Craig Forman’s Post

I once facilitated a leadership offsite where the CEO thought he had all the answers. He was convinced that topdown directives would solve the company's cultural issues. But the employees thought otherwise. The real turning point came not from the CEO's plans but from simply listening to the team. Here’s why listening is so crucial when building a strong, effective organization: 1️⃣ Empowerment: When employees feel heard, they feel valued. 2️⃣ Innovation: The best ideas often come from the ground up. 3️⃣ Trust: Listening builds mutual respect and trust. 4️⃣Engagement: Engaged employees are more productive and committed. 5️⃣Alignment: Understanding different perspectives helps align goals. → Practical steps to start listening: 🎯 Employee Surveys: Use tools like Culture Amp to gauge sentiments. 🎯 Regular Checkins: One-on-ones and team meetings are gold mines. 🎯 Open Forums: Create safe spaces for open dialogue. 🎯 Feedback Loops: Ensure feedback leads to action. 🎯 Anonymous Channels: Sometimes anonymity brings out the truth. In a recent project, we implemented these steps. The result? A dramatic increase in employee engagement and innovation. The CEO who once doubted the power of listening is now its biggest advocate. If you want to build a culture that thrives, start by lending an ear. What’s one way you’ve successfully listened to your team? Share your experience below.

💡 What if we spent as much time listening to our employees as we do planning our strategies? 🤔 Because honestly, what good is a strategy if we don’t take the time to listen and understand our people first? And how can we ever measure success if we don’t clearly understand what it is we’re trying to change? Let’s make sure we’re hearing what really matters. #EmployeeListening #WorkplaceCulture #Leadership

📢 Building a Thriving Organizational Culture: It’s All About Data-Driven Decisions 📊 Making decisions that shape your people and culture without a solid foundation of data is like throwing darts in the dark 🎯. To build a strong organizational culture, it’s crucial to start by truly listening to your people and turn these efforts in actionable data. By leveraging data, you can strategically place your bets on initiatives that matter most. But it doesn't stop there—continuously revisit the data to measure whether those investments are truly making an impact. This is the process we follow in every other major function within an organization. Why should culture be any different? When you let data guide your decisions, you create a workplace where people genuinely thrive. #Leadership #EmployeeEngagement #OrganizationalCulture #DataDriven

I can't tell you how excited I am to see Robin P. Zander and company bringing back the 💎 Responsive Conference 2024. Join me and so many other amazing humans on September 18.

🚀 New Podcast Episode Alert! 🎙️ I’m thrilled to share my latest episode of Culture Conversations with the incredible Gary Ware, founder of Breakthrough Play and a true expert in using purposeful play to transform organizations. In this episode, Gary and I explore how play can be a game-changer in combating burnout, fostering creativity, and building resilience within teams. 🌟 From insightful stories to practical strategies, Gary shares how even the simplest playful activities can lead to profound realizations and drive lasting change in the workplace. If you're a leader looking to inspire your team, or just curious about the intersection of play and work, this conversation is packed with valuable takeaways that you won't want to miss. 🎧 Tune in now to discover how you can integrate play into your organization to create more connected, engaged, and high-performing teams. 🔗 Episode Link: https://lnkd.in/gPr33CQy #podcast #leadership #workplacewellness #resilience #creativity #employeeengagement #organizationalculture #CultureConversations

Getting clear on my purpose shifted everything in my career. That’s why I am excited to be discussing this topic woth Julia K. Toothacre MS today at 11:30 PST. Come join us!

📣 #CultureFirst Community 📣 - I'm reaching out to ask for your support for a a great friend of our community, Samara Jaffe, who's also the incredible human that creates Transform each year. She's up for a session at #SXSW next year, and wanted to help to make this happen. All it takes is a quick vote before the weekend ends. If you’ve already logged in to vote, you'll go straight to vote. If not, you'll need to register with the SXSW site first (same link). Samara has been instrumental in advancing a better world of work, and this is a small way that I am extended to give back. Thanks in advance, and I hope to see many of you at #Transform next year, right after SXSW! 🙏 Vote here: https://lnkd.in/g_S4QE6m

CULTURE IS DONE BY EXAMPLE To be effective in building workplace culture, it is critical that we first define what we mean by "culture"; it means a lot of things so we have to start by ensuring that we are all on the same page before we begin to do the work. I really appreciated seeing this clip of Brian Chesky, CEO at Airbnb, speaking with Steven Bartlett sharing a perspective that I closely align with when supporting organizations to be intentional in the development of their own culture. Culture is about behaviors and actions, not words, and in a hierarchical culture, people are always watching what the people above them are doing, not saying. Culture is done by example.

“Google decided that work-life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning.” - Shared by Google's former CEO Eric Schmidt yesterday at a Stanford talk discussing why Google is currently struggling. Is that really the reason Google might be falling behind? Possibly, or maybe it’s due to: ❓A lack of clear vision and innovation—leadership may have lost the edge that once defined the company. ❓Bureaucracy and slow decision-making— when a company grows to the size of Google, so does the red tape, which stifles agility. ❓Over-reliance on legacy products—Google might be sticking too closely to its core products without diversifying or investing in breakthrough technologies. The truth is, I don't know for sure. But what I do know is that Eric hasn’t been Google’s CEO since 2011. It would be helpful to see such claims backed by data, especially when they so conveniently absolve leadership of responsibility. When we make sweeping statements without evidence, we’re just crafting narratives to serve individual interests. To truly serve our people and our organizations, we must listen to employees, collect data, and make informed decisions. #LeadershipMatters #CorporateCulture #EmployeeEngagement #DataDriven #Innovation

To be clear - BURNOUT is NOT about how many hours a person works. 30 hours a week doing unfulfilling work with people who don't treat one another well will lead to burnout much faster than 50 hours with work that has a connection to a deeper purpose with people who treat one another well. One of the many nuggets that surfaced during my conversation with the incredible Gary Ware of Breakthrough Play. This podcast does not come out until August 21st, but the conversation was so rich, I had to share early! You will be able to find Gary's episode along many other amazing conversations on the Culture Conversations podcast here - https://lnkd.in/g3icbdjQ You can also follow on Apple or Spotify. #cultureconversations #workplaceculture #burnout #play