(Adapted from Strategic Renaissance)

Are you less than satisfied with your working groups’ progress toward real and lasting teamwork? These guidelines complement our on-line and on-site teambuilding services.

1. Be consistent with rewards and consequences. The fate of the individual should also be the fate of the group.
2. Have common goals that are concrete and represent a challenge worth tackling.
3. Ensure a high frequency of association.
4. Weed out untrustworthy members.
5. Make the team as small as possible.

For virtual teambuilding, go to team building.

For more information about on-site facilitation, Contact us.

The quantity of email is “likely to grow tenfold in the next ten
years, upping the average person’s inbox to more than 1,000
messages a day,” according to MIT’s Director of the Laboratory
of Computer Sciences, Michael L. Dertouzos. We’ve adapted the following list of tips from the book Culture.com:

• Have an unlisted email and give it out selectively.

• Have a separate email address for junk mail and “when I get to it” email.

• Use CC: only when those folks need to know; and be clear about what follow-through is expected from whom.

• Use email only when other forms of communication (face-to-face, phone, etc.) are not preferred

• If two email exchanges do not clear up a question, pick up the phone.

• Keep emails short. One paragraph is ideal.

• Proofread before sending.

• Start at the most recent end of the thread and work down.

• Delete (and in select cases, file) all messages except those requiring action.

• Don’t send a thank-you for email. Save email for content responses.

• Stick to one topic per email.

Are both of your inboxes overflowing? You know, the one filled with paper on your desk and the one virtually stuffed with emails on your laptop? And that's not including the home office stuff! Welcome to the paperless society. AND the Paper Chase Society. Your dual citizenship comes with hassles-and privileges. We'll show you how to make the best of both worlds with the F.A.S.T. method, and create a better communications culture to boot...

Let's use Leadership Connections e-letter as an example. (What? You're not a subscriber? For your free subscription, click here.) Your subscription comes to you as e-mail. You may choose to print it out and use the paper copy. Or you may use it in its digital (electronic, email) form. In either case, you must quickly scan its content and decide how to handle it.

	Paper:	Digital:
File:	General “to file” folders don’t work. File it in the specific folder you will reach for when you need to act on it.	As with paper, do a Save As* or cut and paste* to the specific file. Don’t have a specific file? Create and name one, in the appropriate subdirectory.
Act:	Make the call. Set the meeting. Modify the product. Change the plan.	Because it’s digital you can reply, call or fax* online, meet in a virtual space, get everyone on your email distribution list in on the act.
Share:	Write a cover note, copy* and mail. (Trees die. Postage costs. Photocopier takes its time.)	Create a cover note and e-mail*, helping your network of colleagues turn information into knowledge.
Toss:	Shred or recycle.	Delete.

"I can't believe they wrote this!" groaned the CEO of a company with products that serve people in their later retirement years. He threw down the paper in frustration. "It's clear the press doesn't understand our constituents or they wouldn't describe them in this patronizing way."

Sound familiar? It is frustrating when the media characterizes your customers, employees, products, processes or organization with unflattering stereotypes or other kinds of misrepresentation. It's not intentional, but often a case of misunderstanding some nuanced aspects of culture--yours or your constituents'.

Now for the good news: the media and you share a bottom-line interest in getting the story right. CultureConnects has helped clients better communicate with the media about their organizations, their customers and their brands. Here are two tips to keep in mind when communicating with the media.

Do you serve "vulnerable" constituencies? Some groups of people are more vulnerable to stereotyping. Communication about their special needs, concerns or perspectives may be in order. Sensitivity workshops, backgrounders, presentations by a representative of the constituency: these are just a few of the ways we've helped organizations tell their own story, or communicate on behalf of others.

Could your professional experience help illuminate a major product, process, event or trend influencing your organization—or the communities you serve? Media contacts appreciate knowing they can call on you in such cases. A well-prepared one page brief will help an assignment editor know your topics of expertise. As a prepared spokesperson, you can help shed light on complex subjects. It's a win-win-win!

Speaking of win-win-win: Do you have a Best Practices idea to share? Send it to us—and receive a free e-copy of the executive white paper, Recruiting and Retaining Good Employees: A Marketing View. (Request "Recruit" with your submission.) Or, on the lighter side, a free e-copy of: “Autumn League” the saga of an amateur baseball team and their fans. (Request “League” with your submission.)

Copy and paste the following five questions into this email, then answer the questions.

1. Title for your Best Practices submission:

2. How did your Best Practices benefit your organization's bottom line? (Use specific numbers ($, %, dates etc.) if possible.

3. Briefly describe your Best Practice:

4. Who accomplished the best practice, and what motivated him/her/them? (You may use job titles rather than names.)

5. Include your name, company, title, email and phone number.

One of the most basic yet powerful management tools is the expression of mission, vision and values in your organization’s words and actions. Therefore it comes as a shock to realize that definitions for these foundational concepts vary so widely. In the article below, we sharpen these terms and offer tips for making them work.

