Tag: company culture

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Friday Focus

Friday Focus – 20th November

Here are five focus points and questions to ask yourself and your leaders next week

1. What impact are we having? 

As a manager or part of the leadership team, you should ask what impact are we having as a team. 

2. What type of leadership style do we have? 

Have we defined this, do our colleagues know what we and what style we have. In the Focus Remote Management Team Training, this is an important focus area.

3. Do you know the boundaries of your role? 

Does your team know what your role is and what it is not? Do they know what your boundaries are and where they take over?  

4. Ask and Answer: We Are

Ask you and your team, we are, complete a ten we are questions, we are strong, we are decisive, we are the industry etc. This will help you develop your identity, your brand and your offerings. 
Your hidden leaders will bubble up to the surface with these questions

5. What is our Defend 5 and our Attack 5?

What are you going to defend, think areas of your business or market, what five things are you are going to attack, that need to improve or gain the most attention from our teams.  

This will help you and your business move forward, put your company strategy first, enable strategic steps forward and encourages you to build better long term company culture.
These are also area’s you can use in your next company-wide AMA.

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Leadership

It Is Ok To Want To Move On As A Leader

There has been much made for many years around company loyalty, the job market and being a leader and looking to move on. 

Leader Loneliness

As a leader, you are under so many more pressures than your team and colleagues realise and will even know. 
You keep it bottled up and find one or two people you can vent or download on to.

Team Before Me

Many times as a leader you have to make calls that are best for the team.
Rarely are you given the opportunity to make the calls that are good for you specifically.

Obviously bad and inexperienced managers do put themselves first.

As a leader (not a manager) you make decisions to empower those around you and move towards the department or company targets. 

Often as a leader, it can feel like you are too busy to think about your career, you often end up neglecting opportunities to develop your own career, you tend to put those around you or the business first. When you get a chance to look up it can feel like you are going backwards. 

Realisation

There comes a time when almost all leaders have that realisation. You will often realise the company is just not what it was or going where you want it to go or it’s just not for you anymore. 

This can feel more daunting the higher up you go. Especially in more recent times with lockdowns and pandemics. 

Questions From Leadership Team

You might have experienced this first hand or likely have asked it as a leader…are you committed to the company?

There is also only so many times someone can truly disagree and commit. 

Knowing when it’s your time

When you realise it is your time to leave, you are actively making the decision to improve the company culture, often when we know we are looking we have the tendency do drop the ball or have passed to the wrong player. It is also completely fine to look to leave for a better company fit for you.

So a new year can be a fresh start, you can look to leave and as many won’t suggest it is good to understand the market, understand or remember your value or worth, remember in no rules rules, Netflix actively encourage you to go for other interviews and understand your value. 

Leaders Lead

Do not let questions from other leaders or do what people expect to hold you back. A leader has to lead, and typically it has to start with yourself. So yes, it is always to leave, even if you are the CEO.

The important thing to remember is to leave your company or organisation in a great place and set them up to succeed for as possible.

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Friday Focus

Friday Focus – 13th November

In the second instalment of Focus Friday, I recommend five actionable tips around company culture, the Hybrid Office, preplanning training and organising an internal conference.

  1. Remote company culture has reduced collaboration and communication between strong links in businesses. Encourage more collaboration and informal chat around projects and themes.
    Read how remote work has impacted company culture.  
  2. With Christmas Parties and traditional annual celebrations being limited or removed this year.
    Encourage a Secret Santa or present exchange. This will boost morale and encourage people to get to know one another. 
  3. Hybrid Office Preparation – Start preparing plans for the Hybrid Office. Work with your colleagues to understand when they will need to be in the office, when off-sites will likely need to happen, when team onsite’s can happen safely and what tech tools and software you will need to improve the experience
  4. Plan Training – Something that is always discussed and added into a budget line but rarely is planned out effectively. Your junior to mid-level staff will have limited exposure to planning, budget management and forecasting, set up training for these staff and create a culture of sharing important business skills. This not only improves team connections and a culture of sharing and training it increases the quality of the next level of management coming through your organisation.
  5. Introduce Management Pods – In this week’s blog, I suggested a different concept in tackling poor management team connections and a way to develop collections ties and departmental connections.

