What do pick-up truck owners and the followers of a Finnish-born software engineer have in common?
I will give you a hint, it’s part of our humanness, how we organize ourselves into social groups. Our need for this governs interactions with products, brands, businesses and each other. More about this in a minute.
It’s been verified by Ford. Americans officially love their pick-up trucks! According to a study published by Ford just a few days ago, most pick-up truck owners would give up a lot before they would park their pick-up. Here are a few of the eye-opening results:
79% would give up alcohol for a year before they’d give up their pick-up truck
71% would give up coffee
47% would give up using a phone for a year
38% said they would give up sex before giving up their pick-up
In 1994, a Swedish speaking Finnish software engineer launched an open source operating system – Linux. When Linus Torvalds published his Linux kernel (core), version 1.0, the world was not familiar with open source anything. It would be almost seven years, for instance, before Wikipedia would launch in 2001.
Programmers began contributing their work to improve the Linux kernel almost immediately. Their dedication to improving Linux was impressive, and in the process, the programmers became raving fans of this operating system.
Since 2005, when tracking of changes began, over 15,000 developers from more than 1,400 companies have contributed. By 2006, only two percent of the Linux kernel was written by Torvalds himself, the other 98% having been donated by other developers.
Through the open source community process, Linux has evolved into one of the most stable operating systems ever created. Google Android, powering an estimated 86% of all cell phones worldwide, is based on the Linux operating system.
So, what do pick-up truck owners and the followers of Linus Torvalds have in common?
They are all members of a connected communities.
At this point, you might be saying “These are interesting stories, but why should I care about these communities?”
Because building a community within your business is a critical component of creating the passion and engagement necessary for attracting and keeping loyal customers.
What’s necessary for you to know when building a business community? Here are three critical areas:
1. Know your customer “avatar” and why the customer belongs.
According to Hedges & Company Market Research, the customer avatar for the Ford F-150, the most popular truck in America today, looks like this. Average age of 55, 84% male, 16% female. 75% of all new Ford F-150s are purchased by white males, though Hispanic buyers account for 22% of total incremental growth. The vast majority of these new trucks are in large and medium-sized cities.
Why people choose to belong to the pick-up owning community is a matter of debate. Some say it’s because they have a lot to haul, others say it’s a status symbol especially in the US south. The debate continues on pick-ups.
It IS important for you to know why your customer would belong to your community. Would it be to get or contribute technical information? Is it to learn from more experienced community members? Or are they lonely, and looking for more human connection?
At this point, it’s also important to explicitly know and state your personal and company values. In successful communities, you and your customer avatar share similar values.
2. Decide on a communication platform.
In the mid-1990’s the Linux community was organized in a series of email lists. Code changes, freezes and updates were all coordinated through the list. In addition to the email lists, another communication platform was the Linux Journal. This printed publication reported on Linux updates and other open source products.
How do you want to communicate with your customer? Most companies now use Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin for this purpose. What kind of experiences do you want to create for your community? Are they virtual or in-person? Who leads the communication from your company?
3. Determine what the shared success of the group will be.
For Linux, success was the continuous improvement of the product. And through programmer investment in this continuous improvement, they ended up valuing Linux more.
Researchers at the Harvard Business School call this the IKEA effect. Because most IKEA products are sold unassembled, the assembly process by the consumer bonds them to the finished product. Their work contribution causes them to overvalue the product and the IKEA brand.
If your company supports small business, shared success might be integrating customer feedback gathered in the community into future versions of your product.
Or, growing a customer’s business as a result of community membership.
In fact, showing a correlation between involvement in your sponsored community and positive customer business results is one of the best outcomes possible. Interestingly, when one customer engages with another in a community, it doesn’t much matter which customer grows from the engagement. As long as one of them grows, they both feel the satisfaction and bond to each other and your company.
Business communities improve customer results, and the value that customers place on your business. This is the power of belonging, strengthened by three steps to building community in your business.
I’m interested in how you interact with customers in your business community. Please share what works for you.
Several times a month, I find myself in an in-depth conversation about company culture.
There are compelling reasons why a company’s culture must be healthy. In fact, it’s hard to argue the counter point when talking about long term value of a company.
The most interesting part of the culture discussion is not whether you need a healthy one, it’s when do you work on improving it? When is that right moment to create a healthy culture? I will answer these questions soon.
First, when do most companies attempt to evolve to the right culture? Based on my observations, the most popular time seems to be during a merger or major acquisition. In this case, most popular aligns with worst time to change.
