Segment 13 (2020) Culture -Thursday, November 12 - 4:00 to 5:00 Eastern USA

[Paul Terlemezian]

Overview: How has your community/entity culture been changed in the past year? How can you intentionally improve and sustain the culture you desire? Does everyone want the same culture? How do we "have our cake (e.g.culture) and eat it too?"

Panelists:

• Joan Darkortey https://www.linkedin.com/in/joancurrandarkortey/
• Takiyah Gross-Foote https://www.linkedin.com/in/takiyahgross/
• Heather Maxfield https://www.linkedin.com/in/hlminer/
• Steve Paskoff https://www.linkedin.com/in/eliinc/
• Tim Spearin https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-spearin-6b55bba/
• Rob Stewart https://www.linkedin.com/in/robstewarttqg/
• John Torres https://www.linkedin.com/in/jctorres3/

Moderators:

• Larry Doiron https://www.linkedin.com/in/larrydoiron/

Remarkable Speakers:

• Robert Pittman https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-pittman-4a568a11/

[David Ellis]

Culture is vital to any organization. An illustration would come from the previous CEO of Honeywell, David Doty. When he arrived he knew he didn't have the full support of the board and he knew there were problems. When he found out how executives were focused on quarterly earnings rather than the strength of the business for the long-term coupled with dubious accounting and internal squabbling he told everyone that no new major decisions would be made until these aspects were resolved. This led to a culture of winning now and winning later. A lot of effort was put in to getting the right culture even to the extent that some of his direct reports questioned his focus on this when major projects were needing decisions. Inevitably that led to some departures and then Doty grew the business very successfully for the next 10 years.

[Paul Terlemezian]

I particularly like "winning now and winning later."

[Tim Spearin]

With the workplace becoming more and more diverse, many organizations are finding it necessary to revamp their employee engagement, performance management, recruiting, training and other talent areas affecting corporate culture.  Adding a pandemic and the need for so many to work virtually ony highlights what's working and what's not within a company.  From onboarding and coaching, to leadership, internships and succession planning, better understanding how employees feel about "fitting in' with their work culture is tantamount to success these days.  How do you do this efficiently?  What tools can you leverage that will positively impact culture? How can you improve this competency for leaders?  How do you move through organizational change in ways that inspire rather than worry people?  Come to our Culture segment to listen, learn and participate!

[Paul Terlemezian]

Great thought provocation Tim. For example - Has Zoom (or related technologies) become a leadership competency - "overnight?" When "email" was new - some leaders resisted it and dictated to their assistants - who "typed" and distributed their email. This created a perception that their "laggardness" might extend to their leadership as well.

[David Ellis]

We have seen unparalleled progress this year on all of Tim's thoughts by the bulk of large-company CEOs. The money that has now been committed to all aspects of the inclusion culture should ensure that business will take a large stride forward. From my contacts with private equity backed CEOs and some small public companies I don't think the CEOs are finding Zoom to be a challenge! However, public company quarterly earnings presentations with analysts present have not yet migrated that far.

[Stephen Paskoff]

Culture is built on consistent day to day action and inaction.

Organizations need to to develop core behaviors that are simple, clear and few derived from their values. These need to be taught, not just by traditional educational training, but by workaday actions back on the job which are part of normal interactions.

The keys to building workplace culture are tied to :

Commitment, Communication, Content, Consequences and Continuity. 

[David Ellis]

I agree Steven. I thought you would enjoy this booklet which expands upon your comments.

https://sf.tradepub.com/?p=w_thbt01&w=d&email=doellis@eglho...