If you have any tips you would like to share or contribute to, happily email me below

Email Focus
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Leaders Letter Newsletter

Leaders Letter 23: Remote Work Influences On Company Culture

09/11/2020

Dear Leaders, 

I trust you had a good weekend and feel refreshed for the week ahead. 

Company culture is difficult, it is a process and something we all strive to improve. 

In what company culture is I dive into what company culture is and what company culture is not. 

A framing and a guide are always going to be helpful to businesses setting out to improve their company’s culture and embrace the important journey you and your colleagues need to go on.

Numerous leaders have commented that remote work feels more transactional. This negatively impacts the company culture and productivity.

What leaders mean by this is having meetings and getting straight to the point and onto the next meeting.

You miss the hallways conversation, you don’t get those brilliantly timed breaks between meetings, you miss that time with the team where you might spitball an idea and it turns into a campaign or a product tweak. 

You have less time and opportunity to talk for three minutes before or after a meeting and you often have to virtually dash between back to back videos calls without making time to talk to your colleagues outside of the product or project you are working on.

I have heard from leadership teams outside of SMT’s, their team meetings and 1-2-1’s leaders are not getting to check in with those who they might have spoken to or actively sought out when in the office previously. 

One manager commented they haven’t spoken to someone they used to see daily in six months. 

A handful of leaders have said they have felt time and work shift to “being more transactional” less personal. 

On the surface, this might have sounded like a proactive step taken from some organisations to ensure work while being at work, but diving into transactional, what professionals really mean is they are not checking in those they were close with. 

Those who might provide a different opinion or perspective or given a guide on what the impact might be to the group of users they might look after. 

With the way you are working currently, are you alienating a number of team members or stifling cross-departmental collaboration? Or is it personally decreasing your ability to make quick and important decisions away from email or a chat tool? 

Is there a solution to checking in or battling back to back transactional meetings?  

Yes, a couple of simple ideas. 

The first dedicate a section of time to be open in your calendar where you have an open room (Zoom/Meets etc) where people can drop by or bump into you. 

The second would be to book in coffee breaks and buddy up, 10-20 minute slots where you find time to chat, discuss projects and enable different conversations. 

A third might be to use an open document (think shared PowerPoint, Google Slides), a mural or miro where you can have some ideas or post-it notes. 

I trust this is food for thought for you and your leadership team.

Thanks and have a good week,

Danny Denhard

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Friday Focus

Friday Focus

In a new series, Friday Focus creates five things to consider for the week ahead:

  1. Culture: Write the unwritten rules down and sharing across your business. This helps to create clarity and dispel any misunderstanding within the organisation.
    Communication is essential to building the best company culture.
  2. Leadership: If you run a department or team, share a few wins of the week for your team and one personal highlight and share one challenge you are facing or the company is and ask for help. This will help to bring the department closer together and will help you and your team to understand where they can help you and collaborate.
  3. Culture: Build a quick team to start an audit (read this AMA Q&A for more info) of performance away from typical reporting, ask the team to dig into the numbers, the market trends and undercover themes that are happening that you are likely missing. Ask for the team to report back with a presentation and share the exec summary across the business.
    Audits should key to company strategy.
  4. Culture: Find one piece of content you can create a club around, this can be a book, a video or a podcast. I recommend you have something that is a series and can be shared and discussed over a thirty minute period.
    Here are the podcasts I do not miss and might help with a recommendation.
  5. Mentoring: Ask three volunteers to step forward and offer to mentor or coach one person each. I recommend you ask for one of the mentees to be someone senior and ask for reverse mentorship, this will improve information flow and improve communication between teams that rarely have the chance to connect.

