Tuesday, February 21

Corporate Trust in Business

Charles Koves’s first Passion Pont For 2006 talks about the importance of corporate trust in good performance.

I think employees need to feel actively involved in any enterprise and not remote bystanders . Disengaged employees will quickly be cone disillusioned and mistrustful as they feel excluded.

Its essential that most employees genuinely think their corporate leaders are trying to do their best for their employees, as those employees cohesively then do their best within their team and for their customers. Changing culture is much more difficult in large organisation than many realise .His interesting newsletter is reproduced in full as per below.

Dear Lindsay
Welcome to the 1st Passion Point for 2006. Our goal with these Passion Points continues to be to provoke you so that your business, and the rest of your life, become filled with more passion, performance, and improved balance of mental, physical, and spiritual elements. A special welcome to the many new subscribers who have recently joined our passionate community.

100 BEST COMPANIES TO WORK FOR 2006
”Each year, Fortune Magazine conducts its survey to discover these ‘top 100’. What impact does being a great place to work have on profits? The answer is ‘huge’: publicly-listed companies within the top 100 ‘consistently wallop’ the S&P 500, one of the key market indices in USA, says Deloittes.

Is there a key factor in creating a Great Place to Work, as developed by the Great Place to Work Institute in San Francisco? The unequivocal answer is trust, in three different roles:
trust between management and employees,trust between employees themselves, and trust that what the company is doing actually matters!

We are delighted by these research results because they clearly prove the value of what we do here, and what these Passion Points to Ponder are all about. These research results give you the ammunition to defend yourself and long-term profitable business practices against the sceptics and the cynics who are unwilling to invest in the people issues. There is much to say about the survey results, but we thought we would pick out 29 of the most provocative practical processes that various Top 100 companies implement to build the trust. If any of them appeal to you, implement them!

If you already do something similar at your workplace, congratulations. If you don’t know which of these processes will create the ‘biggest change bang for your buck’, ask us and we’ll send you a diagonostic instrument to help you. Here are the 29, (not ranked in order of importance):

1. Commitment by the leaders to constantly and passionately work on creating the right culture, and pounce on any evidence of cultural atrophy.

2. Every milestone is celebrated in a big way, such as a rock concert with a great band.

3. Free cappuccinos.

4. Parties every Friday night.

5. Employees permitted to pursue their obsessions.

6. Onsite day care.

7. Concierge service, to solve your birthday party planning needs, or laundry needs.

8. Pounce on every attempt by employees to ‘cover their butts’ i.e. taking responsibility is demanded.

9. Imbue employees with idealism for the inspirational purpose of the organisation.

10.Allow an attitude of flouting conventional wisdom

11.Create strategies to attract the best and brightest talent.

12.Allow employees to spend up to 20% of their work time ‘pursuing pet projects.’

13.Reinvest significant proportion of profits into research that will help the organisation to survive into a fast-changing future

14.Squash silo mentality thinking that creates personal fiefdoms.

15.Hire people who are passionate and impose rigid disciplines in the employing process/

16.Avoid hierarchies.

17.Make it easy to collaborate with colleagues.

18.Create an environment where taking risks is ok, recognising that innovation does not occur without risks and courageous acts

19.Create brilliant and inspirational induction processes for new employees

20.Survey employees weekly to make sure alignment with corporate goals is maintained at a high level.

21.Allow any employee to look up any other employee’s salary.

22.Invest every week in training and development of employees; understand the need for strategic thinking on the learning investment.

23.Prayer at the start of team meetings

24.Allow every employee to nominate a colleague as a ‘hero’, with rewards following.

25.CEO is willing to answer any question by any employee at monthly gatherings.

26.Reimburse adoption expenses and fertility treatment expenses.

27.Reimburse tuition expenses up to agreed amount.

28.Help given to employees to develop healthier habits.

29.Onsite amenities for employees such as massage, haircuts, dentistry, car wash, oil change, bocce, and table tennis.

We hope some of these press your buttons!
Remember, the profitability of the organisations that do this sort of stuff is way above ‘average’. It makes sense, doesn’t it? How can you earn above average returns if you are doing what everyone else is doing??
Go on, take a risk! Think differently!Charles Kovess Australia’s Passion Provocateur © Copyright- Charles B. Kovess & David J. Wood of Passionate Performance. Republication welcome provided authors are acknowledged & advised at above address. If you want to see Charles on video, or listen to audio, just go to www.kovess.com and follow the links

For a list of keynote speech topics that Charles would love to deliver in a passionate, entertaining, provocative, and educational way to your teams, clients, or prospects, at breakfast, lunch or dinner, see below.

All 138 published Passion Points to Ponder are on our website.

If you wish to review them, please visit the site. If you wish to receive a list of the 138 titles of the Passion Points please let us know.

