Corporations don't have Values, People do!

As part of a culture change process with a company I'm working with, I've asked the participants to design a new induction procedure. Part of the induction will be an attempt to explain the corporate values and instead of presenting the usual values/mission statement here's the question I put to the group:

"How does working here allow me to express my personal values?"

The idea was to get individuals to relate some true stories about what they had done, what had happened and so give new employees (and perhaps old ones, too), some introduction to the culture of the place.

A couple of points I want to make:

Firstly,it was really hard for some people to stop with the corporate-speak; you know, the 'employees are our greatest asset, blah, blah, blah'. I'm not doubting that these people believe stuff like that (or that they should believe it), but I wonder if they actually felt it? I certainly didn't feel any connection between the head and the heart from the people who spoke that way, and using corporate-speak doesn't tell anyone how this company is any different from another company - only the unique stories of what has happened here can do that.

Secondly, I deliberately asked for personal values, not corporate values. I seriously doubt that corporations really have values and maybe it's time we stopped kidding ourselves that they do, and take personal responsibility for what we do in the name of the corporation. Sure, some committee may get together and formulate a nice sounding list but are those really the values of the whole corporation? Remember, the fact that a corporation has legal standing as a person is simply a fiction, something that's been enacted in law, but it doesn't make a company a flesh-and-blood, living, breathing and feeling person.

(BTW, I've just downloaded 'The Corporation' via Democracy. I haven't seen it yet.)

We could say that a company's values are evidenced by the actions of the company, but it is still individuals or groups of individuals who are really taking the actions. To say that the company is taking the action simply allows the individuals to legally, if not morally, shift responsibility, thanks again to that legal fiction.

That's why I think it makes a lot more sense to ask people how working at a company allows them to express their personal values. Now, if one person tells a story about that, then I can listen to him or her and judge whether I wholeheartedly support those values, or I can just live with them, or at the other extreme, find them unacceptable.

Of course, if I find them unacceptable something's got to give.

If lots of people share their stories, then we have a pretty good idea of the company's actual culture as expressed by actual behaviour. And we remember it.

Acronyms: What's in a Name?

Acronyms! Love them or hate them? You know what I mean - those words formed from the initial letters of other words. You can go to www.acronymfinder.com and look up over 3,000,000 million of them.

Governments are really good at making them up so that they are pronouncible but carry no meaning other than identification: e.g.

• NOFEAR (National Organisation for European American Rights)
• NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation),
• CSIRO, pronounced 'sigh-row' (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation),
• ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation),
• and apparently about 3,000,000 others.

Geez, I've even done it myself with BRFSStrategic - Big Red Flying Squirrel. You'd think I'd know better!

But consider when an acronym can become a useful metaphor full of meaning:-

NESST - National Executive Strategic Sustainability Team - the idea being that this top-level team was to be a nest to nurture various initiatives.

CAST - Change Agent Support Team - for a team responsible for implementing change, the acronym made it clear that the team members were the cast who were the main players in any effort, not just directing but actively participating.

NeWT - New World Training - for a training program designed to give participants awareness and tools to manage their own culture. Quite apt, because a newt is an animal capable of regenerating lost limbs.

What I found really fascinating was that the culture in each of these cases was 'robust' enough to tolerate some digs at these acronyms.

For example, one wag described NESST as a place for those who were feathering their own! CAST was quickly referred to in some quarters as CAST-AWAY. NeWT left some people wondering what parts needed regeneration.

These sort of meaningful acronyms tell a story of their own, and give people some way of judging when they are no longer apt acronyms but only anachronisms (sound pretty close don't they?), which could indicate it's time to change, give them up and do something else.

Do you have any favourite acronyms???

addendum 24/11/2006: there's a lovely post about acronmyms by John Maeda here.

We Are Not All the Same

In another life, I spent 4 years in Kenya. Every morning at daybreak, I'd pilot a hot-air balloon full of tourists over the Masai Mara game reserve. It was a fantastic time for me - I was doing something exciting in one of the most beautiful, diverse places on the planet.