If you would like to let me know how you get on with these Five for Friday Focus, happily let me know below.

Email me
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Leadership

Leaders Letters – Ask Me Anything

On Monday 26th of October, I led an AMA on leaders letters, there as a great number of questions and a variety, some will be useful for any business, others are specific for the person’s situation.

The AMA

Q1. How many times should we revisit our company strategy?

I believe the company strategy should be:

Think: 5 Years, Plan: 3 Years, Action: 1 Year.

I believe you can revisit twice a year but should not completely change.

Your strategy is your guide for the year, this is why tactics can change but the strategy shouldn’t.

I also believe there should only be one strategy not departmental or team strategies as these undermine your core strategy and rarely connect.

Unfortunately, 2020 has been a unique year so each quarter would be acceptable, especially at a tactical level but if you have to keep changing strategy, you are constantly missing the mark for your customers.

If you are constantly changing strategy or constantly changing your company compass no one within your company will know what or where to look for guidance.

Always aim for an Annual Strategy: I like to recommend your agreed strategy has to be signed off by the middle of November. This enables your teams to hopefully end on a high, wrap up important projects and then start the following year with crystal clear action plans on how to hit their goals, their KPI’s and feel like they are making personal progress.

You should then check in monthly and quarterly to know where you are and use the detailed playbook to guide you and your company’s direction.

I will be updating throughout the day with more answers from emailed questions.

Q2. We find that we chop and change our strategy constantly, how do you suggest we combat this?

This typically comes from confidence or consistent weak numbers, if you are part of the management team I would look to raise this and show evidence of this happening and the impact is having. If this is accepted as good behaviour and right then you should look to get external help.

I would create a dedicated strategy stream and build-out for the next 15-18 months, look at leading indicators, make big bets and back these up with all the relevant information. Ask department leads to come up with their plans and fold up to the big bets and roll into your strategic pillars.

Playbook & Two Pages: I am big on recommending detailed playbooks and these should act as your company compass, I would recommend building a detailed playbook, guiding you from what success is to what actions and activities the company will not be undertaking.

I would include the business details like average order value, the trending consumer data, the market indicators, the believes you have with your new products or updates and then convert this into a slick two-page strategy document that is shared to every member of staff. This will take you a few weeks and will feel like hard work but the reward is high. Have it in writing you and the management team will revisit twice a year and highlight the strategy is company-wide and tactically things can change but these tactics will adhere to the agreed company-wide strategy.

Even think about a kick-off for the leadership team to present and collaborate on cross-departmentally.

Q3. Our company has a huge amount of products, we struggle to focus on joining our teams together on what’s important, how you suggest we tackle this?

Pull each department lead into a meeting, create a workshop environment and use this as a time to bring everyone together. Remind the team of the company’s goals and targets and how important everyone is moving in the same direction.

Humans are used to the campfire as it was how we understood that we were safe and eating together helped build trust and bonds, I would use this and ask ahead of time for people to eat the same type of food and drink a similar drink. This is an important trend to keep up and carry on post-workshop.

Ask the department leads to prepare their goals and plans together and work on cross-departmental goals and dependencies. Call out the people who need to work together and how long you estimate these projects to take.

This will align the teams if you have strong enough leaders. If you need to bring in their number two’s or team by team organise this (remotely doesn’t mean you cannot leverage this and actually tools like Miro and google docs are easy to open up to all).

Some management teams never onboard and change the way they work, this is where management team training and management team development is priceless.

Q4. What is the one thing you think people get wrong about building a people-first company?

Almost all business that attempts to shift focus to people first think its a quick job, it is not. It takes time, training and a lot of patience and positive energy. If you suggest you are a product first business and try and shift to people, this will be shifting importance away from delivery and for some remove their spotlight, it is important to understand if this is a problem and tackle headfirst and replace that feeling of being most important.

