Company policy is used to establish employee expectations so everyone knows what is and isn’t acceptable.  Company policies are the vehicle by which your company defines risks and rewards, but can they also constrain your organization?

Your company policy can be a written document, part of your procedure documentation, or it can be your company culture. We’re all familiar with written policies but…what about cultural policies?

Have you ever said to yourself or to someone else…

“We’ve always done it that way” or “That’s not the way we do things around here”?

If you have, you’re up against a cultural policy. Cultural policies are not written down; instead, they’re passed on by word and behavior. Everyone knows your company’s cultural policy — it’s the set of unofficial rules that all of your employees live by every day. Organizational culture involves more than just socially acceptable dress codes, or the atmosphere in your office — it influences your company’s important decisions, too.

For example, what time is it safe to arrive and leave work? What socializing is acceptable before, during, and after work? People new to your company that do not conform to your cultural expectations might be shunned, embarrassed, or ostracized for not conforming.

Written company policies come from management and can be changed, so while a written company policy may constrain your organization, you can at least change it.

Unlike written company policies, your company culture evolves over time and is not tied to a particular CEO or manager. Try to actively change your company culture and you’ll see a lot of resistance, yet violating company culture and changing the paradigm is critical to any process improvement program.

So we have two different policies.  The first, a changeable written company policy handed down from management.  The second, an unwritten, hard to change, cultural policy that evolves from group norms over time – a paradigm.

Which do you think constrains your organization more?

Are you a “good” boss?  Google’s “Project Oxygen” has taken a lot of time — a couple of years, actually — to study what makes a good boss. Their “people analytics” staff has come up with eight key attributes of good managers within their organization.¹ Among those eight attributes are:

• Technical expertise (as you might expect of a tech firm like Google);
• Having a clear vision and strategy for “the team”;
• Helping your employees with career development;
• Be productive and results-oriented; and
• Be an effective and empathetic leader.

What shouldn’t surprise us is that of the eight attributes of a good manager, the “ability to work well with one’s employees” was ranked first in Google’s study. “Technical expertise”, which Google had considered an absolute necessity to being a team leader, was ranked at the bottom.

You may recall that in the Bizmanualz blog, we’ve talked about the qualities of great leaders and what makes true leaders different from others.   Mostly, what separates leaders from mere managers are those intangible qualities, those “quirks” of personality that stump psychologists and sociologists to this day.

What makes for a good manager and exactly how do we quantify it? Well, it’s been tried — a number of times — but Google is putting their own spin on the concept. Despite past failings elsewhere, the people at Google think it’s possible to make the process of grooming leaders a reliable, repeatable process. Their goal is to make the process of hiring and training leaders like any other human resources procedure.

This should be welcome news to every other HR department if Google’s HR can do it right. Managing people, with all their complexities and variations, is (at best) extremely difficult and statistical analysis is helpful only to a point. The chief problem with “data driven management” is that people can’t easily be reduced to a set of predictable behaviors and outcomes — we are only human. Every statistic has to be taken with a grain of salt² but even more so when human behavior is the focus.

I’m going to follow Google’s Project Oxygen to see if there’s any merit to it. I sincerely hope so but I don’t harbor lofty expectations, either. Google may have a world of resources behind them but — people being people – it’s not a sure bet that Project Oxygen will deliver the goods.

So, what do you think? Can Google be successful — at something not so technical — when many other companies before them haven’t been?

NOTES

¹Bryant, Adam, “Google’s Quest to Build a Better Boss”, New York Times, 12 March 2011 — http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/business/13hire.html.

²Seife, Charles, Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception, Viking Press (23 Sept 2010). ISBN-13 #978-0670022-16-8.

I’m at that age where I have one or more doctors run annual tests to gauge my health. At least once a year, I see my primary care physician, a cardiologist, a pulmonologist, and other assorted  health care providers. They compare my current numbers — height, weight, blood pressure, cholesterol count, and so forth — with the numbers typical of a person of my age and gender, as well as with my historical numbers.

If my numbers are improving or if they’re above average, they let me go for another year with just a light warning to do this, or don’t do that. Now, there’s nothing in the law that says I have to get an annual checkup; it just makes good sense to me to know if I can proceed “as is” or if I need to take some kind of corrective action. Here’s another example: I’m averaging seven years’ ownership per automobile in the time I’ve been driving¹, a fact that I like to think is due to my attention to routine preventive maintenance.

