Center for Values-Driven Leadership

Keep, Cut, Change: How to Get Culture Fit with Clients

Walraven (center) with Syncroness employees.
"They know I have their backs," he says.

Landing a $2 million dollar contract is a big deal in a company the size of Syncroness, a Denver-based engineering consulting firm. CEO Mike Walraven was delighted when a new client signed Syncroness to provide research for a technology feasibility study.

“It was a fairly significant contract for us,” says Walraven. This was exactly why the team was disappointed to find – two weeks into a two year contract – that the existing technology could not do what the client wanted. “The physics was such that it just couldn't be done – it couldn't be scaled to fit the need,” says Walraven.

Now Walraven and his young company faced an ethical decision: let the client know immediately, and loose the $2 million dollar deal, or drag the project out in hopes of keeping some of the contract’s money on the table.

Walraven made the ethical choice. “I had to tell the client, ‘We’d just be burning your money to continue this research.’”

The tough choice paid off: it took a few years, but the client returned to Syncroness the next time they had an engineering research need. More importantly, word of Walraven’s honesty with clients circulated in the industry, leading to new clients and a strong reputation.

What this client found was that Syncroness was a good culture fit for their organization. Finding clients that fit your company’s culture has the long term benefit of creating loyalty and easier, often more profitable, working relationships. Walraven offers these suggestions for keeping, cutting, or changing clients to ensure a culture fit with your organization:

1. Choose clients carefully. It may seem that the choice happens in the other directions – clients choose you – but in reality, most bigger contracts begin with a courting season that allows both companies to get to know one another, including the culture and values at play.

Walraven recommends watching for these red flags:

The prospective client treats you like a commodity rather than a partner.
The prospective client has tried outsourcing before and hasn't found a consistent partner.
Their goal is only financial and they just want to get it done cheaply.
They can’t articulate what they need, and they lack a clear vision the project’s future.

Being selective about clients is a privilege, Walraven says. But it also prevents future headaches.

2. Do everything you can to keep commitments to your clients. Once you have a strong client relationship, or have an agreed upon set of expectations, Walraven’s team goes out of their way to keep the relationship thriving.

One recent Syncroness client project began to go over budget. “We hadn’t set clear expectations up front,” Walraven says. Along with that, a change in leadership for the client, along with a slow scope creep had taken the project off path and over budget.

“My team was saying, ‘Let’s just cut this project now. It’s hurting the company,’” says Walraven. But he knew Syncroness’s long term reputation was more valuable than this short term problem, so he made the decision to finish the project.

“To quit now wouldn't speak too well to our values,” Walraven told his team. “We want a lasting relationship with the customer, and killing the project would kill the relationship. Word of mouth would come back to bite us.”

3. Respectfully confront clients. Syncroness’s clients are often under a lot of pressure to find new technologies, meet tight deadlines, and operate on lean budgets. As a result, clients can sometimes get over-bearing with Walraven’s staff. He won’t tolerate it.

“We have the tough conversation. We remind the client that they can’t talk to our staff that way. And often,” he says, “the reminder is all it takes.”

4. End relationships gracefully. Not every relationship can be salvaged. Recently a long term client began failing to pay bills. With 10 staff members dedicated to the client’s project, resolving the situation was important. But the client’s new ownership – they’d been purchased by an off-shore firm after facing financial problems due to a law suit – seemed to be stripping the company of resources while also making decisions that were ethically questionable.

"We've tried communicating with them,” says Walraven. “If times are tough, we’re willing to work through it with people. But it requires a significant amount of communication. We put our cards on the table and say this is what’s okay and not okay – from our standpoint of integrity and good business sense.”

Seeing no changes in the client’s behavior, Walraven made the tough decision to end the relationship before it became costly to Syncroness. “You have to exit gracefully – do what you've committed to do, communicate clearly, and then move away,” he says.

Finding (and keeping clients) that are a good culture fit is part of the long game of business, Walraven says. “There’s plenty of work out there. You should be able to find the people you want to work with and not work with others.” Making that choice inevitably works better for your company in the long term – even if it’s a tough call in the short run.

