I have been spending some time digging through old notes and thoughts on leadership and work culture as I prepare for the first Brainpark staff offsite. Our gatherings up until this moment have been all focused on product design and development. This retreat we are focused on who we are as a company and what we hope to become when we grow up.
In the process of my homework I interviewed Razor Suleman from I Love Rewards (who just closed their Series A financing yesterday from JLA). The main overview of topics we covered were as follows:
- The role of transparency in the workplace
- How rewards and recognition impact employees
- What are the benefits and challenges associated with rewarding employees
- Intersection between rewards/recognition and democracy in the workplace
The reason for being so diligent in my research is that I believe the current forms and systems of many organizations has created some form of half-life zombie employees. People who are not utterly dead but lack the life and passion of genuine humanity. Their voice is no longer heard and their contribution is prescriptive. The search for new ways to gain employee engagement is essential for building great 21st century corporations that have cultures where people want to belong.
Razor talked about creating a culture that over-communicates so that more people have more information that empowers them to make decisions. Within I Love Rewards they have structured several ways to elicit the information that is often buried in other organizations. One of these mechanisms is a simple quarterly report called "Brutal Facts" which highlights the mistakes being made in order that they may become a true learning organization that adjusts based on external feedback. By a show of hands they then vote on the top 2 issues and discuss how they will tackle it before the next quarter.
Another interesting process Razor has set in place is that each week every employee gets a blank "thank you" card which they can fill in and give to someone else in the organization who has made their lives better or more productive within the last week. This one reminds me of one I learned from Philip Rosedale (Founder and Chair, Linden Lab - Second Life) called The Love Machine. This is a simple online tool they developed where at any point in time during a day someone could give a specific thank you to anyone else in the organization. Beyond the immediate positive culture this creates they discovered many side benefits that show flash points and contribution within the company.
The final thing I will note in this post about the interview with Razor was that they instituted monthly rewards and recognition lunches where everyone in the company can clearly see who is doing well. These meetings are celebrations that are open to their clients also. I was kindly invited to show up and experience one of these the next time I am back in Toronto.
When I was in Vancouver yesterday I mentioned some of this to Kareem Mayan and he kindly sent me over his Delicious research list on the topic which will keep me reading for a while...
If anyone has any recommendations of helpful processes that can create a high performance and engaged company I would love to hear from you. This next week we will be wrestling through and dreaming about the basic and simple things we can do that make us a desirable place to work.
For those interested in leadership, democracy, and empowerment I would highly recommend coming to New York for the Worldblu Live conference. Download worldblu_live_2008_oct. 16-17 NYC.pdf
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