Don’t expect a quick turn around, but be confident, have open communications and ensure everyone is along on the journey. Don’t rely on perks to be a level playing field and think about how you will reward a hybrid office, consider how you can send packages out and make the playing field level for everyone.

Q5. Our team is struggling with burn out and fatigue, what would you recommend?

I’m sorry your team is struggling, it is almost November and we have been through a huge amount. For many November feels the same as the hectic Christmas we all seem to suffer from most.

I can safely say everyone I have spoken to or have connected with has said the same. There are a number of businesses that are giving extra time off, slack encourages to take a Friday off a month and heard good things about this.

Free or extra time away can feel daunting if people have pressing deadlines, there are a few options around mental health support partners and giving people time to take a couple of hours off per day.

I would try and keep these rules formulaic so everyone has the same opportunity. Ensure your leadership team follows the same suit and rewards teams for taking time away or breaks. This will ensure this becomes commonplace and widely accepted and celebrated.

I would recommend helping teams know that it is ok to reduce down meetings, reduce down early morning meetings and suggest earlier finishes especially with the time changes happening.

I would suggest making more time for fun where it makes sense. It’s probably planning season, so addressing planning stresses upfront and reduce down the mad dash will help everyone.

Q6. Where do I start first with improving company culture?

Without specifics, this is how I recommend approaching improving company culture without external help. Send a survey around to your teams and ask for feedback on what the problems are. Questions can include how they are performing, how they interact with colleagues, how they feel within the company, what can be improved and what can start, stop and continue.

Pulse surveys can be tricky especially around benchmarking baselines, the more open feedback to begin with the better the questions can be.

I typically find many bosses struggle with EQ and need help or an additional person to be at hand to help, many people are wired their problems have to go through their manager and if they go above or around their boss it causes friction, ensure this is not the case. Skip 1-2-1’s (skip a line of management and go to bosses boss) can be good but also reduces the managers and colleagues, if you can make the time and ask for transparent feedback this will help open up numerous eyes and build more trust and transparency.

Ask your department leads to breakdown any issues they understand to be a problem and collate together and categorise and then prioritise.

Ask for internal influencers to fill in the dots and consider to appoint a dedicated culture community manager (https://www.focus.business/culture-community-manager).

Communication is the most vital part of this and being open and admitting any issues you are tackling with important progress updates will ensure colleagues take this seriously.

Q7. What is the most difficult part of company culture?

People and culture is a huge evolving area of your business.

Everyone has opinions, not everyone will think they need an opinion, many will think their opinions should count more.

The most challenging for many organisations I speak to is communication and getting cut through. I highly recommend building principles with communication as an essential pillar.

What company culture is post (https://www.focus.business/what-company-culture-is) will really help shape your thinking.

I believe subcultures and environments are the most tricky to fully understand and develop out especially remotely however with the right process and good people around you it is possible to help improve company culture and get everyone backing the move towards improving company culture.

Leadership have to be fully on board with company culture and not just disagreeing and committing, they have to live and breath it and promote it constantly, repetition is essential especially from the most senior leaders.

Q8. Which startup seems to get it right every time?

Peloton (https://www.onepeloton.co.uk/), they missed the mark with their ad around a year ago (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50649826) but it was brought to live with Ryan Reynolds and his spin off ad. Both had huge positive impacts on sales.(Ryan Renyolds ad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqXj_JmWfgc)

they are so Apple-like in their products, their aspirational brand and connecting their customers to high profiles instructors and together with leaderboards and hugely expensive product that is the envy of your friends. Peloton business is built based with ambassadors throughout it. Brilliant.

Q9. What was the biggest business lesson you learnt from your most senior role?

Customers over Competitors

– Jeff Bezos and Amazon are famous for creating what I call prime expectations, they make the Amazon service so compelling with speedy “free” delivery and “fair” prices you are brought in. I genuinely believe Amazon when they say they put their customers first and are customer-obsessed, by obsessing over your competitors you are looking at the wrong indicators, competitors are important and competitors analysis and keeping on top of changes will help you but your customers will be the best indicators and best source of inspiration.

