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Employees will hate where the world is going.

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Hire Stakeholders (they’ll love it)

We’ve talked a lot about the cultural damage of the Industrial Age. New studies are jumping on board suggesting that the workplace is headed in directions that will make “employees” and Industrial Age companies very unhappy.

The Evolving Workplace: Expert Insights is one such study. It has a technology bent to it, but does a great job of identifying where “work” and the “workplace” are headed. Some thoughts from, and about, the study:

Trend #1: Crowdsourcing and Crowdsource service – people will work from all over and some will never meet. Just-in-time labor will reduce the number of permanent employees. Productivity will become more important than hanging around the boss. 30% of Japan’s workforce is already crowd-sourced. The big elephant in the room is that kissing up to cover up for lousy productivity will be much harder for employees to do. The lazy guy w/ a great personality might actually have to start working.

Trend #2: Productivity measured in outputs, not hours – we call this a Results-based culture vs. Time-based culture. In our company we have no office hours, and no vacation or sick time. We expect people to produce, and then go play with their dog (or vice versa). This study says the whole world is moving in that direction. We believe it is because the Industrial Age taught us to trade time for money, but that in the post-modern economy, time is the new money. People want freedom from the 9-5 and will produce more if treated like adults who are in charge of their productivity.

Trend #5: Values versus rules – this trend highlights the importance of hiring people who reflect your values and who you can trust (since you’re no longer measuring time, but results). Stephen Covey conducted research which showed that employer/employee trust is one of the most valuable factors in someone being productive. Values, which guide and encourage personal initiative, will be more prevalent than Rules, which box people in, dull their thinking and keep them from innovating.

Trend #7: Employee-led innovation – when we lead with values and not rules, we turn employees (children who need to be told what to do, when, and where) into Stakeholders (adults). Stakeholders will take responsiblity for their time and will produce results without being monitored, and more importantly, will take responsibility for helping the company improve. They will come up with great ideas on how to move the company forward. Management won’t be telling employees what to do, the Stakeholders will be the innovators that move the company forward.

My favorite funny line from the report: “Strong resistance is expected from many parts of the labor force [to measuring output instead of hours]…. The gap will widen between the best workers and the worst in terms of opportunities and earnings, contributing to greater income inequality and therefore potential social unrest.”

In other words, a time-based culture lets people appear productive by simply having a car in the parking lot, and they will protest having been exposed as a drain on the company.

Going to work vs. working; Time-based vs. Results-based
The future doesn’t bode well for Industrial Age employees who don’t mind going to work (time-based), but don’t want to actually work while they are there (results-based). But it looks very bright for Stakeholders who want to “make meaning”, not just money, to take ownership, and get a life at the same time.

The world continues to shift in favor of those who want to do something, contribute, create, innovate, make meaning not money, and own their lives. It will encourage all of us to move from being employees to Stakeholders.

Culture Matters More Than You Think

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Hire for culture, not for skills.

Great idea? Focused market? Good financial backing? Skilled employees? You’ve got it all, right? Maybe not. None of that matters one whit unless everybody holds the same core values. The numbers don’t lie – culture is the number one priority if you want to go the distance.

65% of all mergers fail and the #1 reason is because their culture’s clashed. Forget the merger – I believe even a higher percentage of small and local businesses fail because of this issue, without ever getting much past the first employee stage. We almost never pay attention to the things that matter. Why would culture be any different?

We at the Crankset Group always look at culture fit long before we look at skills. And if someone is a clearly better culture fit, I’ll hire them instead of the much more highly skilled person. It’s a no brainer. But most of us still go right to the resume’ (what I call “the tombstone”) to find out all the great things somebody did in their past lives, and never ask, “Will we want to be together 9+ hours a day for years to come?”

The Industrial Age left us with a terrible cultural legacy some have labeled the “allies” model of company culture. It was supposed to be the most evolved, but it doesn’t work.

Here’s six views of “employees” that are common in local (and giant) businesses. See which one is yours:

  1. Employee as enemy – all processes are set up to box them in and treat them like prisoners/numbers. Inmates, I mean employees, are to be mistrusted on the way in.
  2. Hired hand – a necessary evil; we give away tasks to them reluctantly, even though nobody can do it as well as me. We never want them to think, just do tasks.
  3. We are family – the parent/child approach – good luck with that! Do you really want more kids? Some business owners apparently do.
  4. Friends – everyone is on a level plane. Everyone is in charge of everything, therefore, nobody is in charge of anything – “we’re all friends here, right?” Anything with two heads belongs in a circus. Where does something belong with no head?
  5. Allies – The dominant Industrial Age culture. The focus is on the task. Like England, Russia, France, and the U.S. in World War II, we don’t have to like each other; we just need to focus on the task at hand. This is the worst and most advanced form of Industrial Age thinking. Most companies still live here. Let’s just hire for skills. Culture is woo-woo crap.
  6. Business as COMMUNITY – The great companies are already doing this. They believe strongly in why they exist, what they are doing here and where they are going. And they don’t hire people who don’t want the same things. Committed Community is the basis for getting the task done in the new company.

Community has hierarchy – somebody is in charge. But it emphasizes collaboration and true “team” – using agreed upon methodologies to achieve an agreed upon goal. Community imputes trust and creates an environment where everyone is encouraged to take ownership and make a contribution. Community members play clearly defined roles as part of a team, not behind cube walls.

Hire for culture. You can teach anybody a skill, but if they don’t believe in what you do, it’s a short-term gain with long-term pain.

What’s your company culture? And by the way, if there is only one of you right now, that’s the best time to answer the question.

Who WE are is so much more important than who people want us to be. Who are you as a company?