{"id":31834,"date":"2018-07-20T13:14:02","date_gmt":"2018-07-20T13:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/?p=31834"},"modified":"2018-07-20T13:14:02","modified_gmt":"2018-07-20T13:14:02","slug":"you-need-these-elements-to-build-an-irresistible-company-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/?p=31834","title":{"rendered":"You Need These Elements to Build an Irresistible Company Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WeinerOn a recent cross-country flight, I was pleased to see that the in-flight entertainment included a fireside chat with Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Weiner is a CEO I greatly admire for his authenticity, clear communication and the fact that he values mindfulness and compassion<\/a> in the workplace. So I was excited to hear more about what LinkedIn is doing to create an irresistible place to work<\/a> where people learn and thrive.  <\/p>\n

Weiner\u2019s perspective is that building a strong company culture<\/a> comes down to three main components:<\/p>\n

Authentic Leadership <\/p>\n

Authentic leadership means the company leaders make decisions based on the values of the company culture. It means that the CEO can get asked, \u201cWhat\u2019s our culture?\u201d and answer the question both in words, and by example. Employees start rolling their eyes when they hear about company culture if they don\u2019t believe the leaders actually mean it. Leading by example is critical because it means that C-level executives will get called out if they don\u2019t embody the principles of the company.  <\/p>\n

Company Values <\/p>\n

To create a great culture, you have to be clear about what matters. This is where values come in. It\u2019s important to note that culture and values are not the same thing. Values are part of the culture.  More specifically, values are the operating principles upon which a company\u2019s leadership make day-to-day decisions.<\/p>\n

Make sure you codify your values and that leaders are using these values to make decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the company doesn\u2019t have a codified culture, employees and managers will manifest whatever culture they\u2019ve learned in the past and are coming in with,\u201d Weiner explains. \u201cYou want to make sure the leadership that\u2019s setting up new offices in different locations are good cultural actors. Because, if that\u2019s not the case, they will set up the office with their own culture and where the want to take the company, and that\u2019s a very good way of leading to a bad outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aspiration <\/p>\n

The third aspect of creating great culture is aspirational. It\u2019s important to have a sense of what kind of company you aspire to be, because it \u201cgives the company permission to not necessarily constantly be doing everything that it ultimately wants to do,\u201d as Weiner puts it.<\/p>\n

Without having an aspirational component, employees quickly become cynical when they see a gap between the company vision and reality.  Factoring in aspiration means that people know that the company is headed in the right direction, so they are more inclined to be patient and understanding when the company isn\u2019t 100% perfect at living up to its values.<\/p>\n

The Common Characteristics of Top Leaders<\/p>\n

Weiner believes that thriving cultures require outstanding leaders, and he feels that all top-notch leaders have three characteristics.<\/p>\n

Top leaders are coaches <\/p>\n

When you\u2019re at a 15-person startup, everyone needs to be able to get stuff done fast. So, startups default to the skill set of \u201cget it done quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

As you hire people and grow to a 50 or 100 person company, they see you, one of the founders, as a leader, and they come to you for advice. If you help them solve their problem once, that\u2019s only once – they\u2019ll still keep coming to you for help. But if you coach them on how they can problem-solve, that\u2019s much better.  <\/p>\n

The most advanced coaches realize that they can coach others to coach their teams. That\u2019s how you get to scale. It\u2019s the difference between giving someone a fish, teaching them to fish, and teaching them how to teach others to fish.  After all, in order to grow a company to scale, you need to grow the leadership team around you.<\/p>\n

Top leaders carve out time for being proactive and strategic <\/p>\n

This is important but difficult, because it requires time. Checking off a giant to-do list is something teams get good at as they are achieving success.  But it\u2019s hard to lead if you can\u2019t think proactively; if you\u2019re constantly reacting or fighting fires, or playing catch-up to competitors, you\u2019ll always feel like you\u2019re behind. It\u2019s important to \u201ccarve out cycles\u201d – such as 90 minutes a day – to \u201ccatch your breath, connect the dots, and synthesize.\u201d  <\/p>\n

Top leaders inspire people to \u201cact like an owner\u201d <\/p>\n

The most successful companies are where individual employees talk about challenges the company faces as \u201cwe\u201d and not \u201cthe company.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as you start to not think like a victim, and instead think like someone who can influence the outcomes, that\u2019s who you become,\u201d Weiner notes. The victim mentality unfortunately often takes root at large companies where employees feel that their opinions don\u2019t matter because it\u2019s someone else\u2019s job to fix a problem.<\/p>\n

Acting like an owner means that employees are empowered to voice their suggestions and that there is a way for the company to respond to feedback. When everyone at the company sees the company as a \u201cwe\u201d and not a \u201cthey,\u201d people can express frustration and share solutions, and then they\u2019ll work to make those solutions happen.<\/p>\n

Bringing out the Best in Top Employees<\/p>\n

While managers tell people what to do, leaders inspire them to make good decisions. This comes back to authentic leadership – it\u2019s important for leaders to embody the values they espouse because most people are very good BS detectors.  <\/p>\n

More specifically, great leaders find alignment between what employees want to accomplish and what they want employees to accomplish, and explain why it\u2019s such a strong fit. Weiner encourages managers to let employees have autonomy and purpose, and develop mastery along the way.  Let employees leverage their intelligence, passion, compassion, resourcefulness and show them how their strengths can create value on a global basis; now that\u2019s inspiring.  <\/p>\n

Orienting Around a Sense of Purpose<\/p>\n

It\u2019s noteworthy that LinkedIn hosts monthly InDays<\/a>, where teams come together for activities that often include volunteering together. So managers make a practice of bringing in a sense of social purpose to the company on a regular basis, which I\u2019m sure impacts LinkedIn\u2019s culture in a positive way.  <\/p>\n

It also makes sense that LinkedIn is committed to social impact because one of the words Weiner kept mentioning in his fireside chat was \u201ccompassion.\u201d Weiner recognizes that despite the fact that humans by default are egocentric – we see the world through our own lens – he sees the value of people who recognize others\u2019 perspectives.  That sensibility makes for a great culture, and a great company.  <\/p>\n

Sign up for our free webinar on July 27th at 11am PT \/ 2pm ET<\/p>\n

“Corporate Activist Employees: Your New CSR Team” <\/p>\n

\"Register<\/a><\/p>\n

Also read:<\/p>\n

Collaboration, Not Competition, Is the Best Hope to Save 20 Million Lives<\/a>
\nDropbox Connects its Culture to Bottom Line Impact<\/a>
\nWhat Nonprofits Want Companies to Know About Giving<\/a> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Read more: causecast.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a recent cross-country flight, I was pleased to see that the in-flight entertainment included a fireside chat with Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn. Weiner is a CEO I greatly admire for his authenticity, clear communication and the fact that he values mindfulness and compassion in the workplace. So I was excited to hear more …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15842,2677,16435,15988,3372,16437,15747,15745,16436],"class_list":["post-31834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-uncategorized","tag-company","tag-culture","tag-leaders","tag-make","tag-people","tag-thats","tag-their","tag-they","tag-values"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Weiner%2021532092443.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}