The next and every product huddle or every leadership meeting, you should always ask first, “how are we improving our service for our customers” and “what is our next big bet to improve their experience”.

Revenue only ever comes from relevancy, not relevant = no revenue.

Q10. Where do you think companies go wrong with growth teams?

A few things,

1/ Instant results, Growth = returns but over a few months, you need to set the team up to succeed. Some are lucky but those tend to slow over time.

2/ Growth cannot make a bad product process and bad marketing better quickly, this where some companies try and focus Growth and they will instantly face fight back. Growth should be a SWAT team that are specialists at uncovering issues, developing and testing different solutions and once they find the sweet spot ramp up.

3/ The biggest misconception is Growth is part of something else.

Growth has been a term that confuses many, it can mean sales, it can mean performance marketing, it can mean product.

Remove the confusion, I am a huge fan of what I called silicon valley growth, a dedicated department that has a core set of people to work on problems and opportunities and bring in the right supporting experts from the internal teams, so if it needs product marketing internally and externally bring in the strongest product marketer.

Growth should not replace Marketing in my opinion, it should compliment it, likewise with Product, it should work hand in hand, Marketing is there to acquire all of the customers and drive into the funnel, Product should convince those in the funnel and build out loops to drive usage and increase sharing, whereas Growth should be there to work on those who are not convinced fully and work on edge cases to increase usage and if retention is not owned then help with retaining the user.

Growth will need a quarter to get set up and buy-in and then with the right team will start making the company engine speed up and drive the flywheel. I personally like Growth to constantly be looking to innovate and try to develop something that everyone will get excited about.

Growth as a department is an investment but one that will reap the rewards with backing from teams and departments.

Focus Growth Info: https://www.focus.business/growth

Q11. What is the one thing companies don’t do enough?

From experience, it’s officially auditing internally, audits are by far the most important and enlightening part of improving companies if you are not reviewing your work or departments how can you improve?

Numbers are important but there are far more factors than just numbers and performance trendlines, knowing what makes your company and departments tick or fail will help you improve and optimise far more quickly. It is essential to me that companies get help with setting up audits.

Here is the Focus Audit Approach https://www.focus.business/audits

Q12. How do I fire my co-founder?

This isn’t something I would be able to recommend a legal perspective on however I’ve worked at businesses where this has had a huge business-changing impact.

Firstly I would seek legal advice and understand every step.

Secondly, I would understand the business impact and how you and your business can put safety measures to take over the work and deliver on your goals.

Lastly, I would advise to bring in external support, to set up support for colleagues and someone to talk to about it and to help you realign your business.

Once this change is made, your business won’t magically be better for everyone. Take note and help set up everyone for success by the support and with frameworks.

Best of luck

Q13. What are the work podcasts you never miss?

1/ The anxious achiever from HBR is probably the best validating most work-related pod,

2/ a16z sixteen minutes is good for a roundup and thought starting

3/ Invest like the best offers you something unique, really enjoying founders field guide.

4/ Pivot podcast with Kara Swisher & Prof Scott Galloway

Q14. What is a space that doesn’t get much exposure but is exciting? (Ideally b2b)

A space to look out for is video and audio within the b2b space.

Keep an eye out for software like jamm, pragli, around.co & remotion all bringing a different approach to zoom or teams for meetings.

I like where https://whereby.com/ is taking the video meeting and challenging zoom. So many opportunities in this space, especially whilst no one is doing it right

Q15. Managing upwards vs managing downwards – which is most important as a leader?

For less experienced (managers or leaders) managing down and around you.

Why? You are there to manage the team members and the direction of your team or department and help the other leaders drive the business forward.

If you and your fellow leaders don’t get on or do not align you impact your business far more than you can imagine.

