Why is organizational culture considered such a barometer for success? Why did Peter Thiel after investing $150m in Airbnb when asked by their co-founder Brian Chesky for the single most important piece of advice he could offer reply, ‘Don’t f**k up the culture’.
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In the game of golf 'taking a mulligan' is a chance to repeat a shot. History records, perhaps apocryphally, that the phrase derives its origins from a player named David Mulligan, a Canadian player who was the manager at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York in the 1920's. He arrived late to a game with friends, hit a terrible tee shot but promptly re-took the shot, cheekily explaining he was making a correction. His friends named the practice after him and the name stuck.
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High performance in work place teams including the indivisible requirement for leadership is about development not training. This short post is about the difference between training and development and why it matters.
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Metris Leadership has recently been doing some work with a national retailer who places a high premium on their ability to innovate. They even have a President's prize, which gives a large financial incentive to anyone providing successful new ideas. But the truth is that the company actually isn’t very good at innovation and despite having the most engaged staff we have ever seen in a large business they are as flat footed as everyone else when it comes to innovation. Here is a quick analysis of why the culture around innovation is nearly always wrong and what you can do about it.
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Living up to your ethos is not easy. As a leader in the military I learned that getting the right culture takes leadership. A lesson the army has had to relearn itself in recent years as high profile failures such as the bullying of recruits at Deepcut and the mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq show how quickly behaviour can depart from the values and ethos expected.
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Loyalty is highly prized both by leaders and organisations, but usually for the wrong reasons and here’s why. Too often loyalty as a characteristic is taken to mean agreement and compliance. In other words, ‘to support this leader and this organisation I must agree with them and their decisions’. There may be some little truth in this equation but it certainly is not the whole picture.
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I spent most of my military career leading special forces soldiers. Here are a few of the things I learnt about developing and sustaining elite performance, which are also directly applicable to business.
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