NOLS’ guiding principles and 1,200+ hours of skill development helped me return as a more resourceful and a stronger judge of priorities. Yet, the greatest benefit seems to be my renewed focus on self-care.

In a world where 70% of people are not engaged in their work and managers are the primary reason employees leave companies, it’s worth exploring how self-care impacts people. I define self-care as the relatively simple routines of staying hydrated, getting sleep, eating nutritious meals, exercising, and practicing hygiene. If these aren’t priorities in the wilderness, then a team of adventurers is sure to stifle its potential. In manufacturing plants, retail locations, and office buildings, the same routines affect manager/employee relationships and team performance.

As a manager, it’s my responsibility to come to work alert, refreshed, and available to my teams. I rely heavily on water, whole foods, and even quick runs up and down office stairs to make sure I have the energy and focus to help my teams succeed.

Our work lives are demanding. We’re working longer hours, relying more on fast foods and energy drinks that actually make us more sluggish and dehydrated, and losing the battle to keep good people with our companies. I take responsibility to fend off these trends. Self-care is my solution. It helped my team thrive in Patagonia, and it’s helping me be more productive and in the moment with people at work.

We all have tremendous control over our personal routines. If we fail to take care of ourselves, how can we expect to get the most out of our people?

Related Content:

Working Together is Success – Taking on a Team Attitude
Survivor: Patagonia

In an analysis of television programs, speakers used approximately one unique metaphor for every 25 words.

Aristotle said, “The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor.”

In the nineteenth century, William James (the father of modern psychology), Charles Darwin, and Friedrich Nietzsche acknowledged that metaphor is essential to learning.

Metaphors are not only useful in revealing hidden aspects of reality but also serve as the fundamental basis for all human learning and understanding.

Using metaphors for learning increases recall of information both instantly and after substantially delayed intervals.

For fans of academia, metaphors can be referred to in several ways: analogies, schemas, structure mapping, and shared features hypothesis. In lay terms, a metaphor is simply comparing something unknown to something we know.

Let’s look at a few examples. If I were to say that a new organizational process is like a cakewalk, you would immediately know that the process is simple and should be fairly easy to implement. If I were to say that a new organizational process is like a journey through the jungle, you would immediately know that the process isn’t going to be easy and that several challenges await us.

A ton of information can be conveyed by a simple metaphor. Our company is a well-oiled machine. Our company runs like a ’72 jalopy. The use of a metaphor can be both engaging and effective when it comes to training. Imagine implementing a training program that conveys a company’s strategy. One option would be to design an e-learning module that uses straightforward bullet points, some great stock photography, and maybe a few drag-n-drop, matching, or multiple choice questions to ensure the learners understand the information. Another option would be to immerse the learner into a mountain climbing metaphor. In this metaphor, our strategy is the map. Our guides are the company leaders. The summit is the achievement of our goals. Our climbing partners are the different functional departments that we must rely on. Which approach do you think the learners will better and more quickly understand and act on? Which approach is more emotionally engaging and motivating? If you answered, “the mountain climbing approach,” please move to the head of the class!

Metaphors aren’t the answer for all training needs, but applying them can certainly be expanded to a wide range of training efforts. I challenge us to rethink the role of metaphors in our training arena. Where can you better use this approach in training efforts?

This is not to say that strategy is a democracy or that strategy should be developed solely based on employee insights. However, ignoring the people who interact with customers each day or those who ultimately own the execution of the strategy on a daily basis can make successful execution that much harder. The insights from engaging field employees provides useful inputs into how to deploy the strategy (and to validate it’s the right strategy) because leaders can gain an appreciation for their people’s perceptions and beliefs.

This is especially important in a distributed business model, where decision rights and formal influence sit at lower levels of the organization. In these organizations the corporate center can become too detached from reality if they don’t harvest the insights of their people in the strategic planning process and on a continual basis. A Fortune 100 executive addressing his staff put it well in a recent meeting, “Our employees have millions of touch points with our customers, and not one of us in this room is responsible for even one of those touch points. We need to be just as curious about what our employees are saying as we are about our customers today.”

Even though this is a new concept in some boardrooms, we aren’t the only ones talking about this; a recent HBR blog advocates a similar approach.

Have you seen a shift in your organization or at the leader level to better incorporate insights and perspectives from the front line?

Related Material

Roots of Engagement Issue Four – People want to Know their Contributions Make an Impact
How Successful Strategies Win: Strategic Change as an Interdependent Process ]]> http://www.rootlearning.com/5106/your-people-an-overlooked-ingredient-in-making-your-strategy-viable/feed/ 0 http://www.rootlearning.com/5090/frontline-managers-your-weak-link/ http://www.rootlearning.com/5090/frontline-managers-your-weak-link/#comments Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:51:10 +0000 Alison Lazenby http://www.rootlearning.com/?p=5090 [...]]]> Research shows that managers are the most important drivers of employee engagement, and that engaged employees create loyal customers. But frontline managers are “the ‘least ready’ workgroup in the company, even less capable than their entry-level employees” (Bersin & Associates).  Without a strong development program, people learn to lead by chance.  And these are the people who are the face of your organization!

Managers: A lesson from Facebook
Your Managers Aren’t Aligned on Your Strategy
Video: Developing Managers for Successful Strategy Execution

Well, that’s obviously a call you don’t really want to get!  And while it was a pain arranging for the tree people to clean up the tree and the roofing people to fix the roof, no one was hurt and there wasn’t too much damage inside the house.  It could have been so much worse!   But in reality, that’s just the beginning of the process.

