Adaptive Corporate Culture: Key to Financial Performance

A new study of Fortune 500 companies co-sponsored by Crawford International and HR.com shows that those with adaptive corporate cultures and strong leadership practices financially outperform those that do not.

The report, Leadership and Culture, states that only three out of ten strategic change programs produce the business value or financial return that company leaders expect. In a study of the financial performance of 94 large companies from 1995 to 2004, the researchers found that companies that create adaptive corporate cultures outperform companies with non-adaptive cultures by a factor of 900 to 1 as measured by long term net income and stock price growth.

Ric Roi, lead researcher and vice president, Crawford International, said:

"As we worked with corporations over the past 24 years, we came to recognize the importance of corporate culture and strong leadership in supporting business change and transformation. Clients that have an adaptive or agile corporate culture have historically thrived in the face of organizational change while those with non-adaptive cultures suffer through change."

Companies participating in this study reporting high levels of adaptability include 3M, Apple, Bank of America, Cisco Systems, Barclays, BMC, Hewlett Packard, Genentech, GlaxoSmithKline and Intuit.

Larry Schnicker, director, HR development operations, Cisco Systems said:

"Cisco's unique and agile culture originates at the top with John Chambers as President and CEO. Cisco's core values have allowed our company to remain very agile in adapting cultural expectations to include the importance of Cisco as a career company, management as a profession, and talent development and movement."

Adaptive companies also tend to be more pioneering as evidenced by Cisco recently being named by Business Week as one of the top 30 most innovative companies in the world.

Debbie McGrath, CEO, HR.com said:

"If more corporations truly measured the value and impact of leadership and culture on their bottom lines, they would invest more in developing leaders and creating high performing cultures, instead of just paying lip service to it. At HR.com, we are committed to helping our 135 000 members share in the research we sponsored with Crawford so they can understand and realize the impact of great leadership and culture."

E-Mail : Way to Gossip and Waste Time

A survey by MessageGate, Inc. has found that e-mail continues to be the most popular corporate workflow tool but that employees exercise poor judgment in its use, increasing costs and business or legal risks.

Shaun Wolfe, CEO of MessageGate said:

"E-mail has replaced the corporate water cooler as the way to gossip and waste time while on the clock; unfortunately, it's not nearly as visible. If an employee spent hours lingering around the water cooler, everyone would see and somebody would tell them to get back to work. Sitting at a desk and communicating via e-mail is not out of the ordinary, and there is less accountability because the boss can't tell if your e-mails are gossip or work."

MessageGate Activity Profiles (MAPs) provide companies with structured e-mail analysis of inbound, outbound and internal messages. The survey found that whatever the size and scope of the company, similar challenges are faced when dealing with e-mail.

These include:

* As little as 20 per cent of internal e-mail may be work-related; the remaining 80 per cent consists of alerts, newsletters, forwards, spam and carbon copies.
* Customers frequently include sensitive data (e.g. passwords) in e-mails meaning that companies must be alert to what is included in the reply.
* E-mail is often treated like instant messaging and is used for lengthy personal conversations; a particular risk for companies that prohibit instant messaging software.
* Employees frequently make accidental financial disclosures (e.g. on pending acquisitions).
* Messages including more than three carbon-copied addresses generally are for information only.
* Distribution of inappropriate images and videos from work accounts is common. The report points out that these are archived and identify the company source.
* Many companies use social security numbers as employee ID and these are widely distributed over e-mail both internally and externally.
* A typical internal e-mail is sent to two people on average, resulting in duplication and increased archive and storage costs.

The report argues that sharing these results with employees can increase awareness of relevant policies and practice. E-mail analysis can also reduce operational costs, and improve business processes as well as storage and retention.

Bradley Young, director of services for MessageGate commented:

"Quarterly MAPs are simple and provide a benchmark for companies to monitor and track improvements," said. "As employee awareness around e-mail policy increases, companies can adjust policies as appropriate. Over time, employees become more sophisticated with regards to e-mail and corporate risk and exposure is greatly reduced."
Related article
2003 E-mail Survey Reveals: One in Five Companies Has Fired an Employee for E-mail Abuse

June 24 2003 (Newstream) -- According to a new survey from the American Management Association, Clearswift, and The ePolicy Institute, 22% of companies have terminated an employee for e-mail infractions and e-mail users spend about 25% of the workday on e-mail. Over 1,100 US employers participated in the 2003 E-Mail Survey, a follow-up to an e-mail survey conducted by the American Management Association and ePolicy Institute in 2001.

The survey in detail revealed that 14% of respondents noted that their organization has been ordered by a court or regulatory body to produce employee e-mail an increase of 5% over 2001, when 9% of respondents reported employee e-mail had been subpoenaed.

The average respondent spends about 107 minutes (1 hour 47 minutes) on e-mail every day ... about 25% of the workday. While 24% report spending less than one hour, 31% spend more than two hours and 8% more than four hours.

76% of respondents say that they have lost time in the last year due to e-mail system problems. 35% estimate they lost only half a day, but 24% think they have lost more than two days.