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Amber Johnson is the Center for Values-Driven Leadership's corporate relations and social media advisor. She is a non-profit and small business communications professional. In addition to blogging about business for the CVDL, Amber writes about marriage and other topics on her personal blog.

What's Your Metric for Success?

Would your strategy change if you changed
your definition of success? Photo credit: Flickr via CompFight.

Definition of success? I could lose everything and truly be okay with it. ~Tony Hsieh, billionaire and CEO of Zappos

This idea of a metric for success was suggested by someone this past week on Facebook regarding our current political dilemma. I have to admit, I do wonder what our various senators and congressmen are using as their metric for success given the decision making we've observed. Is their metric for success re-election? Pleasing a very specific and small group of constituents? To be on the winning side? Self-promotion? Doing what's best for the most people? Who knows? But it certainly did cause me to ponder the question: What's my highest metric for success? And, how much is my ego driving my metric?

I'll openly admit that I have been a casualty of our culture when it comes to measuring my success. I let external expectations of success influence many of my decisions. For years, in my little company of Greystone Global, I had numerous staff, multiple locations, etc. These are all symbols or metrics of success in the consulting world. The real truth is, when I first started in the consulting business more than 17 years ago, I wanted to be an independent consultant. That never changed. However, I allowed my ego to get the best of me and I did all of the things that others told me I was supposed to do to be a "success." I had multiple staff, multiple locations, traveled across the country to clients from coast to coast. But those metrics of success weren't bringing me fulfillment.

As I mentioned in a recent blog, I was busy, but busy (along with the staff, locations, etc.) wasn't the metric for success that really mattered to me. I wanted to be able to look back on a year of consulting and coaching and point to specific scenarios where organizations were healthier, dollars were being spent more effectively, people were achieving personal goals, and teams were thriving. In order for that to happen it could mean (or even require) that I wasn't overly busy and it really didn't demand the locations, staff, travel, etc. So, as staff either retired or wanted to make other changes I chose not to replace them. I pursued client relationships that didn't require extensive travel, and I function from one small but efficient office space.

My highest metric for success? Did I develop a relationship and do work with each of my clients that could in some way push the world a little closer to wholeness? I honestly believe that I have a better shot at achieving this metric for success by ignoring what culture dictates as my metrics of success. But, that requires a lot of fortitude to put my ego aside; because while I may have changed my metric for success, our culture has not. So I still get asked the same "success" questions like: Are you busy? How many staff do you have? Are you traveling a lot? It's not unheard of, but on a rare occasion I get asked something like: What have you been able to help some of your clients achieve in the past year?

My intent was not to ramble on about my own metric for success, but to challenge each of us to be really honest with ourselves. How do we measure our own success? If you're not sure, then look at the decisions you are making – not your aspirations – what you are actually doing. What we actually do or decide, is the real indicator of our metric for success, not what we'd like to do.

Is your metric of success honestly bringing you fulfillment? If not, then maybe it's time to re-evaluate. But please, don't take 15 years to make it right, like I did.

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Dr. Kathryn Scanland is the president of Greystone Global LLC, a consulting firm focusing on strategic planning, leadership development and organizational design. This post is republished with permission from Tuesday Mornings.

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Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast

Last week I had the privilege of attending two outstanding conferences, first the COMMIT Forum, a conference hosted by the Corporate Responsibility Association; followed by the Inc. 500/5000 conference, hosted by Inc. magazine.

Though divergent in areas of focus, the two conferences had one unintentional theme: the incredible value of culture in guiding the direction of a company.
We heard this time and time again from the well-known speakers that took the stage.

Jim Collins, celebrated author of Good to Great, spoke of developing a culture of discipline as a way to combat "chronic mediocrity."
Social media experts spoke about the value of reputation and engagement as measures of culture, and how that reputation is shaped by leadership decisions.
Responsibility executives spoke about the struggle companies face when they form partnerships with organizations who aren't aligned with their corporate cultures and values: the result is often a failed project.
Serial entrepreneur Les McKeown spoke about the burnout that results from "over-cooked systems," and mis-alignment of internal leaders to an overriding vision.
Hubspot "evangelist" Laura Filton reminded us that generosity should be a stronghold of contemporary business culture. "Generous is the new cautious and controlled," she said.