To illustrate my point, let’s talk about a major acquisition first.
For clarity, we’ll call the company being acquired as the “selling company” and the company doing the acquisition as the “buying company”.
In a successful major acquisition, the buying company will have the culture that remains for the combined company. Please note that I am only talking about successful acquisitions.
There are examples of failed acquisitions where the culture was expected to change for everyone. The important word here is “failed”. Think AOL and Time Warner, where AOL was expected to culturally reinvigorate the stodgy media giant, and Time Warner was expected to provide AOL with some maturity. It was described as “transformative”, which means “we’re messing with the culture at both companies.” Post-acquisition, the total value of AOL stock declined from $226 billion to about $20 billion.
In fact, a leading indicator of a successful, major acquisition is that the buying company culture is supported to win, quickly. This doesn’t mean that the buying company always has a better culture, it is simply the one that is chosen.
Why does this make sense?Because major acquisitions are about great change on a compressed schedule. It’s expected that the selling company will have significant adjustments to make.
If cultural changes are also made at the buying company, then the combined entity will see significant upheaval – and that’s not the point of an acquisition.
An acquisition is about creating competitive advantage in the market through the addition or strengthening of a team, product or service. Integration synergies are needed quickly so that the buying company maintains its growth momentum.
Now what about a merger? Isn’t that about two equal companies coming together?
Yes, and no.
Yes, there are two companies coming together. No, it is NOT equal, even if announced as such.
Winners and losers exist in mergers too, in fact they’re not much different than an acquisition.
The only difference I’ve seen between a merger and an acquisition is that the employees of one of the merged companies think they have as much leverage as the other, and it takes them longer to figure out that they don’t.
In late 2013, the largest optical distributor in the US merged with the 2nd largest. It was billed as a merger of equals, taking the “best-of” both companies to create a stronger whole. Sounds like a nice story, huh?
The team started with the intention of creating “best-of” processes, documenting them with detailed spreadsheets and flowcharts. Then, as a systemic and practical integration plan developed, most of the detailed changes were value engineered out of the process. Exactness was correctly replaced by expediency.
By the end of 2014, the culture, IT systems and management team of the largest optical distributor were in place for the combined company, displacing all of what the 2nd largest brought to the party.
Ok, I promised I’d get back to the right time for culture change. Ready for it? If you’re a company not in the midst of a major merger or acquisition, the time is now.
Now? You might respond:
“But we’re all working virtually, what about COVID-19?”
“Sounds good, we will start when things calm down.”
“Our culture is just fine, in fact it’s been fine for many years.”
My typical answer to this is “What market conditions do you need to see for you to start culture change?”
You’ll give me a list of requirements.
My next question, “When in the last twenty years have you seen these requirements occur?”
After a pause, a one-word response, “Never”.
Get started now evolving your culture. Be the healthy company that acquires sick competitors, knowing that your culture is the right one to support scaling to the next level of growth.
Please let me know how you’re doing evolving your culture.
As a leader it’s my job to shine a light on what’s going on around me, interpret it and influence others in a positive direction.
Using my sight, I notice what’s important to benefit my team, my organization and our world.
Sometimes, just like when a light image is projected on my retina, I’m upside-down in my view. Other times, I’m blind in one particular spot like where the optical nerve connects to the retina. (What can I say, I’ve spent a lot of time with Optometrists).
It’s only through noticing my upside-downness or blindness that I can process it through my nervous and emotional system to connect with the full picture.
Throughout my career, I’ve recruited and coached diverse business teams of talented individuals. Diversity of skill, viewpoint and relationship is critical as we create services for the complex needs of human beings. I could tell you that I started building diverse teams because it offered a way for everyone’s voice to be heard, and to connect to the humanity in each person, but that wouldn’t be true.
The truth for me lacked emotional and idealistic content. I believe in diverse teams because they outperform homogeneous groups. A 2015 McKinsey report on 366 public companies found that those in the top 25% for management ethnic and racial diversity were 35% more likely to have financial returns beyond the mean for their industry.
I led these diverse teams with “can-do” attitude and optimism. And with this optimism, I strode into action. I was ready to do something about a challenge, but not really connecting to the problem.
The problem was racism, yet I didn’t see it even when I was so close.
I shrugged my shoulders, remained positive and continued to move ahead. When I noticed racism, it was mostly in video news clips including reprehensible words of those looking to incite fear.
But racism was around me, and I was shamefully ignoring it.
A friend helped me realize just how blind I had been, like the spot on my retina.