Many less experienced managers are too concerned about their boss or bosses boss opinion, this doesn’t help you or your team to deliver brilliant work and often you forget to lead your team and develop the team.

Managing upwards is a skill you (should) develop over time and if the senior management team didn’t trust you you wouldn’t be in the role and if they lose the trust they will let you know quickly.

For more experienced and the super senior, I believe managing below you is more important. Why? You are there to coach, mentor and help your team make better and smarter decisions to get the best performance for your business.

Managing upwards is important and managing expectations is tricky but without your team delivering it will be very difficult to manage them and their expectations.

Q16. What would you do if you run an in-person conference company?

This is something I think a lot about especially with the number of self-learning professionals will have to do in 2021.

The ROI of attending an all day online conference will be hard to justify vs spending in other areas. I have been there when you have to justify why you signed off a team member attended a conference or on a training course vs something else.

I would look to find the best platform available and get together a great range of speakers from all different size brands. Make sure every speaker makes the talks actionable.

I would also consider inviting great storytellers over just a name everyone knows or a logo everyone recognises.

AKA Deliver the best possible conference online but better than just a zoom chat or something they could find on a podcast or YouTube.

We are all suffering from zoom fatigue or content overload. Charge for the event, go into niches, create experiences – so send supporting content, send physical objects where possible and safe and offer something that can complement the talks.

Q17. Is there an area you are excited about in 2021?

Yes! Other than audio which is set to boom (https://dannydenhard.com/2021-and-beyond-predictions-the-biggest-industries-for-economic-growth/), I would say cloud gaming for professional reasons. Cloud gaming is moving towards social and some games will be social first then gameplay, this came from fortnite and is set to continue with other super popular games.

I would also say hyperlocal is something that has a huge opportunity, especially with dark stores and the opportunity to make the high street an experience space. I said in my Must Reads newsletter (http://mustreads.co.uk/) if I was advising a big company, I would be looking at the local high street and plotting to take more space and adopt the Amazon approach to compete with them and bring loyalty to local customers and fans.

FWIW Loyalty and retention are going to be key to growth for the next 24 months.

Q18. What is your key management tip for startup employees?

Manage your time wisely. Go fast but be deliberate. Be transparent and open with everyone.

More specifically for management and leadership tips for founder-led startups.

A general rule of thumb with an active founder or founder who oversees product, managers need to manage up as much as down and around them.

From experience and helping businesses, founder-led companies can be extra work and effort because the founder wears many hats, typically hides their flaws and the company set up is less than optimal. Founders tend to feel more responsible and feel like they need to across everything, this can feel very challenging for leaders at any level of startups.

Investors apply a lot of pressure which is then passed through the org. Founders do not always get support, coaching or mentoring, so they often have to learn on the job.

If you are middle management or new to management but want to transition into a leader, I would recommend following something like a 70% – 20% – 10%.

70% for the team: The team will need you around, will require guidance and like to know you are involved and collaborating and championing you.

20% for management: 20% as you will need to manage expectations, delivery and costs. Middle management can be tricky and being succinct and deliberate with communications is vital.

10% for yourself: To protect yourself, make time to get your own work done and importantly develop yourself. This is something that is lost and developing your knowledge, your skills and your muscle memory will be essential in different moments and needs of leadership

Q19. Which companies are “getting it right” for – Brand – Product – Culture?

– Brand: Apple (haven’t missed at all in 2020) and Peloton. Gymshark from the outside have done some stand out campaigns (they own LinkedIn feeds)

– Product: TikTok (best product for years), Miro (finally making it out of the design bubble) & muse app (new chat app, is more of a canvas than a stream of bubbles)

– Culture: 2020 has been such a difficult year I would have to say many of the firms who went and allowed their teams to work remotely and sent all the equipment they needed. There are a number of brands that went asynchronous and have set their teams up to succeed for the next 18 months.

Q20. Who is getting it wrong?