Each morning a crew of 15 Kenyans would prepare the balloon and help at the launch. The passengers would pile into the wicker basket and off we'd float over the magnificent landscape, game-spotting from our lofty vantage point and usually landing near some hippo pools, where the crew would have already raced ahead and prepared a full breakfast.

For many passengers it was the highlight of their trip - perhaps even their lives! - sitting in the middle of the African savannah after an exhilarating flight, eating an English breakfast and drinking champagne. Most of the time they simply summed it up by saying, "Thank you for the best morning of my life!" Now that's job satisfaction.

But my job was easy, really: I was the 'bwana'. That's what the Kenyans often called me. It means a lot more than 'mister' and hopefully a lot less than 'master'.

Most of the time, I let the crew get on with their work as a team, interfering as little as possible. After all, they had seen plenty of pilots before me. They worked hard physically, to unpack and pack the balloon - all 350,000 cu.ft of it fully inflated - and prepare the tables and chairs for breakfast. Everything had to be loaded and unloaded onto the back of an ancient Bedford truck manually. And their pay wasn't great; certainly not compared to yours or mine.

Still, there was one guy, Gabriel, who never seemed to be doing much at all. Often seems to be the way with teams, doesn't it? I watched Gabriel for a few weeks and, by my judgement, he was certainly doing a lot less than the other guys on the crew. Not only that, he was always the first to have his breakfast which the crew did when the passengers had gone.

"This guy isn't pulling his weight," I fumed to myself, "because, after all, it's only fair that they all do the same amount of work, isn't it?" So, I resolved to talk to the crew chief, a man named Makalla, to tell him to get his act into gear, talk to Gabriel and get him to pull his weight.

Makalla came to see me and I launched into a lengthy explanation, which seems to be the way to make your point in Africa. Makalla nodded and nodded while I was talking, and the more I talked the more I agreed with my own point of view. "This is great - I'm getting somewhere," I noted to myself as I continued lecturing about team dynamics, leadership, equality and fairness. "Maybe I can make a difference here, be a leader.",

When I finished, Makalla simply looked at me and said, "But bwana Alex, we are not all the same."

I deflated, depressed. I wondered if they would ever get the point.A couple of weeks later, I got the point.

It was a windy dawn. The burners were roaring hot air into the balloon when the tether rope slipped and I was dragged under the basket for about 50 metres as the balloon was being pushed along by the wind. I had managed to turn off the burners and pilot light but was struggling to pull the rip-line which would open the top of the balloon and deflate it.Then I heard Gabriel shout - "bwana Alex! bwana Alex!", saw him running, and next, risk reaching in to grab the rip-line, very likely saving me from serious injury.

How many of our organizational teams are as adept at dealing with diversity as my African team?

How many of our organizational leaders really can accept that we are not all the same?

How many of our organizational leaders can create environments where even the different can shine?

What do the initials B R F S mean?

B R F S stands for Big Red, the Flying Squirrel - really!

It could also stand for 'Be Really Freaking Strategic', but mostly I chose it so you'd remember it ... and who wouldn't remember a Big Red Flying Squirrel?

I have to let you in on some secrets, though.

BRFSStrategic isn't big - there's only me. I deal with just a few clients at any one time, personally. If you're my client, I'm committed to you in a big way.

Red is a great colour. It's the colour of emotion, the heart, and it means that I'm concerned with the whole person. Organizations are all about people.

Flying takes courage, especially when you don't have wings. Have you ever watched a squirrel leap from branch to branch? It is almost as if they are flying. Plus, in one form or another they seem to be right across the world. In Australia we have squirrel-like sugar gliders. When we are in Italy we watch with awe while the resident 'scoiattolo' performs its acrobatic jumps from tree to tree in the forest next to our place.

The last letter, S, is for 'squirrel'. More importantly, S is also for success.

One of the good things that happened after I decided about the name was coming across Steve Denning's Squirrel Inc, A Fable of Leadership Through Storytelling. If someone like Steve has faith in the squirrels, the rest of us probably can too.

So, that's the story about how I decided to start branding this business.

In fact, I am the brand because there's only me, but until you and I develop a relationship of some sort through this blog, or even working together, I figured Big Red would get us off to a flying start!