And yes, there is a business point to all of this.

Ironically, this incident inspired my colleague, Tricia, and I to think about how close to home this hits (please forgive the unfortunate pun) for those of us who work at Root.

The word “root” has a lot of different meanings and contexts – in music, grammar, computers, genealogy, and more.  Let’s focus on its meaning in nature.  Dictionary.com, says a “root” is a part of the body of a plant that grows downward into the soil, anchoring the plant and absorbing nutriment and moisture.”

Here at Root, we spend our time with businesses of all sizes talking about their people and strategies.  There is a significant link between the name of our company, how organizations function and grow, and nature.

Like a tree, an organization is only as strong as its root system or foundation.  So when we meet with the leaders of organizations, we spend a lot of time talking about:

• What that company’s reality looks like today,
• Where they want to go, and
• Whether their people are engaged in their strategy.

Next, we probe into the barriers they’re facing that may be keeping the company from growing.  If their people aren’t engaged, we dig a bit further to see if they think their employees are being nourished – with the tools they need to feel like they’re making a contribution to the business or that they’re part of something bigger than themselves.

I could go on and on about the metaphor of the tree and what it needs to grow and how that equates to your business today.  But, relating back to the tree that fell on my house, I probably should have had someone look at it when I saw some dead branches.  Maybe if I had tended to it earlier, the arborist could have done something to keep it from falling over during a random wind gust, or would have recommended taking it down altogether. But now it’s too late, and I have to deal with the fallout (sorry – this blog is just ripe for puns).

At the end of the day, I can’t help seeing this as a huge wake-up call for organizations.  If you spend a little time caring and nourishing the roots of your organization (your people), you will only have to focus on refining and sustaining your company, nudging it along in the right direction, rather than taking drastic measures to clean it up. Because believe me, no one wants to have a tree falling on their house (or their business)!

Related Content

Missing a Critical Element of Employment Engagement?
The Fine Line Between Direction and Engagement – Part 1
Six Ways to Lead Change, Build Teams, and Make It Personal

I recently saw a video post from Rachel Sklar on Fast Company’s site about Culture vs. Strategy.  You may have heard the saying “Culture will eat strategy for lunch,” meaning that culture tends to be stronger in a lot of organizations than strategy.  Rachel pointed out that anyone who thinks that culture and strategy are distinct is missing the boat on strategy.  Her position is that culture is part of strategy. Watch her video.

I can totally see where she’s coming from, but I tend to think of it a little differently.  Culture along with organizational purpose is who you are.  This is why culture tends to be one of the most enduring things in organizations.  After all, evolving who you are – embarking on culture change –doesn’t happen without self-reflection, discovery, and commitment.  Strategy is how you’re going about getting to the future.  So, in simplistic terms, I think of Culture, Strategy, and Vision like this graphic to the right.

I do agree with Rachel that Culture vs. Strategy is the wrong question.  Success in organizations is usually determined by how well and how fast an organization is reaching its desired future state (in the graphic, VISION).  The best way to accelerate the pace to your vision is to align your culture and strategy so that they are in lock-step.  This is where I believe Rachel and I really agree.

Think of this in personal terms for a minute.  Let’s say your vision is to become the President of the United States.  You can have the strongest field organization for your campaign, have great messaging on policies, and travel every day meeting people for a year –all elements of your strategy to win.  But if the essence of who you are at your core doesn’t love getting up every day and meeting new people, being curious about new things and new topics, enjoying problem solving on the fly, and responding well under pressure and constant change (all elements of who you are at your core), then it will be pretty hard to get to your vision.

We can debate what qualities are really required to win the presidency, and I’m not pretending to have the answers on that : ).  But achieving your future vision is a smoother and more effective ride when your culture and your strategy are aligned.  This means that they go well together.  They support each other.  They are well suited to one another.

Organizations whose strategy is at odds with their culture should think twice, as it’s easier to change strategies than to change culture.  However, sometimes culture change is the right choice to make.  If the culture is full of unhealthy practices, success will be difficult with any strategy.  In this case, pursuing the hard work of culture change is paramount for long-term success.   And there are times when a strategy is so compelling that to not evolve the culture to fit it is just plain short-sighted.   So, whether you’re thinking about a vision for yourself or your organization, consider these questions:

Are you clear about the vision you want to achieve?  How do you define your desired future state?

Are you clear about who you are and the strengths of your culture?

Are you clear about how you’re going after getting to the future?  Which strategy (or strategies) are you embarking on to pursue your success?

Drop me a line with your thoughts.  I’d love to continue the conversation that Rachel started for us!

Related Content

Strategy or Values? Yes!
Culture Change in M&A

Having programs in place to help managers with those skills is more than just good sense. It could mean the difference between the success or failure of reaching your company strategy and meeting organizational objectives.

The key to this success? Managers should be able to:

• know their role,
• understand the overall business strategy,
• connect their teams to that strategy,
• set clear expectations,
• be able to coach and develop their people based on their individual roles, and
• successfully follow up.

If you haven’t trained your managers in these capabilities, how can you expect them to do well in their jobs?

Alison Lazenby, senior solutions advisor for the Root Compass^SM Manager Development Program, discusses the benefits that an organization will experience when managers are given development opportunities.

Related Content

Managers matter the most when it comes to engagement!
Managers Move Metrics
Root Compass Youtube playlist