Building on a previous post in which I briefly described how workplaces continually change, I wanted to expand on how different types of organizations invest in change. We can, for the ease of conversation, categorize them into startups and VC-backed, traditional and complex, modern and dynamic. Many more nuances exist, but I want to draw out some clear perspectives.

Early-stage and struggling

Startups and early VC funded companies are pressured to deliver hyper-growth and ROI to investors fulfilling ambitious missions. The vision in the pitch deck focuses on long-term goals and fundamental market changes. Still, in operational expansion, recruitment and hiring, problem-solving, etc. it’s all about putting out fires. Founders are juggling budgets to make sure design and code are pushed out, distribution, and supply chains being built and aligned. It’s essential to wear multiple hats to improvise and lower expenditures on salaries. This stage and situation there will not be hired for health and wellbeing, for the individual and organizational. Functions relating to culture, learning & growth, people operations, program management are not of priority. It’s all hands on deck to deliver the promise of the future, today. It’s an unrealistic expectation and doesn’t match the intention of investment, in my opinion. However, it’s standard practice. Ironically, it’s at this stage where this kind of investment makes a lot of sense — change management is less complicated and comes with a lower price tag. And it’s scalable, which is a primary criterion for hyper-growth companies.

Complex and slow

Traditional and complex organizations is possibly an unfair characterization, but here goes. These are companies that have been around the longest with complex structures, processes, and internal politics that would scare even the savviest D.C. campaign manager away. As a new employee, if you were to ask, “why are we doing X this way?” the answer would likely be “because we’ve always done it that way.” There’s little interest in changing the status quo because there’s no mandate for it, and you’ll be set up for failure with no support from your manager. Budgets are focused on marketing in traditional media developed together with global agencies on costly retainer budgets. During COVID, you’re suddenly seeing companies like MediaMonk increasing their client base with a significant amount due to their digital-first model. Little investment is allocated to innovation and change models.

Dynamic and adaptable

Lastly, in what I refer to modern and dynamic organizations, we see a more mature understanding of long-term growth and how to support it through structural and operational efforts. Hiring is expanded to focus on growth from within: organizational design, program management, cultural initiatives, an extensive review of recruitment efforts are all aspects of this phase. In this stage, we see more clarity on vision and how to execute it. Leadership and management have a focus on coaching for themselves and their teams. They’re more transparent in communication and able to reason clearly why there e.g., may short-term sacrifice for long-term profitability. For a masterclass in this type of communication check Airbnb’s Brian Chesky’s message. Employees can commit (even when disagreeing) and understand how their contribution will support the mission and be rewarded for it. Rewards can come in many shapes and sizes, so whether it’s growth, autonomy, compensation, benefits, it’s valued by its members.

Change isn’t easy and doesn’t happen overnight, of course. COVID made it happen a lot faster for a lot of companies. We need to fail often and hard, but do it with a calculated plan of what we’ll do next to keep momentum. Be open to any feedback, even when you don’t agree, and see how it could continuously improve your way of doing things. Being open to more perspectives also reduces the possibility of biases that we all keep. I mentioned in an earlier post, Buster Benson’s bias overview, which I again highly recommend.

Each category of companies described above has its challenges and opportunities. It’s about the intention they’re setting and how leadership show to deliver on that. As a coach, I get to work with very talented people from each type, and what they all have in common is a personal and professional interest in growth and learning. You’ll always find great people at each company, and you may never hear from them because of how they’re (under)utilized and suppressed. During a time of crisis is an opportunity of a lifetime to take charge of your career and life. Like the organizations above, as humans, we can fall in similar categorize. It’s up to you which one resonates best with your vision and goals. Coaching is unlocking your potential to maximize your performance. Book a free strategy session on my website to learn more about what it can bring up for you.

• Links to guides from experts on how to work better remotely (below)
• I’m offering free coaching sessions for anyone who needs a bit of support. However, I’m now expanding with my experience in leadership, team purpose/management, feedback, remote processes, creative operational, technical tools, systems, and implementation. It’s a wide area that I’ve worked in for many years and would be happy to support anyone with need of feedback, perspective, sounding board, or otherwise. Please book a session using the COVID-19 appointment.

Here are some immediate resources from people friends and networks. If you have more suggestions, please let me know and I’ll expand.

• NOBL’s overnight remote guide (Thanks Bud and team)
• Know Your Team — remote working PDF
• Fellow.app — Remote icebreakers
• Fellow.app — Best leading practices
• Fellow.app — Management remote tips
• Fellow.app — Remote meeting tips
• Remote roundtable March 19th, hosted by Oracle Dir. of Innovation (thanks, Kiely)
• 10up — Remote working tips (nice Gabe)
• Toolbox Toolbox — the best practices for org. change from the best companies (Thanks, Jim)
• Organizations in Flux (now free remote webinar and material, thank you, Jon)
• Roman Teleassesment of Corona (not all states yet as of writing)
• GitLab’s Remote Guide
• Remote book by Basecamp founders

Stay healthy, be compassionate, and please take care of yourself and each other.

