures that force us to compromise our best selves aren’t good for us or for our organizations. But let’s face it: you’re probably not going to be able to single-handedly change the culture of your entire organization. What you can do, however, is to take matters into your own hands to create a resonant microculture where you have the most chances of succeeding: on your team. And while it may be easier to do these things when you are the team leader, it’s not critical that you be in a position of power."

How to Create the Company Culture You Want. "The first step in influencing your organization’s culture is to visualize the behaviors and values you want at the center of the organization. We refer to this artifact as a culture map."

Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement. "We developed these practices by studying several leading health systems around the world, but they would pay dividends for any leaders and teams who struggle to keep up with customer demand, navigate internal hierarchies, and build a lasting continuous-improvement system."

8 Ways Managers Can Support Employees’ Mental Health. "As much as we might like to return to the way things were, we won’t. So let’s use this opportunity to create the mentally healthy workplace cultures that should have existed all along."

Stop Hiring for “Cultural Fit." "When you prioritize candidates you 'click with,' you run the risk of discriminating against candidates from different backgrounds. Here’s how to change course."

4 Steps To Creating a Truly Agile Culture and Developing Agile Leaders. "A truly agile culture is one where trust forms the basis of any relationship and where feedback is not only received with open arms but sought out by everyone. There is no better test to evaluate how agile a culture is than to assess these two cultural attributes."

Navigating a New Job with a Very Different Culture. "Here are four strategies that can help ease your transition into a new environment."

TED Talks/Podcasts

WorkLife with Adam Grant: The Fall of WeWork's Culture. "Exclusive: In his first public interview since WeWork’s collapse, former Chief Growth Officer David Fano opens up about the company’s leadership and culture. We go deep on the rewards and risks of charismatic leadership and bold visions, the differences between strong cultures and cults, and how a meteoric rise can come crashing down."

This American Life: Get Back to Where You Once Belonged. "People looking everywhere to find a place—any place—where, for once, they don't have to be the odd man out."

TED2019: What Productive Conflict Can Offer a Workplace. "Got an idea to make your workplace better? Labor organizer and TED Fellow Jess Kutch can show you how to put it into action. In this quick talk, she explains how "productive conflict" -- when people organize to challenge and change their work lives for the better -- can be beneficial for employees and employers alike."

Blog Posts 

Seth Godin: Generous isn’t always the same as free. "The answer might be showing up to do the difficult work of connection, of caring and of extending ourselves where it’s not expected."

The Daily Stoic: A Test of Your Worth. “Decide to create value. Decide to give more than you take. Make the world better by being in it.”

Arts, Music & Culture Corner

15 Insane Photos from Northern California’s 2-Day Lightning Storm. "...The 2-day storm gave photographers throughout Northern California the opportunity to capture some eye-catching shots...From the Bay Area to Sacramento and all the way up to Redding, the storm was bright throughout the area. Here are some of the best photos."

Cameron Crowe on the 20th Anniversary of ‘Almost Famous’: "It’s Never Been as Popular as It Is Now." "The writer-director on interviewing rock legends for ‘Rolling Stone,’ screening the movie for Led Zeppelin, and why the film still resonates after two decades."

Rolling Stones to Open Flagship Store in London. “Soho has always encapsulated rock & roll so Carnaby Street was the perfect spot for our own store."

Will these modular apartment buildings help the Bay Area handle its housing crisis? "Several affordable projects in the area are assembling apartments off-site and then simply locking them into place. If they’re successful, it could cut millions of dollars off construction costs and months off building timelines."

San Franciscians can no longer dine in a bubble. "The San Francisco Chronicle reports that after a surprise inspection, the city’s health department has ordered Japanese fine dining spot Hashiri to take down the fine dining [geodesic] domes that have made it internationally famous."

Reflections

"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it." ― Edith Wharton

"In the end there is no desire so deep as the simple desire for companionship." ― Graham Greene

"I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other." ― Rainer Maria Rilke