The same is true of my bank accounts and my personal relationships. Regular, careful attention to details helps ensure that very little falls through the cracks.

If it’s important for an individual to routinely measure events and processes and analyze them in light of reasonable expectations and history, isn’t it reasonable to expect that businesses would do the same?

Which begs the question: Is your company measuring its performance? Is it doing something substantial with those measures, like improving its processes? Regardless of whether your company is required by some standard or regulation to measure its progress toward objectives, doesn’t it make good business sense to always look at how you’re doing in comparison with certain reference points (your own past, your goals, competitors’ performance, etc.)?

It’s been proved many times and in many ways: You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Do you agree or disagree?

NOTES

¹The average jumps to over eight and one-half years when I count just the new vehicles I’ve owned.

During the “beta test” phase of developing our OnPolicy™ document management software, our beta testers have been coming up with great questions, some of which we thought we’d share with you in advance of our formal launch. For example:

1. What document formats are supported by OnPolicy™?

The OpenSource code behind OnPolicy will support many common document formats, such as:

• Microsoft Word (“.doc”, “.docx”);
• MS-Excel (“.xls”, “.xlsx”);
• Adobe Reader (“.pdf”); and
• Some limited-format and unformatted file types (“.rtf”, “.txt”).

2. Why are all of our documents converted to “.pdf” files?

In OnPolicy™, released documents are converted from their native formats to “.pdf” to lessen the likelihood that document “Readers” — personnel assigned read-only access to documents — can modify your documents.

3. Where are our documents stored?

All documents are stored in a “SAS 70 Type II Certified” data center, which is also one of the largest colocation facilities in the central United States.

4. How do we know we’re the only ones who have access to our company’s documents?

We’re using all available means to reasonably secure your data, including:

• Dedicated servers;
• Encryption;
• Firewalls;
• Periodic backups; and
• Password protection.

5. Can I set different access levels for different users?

OnPolicy™ Administrators can create users and assign them roles (e.g., Reader, Editor). Roles define responsibilities and accessibility of documentation and features.

6. Can documents be deleted?

• You can upload, download, and delete documents from your account at any time. Your documents are also backed up regularly.  But, as per document control, released documents can only be deleted after their retention date.

7. Can documents be recovered?

• Deleted documents are retrievable for an agreed-on period of time for as long as your OnPolicy™ account remains active.
• Note that recovery time depends, in part, on the number and size of files to be recovered.

If you have other questions about OnPolicy™ software-as-a-service document management, please:

• Visit our OnPolicy™ website, http://www.onpolicy.com;
• Call us (314-863-5079);
• Send us an email; or
• Visit the Bizmanualz web site, http://www.bizmanualz.com.

We’re happy to be of service.

A LinkedIn acquaintance of mine has shared what I think are some remarkable insights regarding leadership.  His group, Followership, is dedicated to a better understanding of what’s demanded and required of us when we are in the role of follower.

In the Bizmanualz blog, we’ve talked about what qualities our leaders should possess (and too often don’t) but we haven’t talked about one of the most important parts of leadership. To be a leader, you have to have followers.

“Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.”
Gen. George Patton, U.S. Army (1885-1945)

Why don’t we get the kind of leaders we want more often? Is it because we don’t know how to follow? How many of us follow our leaders passively? How many of us play an active role in ensuring the success of our leaders?

It’s sometimes said that leaders are made by their followers, and vice versa. From that, it should follow that if we’re to get leaders who embody those traits leaders should have, we as followers should embody many, if not all, of those leadership traits ourselves.  Those traits include:

1. Self-respect (and respect for others);
2. The ability to communicate well;
3. Integrity of character;
4. Humility;
5. Courage;
6. Persistence;
7. Dedication;
8. Commitment;
9. Willingness to accept responsibility; and
10. Decisiveness.

How about you? What kind of followers do you have? What kind of follower are you, especially if you’re a leader? Tell us what you think.

Articles on winning and keeping customers abound on the Internet. They generally focus on achieving and maintaining “customer service excellence“. They talk a lot about tactics but miss the strategic aspects of customer satisfaction and retention.

What drives your customer service (aka, customer relationships), anyway? Your company policy, of course. Your mission and vision drive your overall company policy, in which you lay out your overall objectives that guide your strategic plan. From there come your sales and marketing plans, your operational plans, and so forth. You might think of your policy as a juncture of internal and external forces.

