Inside the Cubicle

Storm Brewing at National Hurricane Center

Interesting story this morning about an apparent mutiny at the National Hurricane Center, where employees have forced out director Bill Proenza.

"More than 20 of Bill Proenza's nearly 50 staff members signed a statement last week urging federal officials to dismiss him. They said Proenza had undermined public confidence in the center by exaggerating the forecasting problems scientists would face if the satellite failed." (AP)

You may remember that the reactions of employees was mentioned by NBC as one of the leading reasons for the network dropping radio host Don Imus after inappropriate remarks.

Are these signs of a growing pattern of employee uprisings? Well, let's not get carried away.

However, I think this reinforces that employees expect more from leadership today. They want to be engaged:
- Work for a company and people they are proud of
- Have their voices heard and matter

I hope bosses, managers and CEOs out there are taking notice.

---

Technorati Tags: firing, boss

Why Google is Number One

It came as no big shock that Google was named No. 1 on Fortune's 100 Best Places to Work list this year. The lavish perks, stock options and free-flowing culture are all well documented; however, there is a method to the apparent madness.

7 ways that Google has become an employer-of-choice and succeeded financially (and 3 challenges they face going forward):

1. Practical experimentation is encouraged - Engineers are given 20 percent of their time to pursue projects they are personally interested in. Several company products including Google News and Adsense have come from this. Note that is only engineers, the employees most likely to develop innovative offerings, and the most valuable talent to attract, that are given this privilege.
2. A higher purpose - At Google, the mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." That means that the job is never done, there is always more information to gather and ways to make it easier to find. That could mean cataloging every book in the world, developing a better blog search tool, or making it easier for individuals to create Web sites - all of which Google is working on. This ambitious and aspirational mission ensures that employees will always be driven to accomplish more and see the company as able to play in different spaces. Google is not a search company - They are an advertising agency, a media provider, a publisher, a finance company, a social networker. They are whatever they want and need to be. This also means, with an array of integrated products, they can go after any market and any competitor they choose.     
3. The leaders have control - When Google went public, there was fear that the pressures of shareholders would force the company to abandon much of its unique culture. However, Google's founders - Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page - retained voting control over the company and vowed to adopt a long-term approach to business strategy saying in the IPO letter, "A management team distracted by a series of short-term targets is as pointless as a dieter stepping on a scale every half hour." The result is that Google can take more chances than peers and bet on potentially huge payoffs down the road. It also means that they do not have to deal with calls from activist shareholders to trim overhead and administrative costs associated with employee benefits.
4. Culture is designed to increase discretionary effort - Why provide food, laundry services, doctors and entertainment on-site? Why provide free wi-fi-enabled shuttles to work? Why let people wear what they want? Because when you make "work" a desirable place to be, it is more likely that people will want to be there - and it is no surprise that Googlers willingly work late into the night on projects.
5. Employees reap the rewards of success - Yes, Google pays competitive wages for computer engineers, but it is the stock options that really matter. For those who have been in the company and whose options are vested or near-vested, this means a lot of new multi-millionaires. However, new employees will benefit rom Google's innovative new stock-option plan that potentially increases the value of options for people who missed out on the initial boom.
6. Good ideas win - Google employees are smart - the luxury of being the best is you get to pick the best - and come up with a lot of ideas. If an employee can come up with a sound business case for an idea, whether it is related to his      specific project or not, it will be heard. Executives hold office-hours where employees can make their case for a project, and if they are convincing, resources will be given to develop the idea. One of Google vice-president Marissa Mayer's "Nine Notions of Innovation" is "don't politic, use data."
7. Get the best and the brightest, and keep them - Over the past few years, Google has used its leadership position and reputation for allowing creative freedom to attract some of the legendary minds in the field of computer engineering - including former employees of Amazon, Microsoft, Cisco and several top academics. The company, which has always had a low turnover rate, around 5 percent, is now focusing on retaining high-value employees.

So is Google the perfect organization? Well, there are a few things that they have to be careful of...