Wrong:

– Brand – Premier League, they have charged fans too much for games alongside their broadcasters and will impact the clubs and the fans for the next few years. It just doesn’t make sense to add more expense to people who are struggling the most. (link – https://www.wired.co.uk/article/premier-league-pay-per-view-ppv-iptv-streams)

– Product, Google have had recently rolled their confusing new rebrand of all of their products, will make perfect sense internally, makes no sense externally. Google need to crystal clear of their offerings and why us it. Google meet has a lot of potential but doesn’t compete (link – https://www.fastcompany.com/90560175/gmail-new-logo-g-suite-google-workspace-rebranding-productivity-apps)

– Culture – coinbase dropped the ball a few back and saw 5% of staff leave (Link – https://blog.coinbase.com/a-follow-up-to-coinbase-as-a-mission-focused-company-6e7545e9aea2)

Q21. What is your routine/what advise would you give to maximise productivity?

3 steps

1. Get a notepad and pen, columns left to right, client / project column a, task and explainer column b, due date column c, priority column d and done column e. It’s essential to tick off and cross work with pen, its a dopamine kick your brain is wired to want and rewards you.

2. Take and make notes, moved to a centralised system (like apple notes or notion)

3. Create a personal wiki: Revisit notes regularly and link to other notes, keep an update. Whether this is in notion or a google sheet or something else.

I wrote a blog post recently you might appreciate https://dannydenhard.com/daily-and-weekly-prioritisation/

Q22. What do you recommend to help improve a team?

Here are a few quickfire tips:

1. Get around the campfire. Eat and drink together (works remotely too)

2. Problem solve together

3. Celebrate together

4. Have competitions. Take quizzes regularly.

5. Create a department session where you get to know each other. Ask the most senior to go first. Have quick-fire rounds regularly

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Leaders Letter Newsletter

Leaders Letter 21 – Hidden Leaders

Hidden Leaders

‍October 26th 2020

Dear Leaders,

It’s almost November, how is re-forecasting going?

In many organisations, there is someone who pulls the strings…secretly. Yes, secretly and you probably don’t think about them.
Sometimes even when the most senior people truly believe it’s their strategy, their company, they are the only ones who lead and everyone follows.
This is a huge misconception and a trait of an old school dominance leader.  

The hidden leader isn’t loud, they don’t boast, they know what needs to happen for the business to succeed, they often work silently in the background and help the company to navigate through the headwinds.

They give everyone a boost when your business is underperforming and optimise the tailwinds. 
‍
They are often the person who knows and develops your secret weapon. These people often go unspoken of or unrewarded and their impact often misunderstood. 
The hidden leader calms those around down and keeps colleagues calm and reduces the company stress level. This can be priceless especially when leaderships often disappear into their offices, the boardroom or war rooms.

The secret and hidden leader is a giver not a taker!

Very rarely do these unsung heroes take the limelight or want it. They likely want to know they are doing a good job from those who they respect but they know they are doing the best for everyone. 

I see this often an operationally strong person, a people person or someone who was not conditioned by weak leadership.

The hidden leader does not have to turn from Clark Kent to Superman to save the day and probably does not want to do this as it’s not a healthy state of businesses or company culture to celebrate heroes saving the day regularly.  

The secret leaders aren’t easy to spot but harder to find when recruiting. They have a we before me approach. (How the we are put first over the individual).
‍

Typically, once the hidden leader decides to move on, they move on and the company often falls behind, slowly but surely and wonders what happened.
These hidden leaders are a rare breed, ensure they keep pushing the business forward and coaching those around them. 

We have been conditioned that leaders are loud, big, bold and strong, these might be good but rarely you do see the impact of the secret leader who drives everything forward methodically, often in silence.

This week focus on working with your secret and hidden leaders to ensure you keep them and keep the business moving forward.

Thanks and have a great week,

Danny Denhard

P.S.- Don’t forget to read my Leaders Letter AMA from Monday 26th.