So, why do I bring up this subject? An article appeared last week on “Mashable” that makes a very good point about the importance of a strong, well-written company policy to your customer relationships.  This article explains why no one reads privacy policies, and they cite Facebook and others as examples.

Why don’t customers read privacy policies? The article has several answers, including:

• The longest privacy policy of the “top 1,000″ websites takes 45 minutes to read at 244 wpm⁽¹⁾; and
• The average of the privacy policies cited takes about 10 minutes to read.

It’s not just privacy policies, of course — it’s every kind of policy. They’re lengthy, full of confusing verbiage, and put off their audience. They do neither the company nor its customers any good. So, why are wordy, obtuse policies (in “nanofonts”) foisted on customers?

• In the modern business environment, legal departments owe their employers a duty to protect them. Unfortunately, this is often interpreted to mean “let’s cover every contingency we can think of”. Clarity is invariably sacrificed for thorough attention to detail.
• Modern culture seems to have promoted discord, vitriol, and revenge over cooperation, conciliation, and harmony. I don’t know where this warrior mentality worked its way into business but being humble and nice is now a sign of weakness. This line of thinking leads companies to draw in and protect rather than be exposed to danger.
• Companies seem to prefer “customer acquisition” over “cultivating relationships”. They need (or they prefer) the quick payoff rather than the slow-and-sure.

What’s most puzzling is that the last issue persists even though the need for short-term profits is what largely brought about the current global economic recession. When will we learn?

If a company had as one of its stated purposes “to reduce customer goodwill and retention”, they still couldn’t do a better job of driving people to look for alternatives than by writing bad policy. Badly conceived, poorly written company policy is avoidable; well-written policy is a necessity.

“So, what is a well-written policy?”, you ask. It’s a policy that’s:

• Clear;
• Concise;
• Direct;
• Easy to comprehend;
• Not written to its audience but written with that audience foremost in mind; and
• Written with SMART objectives behind it.

What’s your company policy? Does everyone understand it? Does it help your customer relationships? Call or write and let’s talk policy.

As always, thank you for your time.

* * * * * * *

⁽¹⁾Font type and size have something to do with that figure, as do the complex wording and convoluted syntax common to “legalese”. Naturally, we read faster and retain more of some documents than others (Novels v. Contracts, for example). I recommend checking out these sites and others for more information on reading speed:

• TurboRead - http://www.turboread.com/interpretation.htm.
• Speed Reading Center - http://www.speedreadingcenter.com/average-reading-speed/.
• Free Speed Reading - http://www.free-speed-reading.com/articles/what-is-the-average-reading-speed-of-americans.

An article appeared in today’s online Wall Street Journal (“It’s Snowing. Do We Get The Day Off?“, 4 Feb 2010) that pointed out how vulnerable small businesses are to natural forces than are their much larger business “brethren”, such as Wal-Mart, Royal Dutch Shell, and Toyota:

• This week’s snow-and-ice storm that swept through the midwestern and eastern U.S.;
• The floods that have absolutely devastated Australia’s Queensland state; or
• The earthquake that hit Haiti over a year ago and two major quakes in the last decade affecting parts of Indonesia.

Of course, the large-scale destruction that accompanies some flooding and quakes will be the death knell for your business when your geographic expanse is limited to one office, which is in the flood/quake zone. In those cases, company policy had better include careful risk assessment and ongoing risk management, including major disaster and contingency planning.

Fortunately, most business disruptions are not nearly so large in scope. Like the ice storm that hit us (St. Louis, MO, and parts north, east, and west of us) just about a week ago, a day of down time — or even two or three — might not be critical. We might be able to continue working in the cloud, so our core functions continue whether we’re “there” or not. We can telecommute when the need arises. Having a bad weather policy seems like a non-issue for us.

“Well, that’s just fine for some B2B”, you might be saying to yourself, “but that’s not us.” If our business depends in part on foot traffic — people showing up at our office/storefront to do business — we can’t have workers not show up and expect that to have zero impact on our cash flow, or our company’s reputation. Our customers have come to rely on us to be there for them, regardless of what it’s like outside. If there’s a lot of competition in our area of business, one little “glitch” could send our customers elsewhere.

At the same time, we can’t risk the health or well being of our employees. What do we do?

We establish a “rain day” (or a snow day or ice day) policy, we put it in writing, and we make sure all employees — as well as our customers — know what that policy is. We establish clear, easy to follow procedures to ensure that the policy is carried out and we train all our employees periodically and when the likelihood of the threat is on the increase.