1. Balancing business and pleasure - Giving freedom to engineers is a great way to attract talent and spur innovation, but it can't come at a sacrifice to the core business strategy - which is what brings in revenue. There must be a functional balance between what employees want to do and what needs to be done. While Google's willingness to launch beta versions of new products at an alarming pace excites engineers, they need to focus on seeing the larger business implications and the risk to the brand.
2. Managing growth - Google was built on a collegiate model that encourages camaraderie and independent thinking. That is easy when there are only a couple hundred of you, but harder when you are 10,000 strong and growing - in size and location. With growth, comes a need for management, which means bureaucracy, and that flies in the face of the Google culture. Much of the company's success has been based on the fact that they have been more flexible and forward-thinking than its competitors (think Microsoft and Yahoo). Google knows there is power in small teams.
3. Too tied to founders - We have seen it with Nike, H-P, Home Depot and Apple (for a time) - companies that are driven by charismatic individuals with strong personalities often struggle when those people step down. Brin and Page are only in their 30s but who knows what will happen if they get bored, decide to retire to a private island in Tahiti or move on to another start-up. They, in a large part embdy the Google story and culture, and their absence would be a huge loss.

As Fortune admits every year, the Best Places to Work List is a little bit of a chicken and egg situation - are they an employer-of-choice because they are doing well financially or are they doing well financially because they are an employer-of-choice?

For Google (and many of the private companies on the list) it is somewhat of a moot point because they are insulated from short-term pressures to boost shareholder value. However, Google is a numbers-driven company - they even use algorithms in their hiring process - and it is unlikely they would dedicate resources to keep employees happy unless they had data to support the fact it was helping the business.

There is only one Google, and companies should not look to replicate their strategies. The lesson to be learned is that creating a healthy, attractive work environment for employees is an integral part of business strategy. It is not the responsibility of HR, it must start at the top and be driven throughout the company through organizational structure, benefits and compensation and most importantly, strategic communications.

---

Technorati Tags: Google, Fortune, Employee, Benefits

Embracing the Community Manager

Over at his blog, the ever-insightful Jeremiah Owyang discusses an emerging position at several forward-thinking organizations: Community Manager. As Jeremiah defines it, a Community Manager should "engage the community around a company and it’s products, to be a company champion, and most importantly, a customer advocate."

I would argue that the community that needs to be cultivated most (and first) is the internal community of an organization - the employees. I would also go one step further and argue that every corporate communications department should develop a Community Manager.

Why Community Manager is an innovative and critical role inside organizations?

Traditionally organizations build a hierarchal structure that encourages small social networks and isolated pockets of information - both internally and externally. This is great for efficiently completing specific tasks, but stifles innovation and nimbleness. As former Harvard Business School professor, and all-around business guru, Theodore Levitt once wrote, “One of the collateral purposes of an organization is to be inhospitable to a great and constant flow of ideas and creativity.”  To me, the job of Community Manager is to break down the artificial walls that exist inside of organizations.

Once an internal community is established, then an organization can credibly establish relationships with customers and other stakeholders. However, until employees understand what the organization is really all about (not just what they do each day) they cannot effectively be ambassadors. And when employees see themselves as part of a larger community, they will be more likely to share that with others and provide discretionary effort - in sum, they will become more engaged.

What I love about Jeremiah's approach, is that he recognizes that it is not about online and offline, blogs versus in-person. Building a vibrant community is about cultivating relationships and providing credible, relevant information. While it is true that new media tools often provide a powerful vehicle to connect with individuals, they do not in and of themselves gaurantee the creation of a community - that involves people and compelling content.

Communicator or Community Manager
As Josh Hallett points out, one of the fundamental problems for organizations (and PR agencies are no exception) seems to be that knowledge of social media and the ability to facilitate communications within (or outside) organizations are viewed as separate skill sets.

Let's think about this: The job of a Community Manager is to help individuals learn, expose them to people and ideas that can help them solve problems, build pride and a sense of purpose, connect disparate but related networks. Hmmm...sounds a lot like the responsibilities of an effective internal communicator.

