Cortex Leadership Consulting

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Talent Acquisition

Job candidates are your culture’s customers. Not in the future, but right now. To remain competitive your company will need to attract and keep the best talent. To get the best candidates for the job, those talented people need to be attracted to your company culture and brand.

Who better to help you attract the very best talent than an experienced group of professionals that specialize in retention and development of the best and brightest leaders and managers?

We have a brand new, innovative way of presenting your culture to candidates and handling the processing of candidate recruitment so that the best possible candidate customers of your culture choose you.

If you are a client of Cortex Leadership Consulting, contact Matt Engle at [email protected] for more information.

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Turning March Madness into a Culture Build for Your Organization

By:  Richard Hammer, Senior IT Consultant, Enterprise Architect
Cortex Leadership Consulting

March Madness could be quite the distraction for team members.  My experience with Interactive Achievement taught me how it can actually be used to build your corporate culture.

Quick history:

I started working with Interactive Achievement (now PowerSchool) in December, 2011.  Interactive Achievement was built by educators for educators.  It’s primary offering was an assessment platform to help teachers discover the strengths and areas of growth for their students, ultimately in preparation for high stakes assessments.  I was brought on as a technology expert and managed, directed, and eventually became the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) for the development, maintenance, and infrastructure for their national expansion and ultimately, acquisition by PowerSchool in 2016.

Culture Build - March MadnessWhen March Madness came around in March, 2012, the office was a buzz.  I thought nothing of it.  Then the email came.  “All employees must fill out a bracket.  Team leaders will be selected and you will be placed on a team.  We will need a team name.  We are clearing the lobby and installing televisions in all the workspaces in the building again.  March Madness everyone.  Let’s get excited!”

Imagine the shock. I had been hired to pivot and roll out a new version of the platform to a national audience, built with new technology on new hardware, that was 11 months behind schedule at the time, immeasurable dollars over budget, and proven not to work … and we are engaging in March Madness across the entire office.   Madness indeed.

As it turns out, it was one of the most amazing team building, culture building, and healing ideas I had ever seen implemented across an organization.  

Here is how it worked for each of the next 5 years:

  • Everyone submitted a bracket (some took it seriously, some did not – one year, someone allowed their dog to select the winners)
  • If you beat your boss, you got an extra day of vacation
  • If you beat the CEO, Jon Hagmaier, you got an extra day of vacation
  • If your team wins, they get an all expenses paid vacation (think beach, mountains, cruise, etc.).
  • If you win, you get the grand prize … “Destination Unknown” … essentially an extravagant, all expenses paid, mystery vacation.
  • Each week there is a catered meal.  Sometimes breakfast, sometimes lunch.
  • One year there was a debate over who made the best bacon.  Jon ordered something like 30lbs of bacon from all over the world and we had a “bacon-off” to determine which bacon was indeed the best.
  • There were also team competitions (think corn hole, connect 4, etc.) for prizes
  • There was also trivia for prizes (think cash, vacation days, or an opportunity to change one of your picks in the brackets).
  • There was also the Benny Gibson Memorial Wheel of Death (or something like that) where every couple of hours, one of the exec team would take it around the office, ask someone if they wanted a spin.  The wheel had prizes and hazards on it.

All of the TVs on the offices were always on, showing different games at different times.  We still did our work, but we also engaged our peers and coworkers, we discovered fun facts about one another (I didn’t know you were fans of 80’s hair bands!).  It clearly became a work-family event

Destination Unknown was the prize to win though.  Once a winner was identified, our administrative assistant Debbie would plot and plan for days.  Eventually, 12 envelopes would be delivered and a departure date/time would be set.  Envelopes could only be opened in specific places, at specific times.

In 2014, my wife Catherine and I won the prize.  We made a video of our adventure: http://y2u.be/x2F1LUapD6s

Maybe your company can’t go to the lengths that Interactive Achievement did, no problem.  Get creative.  Lean into something that your employees find fun and exciting and use it to build team engagement and excitement.