KEY NOTE SPEECH TOPICS1 PASSIONATE PERFORMANCE: YOUR KEYS TO MENTAL, PHYSICAL & SPIRITUAL WELLBEING IN BUSINESS. 2 THE POWER OF VISIONARY LEADERSHIP3 The 7 Key steps to create Outstanding teams.4 How to retain the best people in your Organisation.5 PASSION: THE KEY TO YOUR SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN THE 21ST CENTURY.6 HIGH PERFORMANCE BUSINESS LEADERSHIP IN THE KNOWLEDGE AGE.7 Change: Make it an inspirational game!8 A PASSION FOR LIFE, AND LIVING IT!9 KEY PRINCIPLES OF PERSONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY.10 7 STRATEGIES THAT GUARANTEE LOYALTY FROM EMPLOYEES AND CUSTOMERS.

Best regards from Australia's Passion Provocateur (copyright)Charles Kovess LL.B.(Hons), LL.M., CSP*Immediate Past National PresidentNational Speakers' Association of Australia(*CSP means Certified Speaking Professional, the highest membership category of NSAA and the only internationally recognised designation for professional speakers.)www.kovess.comNOTE NEW ADDRESS DETAILSph 0395622248mobile 0412317404PO Box 1412, Central Park East Malvern Vic 3145Office: 17 Notre Dame Parade, Mulgrave Vic 3170Author of 'Passionate People Produce' and 'Passionate Performance'Co-author of '7 Heavenly Virtues of Leadership'

11 comments:

Zee said...

You have fairly long articles here, but they are good - once you get into them....
Keep up the good work!

lindsaylobe said...

Hi Zee
Thanks for your comment ....but time for me to post shorter versions I think !!

Madcap said...

Morning, Lindsay!

This is so foreign to my life, I can't quite imagine what working in a company looks like anymore. A few of the points, like helping with adoption expenses, seemed fairly concrete and easy enough to implement, but some of the others, like "the CEO will answer questions posed by any employee"... I guess I'm just very suspicious of human nature. Especially wherever money is concerned.

Before moving here, I worked for a newspaper, and even though several of those points were part of the mission statement, the reality was that you trod very soft around the royal toes or you could find yourself looking for another job, quickly. At one point, a favourite of the manager, who'd been moved into our department when work was short, was discovered to have been stealing money from the advertising till. Management was so desperate to cover it up that they nearly fired the lady who'd discovered the discrepancy, in spite of her 15 years of employment there. They accused each of us in turn of having engineered the whole thing, but the daft woman had actually signed her name on the work orders she'd fudged, so in the end, she had to go. In the very end, all of us had to go - they managed to "encourage" all the staff in the department to leave within six months of that incident.

That part about "parties every Friday night" gave me the horrors - who would want to spend Friday night at an office party, rather than at home?

WendyAs said...

Whew! That was one long artical. I really enjoyed it. I haven't worked for a large co. but I have siblings, and hubby who have. Many of the big Tech co. in California have programs like these. People love working for them.

A good company offers up a good work enviroment when times are good. However the bottom line is the profit. it is very hard for companies to have employees enjoy lavish benefits when the hard times hit. Things like market prices, forgien currency rates, natural or manmade disasters, trade restrictions,ect...the list can go on.
We have seen generous times when profits were good and cutbacks when times weren't. I am however with Alice in being suspicious where money is involved. Few employers are going to pay for something that they don't need to.

lindsaylobe said...

Hi Madcap

It’s interesting to consider the attitude of management sometimes to “white collar” crime who “cover up” yet failure to report is a felony in itself.

Your comment reminded me of a particularly interesting speaker at a luncheon recently.

Simon Illingworth was a Victorian Detective Sergeant who first encounter with corruption in the force led him to spend the next four years with police internal affairs in Victoria, rooting out crooked officers.

He was responsible for bringing many successful prosecutions against corrupt officers, but in the process, he told us about the harassment in the form of bashings, isolation tactics and threats to his young family - not by crooks but by other policeman.

He went “public” on the ABC after resigning from the force, as he felt he could not continue any longer without any support.

His message is simple. You know who you are! Don’t go with the flow!! He does not think his acts were heroic; rather it was a case “To know who I am” and not go with the flow, like many good men in the force, who didn’t want to “rock the boat”!!

Corruption can only continue when good men and women “go with the flow” and allow injustice to continue at all levels of society. Thats his message.

I am also not keen on the “office party” idea on Friday nights.

Hi Wendy

I agree with you, its makes such a huge difference when the companies very profitable. I would be interested to know how you find things in Tassie, in a smaller industry compared to other parts of the world.


Best wishes

bohemiantroubadour said...

Buddhist chants do wonders. And Tai Chi.

Gary said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Gary said...

I work with organizations to help them manage change (and other things). Inevitably, if the leadership and work culture is poor, they are poor at planning and managing change.

Simple concept: people who feel respected; have some say and control over their work.. and feel that the workplace includes humour and support - well, they're better employees and more gets done.

THanks for a great post mate.

Gary said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DA said...

I have a collection management audio cd's I listen to in the car. Kovess is one of my favourites.

Good export product of your wonderful country Lindsay :-)

lindsaylobe said...

Hi BT
Yes,very soothing and good exercise for mind and Body
Hi Gary
Humour support & respect, the 3 vital ingredients!!
Hi DA
Thanks and I will pass on that point to Charles, he's bound to be delighted!!

Best wishes