Does your company have an inclement-weather policy? Do you think it needs one?

How many times have you seen this in the movies — the “last stand”? A group of soldiers is heavily outnumbered, supplies are getting thin, and nerves are frayed.

Throne of Blood (Kurosawa, 1957)

Reinforcements are nowhere in sight. The enemy’s commander is just outside the gate, calling for the group to surrender.

Now, imagine yourself in the place of the officer in charge. Your organization is the castle/outpost/fortress under siege. You can fight or you can surrender; you’re surrounded, so retreat is not an option. It looks like there’s little chance of a favorable outcome for your small group. What do you do?

Your company might not be literally “under siege” but in our current economic state, you can be excused for feeling sometimes like the vultures are circling overhead. When times are tough for your business, what do you do?

1. Be a leader, not merely a boss. Get out in front of your employees. If you don’t demonstrate leadership capability, who will follow you?
2. Stand on your principles. There’s the expedient thing to do and there’s the right thing to do. If you believe in yourself, your product, and your employees, you’ll do the right thing.
3. Maintain employee morale. Convince yourself there’s no such thing as impossible, then demonstrate your conviction to your troops.
4. You know who your employees look up to — make those individuals part of your circle of command (“C of C”). Don’t lock yourself into one hierarchy.
5. Within your C of C, quickly determine your options.
6. Realistically assess your resources, strengths, and weaknesses.
7. Plan for the best- and worst-case scenarios.
8. Lay out the options for all your employees and explain why you prefer option ”x”.
9. Give your employees a choice whether to take a stand with you or cast their lot elsewhere. Those who aren’t firmly with you will weigh you down.
10. Execute your plan.

Remember — anyone can play a leader when things are going well. It’s in times of crisis when we find out who our true leaders are.

Maybe you and your business have been — or are — in a scenario like the one above. What kind of leadership did you display in that time of crisis? Do you have other ideas on how to lead in a crisis?

In October, 2009, we discontinued shipment of the 3-ring-bound version of our policy and procedure manuals. It was a relatively easy decision, as more and more of our customers chose the downloadable version of our manuals over the binder. They were pleased to save on shipping and material costs. It also helped that we simplified the download process, thanks to invaluable customer feedback.

Prior to October, we began publishing most of our policies and procedures manuals in hardbound form, similar to a textbook, and made them available for sale through online retailers. So when we started receiving enquiries about “hard copy” versions of our manuals in recent weeks, we decided to offer the hardbound procedures books as add-ons.

You can now buy (for an additional $100 per) a hardbound procedure book as an add-on to nine of our policies and procedures manuals and the popular management  procedures bundles. The content of each hardbound book is identical to the MS-Word manual you download when you purchase it in electronic form.

To buy the hardbound books, simply choose the appropriate option (Download Only vs. Download + Hard Cover Book) when you place the product in your shopping cart.

Our goal is to ensure your satisfaction by providing the delivery option you desire. We won’t be selling the hardbound books as stand-alone products on our website, but they will continue to be available from online retailers like Amazon.com.

We were asked this by a reader not long ago, in reference to writing a quality procedure. Exactly what procedure, the reader didn’t say, so I’ll keep my explanation brief and general.

In the policies and procedures we offer on the Bizmanualz web site, we generally include a statement of purpose. That is, what’s the purpose of the procedure outlined in the document? Not only is what you do important — why you do it is just as important.

Again, why am I doing this?

Overall, the purpose of any procedure is to serve as training material. In addition, an important purpose of procedures is to ensure consistency. Procedures are designed to help reduce variation within a given process.

Furthermore, clearly stating the purpose for a procedure helps you gain employee cooperation, or compliance, and it instills in your employees a sense of direction and urgency.

The statement of purpose is a “soft” statement of reasons and goals. Objectives, on the other hand, are about quantifying and measuring. For any of your business processes, you must have measurable objectives. How do you know if your processes are working if you’re not tracking and measuring the results? How do you improve your processes if you don’t establish a baseline, then measure output against the baseline? And, how do you compete effectively if you’re not continually improving?

In short, a procedure’s purpose addresses the “why” and the objectives address “what”, “when”, “how”, and “how much”. The purpose is general, where the objectives are specific.

I hope that helps clarify the issue. If it doesn’t — or if you have a differing opinion — let me know, won’t you? Thanks.