 

 

 

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5 Ways Your Culture Can Crash Your Software

I was curious about what was killing some corporate software cultures so I sat down with Richard Hammer, Enterprise Architect/Strategist with Cortex Leadership to find out. What I heard were 5 things that could kill any company culture, not just an IT one.  Turns out that IT isn’t that different after all.

Corporate Culture KillersHere are the 5 ways that culture can crash your software (or any other business environment):

1) Employees taking sides: “the business” vs. “technology” – the business said this, technology did that. Nothing ever gets done, no one can seem to speak that language. You hear things like “What are they saying?”   “How can anyone understand them”  “Why did the business commit that to the customer?”  “When is technology going to deliver what they promised months ago?”

These are the pitfalls of poorly performing teams … on both sides.  A rift develops and both sides lose sight of the fact that they need one another to be successful.  The only “us vs. them” in business should be with competitors and differentiating yourself in the marketplace.  If you do not have a together with your technology/development team, find a solution today.  Make it the #1 priority.

2) “Working together” starts to mean telling, not listening – This is a trap in any relationship and can be a death knell for a software business.  No one really likes to be told what to do.  Developers like it even less when you tell them how to do their job.  The crash comes when the developers are no longer heard, as they stop speaking up and do exactly what they are told to do (all while looking for another job).  While there is a belief this may be a good thing (about time they did what I said), truth be told, they have insights that have value and when heard, tend to understand where the other perspective is coming from and discover creative solutions that address more needs.

3) Playing the blame game – In business, and especially in the software business, things go wrong.  The key is failing early and often, catching the failure sooner, and being able to pivot/course correct before it becomes an issue.  Blaming the development team when they deliver what they understood the ask to be is a breakdown in communication … it takes two here … and both need to be asking questions, reading back what they understood, and taking responsibility and accountability for their part in the misunderstanding. Discovering where some of the miscommunication is occurring is a critical success factor.  Bringing iterative frameworks and transparent communication to the teams will ease some of these problems as well.

4)  Technology/development is a black box which no one else in the company understands – If no one is able to ask the question … no one will like the answers once they are understood.  Fear is a powerful motivator.  Misunderstanding is its mistress.  Anxiety is its muse.  If your business is dependent on technology, and you have a black box that is not understood, you are inviting disaster.  There should be no black boxes in business.  There is no magic to success, growth, and scalability.  Sometimes luck is involved, but usually, it is impossibly hard work … especially when it comes to understanding your own weaknesses and believing and trusting in others for success.  If you do not take on the black boxes yourself, you have to have someone you have absolute belief, faith, and understanding in (and can instantly forgive any misunderstanding).  You also have to be able to reality check your instincts.

5)  Cowboys kill culture – cowboys exist in all cultures.  The rogue salesperson who promises features will be delivered next quarter that has not been prioritized yet.  The genius developer codes all weekend, crashing everyone’s unit tests in an attempt to address a 2% problem discovered while doing routine maintenance.  For a startup and very small business, these heroes of the wild west enable amazing progress and push everyone to exceed expectations.  As the business grows, these heroes quickly become the enemy, as their methods, while well-intentioned, start to weigh heavy on the rest of the team.  The key is to measure intention and have processes and procedures in place to identify these patterns and address them quickly … before the actions sink your business.

Do you recognize any of these 5 behaviors in your company culture right now?

Having a facilitated conversation with your leadership team to determine what principles and practices could help to modify them.  Ignoring them will not make them go away.

If you are not on the leadership team at your organization and are experiencing any of these issues, try having a respectful conversation with the person you report to using this as a catalyst for the discussion.  Ask if they are noticing the same things you are?  Sometimes it takes a moment to raise awareness before things can change. These behaviors did not surface overnight and their solutions will take focus and consistency to return the dividend of a return to higher productivity levels and a more pleasant work environment.