While being in LA for the past 3+ years (previously in Bay Area and New York), there’s been a significant change in what defines culture, accountability, and integrity within organizations. It’s not an entirely new observation; however, it’s become more evident and prevalent in conversations I’m having with friends, network, and clients.

It’s been clear for some time that employees are seeking to work for companies who pride themselves with “attractive” mission statements. Something honorable meant to inspire people to do their best work and have fun while doing it. However, some (*cough* most) companies are struggling with executing on their visions and values associated with them. They feel dishonest, hard to put into effect, and nobody truly understands how it affects their direct work and contribution to the organization. You can read endless reviews on Glassdoor, which proves that point. In practice, values should be the guiding principles for how a company operates; how they make strategic decisions, grow teams and talent, design products, engage with customers through experiences and services, etc.

There’s a gap in how companies believe they’re operating and building a productive organization, to how their reality is. It’s a disconnect from leadership to the rest of the people. Understandably, they can’t get into granular details of each team — it would be a far too inefficient use of their time. However, they do need to spend more time understanding how the vision they’ve set articulates throughout. Each department has its managers who report back to leadership, but with growth and competition, they’re often too busy with meetings and daily duties to provide real insight. Additionally, departments are often considered isolated events disconnected from the rest since they’re focusing on different disciplines. Design and engineering are more closely connected, of course, but when you add finance, legal, HR, procurement, there needs to be a red thread through all of these. Managers and specialists are skillfully able to run these departments, but we need a strategic partner to consolidate and distill the broad information and present it as the opportunity for aligned decision-making. We’ve already set up an abundance of reporting systems, so why am I talking about another one? Because I feel we’re losing the empathic and resilient approach which builds transparency and integrity.

My focus is on following three verticals for helping companies achieve that:

• Organizational Design and Dynamics
  Reducing complexity to bring clear intention to how we operate on values toward a shared culture and purposeful vision
• People, Productivity, and Humane Data
  Building teams, strategic growth, and feedback practices based on empathic interpretation of peoples’ motives and data
• Executive Coaching and Development
  Guiding leaders to embrace and empower their style and practice — creating an environment of transparency, integrity, and accountability

When my engagements start: I write a brief together with my leadership client to identify what their challenges are. There are always lots of “wants,” but under the surface, they act merely as delivery vehicles for much more in-depth and harder to solve “needs.” Through coaching, we identify those gaps and come to a common understanding of how to layout the project, its success, and potential downfalls. Through workshops with relevant stakeholders, we find and (re)define the strategic vision and values, trying to apply this across the organization.

I think it’s imperative to point out there may be a need to make short-term sacrifices for long-term success, which aligns back to the values of the company. However, if leadership can communicate these decisions clearly and the reasons behind, its teams and individuals can understand and empathize how they fit into the bigger picture and why they still matter. Additionally, strategies may change during phases, which may require some projects to terminate, and individual contributors to part ways. Honest and transparent communication is essential to the integrity of leadership and how their employees will be reacting to and respecting them.

Therefore, my work is focusing on how we re-create and re-connect organizations to their long-term strategic vision and authentic values. It’ll be the foundational support and safety every employee need to do their best work with purpose and intent. I’m passionate about creating an environment of positive and transparent change in an organization — even when situations become challenging. We have to create more space to bring our whole being into our work while keeping the personal health of the employees intact and thriving.

This article is an attempt to write down what I’ve been thinking about recently. Why many employees aren’t motivated, leaving companies out of “desperation,” or just fed up with how things (don’t) work. There’ll be more similar and overlapping thinking, and I hope you’ll keep reading and send me feedback along the way. feedback@kristiankruse.com

Thank you for taking the time today to read this — I appreciate that.

Already before starting this post, I’m aware of similar perspectives and discussions that’s gotten hard criticism. I don’t believe this article should post anything revolutionary or “insightful”, but nevertheless I’ve seen how conversations are shifting in our daily lives and felt I wanted to address it.

It’s hard not to agree and come to a peaceful resolution, whether we’re talking about what restaurant to go to, what we thought about a book or podcast we listened to, how to approach a delicate work situation etc. However, it’s increasingly become difficult, if not impossible, for many to speak up their mind when what they truly believe in differs from the rest. We’ve become conflict adverse in real life, and more hostile and aggressive in our online behavior. I don’t think I need to reference any scientific studies or examples of this to make that point.

I can make a long list of why we’ve come to this; political discourse, social media, and technology-driven conversation on Twitter/YouTube comments, etc. The point is we need to become more aware of what’s happening around us, opening our mind, ears, and eyes to others’ perspectives — whether we like them or not. We’re bombarded with information, but it’s chosen for us, not by us. We’re being echo-chambered, and it’s making us lose sight of the value and growth we can gain in disagreement and honest explorations into new territories and the ideas that come with them. We’ve suddenly become experts on subject matters but merely reading headlines and tweets, without ever diving deeper, ensure the source can be trusted, and so forth. Our authentic selves are crumbling because we want to be externally validated, wanting to belong to a tribe, and be comforted that we’re “good enough” in the eyes of others. We’re losing empathy and compassion because it’s not designed into the systems we use, and it’s part of our responsibility to change that.