According to Philip Kotler, an organization’s mission is shaped by five elements: history, current leadership preferences, environmental factors, resources, and distinctive competencies. That’s a lot to pack into a mission statement, which must be succinct to be most effective, as Peter Drucker and others have observed: “A mission statement has to be operational, otherwise it’s just good intentions. [It] has to focus on what the institution really tries to do and then do it so that everybody in the organization can say, This is my contribution to the goal.” Frances Hesselbein, former head of the Girl Scouts of America, offers their mission statement as an example: “To help a girl reach her highest potential.”

What does the vision statement do? That definition is harder to pin down. Is it a close synonym to mission and values, as Stephen Covey seems to suggest: “One of the best ways I know of bringing about this shared vision is in creating a mission statement...something that embodies deeply held values... .”

Vision describes the future, a vision of the world as it has been changed by the organization’s work. Vin D’Amico puts the pieces together in this description of the strategic planning process: “The first step is to understand that strategic planning requires a hierarchy of information, beginning with the organization's mission. Based on your mission statement, a vision for the future can be formed, along with specific goals, and performance measures can be developed to track progress towards each goal. This leads naturally to the formulation of specific actions to improve performance. One last step is to identify initiatives that will drive your actions and enable you to meet your goals.”

We advise clients to think of the mission statement as the “heart” of the organization. It answers the questions, “What is our business? Who is our customer? What does the customer value?” It beats at the center, pumping the lifeblood of motivation and rallying constituents around it. The vision statement is the “hands” of the organization. It answers the questions, “What are we building? How are we having an impact on the world around us?” It lets constituents know how high the bar is raised, and what distinguishes the organization from the rest of the pack.

How do you know if your organization’s mission and vision are working? Ask your constituents. Poll them at random. If employee can paraphrase the statements, and if customers’ experiences reflect them, your organization’s “heart” and “hands” are at work.

For more information on this topic, click here.

To view our mission statement, click here.

To view our vision statement, click here.

Sources: Marketing Management (Kotler); Managing the Nonprofit Organization (Drucker, Hesselbein); Principle-Centered Leadership (Covey); “Defining a Web Enabled Business Strategy”, www.mworld.org (D’Amico).

Tools You Can Use: Storytelling & Your Authentic Voice

Because much of our leadership work takes place in communication, the ability to tell a story has become a must-have leadership trait. Can’t tell a story as well as you’d like? Try these tips, and along the way rediscover your “authentic voice.”

1. Gathering content. Ask your employees and customers for stories. Give them an opportunity to tell you a story at every point of contact.
2. Finding your voice. Our “authentic voice” has a certain cadence, vocabulary, and underlying philosophy. It tends to show up most effortlessly in personal letter writing. Try doing a first draft of your story as if you were writing to your cousin Sue. Compare the differences in its style to something you wrote for a business audience. Try to keep as much of the style in the original when you write the second and subsequent drafts for the intended audience.
3. Sharing the story. Don’t reserve your story just for presentations. Tell it online, on the web site, in the annual report, in the values statement, in your next white paper, and in conversation. People forget pitches, but they remember a story well told.
4. Reward the tellers of good stories.

As the Apollo project cautionary tale reminds us, “Corporate IQ”
needs to have a complementary knowledge management system in
place. It’s about “managing people’s brain power and the company’s
collective memory”, according to the authors of the book Culture.com.

A knowledge management-ready culture fosters formal and informal conversation among workers; supported by technology and infrastructure that provides workers with the information they need, when they need it.

The authors of Culture.com offer the following “inventory style” knowledge audit:

Who: uses knowledge?

owns the knowledge?

What: knowledge exists in the organization?

is the form of the knowledge?

knowledge do people need to do their jobs?

systems and processes exist (not just technology)?

gaps exist?

barriers exist?

opportunities can be found?

strengths and weaknesses are present?

Where: does the knowledge exist?

When: is the knowledge used by people doing their work?

Why: is the knowledge used?

How: is the knowledge acquired and created?

is the knowledge stored and transmitted (and how fast)?

is the knowledge used?

is knowledge management fostered and supported?

is knowledge management being used to improve work
processes, services and products?

The authors of the book Culture.com define “corporate IQ” as “the collective ability to accurately understand the company’s internal competencies and external markets, and the ability to rally resources to respond to the challenges that are identified.” To gauge your corporate IQ, consider the following factors:

Who’s Hi-Q? According to a study by Delphi Group, high-IQ companies are characterized by (among other qualities) cross-functional teams and employee involvement in the shaping and execution of their work.

What matters? Knowing:

• what you know—and don’t know

• how to use the data

• organizational decision-making processes

• which decisions are important

• mission, vision and values as they direct and focus the organization; and

• the three kinds of “smarts”, and how to cultivate them (job smarts, thinking smarts, and emotional smarts, or EQ). “Thinking smarts” include systems thinking, logic, critical thinking, creative or innovative thinking, and “synergent thinking”, or the capacity to combine focused and divergent kinds of thinking.