“The person who figures out how to harness the collective genius of their organization is going to blow the competition away.” ~ Walter Wriston, former CEO Citicorp

If your people continue to think and act as they do now, can you expect to achieve the results you need?

If your answer is no, then changing your organizational culture is not an option—it’s an imperative.

The ultimate responsibility for both the Colombia and Challenger shuttle failures fell on NASA’s organizational culture and the executives who ignored, dismissed or minimized the engineering experts.

How can changing organizational culture prevent disasters? And conversely, how can we use culture to drive spectacular results?

Research shows that the right culture champions high levels of performance and ethical behavior. When organizations design and support a culture that encourages outstanding individual and team contribution, they achieve amazing bottom-line results.

Optimizing your culture should command as much attention as performance metrics, operations, finances, sales and every other organizational discipline.

In Change the Culture, Change the Game, authors Tom Smith and Roger Connors write: “Either you manage your culture, or it will manage you.”

This article examines how culture drives results and how you can rapidly effect change in your organization by optimizing the culture first.
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This is a brief synopsis of a 1500 & 850-word article suitable for consultants’ newsletters for executives and leaders in organizations. It is available for purchase with full reprint rights, which means you may put your name on it and use it in your newsletters, blogs or other marketing materials. You may also modify it and add your personal experiences and perspectives.

The complete 1500 word article includes these important concepts:

●    What Drives Results
●    Manage Your Culture
●    How People Experience Work
●    Achieving True Accountability
○    See it
○    Own it
○    Solve it
○    Do it
●    When to Change the Culture
●    Change Begins with Desired Results

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Some executives  are uncomfortable using power or office politics, viewing them as the dark side of workplace behavior. They believe morale and commitment erode when politics dominate the environment.

But research clearly shows that being politically savvy and building a power base pay off.

Sources of Influence

There are three sources of influence in an organization: positional, relational and personal:

1. Positional power: Your title and job status confer some level of formal authority.
2. Relationships: Informal power stems from the relationships and alliances you form with others. If you do a favor for someone, the law of reciprocity impacts your relationship.
3. Personal: Some people generate influence based on their knowledge, expertise, technical competencies and ability to articulate ideas or a vision that others will follow. Your communication skills, charisma and trustworthiness help determine your personal power.

Open to Influence

Executives and managers who are open to peers’ and subordinates’ input garner greater respect than those who resist others’ influence. An openness to influence demonstrates trust and respect, which become reciprocal and contagious.

You can offer goods and services to a potential ally in exchange for cooperation: technical assistance, information, lease of space or equipment, a plum assignment and the like. Understanding what others want or value is crucial.

Avoiding Power

Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and author of Power: Why Some People Have It—And Others Don’t, cites three barriers that cause executives to shy away from using power to extend their influence.

This article examines three ways people avoid power, why power is so important to success, persuasion tactics, and practical steps for leveraging office politics in an ethical manner.

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This is a brief synopsis of a 2000 & 1000-word article suitable for consultants’ newsletters for executives and leaders in organizations. It is available for purchase with full reprint rights, which means you may put your name on it and use it in your newsletters, blogs or other marketing materials.

You may also modify it and add your personal experiences and perspectives.

The complete 2,000 word article includes these important concepts:

• Sources of Power
• Open to Influence
• Currencies of Exchange
• Power without Authority
• Avoiding Power
• Fair Play?
• Persuasion
• Office Politics

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Power, Politics, and Persuasion
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To effect change, you must do something differently.

It starts with you. Do it right, and you’ll enjoy a snowball effect that helps your team, direct reports and even family members implement change.

While many books have covered organizational change, business school professors Chip and Dan Heath cover the patterns all successful change efforts have in common in Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard (2010).

The Heaths avoid looking at the history of failed changes. Instead, they share stories of spectacular changes that worked because execution built upon prior achievements.

In researching significant social, educational, governmental, marital and organizational changes, what are the patterns that emerge that anyone can apply in real-world business situations?

In many ways, the first small steps you take to change your behavior are the most important. Once you initiate change, it seems to feed on itself.

Perhaps the famous Stephen Covey maxim, “Begin with the end in mind,” needs to be revised: Start with the beginning and the end in mind.

Here’s how to get started and unleash the snowball effect.

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This is a brief synopsis of a 1000-word article suitable for coach newsletters. It is available for purchase with full reprint rights, which means you may put your name on it and use it in your newsletters, blogs or other marketing materials. You may also modify it and add your personal experiences and perspectives.

The complete 1,000 word article includes these important concepts:

•    First Steps
•    The Snowball Effect
•    The Problem with Problems
•    Follow Your Bright Spots
•    Start with the Beginning in Mind
•    Unleash the Snowball Effect

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Snowball Effect – Start Change Now