"E-mail is a great communications tool but not without its shortcomings," said Ivan O'Sullivan, vice president at Clearswift. "These statistics reveal and solidify the idea that companies need to be proactive in understanding how to protect their confidential information assets and train employees how to maximize productive use of e-mail."

"Most employers drop the ball when it comes to educating employees about e-mail risks, rules, and responsibilities," said Nancy Flynn, co-author of E-Mail Rules: A Business Guide to Managing Policies, Security, and Legal Issues for E-Mail and Digital Communication (AMACOM Books 2003) and executive director of The ePolicy Institute, www.ePolicyInstituteChange.com. "While 75% of organizations have written e-mail policies in place, only 48% offer e-policy education to employees, and merely 27% offer e-mail retention/deletion training." said Flynn. On the upside, e-policy training has doubled since 2001, when 24% of companies offered e-policy education to employees.

"It's important for organizations to establish, educate and enforce e-mail policies and rules to control and understand their employee's use of e-mail. The legal issues inherent with use of e-mail are ever present as are the risks of lost productivity both from employee abuse and misuse," said Flynn.

Eighty-six percent of respondents agree that e-mail has made them more efficient, in spite of the fact that 92% receive spam mail at work. Fully 47% say spam constitutes more than 10% of all their e-mail; 7% report spam represents over 50% of all e-mail received.

According to the compiled data, in 2003, more than half (52%) of U.S. companies engage in some form of e-mail monitoring of employees and enforce e-mail policies with discipline or other methods. In fact, 22% of companies have terminated an employee for e-mail infractions.

The use of technology to monitor e-mail and control message content has increased since 2001, when 24% of respondents reported using software to conduct key word or key phrase searches of e-mail and/or computer files. In 2003, over 40% of employers report using software to control written e-mail content. Fully 88% couple software with education.

While 90% of employers have installed software to monitor incoming and outgoing e-mail, only 19% are using technology to monitor internal e-mail among employees.

"Management's failure to check internal e-mail is a potentially costly oversight," says Ivan O'Sullivan, Vice President of survey co-sponsor Clearswift. "Off-the-cuff, casual e-mail conversations among employees are exactly the type of messages that tend to trigger lawsuits, arm prosecutors with damaging evidence, and provide the media with embarrassing real-life disaster stories. The fact that 90% of respondents send and receive personal e-mail at work and 66% of companies lack a policy for deleting nonessential messages, compounds the problem," says O'Sullivan.

Clearswift, provides software that helps companies enforce email policies to stem the tide of email that can pose threats to organizations and slow down networks. Clearswift's products, EnterpriseSuite and MIMEsweeper help companies enforce policies to stop:

* Inappropriate email that can lead to legal liability for harassment and discrimination
* Loss of confidential information such as customer data, proprietary plans or intellectual property
* Loss of network productivity resulting in network downtime from large email attachment, malicious viruses and executables
* Lost employee productivity from spam, inappropriate web-surfing and online shopping

The survey was conducted to educate the marketplace on the importance of establishing epolicies, educating employees on the policy and enforcing the policies with software.

About Clearswift

Clearswift is the world's leading provider of software for managing and securing electronic communications, with a 23% share of the global content filtering market. Clearswift delivers the capabilities for organizations to protect themselves against e-mail and web-based threats, meet legal and regulatory requirements, implement productivity-saving policies and manage intellectual property passing through their network.

The company's expertise lies in establishing and enforcing e-policies. Content security threats include the circulation of inappropriate images and text, Spam and oversize files, loss and corruption of data, breaches of confidentiality, as well as viruses and malicious code. Clearswift's software portfolio includes Clearswift MIMEsweeper, a product family for e-mail and web e-policies and Clearswift ENTERPRISEsuite, a software infrastructure for managing e-policies in complex environments. More information about Clearswift, its products and services is available at www.clearswift.com

About American Management Association

American Management Association is the world's leading membership-based management development organization. For 80 years, it has provided valuable and practical action-oriented learning programs to people at all levels, in all industries, from companies and agencies of all sizes. More than 500,000 AMA customers and members a year learn new skills and behaviors, gain more confidence, advance their careers and contribute to the success of their organizations through a wide range of AMA seminars, conferences and executive forums, as well as through AMA books and publications, research and print and online self-study courses.

About The ePolicy Institute

The ePolicy InstituteTM is a leading source of ePolicy and eMail-related products and services. The Columbus, Ohio-based ePolicy Institute is dedicated to helping employers limit electronic liabilities while enhancing employees' eCommunications skills. Through the ePolicy Institute Speakers' Bureau, the organization provides speaking, training and consulting services to clients throughout North America and around the globe. Executive Director and Author Nancy Flynn, a noted authority on ePolicy and eMail, is the author of five books published in four languages. Her titles include E-Mail Rules and bestsellers The ePolicy Handbook, and Writing Effective E-Mail. The go-to source for workplace ePolicy and eMail information and tips, Nancy Flynn/The ePolicy Institute has been featured by Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, US News & World Report, National Public Radio and thousands of media outlets worldwide. To book a consultation, speaker or media interview, contact experts@epolicyinstitute.com or visit www.epolicyinstitute.com.

