Build an entirely separate business unit for your new team. Make it an experiment in “flatness.” Three layers (four at most) from CEO to team members is a perfect organizational structure to get you reconnected to your customers and competitive challenges in the marketplace, while fostering the agility and adaptability needed to accomplish meaningful innovation. This type of structure is used in most lean start-ups. It may be far different from the organizational structure that has evolved in your current organization. If you want transformative change, don’t be afraid to try something different.
7. Encourage non-credit mistakes. Successful businesses that extend credit tend to have a low tolerance for mistakes. But business transformation requires experimentation. Differentiate between credit mistakes (which must be avoided) and business or process innovation mistakes (which should be encouraged and celebrated). Catch people failing at worthwhile attempts to change your delivery model or your long-standing approach to technology, and hold them up as examples of the type of experimentation your business needs to accomplish its transformational goals. Unless you make it clear that you are willing to accept mistakes, innovation won’t happen.
8. Make work fun. Everyone prefers to have fun at work. But, some of us have long ago resigned ourselves to something less than a fun work environment. We compartmentalize our lives into fun times away from work, and a needlessly serious workplace environment. The workplace doesn’t have to be dull and tedious. Younger workers know it; they have friends in startups and large technology companies that enjoy themselves at work. Word has gotten out. And now that everyone knows there are enjoyable places to work, this is the kind of culture you need to foster in your company if you want to attract and retain the best and brightest young talent in your organization.
How do you create a fun culture? The good news is that you don’t have to create it. Just lighten-up on the rules and allow the new employees to create it themselves. To be clear, this means you should give your isolated group of young professionals the freedom to control their own work environment, including things like: dress code, seating arrangements, reasonable input and guidance concerning IT systems and hardware (including workplace access to social media) and perhaps most importantly, after work social events involving family members and guests. The rest of your organization will work hard to prevent this from happening, so recognize that it can only occur with clear, unambiguous top management support.
By the way, be sure to personally attend as many of these after hours work events with your new team as possible. It is a privilege to be invited. Attending a few happy hour events may be the fastest ways to build personal relationships with the talented new employees that are the key to helping you reinvent your entire company. This can be fun for you too!
Read more about Bill Verhelle and First American Equipment Finance’s transformative approach to hiring.
Fortune Magazine: 20 great workplaces in financial services; Feb. 8, 2015
Great Place to Work Institute
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Fortune Magazine: 100 Best Workplaces for Millennials 2015
Inc, Magazine 5000 for 2012