If your organization isn't a community, what is it? Probably a bunch of individuals working toward different objectives. Communities are something people want to be a part of, members of communities support each other and have collective power. What is your organization doing to build a sense of community?

Best Buy rethinks the idea of the workplace

The cover story in BusinessWeek looks at a radical experiment at Best Buy that allows employees to work when they want, where they want, as long as they get their work done. The program is called ROWE for alled ROWE, for "results-only work environment." The goal is to have all 4,000 corporate staffers on ROWE by the end of 2007.

What makes this so cool?

Aside from the obvious trust and flexibility it gives employees, I love the fact this program started in one business unit and spread naturally before becoming corporate policy. In short, it was an innovative solution to a business program and when it proved successfull, employees shared it with others. It was a product of constructive experimentation and a sign of a healthy culture that would let something like this evolve, and then embrace it.

Why does this matter?

As the article says, "A recent Boston Consulting Group study found that 85% of executives expect a big rise in the number of unleashed workers over the next five years. In fact, at many companies the most innovative new product may be the structure of the workplace itself."

A work environment that rethinks the ideas of set time and place can:

• Save significant overhead costs in terms of office space, supplies and utilities required
• Have more time to work - think about it, the hour plus that most people commute to the office could be spent on business activities
• Be more productive - No more meetings for the sake of meetings. People will be forced to be more purposeful with communications
• Allow a focus on contribution - No longer is a person rewarded for just showing up, they actually have to provide value

Favorite quote
From Phyllis Moen, sociology professor at University of Minnesota: "Best Buy is recognizing that sitting in a chair is no longer working."

To give credit where credit is due, I first heard about Best Buy's experiment on a 60 Minutes segment in July titled "Working 24/7." The employees interviewed in the segment noted that they often work longer hours on the ROWE system than they did during a regular office schedule.

---

Technorati Tags: Best+Buy, work+life

The Ugly Side of Corporate Pride

The Wall Street Journal has a fun column today about how expressions of corporate culture seem silly to people outside of organizations.

The example used is this video, which appears on YouTube of Bank of America employees performing a song to celebrate the company's merger with MBNA (performed to the tune of U2's "One").

The ironic thing is, it is the fact that the performance is so good, that the singer is so into it, that makes us want to cringe or laugh. As the article notes, "Corporate cultures conjure behaviors - whether a heartfelt paean about "core values" or chest-thumping pep rallies for the latest product updgrade - that aren't the least bit satirical within the company's four walls. They just seem like hilarious satire to the rest of us."

After all, who would actually care about their company, co-workers and job that much?

A couple of weeks ago I heard a presentation from a communications officer at a company that has made Fortune's Best Places to Work List every year it has been in existence. He said if you are looking for one thing in employees that seperates them from other companies it is pride.

A strong culture is not an abstract ideal. Think about Southwest or CDW or Jamba Juice - companies that incorporate culture into the way they do business.

Maybe it is just cognitive dissonance. Maybe other people dismiss corporate pride as silly because it makes them feel better about not having any.

Regardless, I applaud companies that makes sincere and smart moves to build healthy corporate cultures. And I applaud the employees who have  pride in their organization's and are willing to share that with others...unless that employee is at a different company than I am, then I will just laugh.

---

Technorati Tags: humour, employee, pride, U2, MBNA, BankofAmerica

Who is watching you?

Interesting article in the Sunday edition of the Chicago Sun-Times that looked at how employers are monitoring employee behavior at work.

According to 2005 data from the American Management Association:

75% of companies monitor internet use

50% review employees' computer files

50% monitor time spent on phone and track numbers

8% use GPS to track vehicles

26% have fired employees for internet misuse

51% use cameras, up from 33% in 2001

And one former HR manager, who worked 30 years for corporations (but declined to give her name) said, "Seven out of 10 times, when a company wants to get rid of someone, they will find something in their cell phone bills or travel expenses."