Do you notice what these speakers ARE NOT talking about? They aren't talking about strategy. In fact, several spoke derisively about business plans that get written, shoved in a drawer, and never revisited. Day to day decision making - the decisions that truly guide what our companies become - is almost always shaped more by culture than strategy.

Two leaders, at two separate conferences, offered the same observation: Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Attributed to leadership guru Peter Drucker, the statement's meaning is simple: strategy is important, but who you are, and who your company is at a core-value level, will guide your future more than any single plan.

So how are you shaping culture? At the Center for Values-Driven Leadership, we're working to understand the factors of culture that best lead to success, as defined by profit and revenue, employee engagement and retention, pace of innovation, and customer loyalty. Our Return on Values research initiative, a partnership with the Inc. Small Giants Community, asks the question, In small and mid-size businesses, what is the relationship between culture and profit?

To see some of our answers, we invite you to visit our Return on Values website at www.returnonvaluesproject.com.
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Amber Johnson is the CVDL's corporate relations advisor and a non-profit and small business communications specialist.

Taking Busy Off Its Pedestal

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen. ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Thoreau's Cabin on Walden Pond

Are you busy?

That’s a question I get asked frequently. It's part of the culture of owning a small business and/or being self-employed. And I do the same; I ask my business friends "Are you busy?" For some reason when I was asked that question recently, it struck me differently somehow. I suddenly thought to myself, is that really how we've come to judge our success Is being busy good and not being busy bad?

With just a couple of minutes of research I discovered that I'm certainly not the first person to ask that question. Below are a few quotes I pulled from an article in the NY Times entitled, "Too Busy to Notice that You're too Busy."

While those who are overworked and overwhelmed complain ceaselessly, it is often with an undertone of boastfulness; the hidden message is that I'm so busy because I'm so important.

It's a status symbol.

We avoid dealing with life's really big issues — death, global warming, AIDS, terrorism — by running from task to task.

It is a kind of high.

Paradoxically, Dr. Hallowell writes in "CrazyBusy," it is in part the desire for control that has led people to lose it. "You can feel like a tin can surrounded by a circle of a hundred powerful magnets," he writes. "Many people are excessively busy because they allow themselves to respond to every magnet: tracking too much data, processing too much information, answering to too many people, taking on too many tasks — all in the sense that this is the way they must live in order to keep up and stay in control. But it's the magnets that have the control."

So when and where did I succumb to the idea that "busy" is something to be idolized? To be put on a pedestal? To define success? Like many things in life, I think it happened slowly and gradually over time and it wasn't until I had been asked the question for maybe the 100^th time that I finally started to wonder if I too was associating busy with success or importance.

As leaders, should we be identifying ourselves with "busy?" Are we imposing that same expectation onto others without even realizing it? And, is busy really good anyway?

When I look back on my life I don’t think I want to look back and see that I was "busy" and somehow equate that with a legacy I want to leave behind. To change that, I could start by taking "busy" off of the pedestal of importance and no longer ask people "Are you busy?" Maybe I could change that obligatory business networking question to something like, "What have you learned lately?" or "What's the greatest difference you've made or impact you've been able to have this year?" or "What have you been working on that's brought you personal fulfillment?" The list could go on, but beginning to associate my conversation openers with something I value more than busyness seems like a good start.

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Two Terrifying Exercises that Might Foist Your Team toward Greater Candor and Innovation

Asking for direct, critical feedback is
terrifying. Of course, not knowing
what you're missing is even more
dangerous. Photo used with
permission via Flickr.

Here’s a fun little exercise for you.

I’m just kidding. The idea is terrifying.

Maybe you should do it anyway.

Imagine assembling your leadership team in the room, and then taking turns answering this question:

The one thing I absolutely do not want you to know about me is ___(fill in the blank)___.

Then, once you’ve spat that out, ask your team to answer this question about you:

The most powerful negative feedback I have for you is ___(fill in the blank)___.

Is your heart racing yet, just at the thought? What would they think of me if they knew ….? Could I really handle hearing the worst my team has to say about me? My most ugly character trait?

