Tuesday 12 August 2008

Coffee Culture Clash

It was not without a touch of unpleasant glee that I heard that Starbucks were pretty much beating a retreat from Australia. It seems that the savvy Aussies are more keen on their independent coffee shops than one-size fits all Seatle-style coffee culture.

Am I being unfair? You have got to admit that Starbucks are good at what they do, whether you like what they do is another thing. And you could hardly say that they are inconsistent with their brand message.

But it seems to me that this is another example of 'stuck on' culture. Every Starbucks I have been to would seem to be interchangable with every other one, and of course Starbucks is not the only company guilty of this. The lack of connection with, and adapation for, the local area suggests something inauthentic and shallow with no true wish to understand what the customers of that particular outlet want.

Where I find this most grating is in the attitude of the staff - almost automaton like in their responses. I don't regard myself as cynical but it is hard not to suspect that the friendliness is not genuine! And it doesn't have to be this way.

High Culture?

Everyone thinks that they know what the culture of their organisation is - surely it is articulated in the vision and beliefs of the company? But how often is there a mis-match between the explicit culture and the implicit culture i.e. what everyone actually does and what people get rewarded for?

It is rare nowadays that I go into a client company that does not have its visions and values displayed prominently, at least in reception. But it is also a common complaint that the values and associated behaviours as stated are not the ones that the company actually lives. 'Innovation' is the classic example of this - new products and services are inherently risky, it doesn't matter if you have researched the back of them or not, but this risk is at odds with a company's need to deliver steady and consisitent performance for its shareholders.

The problem does not lie with the company's desire to manage risk but with the mis-match between what it says and what it does. The values become superficial, just something that 'people' expect and having no real meaning.

If your organisation's values were the ones that it actually lives and had credibility for its people, what would they be?

Monday 4 August 2008

What price failure?

Last month, J K Rowling made the commencement speech at Harvard. Her theme was The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination (you can read the whole thing by following the link).

The companies I have worked for and with have had different attitudes to failure. In one, some time ago I may add, a swift kick was not an unknown consequence at least in the production department. More recently, I more often hear of 'blame cultures' or their converse 'if you don't make any mistakes you haven't tried'.

But how true are either of these. In 'blame cultures' no one ever actually takes the blame. It just circles round until it runs out of energy and everyone moves on. In companies that claim to be learning from their mistakes ,when you ask how they do this learning you get met with a lot of blank faces.

But the personal and business learnings available from our mistakes are immense. Not least in demonstrating the emotional maturity to understand that you can succeed despite (or because) of your failures. Did I ever tell you about the time I forgot to get approval for the covers of a print run of several hundred thousand books? Never did that again

Who in your organisation has failure and wisdom to share?