Anger in The Workplace

July 20 2008 - Research published in Psychological Science earlier this year reported differences in attitudes to men and women who lose their temper in the workplace. In three separate studies, psychologists Victoria Brescoll from Yale University and Eric Uhlmann from Northwestern University found that while such outbursts tend to be accepted or even rewarded in men, women are judged less competent as a result.

Hillary Clinton's recent presidential campaign raised the question of whether anger was damaging to a female candidate. Researchers found this to be unequivocally the case unless the anger was in response to treatment of a family member.

Victoria Brescoll commented:

"An angry woman loses status, no matter what her position."

Researchers showed participants videos of actors applying for a job. They were asked to rate them on their perceived competence and whether they should be hired, the degree of responsibility they should be given, and how much they should get paid. Both men and women assigned higher status, salary and competence to men expressing anger. However, when actors expressed sadness, women applicants were ranked equally to men in status and competence but not in salary.

The second study focused on lower-status jobs and compared angry applicants to those not displaying any emotion. Once again, angry men were valued more highly than angry women. However, these differences were not apparent in the emotionally neutral group. The third study allowed women actors to explain why they were angry, resulting in improved ratings. However, when men gave an explanation it tended to be interpreted as a sign of weakness.

Victoria Brescoll concluded:

"Whether you are running for president or looking for a clerical job, you cannot afford to get angry if you are a woman."
'Bad Apples' at Work

A study from the University of Washington Business School published in Research in Organizational Behavior in 2007 examined how negative behavior by one person in an organization can impact on teams and groups. Researchers describe these individuals as "bad apples" acting like a virus within teams, with the capacity to "upset or spoil the whole apple cart".

Together with Terence Mitchell, a professor of management and organization and UW psychology professor, William Felps, a doctoral student and lead author, decided to investigate the effect of a negative co-worker on workplace atmosphere after his wife experienced the phenomenon. She characterized her work environment as cold and unfriendly but this changed when a co-worker described as "particularly caustic" and "always making fun of other people" was away ill for several days.

William Felps explained:

"And when he was gone, my wife said that the atmosphere of the office changed dramatically. People started helping each other, playing classical music on their radios, and going out for drinks after work. But when he returned to the office, things returned to the unpleasant way they were. She hadn't noticed this employee as being a very important person in the office before he came down with this illness but, upon observing the social atmosphere when he was gone, she came to believe that he had a profound and negative impact. He truly was the 'bad apple' that spoiled the barrel."

The researchers analyzed about two dozen studies focusing on workplace team and group interaction, with specific reference to the impact of individuals whose negativity may be expressed in various ways: not doing their fair share of work, being "chronically unhappy and emotionally unstable", or being aggressive and bullying. They found that it only takes one such "toxic" team member to provide the catalyst for organizational dysfunction. In a follow-up survey, they found most people they could identify at least one "bad apple" from their own workplace experience.

The researchers reviewed various working environments (including manufacturing, fast food, and universities) where tasks and assignments were performed by groups of approximately 5 -15 individuals with interdependent jobs or where significant interaction was necessary. They explain that employees in such circumstances tend to be less tolerant and are more likely to challenge negative behaviors.

In one study of about 50 manufacturing teams, they found those with a disagreeable or irresponsible member were significantly more likely to perform poorly, experiencing conflict, poor communication and lack of cooperation between team members.

Terence Mitchell commented:

"Most organizations do not have very effective ways to handle the problem. This is especially true when the problem employee has longevity, experience or power. Companies need to move quickly to deal with such problems because the negativity of just one individual is pervasive and destructive and can spread quickly."

The study identified three ways in which group members may react to a negative member. Motivational intervention, where concerns are expressed and the person asked to change; if this proves unsuccessful rejection may follow where the individual is removed from the situation. These strategies require team members to have sufficient power; lack of power leads people to become frustrated and distracted. This leads to the third strategy, being defensive - common coping mechanisms include denial, social withdrawal, anger, anxiety and fear. Researchers explain that as trust weakens along with the positive culture, members physically and psychologically disengage themselves from the team. The study concluded that negative behavior has a greater impact than positive behavior.

Terence Mitchell said:

"People do not expect negative events and behaviors, so when we see them we pay attention to them, ruminate over them and generally attempt to marshal all our resources to cope with the negativity in some way. Good behavior is not put into the spotlight as much as negative behavior is."

The researchers differentiate between the negativity of "bad apples" and innovative challenging employees "who think outside the box" and may not always be appreciated as a result. If negative individuals emerge after selection screening, researchers suggest that organizations should allocate them to independent work positions where possible; or the only option may be to let them go.

William Felps commented:

"Managers at companies, particularly those in which employees often work in teams, should take special care when hiring new employees. This would include checking references and administering personality tests so that those who are really low on agreeableness, emotional stability or conscientiousness are screened out."