These exercises came from Shawn Riegsecker, the CEO and founder of Centro, a software firm recognized by Crain’s Chicago as the #1 best place to work. He offered the exercises to a room full of executives, with the suggestion that they try this with their senior teams. (For that last question, he always has a psychologist in the room to facilitate the conversation - and everyone takes a turn in the hot seat.)

The idea, he says, is to experience these extremes in a safe environment so that you know the worst. It’s out there. They were able to say it. You were able to hear it. And you survived.

In this case, survival means you have created a team where trust, safety, and candor are possible. And in that context, you can expect some creativity, some innovation, and some strong employee engagement to result. Certainly it makes candor more possible - and more valued - in future team meetings.

"We're basically lying to each other all the time," Riegsecker told the leaders gathered at the Executive Breakfast Club of Oak Brook's monthly meeting. And when that happens, when we're always holding back part of the truth, we are also unintentionally putting ourselves and our companies at risk in ways we might not realize. Creating an environment of trust and candor makes it possible for leaders to speak up, to be a voice of opposition. While it sometimes seems criticism creates conflict, it can actually lead toward greater stability.

Maybe you’re thinking this exercise should come with one of those television captions that read, DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. Riegsecker admits the exercises don't always go well: he's had to host long listening sessions in his office, to deal with the fallout of hearing the truth. But if the end result is greater candor, and an environment where risk is minimized and innovation can grow, it's worth it, he says.

I am not advocating testing these exercises at your workplace. It wouldn't make sense in all company cultures or with all teams. And even where the exercises might make sense, they should not be approached without some solid advance groundwork to establish a safe environment. But if the thought of these exercises terrifies you, then there are a few more questions for you to consider privately:

What are you afraid your team would say about you?
Is there a reason you haven’t respectfully discussed your negative feedback with individual teammates before?
What will be the end result of keeping “the thing you don’t want them to know” from your team?

Tackle those questions today.
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Amber Johnson is the CVDL's corporate relations advisor and a non-profit and small business communications specialist.

How to Create Fresh Starts for Your Team: Lessons from Back to School Season

Back to Work photos aren't as popular on Facebook

as the Back to School counterparts. But should they
be? Read on to consider how you can have a fresh
start this post-summer season.

If your Facebook feed is anything like mine, then today you're witnessing a deluge of Back to School photos: back-pack wearing kids, scrubbed clean and in their best new t-shirts, alternately grinning or scowling for the camera.

Having now been in the workforce for twice (maybe three times) as long as those kids have been alive, I'm envious of the annual fresh start they get each new school year. Starting a new grade of school gives you a reminder of what you've accomplished in the past, a chance at a clean slate, and an opportunity to reinvent yourself.

Work rarely offers these milestones - certainly not in any annual, smile-for-the-camera sort of celebration.

Since there's no annual reason for celebration, values-driven leaders have to create them. The day after Labor Day (when summer has officially come to a close and vacations are over) offers a chance to push the reset button, giving your team a mini fresh start.

Put these ideas into practice today, or at any point throughout the year. You may not want to post a photo on Facebook, but your team will appreciate the acknowledgement just the same.

1. Celebrate milestones and accomplishments.
Celebrating wins is foundational to good leadership. It gives you an opportunity to publicly (or privately) recognize hard work and success. Praise the effort of your team members as much as you praise the results. Mark the completion of projects and initiatives, and the anniversary of start dates or promotions as well.

Everyone has their own method of feeling accomplishment. For me, I keep a hand written to-do list of priority projects. When one is completed, I use a thick black Sharpie marker to cross through the item. Doing so gives me a modest sense of joy: I've accomplished something that day. As a leader, help your team joyfully "cross off" that item from your shared to-do lists.

2. Offer a clean slate.
Part of what makes "Back to School" so meaningful is the chance to start over with fresh notebooks, empty folders, and no negative marks in the grade book.

This concept can transfer to the workplace in a variety of ways: posting new goals on the walls of your shared office space; through private conversations, offering a struggling employee a chance at a fresh start; removing clutter in common areas; or using a staff meeting to set new objectives or work practices. Clean slates don't have to be dramatic, but they do have to be acknowledged.