My thoughts:

• If employers are going to monitor employees, they should do a better job communicating what they are doing. Use monitoring as a way to review policies and ethical guidelines. Managers often assume employees know what they can and can't do - THIS IS PLAIN WRONG. Many employees, particularly those of the younger generation, assume that what they do at home is perfectly acceptable at work.
• There is a line between protecting your business and just being creepy. If an organization needs to resort to incredibly restrictive measures in order to get employees to be productive, they may want to reconsider the type of employees they are hiring.
• Organizations should have a reason for monitoring - Mandated security or regulations, aggressive tactics from competitors, etc. - it should not be the default behavior. Success in today's information environment is largely dependant on the aibility of individuals to develop relationships and build networks. Restrictive behaviors limit behaviors that lead to innovation.

---

Technorati Tags: privacy, employee, monitoring

Why I bike to work

Stuart Bruce points to a humorous and helpful column in The Guardian that provides 20 tips for the workplace.

My favorites (parenthesis are my additions):

14 Cycle to work - (I bike to work every day it is not raining, even in the winter)

The reason why bosses get to work first is because they have such huge cars that they can only park them if they arrive first and can drive straight in without any reversing and manoeuvring.

16 Ignore consultants - (this one hits close to home)

A consultant is someone in business with an ego so large it takes more than one company to support it.

20 Steer well clear of all meetings - (Jason Fried would agree)

Half of every working day is spent in meetings, half of which are not worth having, and of those that are, half the time is wasted. Which means that nearly one third of office life is spent in small rooms with people you don't

---

Technorati Tags: work, humour
like, doing things that don't matter.

Which is better, willful ignorance or misplaced trust?

I promise I will stop talking about H-P soon…..but first just one more thing.

There was a spectacularly well written Op-Ed in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal contributed by Viet D. Dinh, a Georgetown University law professor who served as counsel for departed H-P board member Tom Perkins.

I won’t go through the whole thing (though I strongly recommend it you all read it), but I will highlight one point.

Dinh writes about the revelations of Mr. Hurd’s involvement, “It would be surprising – and much more disturbing – if Mr. Hurd had zero knowledge of, or involvement in, actions of H-P employees and contractors under the direction of the board chairman.”

When this scandal first broke, I was hoping Hurd (who I consider a brilliant strategist) was not involved. However, after reading Dinh’s article I agree that had Hurd, as CEO, been ignorant of these actions or expressed plausible deniability it would have been indicative of far larger and more disturbing leadership issues at H-P.

Hurd certainly should not be celebrated, or excused. He could have taken a stronger stance against unethical practices and expressed his views to the board.

Now he will be under the microscope, from investors, from employees and from a reshaped board he now heads.

Not to pat myself on the back…but I will. This thing unfolded exactly as I predicted three weeks ago. Three members of the board gone and an organization that still has a lot of explaining to do.

---

Technorati Tags: HP, Dunn, Hurd, Dinh

It isn't about what you know, it is about what who you know knows

Last week I attended a talk given by University of Chicago Graduate Business School Professor Ronald Burt (shout out to the Human Capital Institute, who put on the session). Burt is considered an expert on social capital and one of the leading researchers on the role of social networks within business settings. In 2000 he left academia to serve in an executive role at Raytheon.

Here are some excerpts from the talk (my apologies to professor Burt if I got anything wrong):

- As we flattened down bureaucracies, people became more the authors of their own jobs. This was necessary to compete globally, because you can’t afford the fat.

- Now you have to negotiate more for resources, get buy-in for novel approaches.

- Now it is not enough to be smart or have success, now more of your success is dependant upon your ability to relate to other people.

- Social capital refers to the assets you have in terms of how you are positioned in a market (a social network of competitors, collaborators and colleagues)

- There is a thriving science to the study of an asset known as social capital:

• It has a metric
• It has a substantial affect on performance
• It can be taught

- How is Social Capital responsible for innovation and good ideas? (creativity is an import-export game)

- Can Social Capital Be Taught? (yes, indicated by improved performance, promotion, and retention of desirable employees)

Human Capital: competitive advantage due to individual abilities or skills
Social Capital: competitive advantage due to surrounding organization

- If the group is not greater than sum of the parts, than you might as well break up the group and contract the work out.

