Читать книгу Winning the Talent Shift - Berta Aldrich - Страница 14

Today's boards and executives, the ones ultimately responsible for setting the tone, environment, and culture within organizations, are undermining the success of their companies and the well-being of those they lead by overlooking barriers that high performers and women face in the workplace. They have allowed imposters to wreak havoc on employees under their authority, fostering unhealthy competition within their teams that creates internal combustion at the expense of their employees' mental health, relationships, and productivity.

This approach has created an unnecessary churn-and-burn mentality of “may the best man win at any cost” and allowed unethical and abusive behaviors among employees, which affects everyone but especially women, who are bullied at higher rates than their male colleagues.¹ It has also promoted the wrong leaders to a company's most impactful and prestigious positions. For up-and-coming generations, the workplace is a shock to their very nature, ethics, and belief systems, especially younger women, who are technologically savvy, driven, educated, capable, and have high hopes and dreams for successful careers. This anti-bully generation is especially ill prepared for the surge of conflict and combative cultures waiting for them in the business world.

Great boards and leadership teams are keenly aware that they are ultimately accountable for not only the results but the culture of their organizations. They understand that their role is to create shareholder value, and that value is ultimately a combination of a superior brand, a high-performing CEO/leadership team, consistent financial results, the ability to remain relevant and competitive in the marketplace over time, and a highly engaged, high-performing organization.

In a company, the human assets (employees, leaders, and board members) affect every facet of shareholder value. They're an integral part of the company's brand. They create service models for how to interact with customers. They establish how products will be created and introduced. They organize to accomplish good deeds for their community. Employees are the largest expense of almost every organization, but they also ensure competitiveness in the market by generating next-gen ideas, innovation, and value. There's a competitive edge for companies who spend more time innovating in a healthy gender-balanced culture rather than repeatedly hiring and training new employees before burning through them. To make the shift, we need to ask the hard questions:

If the human side of the organization is its biggest asset, why are so few companies focusing on it?

Or, better asked, why are so many companies allowing their workplace to undermine and disenfranchise the very people who create shareholder value?

Why are companies still slow to address the disproportionate ways companies hold back women despite every available metric demonstrating their equally valuable contributions alongside men?

In today's organizations, there is a stark difference between people who are great leaders and people who hold great titles.

A title does not a great leader make. How can leaders improve the workplace culture so that their teams shift from fragmented, winner-take-all competitions to high-performing teams leveraging each member's resources and unique talents? If a company's culture can undermine its strategy, let's consider what the culture of a high-performing workplace will look like.