Ember Carriers Blog | From Possibility to Results

The World Is Four Degrees Of Separation Apart

January 9th, 2012

Mary Hladio

Image via Wikipedia

The degrees of separation between any one of Facebook’s 800 million users is close to 4, on average—much less than the “six degrees of separation” notion people throw around.

Within the same country, the degrees of separation between any two users declines to nearly 3.

“While 99.6% of all pairs of users are connected by paths with 5 degrees (6 hops), 92% are connected by only four degrees (5 hops).”

The data comes from a new study of Facebook’s “social graph” undertaken by Facebook in collaboration with Università degli Studi di Milano.

The results were published last night in a blog post called “The Anatomy Of Facebook.” It’s the largest scale social network study ever conducted.

What might be most amazing is that the distance between two people in the world is shrinking rapidly because of social networking. In 2008 the average distance was 5.28 “hops” between any two people on Facebook, while now it is only 4.74 “hops” (which is around 4 “degrees”).

Looking back, Facebook only had between 100-150 million users in 2008. While Facebook’s user base encompasses only a specific portion of the the world’s people, 800 million is still a pretty big sample population.

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Everyone Wants to be Innovative and Most Fail

December 19th, 2011

Mary Hladio

Everyone wants to be innovative

And guess what?…corporate culture is not the answer!

While many companies dream of becoming Apple, most linger in the same innovation-lite purgatories associated today with RIM, Kodak, and Sony.sumo suit online

Meanwhile, despite their best efforts and historical legacy, countless other organizations are no longer distinguished by the successful commercialization of great ideas. Perhaps the problem is in their organizational culture.

A new report on innovation produced by Booz & Company — Global Innovation 1000 — which is forthcoming in the Winter 2011 edition of Strategy + Culture argues that organizational culture is the culprit. The report observes:

Only about half of all companies say that their corporate culture robustly supports their innovation strategy.
About the same proportion say their innovation strategy is inadequately aligned with their overall corporate strategy

The report’s observation on the lack of a statistically significant relationship between financial performance and innovation spending emphasizes that innovative success is not a function of spending-might but of the environment in which any such investment takes place.

Overall, the study says that “intangibles, such as risk, creativity, openness, and collaboration — are critical for [innovation] success.”

Merely wishing for these changes in corporate culture is not enough; companies must focus-in-on the leadership acts and managerial choices that will raise the probability of companies achieving one or more of these aspirations.

Every organizational manager can make a difference in how innovative their organization can be, beginning with a precise and inspiring vision of the role that innovation will play in the organization’s vision of strategic success. Global Innovation 1000 cites HP’s Prith Banerjee, SVP of Research and Director of HP Labs, who provides a fourfold mission for the HP Labs business unit:

Create absolutely breakthrough technologies
Create new business opportunities for HP
Advance the state of the art in whatever we do
Engage with customers and partners

What must follow this mission statement is a recognition of discrete and concrete managerial choices that will raise the probability of HP Labs (in this example) achieving these aspirations.

Jay Galbraith of IMD created the “star model,” which identifies the five “levers” by which managers can move an organization:

Articulation of strategic vision
Developing the talent and skills that are necessary to achieve this vision
Understand the best way to organize your talent and skills to achieve the vision
Providing processes that can be employ to give your talent a higher probability of success
Create the values, measures and rewards by which we inspire, evaluate and compensate our talent.

There are signs that the most successful innovators making such specific managerial choices, that they are doing it in such a fashion that each choice directly supports the aspirational vision that has been announced, and that each choice reinforces every other choice. They must guard against conflicting choices that will slow them down, and they must synchronize the timing of their choices to the extent possible in order not to entertain disconnects caused by the sequential timing of the managerial choices.

Need help improving your company culture contact a senior consultant with Ember Carriers at (513) 984-9333 for a 30-minute complimentary consultation to discuss your company’s future.

Forbes (10/24/11) Fischer, Bill

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Make Employee Development a Winning Investment

December 12th, 2011

Mary Hladio

Invest in your workforce

Small businesses tend to regard training as an optional expenditure. The American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) has found that companies with fewer than 500 employees typically allocate fewer training hours per employee compared with larger companies but also end up spending more per employee.

This is because it is difficult for small companies to take advantage of some of the large-scale training options like bringing outside trainers on-site, observes Pat Galagan, ASTD’s executive editor. “Because of all the turmoil from the recession, new demographics in the work force and the influence of technology, it has created a climate where ability and innovation are extremely important for companies to grow and thrive,” she says, underscoring the need to make training a priority at small firms.

At the same time, Galagan advises against “sheep dipping,” or offering management or project-development training to everyone.

At IT consulting firm Digineer, founder and CEO Michael Lacey launched a peer-to-peer training program called Digi-U that enables employees to share their know-how with their colleagues. Furthermore, Digi-U features a platform for staff who have received external training to take their newly acquired knowledge and pass it on to others in the company. Digineer also reimburses employees for certain external training programs and offers two weeks paid time off to attend.

With all the turmoil from the recession, new demographics in the work force and the influence of technology, it has created a climate where ability and innovation are extremely important for companies to grow and thrive. This means acquiring skills in those areas. Small businesses should make training a priority.

Contact a consultant at Ember Carriers at (513) 984-9333 for a 30-minute complimentary consultation to discuss how to improve your organization’s development without breaking the bank.