“Imagine if you were kidnapped,” she said, “brought to another country, raped, beaten and owned as property. And if that wasn’t enough, your collective history was erased and replaced by white European culture, the culture of your oppressors.”
“Essentially, my identity was suppressed by the people who were supposed to be my neighbors, and I struggled in this life to find it.” She added.
Racism is real and alive every day in this country. For many, authority figures such as business leaders and police are oppressors instead of protectors.
These are not just beliefs. There are many verifiable facts about this. Facts that, up until recently, I have filtered out in my naïve, optimistic, and disconnected efforts to build diverse teams.
Let’s bring a real reason for diverse teams into the light – because racism exists and must be overcome at every level. I get to (not have to) see my team through empathy. And I get to put that into action. I get to feel the pain and responsibility too.
There is no room to hide the bigotry I have ignored, those who only want to work with “their kind”. I am ready to have that conversation more directly now.
As leaders, it is our responsibility to see and eradicate racism and bigotry. First by education, and if that doesn’t work, we cut it out like the cancer it is. The majority I am in has a moral obligation to serve and protect the minority.
A few articles ago, I challenged leaders to exercise ownership thinking – asking “What could go wrong?” I invite you now to look through your own unconscious bias and answer these questions:
What is upside down or in my blind spot?
What has gone wrong for so long that I might not even notice most days?
What can I do right now, tomorrow and for our future?
As leaders, it’s up to us. #BlackLivesMatter
How are you shining a light on racism, shameful acts and deeply disturbing elements of our society?
A colleague of mine told me about a recent Zoom meeting. This Zoom was with the CFO of a successful distribution company, calling from his mobile line instead of joining via video.
She asked him, “What do you worry about?”
The CFO talked about the slowness of his team to adapt to changing market conditions, and that he was disappointed.
‘Curious response from a senior business leader’ I thought.
After a few other follow-up questions, my colleague then asked “What are you looking forward to?” The CFO responded, “I can’t wait until we are back together again in the office so we can get some real work done.”
My curiosity began shifting to queasiness.
“How has the team responded when you’re talking with them face to face on Zoom?” her final question.
“Well, my set-up doesn’t have a camera, so we have frequent one-on-one calls.”
My queasiness shifted to full blown discomfort!
I’m sure you’re following this, but let me summarize anyway.
This CFO is unhappy with the performance of his team, but has not invested $100 in a camera to upgrade his technology so that he can more effectively lead his team.
I’m reminded of advice that my Stryker mentor, Jeff Paulsen, gave me:
“The speed of the leader equals the speed of the team.”
Jeff is a very, very smart person who provided lots of good advice. But this phrase I have repeated more than any other.
When my team isn’t getting the urgency of the situation. I look in the mirror. My sense of urgency (or lack) must be setting the pace for the team.
When my team isn’t adopting new processes or technology. I look in the mirror.
When my team isn’t finding problems, instead, hoping everything is ok. I look in the mirror.
How am I showing my team that all of this poor performance is ok? What example am I setting?
When I figure out how I am challenged in a specific area, and change my approach, the team usually follows.
Now, that doesn’t mean that I always know HOW to change my approach. That’s where colleagues, coaching, mentors and experts come in.
In order to make an effective change, I must know where I’m heading – what “great” looks like.
And then I start with “good”.
Because I also believe that “great” can sometimes be the enemy of “good”.
I’ve seldom gone from no experience in a particular skill, to “great” immediately. So I shouldn’t expect my team to get there instantaneously either.
Let’s go back to that CFO leading a virtual team. If he were interested in creating a great virtual team, he would purchase a good video camera, and he would reach out to thought leaders.
We happen to have a great thought leader here in South Florida – Nina Segura from Super Virtual Teams.
Nina has taught me literally everything I know about creating and leading virtual teams. It’s not something that I have been naturally inclined to do. When working in an office environment, I’m voted most likely to walk over and knock on a door before even calling.
So, virtual teams were initially a big stretch for me. Now my consulting business depends on them.
I wasn’t much different than the CFO we met earlier. Except, I was willing to seek out experts and learn, so that I could move faster.
Speed of the leader equals the speed of the team.
How are your business reopening plans progressing?
How are your teams moving to capitalize on market opportunities?
What’s your speed making these critical changes?
Are you actively demolishing roadblocks that stand in their way, or are YOU the roadblock?
You and I can be both the problem and the solution. We’ve created roadblocks, and we also get to clear them.
Please share your speed with me. I look forward to hearing from you!
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