DECEMBER 21

“I spent my first few years as CEO concentrating on budgets and strategy and personnel issues, until I realized that the most important thing I and every other leader in North America must do is create the atmosphere or culture in which people work.”

—Kent Murdock, CEO, O.C.Tanner

CREATE A CULTURAL EXPERIENCE

Disorientation. High anxiety. Feelings of alienation. Are your employees suffering from culture shock? It happens when an employee finds herself in an organization where she feels unappreciated and unchallenged.

You can change that, of course. Because you, as their leader, create the culture.

In short, if the work environment is positive, people will stay, and will stay committed. They’ll drive your company forward. But if your workplace lacks employee satisfaction, you will experience turnover and a lack of productivity that will cost you money, ideas and time.

Says Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford University in his book The Human Equation, “The returns from managing people in ways that build high commitment…are typically on the order of 30 to 50 percent.”