Entrepreneur (11/04/11) Moran, Gwen

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Emotional Intelligence: Go Ahead Cry, Laugh and Scream

December 5th, 2011

Mary Hladio

It's okay to show your emotions

The concepts of emotional intelligence (EI), self-worth, authenticity and employee meditation used to tap employees’ emotional happiness are being picked up by mainstream corporations.

Brochner Hotels, one of Copenhagen’ s oldest and most successful boutique hotel chains, is one business discovering the benefits of EI. Karim Nielsen, the chain’s CEO, sends all hotel employees through EI training to help them become more open and confident, understand their own limitations and fears, and to boost their self-worth and comfort in dealing with other people.

Nielsen uses emotional intelligence to “empower [employees] and make them more of the great people they already are.” He says, “It gives us a very open, expressive work environment, where people are not afraid to speak up and where everyone [is] bringing solutions to the table.”

Dan Iversen, managing director of Behavior Change Specialist, which has trained around 7,000 business leaders across Europe, says feelings really have a place in business. “From kids we’re taught to disregard our feelings, to stop crying when we fall, and to sit still and be quiet. But feelings exist. We accept that and we work with that. It sounds simple but for most people this takes training,” he explains.

Sven Kristensen, CEO of Wuerth Denmark, a multi-national wholesale organization, says EI is so important that the company has built the training into their leadership program.

The research into EI was pioneered by John Mayer, professor of psychology at the University of New Hampshire, together with Dr. Peter Salovey. Mayer defines it as “the capacity to reason about emotional information and the capacity of emotional information to enhance thinking.”

Iversen says EI can be implemented in the workforce by using feelings actively in personal and team development, strengthening the self worth in individuals and teams by acknowledging what people do, and to constructing a “no bull-shit” culture for dealing with conflict.

As emotional intelligence gains ground, taboos surrounding it may begin to drop, and Mayer has noticed a sea change in acceptance of EI in recent years.

So blog readers – what you do you think? Emotions in the workplace – are they a good thing?

Would you like more information about using programs based in emotional intelligence, call (513) 984-9333 for a 30-minute complimentary consultation to discuss if this a fit for your organization’s development plan.

CNN (11/10/11) Gargiulo, Susanne

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What is Your Human Resource Story?

November 28th, 2011

Mary Hladio

Charting Your Course

As the threat of falling back into a recession becomes more real with each passing day, employers are asking themselves, “What should we do now?” What makes it more challenging is that the trend in the most recent years has been slow recovery.

Employers may have designed a plan for that kind of recovery, but going back on it in light of current events may be the best decision for them to make. They must respond to the situation at hand, responding to the changes around them.

Human Resource Executive Online has several suggestions as to how employers should go about crafting a strategy.

First, they should talk to whoever is in charge of setting strategy, goals, direction for the organization and ask them what the two most important uncertainties are right now.
Next, employers should craft a two-by-two matrix of the uncertainties.
After that, they should create the matrix with two rows representing the two outcomes for the first uncertainty and two columns representing the two outcomes for the second uncertainty.

The four boxes in the middle represent the possible states of the world associated with the two most important uncertainties. For each of these boxes, the employer should tell the human resource story associated with it, such as what will happen if the organization encounters the scenario in the box.

This tool is useful because it addresses uncertainty, shows how to think through a problem, and provides information helpful for planning and decision-making. It also provides employers with a useful and proactive task as they wait for the economy’s next move.

Human Resource Executive Online (09/12/11) Cappelli, Peter

Managing the ‘Very’ Difficult Employee (embercarriers.com)
Turning the tide in employment.. Independent Contracting 1099 Style (thehrtruth.com)

Important Succession Planning Lessons From Steve Jobs

November 21st, 2011

Mary Hladio

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs has influenced computer design during his storied career but more importantly, he has influenced what it means to be a company leader. His idiosyncratic leadership style, hyperbolic presentations, and fiercely hands-on management approach have inspired the envy of executives and the fear of more than a few employees and competitors. Steve Jobs set an example for companies across the board with regard to leadership transition and succession.

According to author Carmine Gallo, who has followed Jobs’ career closely over the years and penned two popular books about him, there are five key lessons from the recent succession.

It is important for companies to focus on the customer, client, and user experience, above everything else.
It is important that the culture formed at any company is one that transcends an executive’s leadership. Jobs did this by creating a management team and company culture that embrace his vision for the company and the technologies it creates, exemplifying the truth that great leaders build companies that can excel without them.
It is important that companies and executives control their message and stay true to it.
It is important that leaders transition proactively, meaning that they gradually hand off power and other spotlight responsibilities to key personalities.
It is crucial that leaders who are stepping down choose successors who can take over their duties, not their personalities.

It’s become hard to imagine anyone but Steve Jobs leading Apple, but that perception likely doesn’t match reality, according to Gallo. “There’s no better pitch man than Steve Jobs,” Gallo said. “But Steve has done a great job of assembling a management team that can lead the company in a way that’s consistent with his vision.” Gallo sees the leadership traits of Steve Jobs distributed throughout the company’s new leadership, rather than packed into the personality of a Steve Jobs imposter. “I think he’s done as good a job as he can do at choosing people who can take over his duties,” said Gallo.

Bottom-line: Develop your high potential employees to take on your duties – not the tactical ones, the strategic and visionary aspects of your role. Don’t let your personality become bigger than the brand.

Contact Ember Carriers at (513) 984-9333 for a 30-minute complimentary consultation to discuss a succession plan for your company’s future.

InformationWeek (08/26/11) Strohmeyer, Robert

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