3. Reinvent yourself, and make it possible for others to do the same.
New teachers and new classmates makes reinventing yourself possible for students. It's harder in the workforce where your colleagues, leaders, and employees have not changed. But it's still possible.

One CEO I work with determined he wanted to be less angry and more approachable. He could have set this goal privately and made quiet, personal efforts to reach it. But he knew accountability would be important, so he declared the goal publicly and asked his staff to (respectfully) call him on violations.

Could you do the same? Maybe you want to be more responsive to messages from your staff, learn a new technical skill, or be better at listening. Whatever your intention is, publicly state it to your team, your executives, or a small circle of trusted colleagues. Then ask for their support. Ask those you lead to set intentions, and offer your support for their growth.

How do you create fresh starts for your team? Share your ideas here, or on Twitter (tag us, @ValuesDriven).
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Amber Johnson is the CVDL's corporate relations advisor and a non-profit and small business communications specialist.

Winning Hearts & Minds: The Battle for Diversity & Inclusion Needs Authentic Leadership (Here’s Where to Start)

Kathy Hopinkah Hannan, KPMG’s national managing partner for corporate responsibility, diversity and inclusion

As a diversity and inclusion executive, I’ve watched many initiatives waver, stall, or at worse, completely fail. What brings about these downfalls isn’t strategy – the ideas are usually sound. The missing ingredient is visible, Authentic Leadership.

Today, we operate in a truly global world. Fortunately, the various value propositions for advancing diversity and inclusion are becoming increasingly clear. Corporate C-Suites, NGOs, Governments, Boards, and Educational Institutions desire more innovation, appreciate the need to drive talent sustainability, or simply see the value of diverse perspectives in problem solving. Additionally, we see the linkage between good governance and diversity, and between risk management and inclusion. Lastly, there is increasing research that demonstrates the positive correlation between diversity and inclusion and performance.

So why aren’t more strong initiatives moving forward? It’s because we’ve not yet won the hearts and minds of many stakeholders. To accelerate change, we need to move beyond grasping the value propositions, articulating the strategy, creating goals and metrics, defining specific accountabilities, or developing corporate slogans or vision statements.. Though dialogue and efforts have increased and we are beginning to see progress, we will only be able to move faster through Authentic Leadership.

Authentic Leadership can be defined in many ways, but essentially it is a genuine approach to leadership that connects actions to core values and personal convictions. Leaders who do not truly and deeply believe in the mission of the initiative they are driving will never guide the organization to full success. Leaders at all levels must genuinely demonstrate, on a very personal level why as an individual, they personally believe diversity to be important.

One Leader’s Story

Fortunately, I have seen the impact that this type of leadership can have on an organization. One example that comes to mind is that of a specific white male CEO who spoke of his commitment to diversity, his expectations of inclusion and even his establishment of bold goals for the organization. But to the organization it appeared to be rhetoric, another goal amongst many.

To fully win the hearts and minds of individuals within the organization, the CEO shared a personal story that illustrated his own commitment to diversity and inclusion.

The story was simple. He shared how he was the youngest child and the only boy in a large family. He spoke of being aware of the differences in treatment between himself and his sisters. He shared specific facts of the inequities he witnessed when his extremely capable older sisters entered the workforce.

The CEO’s story became the catalyst for accelerating change within the organization, particularly with respect to the advancement of women.

Individually we are all different, but collectively our impact can be dynamic. You can apply the principles of Authentic Leadership storytelling to your own diversity and inclusion work through the following quick tips:

Tell a genuine story about how you have personally been impacted by diversity in your own voice. Do not read from a script.
Be sure you are deeply involved in the story and not recalling observations from a distance.
Reveal some of the personal challenges encountered during your diversity journey.
Ask for reactions or questions.
Share your story often and with various levels and audiences including external constituents.
Be engaged beyond the moment.

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Kathy Hopinkah Hannan is KPMG’s national managing partner for corporate responsibility, diversity and inclusion. She is also a doctoralstudent in values-driven leadership at Benedictine University.