Watch the Hidden Leaders Video

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Leaders Letter Newsletter

Leaders Letter 16 – No Rules Rules

No Rules Rules – The Netflix Company Culture Book

21/09/2020

Dear Leaders,

I trust you are making progress and 2021 strategy is being shaped nicely. 

I recently finished reading Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer’s (author and business professor) book No Rules Rules. 

It is based on the (in)famous Netflix culture and how Netflix set up their company culture for success. It is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn from their mistakes and how rules become principles and guidelines, empowering their teams to make the right decisions by following “Act in Netflix’s best interest”. 

I will be honest throughout my career I have read the Netflix slide deck probably north of two dozen times, it has been an inspiration and on an odd occasion, it has been a hindrance.

It was inspiring to have candour at their level and admit some people just aren’t good enough. Something that leapt out in the earlier chapters was one sentence, this one sentence that kept coming back to me: 

‍“When I saw how senior management spends their time. I lost confidence in the company”

‍This quote actually inspired me to reach out to a couple of previous colleagues in management teams and a few more in senior leadership positions and asked: 

‍If people could openly see how you and how the senior management team spends their time, do you think it would improve or worsen the company? 

‍Most answered honestly, and suggested it would actually worsen the company. One was particularly honest. I love how we operate between us and our management team meetings are proactive vs previous roles.

However, we are not leading by example outside the meetings and it shows up in team meetings.  I have sat on a couple of management teams and leadership teams, I have advised a few more and upon reflection, I have to say one would have improved confidence and performance and guided the team. 

Another would have been particularly detrimental and would have instantly lost confidence and respect. Some management teams are thrown together and it requires months of getting to know each other, trusting each other and then respecting the collective decisions. 

For those who I have advised, being organised, deliberate, actionable, accountable and transparent are non-negotiable essentials and everyone has to sign up to these behaviours. 

These sound obvious, however, internal politics and personal ego’s come into play and ruin the hard work up front and then have numerous ripple effects throughout the business.

Over the coming week focus on asking yourself and your leadership team how we are spending our time and how is it improving performance, morale and accountability of the company? 

Thanks and have a great week, 
Danny 

PS if you are struggling as a management team or need help with management team development let me know. 

Want a TLDR of the book, here is a 5 minute mini pod for you to review

Categories
Leaders Letter Newsletter

Leaders Letter 8 – Is Sleep Really A Competitor?

Is Sleep Really A Competitor?

28/07/2020

Dear Leaders,

Happy Monday.

For many of us it is holiday season.

It’s almost August, how are you feeling month one of Q3 has already gone?

I was recently discussing the Netflix approach of naming competitors and having an alternative view on who competitors are.

Netflix is famous for suggesting sleep (yes sleep) was a competitor. The framing is smart and grabbed the business world’s attention.

In NFLX’s recent share holders letter, Netflix specifically praised TikTok,

“TikTok’s growth is astounding, showing the fluidity of internet entertainment. Instead of worrying about all these competitors, we continue to stick to our strategy of trying to improve our service and content every quarter faster than our peers. Our continued strong growth is a testament to this approach and the size of the entertainment market.”

Something that really leapt off the page for me and hopefully leaps out to you: “We continue to stick to our strategy of trying to improve our service and content every quarter faster than our peers”.

Trust me when I say one large competitor or emerging competitor can send shockwaves through organisations, for years I had Facebook as a competitor and it can really sidetrack senior execs and confuse teams if they do not have clear objectives and goals of concentrating on the customer.

By “managing via press release” Netflix have made it crystal clear to The Street but more importantly to their staff that they are going to concentrate on offering the best service and stay focused on their long term strategy.

This week Focus on aligning the teams on shared goals, aligned to the strategy you and your teams painstakingly put together and producing the best possible product or service not on a competitor or a new entrance into your market.

Have a good week leaders,

Thanks,
Danny Denhard

PS Read the company culture Netflix built newsletter.