- Our lives are filled with small worlds of organizations and markets, the idea that we have clusters that are joined through loose ties.

- There are information implications to this structure. People in similar groups tend to view things similar, and so information inside tends to become more homogeneous.

- Information becomes embedded in a location and becomes difficult to move.

- There are several Web sites that will model networks of related information: Touchgraph.com, Musicplasma.com, Digg.com, Dartmouthatlas.org

- In a small world, there are two leadership roles that individuals can have: Robert or James (Note: Burt had a nice graph to show this). Robert and James have the same social circumference – what is different is how their contacts are connected. James’ approach is to find a way to get contacts aligned and drive out variation – basis of lean manufacturing and Six Sigma. Robert is at the intersection of social worlds is more likely to be exposed to good ideas. He understands that a singularly strategy is a choice, and is in a position to see better option or new ideas (entrepreneur). James only knows right and wrong, one way for success and failure.

- Invention has its origins in the way you organize, not in your capabilities.

- People who work at the intersection of social networks make more money, get promoted faster, etc.

Burt refers to these gaps between social networds as "structural holes" and notes that individuals who are able to work in these holes and bring information from one group to another are a value add.

The lesson?: It isn't about what you know, it is about what those around you know  and your willingness and ability to take that information and apply it to new situations and problems.

For organizations, it is about valuing diversity of ideas and fluidity of relationships. The consistent innovation neccessary for success in today's global economy isn't likely to be born from disciplined R&D processes, it needs to come from everywhere and anywhere, anyone and anytime. Organizations who do not accept, cultivate and activate this type of thinking will be left behind.

In case you hadn't noticed, I am really interested in social networks lately...

---

Technorati Tags: innovation, Burt, social+networks

Leaks and bickering at the top of HP

The uproar at Hewlett-Packard made the front page of Newsweek. After an emergency meeting on Sunday, the directors will meet again on Monday to try and decide the fate of chairman Partricia Dunn.

The story is juicy: Leaks to reporters, investigations of phone records, billionaires bickering at one another.

Finally, CEO Mark Hurd has addressed employees. The response of Hurd is critical in this situation. The dynamic between the board and CEO is unfamiliar to most employees. Board members are often seen as outsiders, who have other jobs and interests. It is the CEO who is the face and voice of the company. He (or she) is who employees will look to for direction.

This is why I love Hurd's opening: "Hi, before I begin, I want to be clear that I am speaking to you today as the CEO of Hewlett-Packard, not on behalf of the HP board."

HP has an odd history of leaks (thanks Dave) that Hurd addresses and Carly Fiorina's tenure was marked with bickering among senior management. And yes, leaks are a concern, both for legal and operational reasons. However, when you have to engage in slimy behavior to expose slimy behavior, what have you really accomplished besides bringing the whole company down in the gutter?

If you are an HP employee, how secure do you feel about your private data right now?

At the end of the day, it is highly likely that HP will have lost three directors, including it's chairman. There is going to be a lot of explaining to do.

The funny thing is that HP is in the midst of resurgence on Wall Street and there is praise all around for Hurd. However, he must step to the forefront here to send a clear message to employees that they should feel safe and confident in the way management is leading the company.

Other takes:
- Scoble is outraged by Dunn's behavior and points to the letter former director Tom Perkins sent to the HP board announcing his resignation. He promises to continue to hammer HP for violating individual's right to privacy.
- Dave Taylor, formerly of HP, gives some good context
- John Dvorak says "Dunn is done"

- Paul Kedrosky mentions an ironic speaking engagement for Dunn

My colleague (boss) Christopher Hannegan has a very timely post on how to communicate difficult situations like this to employees (full disclosure: I helped develop the list of tips).

---

Technorati Tags: HP, privacy, leaks, Hewlett+Packard, Dunn, Perkins