I’m a fan of Sam Harris and Joe Rogan for a simple reason: they’re not afraid to talk to people across the political and ideologic spectrum. They’re encouraging dialog and understanding of what other people believe in, which again, doesn’t mean you have to agree with them. I personally don’t even agree with lots of what Harris and Rogan stand for, and that’s okay. They touch upon essential topics and invite communities to engage in their conversations. For example, previously I never had listened to (and didn’t intend to) Ben Shapiro, as I disagree with pretty much everything I’ve heard he stands for. And that’s the point, I had never heard directly from him what he actually does stand for. When he came on Joe Rogan it was enlightening to hear from him and learn how much I had misconstrued due to “headline syndrome”. I still don’t condone most of his perspectives, but I learned there are some things we agree on. You might not agree with anything at all he says — great, but I would encourage to keep an open mind to at least be accurate about what you disagree with.

Go out and listen more to people (and talk to) — especially people you don’t agree with. You don’t have to convert to their beliefs — seeking the most opposite and extreme views you can find, but simply not shy away when something doesn’t resonate with you. If we can’t sit down and listen to each other and try to get an understanding of another person’s situation, then we’re not doing a fair job of making a better contribution to our society. Again, (to beat this one home) you don’t have to agree on anything, but you need to show the respect that you care about our differences and how they could lead to better products, services, regulations, policies and so on. You might even be surprised that you’re wrong and change your mind. Your history, upbringing, bias, could (and most likely is) clouding your judgment.

All this naturally also applies to your work environment, we use differences and disagreement to improve the products and services we design and develop for customers and companies alike. Through empathy and active listening, we find purpose and value in what we do. We need to encourage constructive disagreement through methodical approaches which we can iterate as we evolve as individuals, teams, and organizations.

I highly recommend Buster Benson’s guide to biases, to learn more about what restrictions you might have without even knowing it. It’s quite useful for you to be aware of this in a private, business, social setting. His upcoming book pretty much touches upon this whole topic.

Secondly, I also recommend Farnam Street’s Mental Models overview. They can help us understand how the world is shaped and how other people and ourselves think.

PS. You can read what other podcasts I listen to and books I read this year. I think there is room for considerable improvement on my own part to diversify my point of view, so if you have any recommendations, I would love to hear from you (email on the website or comment in this article).

The world is changing exponentially fast, especially with it the way we are learning and how education is being developed. Companies need to refocus on values and culture to become learning organizations where people can explore their passions and talents, by setting up space and support for this journey. It is becoming a demand from the next generation of talent. Currently employees might lack the tools and guidance from their companies to make sense of the situations they face, so organizations that are continually expanding their capacity to create their future, require a fundamental mind-shift among their members. Also, the future talent need to take a personal responsibility for their development and learning—identifying and seizing their potential, and ultimately work towards creating better and more compelling work.

As important as individual talent is to truly be creative and innovative, we know that teamwork is everything and acknowledge that we are not experts as much as collaborative team players contributing to the bigger picture. That calls for a change of leadership moving from transactional to transformational that facilitate and nurture culture and employees. At Hyper Island we support lifelong learning and prepare our students to become real world ready. We use a special and successfully proven methodology where everyone is allowed to be who they are, and start the process by working on actual briefs from clients in the industry. We do not have teachers but skilled facilitators, and it is not about what skills they learn, but rather how they learn by allowing them to identify what competences are needed to make a project successful. This is a fundamental change from short-term thinking and reactively solving problems, to proactively identifying opportunities and creating long-term value in their work. This combination leads to a strong demand from the industry for our students as talent, but also for companies to send their employees to Hyper Island for a condensed version of our programs which we developed and introduced as our Hyper Island Master Classes. Our tailored Master Classes focus on business transformation (adapting business to changed industry or market climate), cultural transformation (such as strengthened corporate culture, values, leadership or structures for collaboration) or tools to improve digital knowledge within the organization.

For companies to thrive in the world of change and acquire and retain talent they need to clearly define their purpose to make the employees aware of what the destination is. As Sir Ken Robinson states: “…people’s increasing dissatisfaction with their professional lives is creating a profoundly dangerous situation — a disconnected society in which spending the majority of their time slogging through activities that have little meaning for them.”

A question that needs to be on your mind more than ever is how do you encourage a culture of learning? There is no silver bullet and it is not meant to be easy, but it will profoundly affect the future projections for your organization. Investing in culture and education is taking a big step towards future proofing your business.

(This is a piece I wrote for the SoDA Report Vol. 1 2014 on culture in organization for Hyper Island. The original can be found here, p137: http://www.slideshare.net/sodaspeaks/the-soda-report-volume-1-2014)