Take Your Values And Make Them Your Cause

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Most companies have corporate values that they hope embody their company, their employees, and the way they wish to be viewed by the public. Unfortunately, many organizations’ values statements are pages long. Too dense to be remembered and too complex to be ingrained in the company culture. Ours were.

We’ve learned there is power in simplicity, and that is why we at National Life Group have shifted our focus to three simple, authentic values: Do good. Be good. Make good. Just six words, but we’ve been able to translate them to a cause and a mission that drives everything we do. You and your company can do the same.

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About the Author

Mehran AssadiMehran Assadi serves as president and chief executive officer of National Life Group. Since taking that role in 2009, he has led major growth in sales of National Life’s life and annuity products and worked to build a culture of collaboration, engagement and empowerment among employees. Mehran and National Life Group were highly featured in the recently published book CAUSE! A Business Strategy for Standing Out in a Sea of Sameness, by Drs. Jackie and Kevin Freiberg, about the power of creating cause-related companies.

National Life Group® is a trade name of National Life Insurance Company, Montpelier, VT, Life Insurance Company of the Southwest, Addison, TX, and their affiliates. Each company of National Life Group is solely responsible for its own financial condition and contractual obligations. Life Insurance Company of the Southwest is not an authorized insurer in New York and does not conduct insurance business in New York.

References

1. American Enthusiasm to Shop with a Conscience at Record-High, but Doubts About Corporate Impact Persist, Cause Marketing Forum, October 2013. http://www.causemarketingforum.com/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=bkLUKcOTLkK4E&b=6430205&ct=13344211&notoc=1
2. Culture of Purpose, Deloitte, 2014. http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/about-deloitte/us-leadership-2014-core-beliefs-culture-survey-040414.pdf
3. 2014 Edelman Trust Barometer Executive Summary, Edelman, 2014. http://www.scribd.com/doc/200429962/2014-Edelman-Trust-Barometer#fullscreen

Products and Services that Address Deep Rooted Social Problems

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Perhaps you’ve read the game-shifting books The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, by C.K. Prahalad or The Business Solution to Poverty by Paul Polak and Mal Warwick. They prove that the most economically disadvantaged people on the planet create a great market for social entrepreneurs – AND provide a terrific testing ground for innovation and cost control. This can be part of your strategy.

These products and services become even more powerful through a lens of deep sustainability, co-solving multiple problems and incorporating multiple benefits. Two examples:

Let There Be Light

d.light’s simple three-item product line simultaneously addresses poverty, education, air pollution/toxic fumes/health risks, energy savings, carbon footprint, and more—and makes a huge difference in lives of its customers. d.light’s deeply holistic analysis of the problems faced by people in poverty led to developing inexpensive, durable solar-powered LED lanterns (sold on time payments) to replace kerosene, open fires—or darkness.

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About the Author

Shel HorowitzGreen/social change business profitability expert Shel Horowitz, “The Transformpreneursm,” shows you how profit by greening your business, turning hunger and poverty into sufficiency, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance. Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, highlights profitable and successful socially responsible strategies used by companies from Fortune 100 to solopreneurs.

Four Questions (and Tips) That Will Transform Your Culture

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People grow into the conversations you create around them. The best tool great leaders have to strengthen and empower others is powerful questions. Questions evoke curiosity. They force others to think. And, when answered well, allow others to take ownership of the process and responsibility for the outcomes.

Remarkable!It has been said that powerful questions can steer any conversation away from problems and personalities and move them toward meaningful solutions. Powerful questions evoke insight, stir creativity, inspire collaboration and help craft a culture of accountability.

So, to that end, let me offer four questions that, when asked often and answered well, can help you intentionally craft a Remarkable! culture.

1. Are you creating more value than you are taking?

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About the Author

Randy RossDr. Randy Ross is founder and CEO (Chief Enthusiasm Officer) of Remarkable! Randy is a “craftsman of culture and a catalytic coach,” who inspires elevated performance. A master of cultural transformation, Dr. Ross has a unique understanding of employee engagement and offers practical solutions for increasing both the morale and performance of teams. He is an author of the book, Remarkable!: Maximizing Results through Value Creation.

The 5 Cultures That Determine Your Company’s Success

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How healthy is your company’s culture? Your company has a culture whether you make the effort to shape it or not, and as you might expect, it’s better to make the effort to create the culture that will lead you to success than to simply hope a great corporate culture will organically generate itself.

Cultural TransformationsBut culture can’t be static, and CEOs and other executives can’t be static either. Knowing what you and your company stand for and being completely unyielding and inflexible are different things. The world of business is in constant transformation mode, so an adaptable company culture isn’t just nice to have, it’s necessary.

Be aware, however, that constant re-engineering, reorganization, and restructuring in pursuit of efficiency (or the latest management fad) has a questionable effect at best. Adjusting in order to thrive, however, requires competent leadership and commitment to creating the best possible corporate culture. Your company’s overall culture is made up of five building block cultures, each of which must be tended in order to yield the best results.

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About the Author

John MattoneJohn Mattone is an authority on leadership, talent, and culture. An acclaimed speaker and executive coach, he advises Fortune 1000 senior leaders on how to create cultures that drive superior operating results. He is the author of seven books including Cultural Transformations: Lessons of Leadership and Corporate Reinvention, Talent Leadership, and Intelligent Leadership. John is the creator of numerous business assessments, including the Mattone Leadership Enneagram Inventory. For more information, please visit www.johnmattone.com.

Managing Millennials: 5 Lessons that Social Media Can Teach HR

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As Millennials pour into the workforce, HR executives and business leaders are struggling to adapt their management strategies. Glued to their smartphones and practically wired to social media, Gen Y, sometimes known as “generation we”, has gained an unfair reputation for being distracted, unproductive and self-absorbed. But rather than viewing their immersion in social technology as a negative, I would argue that business leaders need to view the social web as a guide to bringing the best out of young employees.

According to a study by UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, Millennials will make up 46% of the U.S. workforce by 2020. However, a recent study by Bentley University found that 68% of corporate recruiters say that it’s difficult for their organization to manage them. Businesses that fail to address this problem will be at significant disadvantage when it comes to recruiting Millennials and cultivating their potential. Thanks to websites like Glassdoor, potential recruits will know if your company is failing in this area.

To more effectively manage Millennials, we must look to social media for insights on what they value, how they operate and what will motivate them in a work environment. In a profound way, the dominant technology of an era shapes how kids, teenagers and young adults view their world. It’s easy to scorn Gen Y when we look at their obsession with technology from the outside, but when look at the world from their perspective, we’ll gain some the keys to improving their communication, collaboration and productivity.

Here are 5 lessons from social media that HR and business leaders can use to bring out the best in Millennials.

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