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Part 7: The Meaningful Workplace – Pointless Workplaces

Part 7: The Meaningful Workplace – Pointless Workplaces

Why workplaces aren’t meaningful now “Where do you find people, our most important asset, on a balance sheet? Under expenses.” – Paul Herman, HIP Investor Business has long been focused on producing widgets, growing market share, managing costs, and delivering shareholder value. And, while employees are a very costly factor, both in terms of monetary and management time, the process-driven, measurement-hungry and org chart world of business has been lacking in human respect, empathy and meaning. As such, businesses have been far more focused on the “what”...
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MillerCoors SDR 2010 – Success the Right Way.

MillerCoors SDR 2010 – Success the Right Way.

See the full gallery on Posterous With two powerhouse parent companies looking over its shoulders, MillerCoors makes a big leap in sustainable reporting with Success the Right Way. For their 2010 report, we helped bring a new level of transparency and depth, as the company established internal protocols and moved towards international standards. This report highlights employee contributions to sustainability efforts and takes an interesting look at MillerCoors’ nine 2015 goals with photographed product charts. Printed by Hemlock Printers using 100% recycled and 100% post-consumer waste...
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HR Director Is The New Marketing Director?

HR Director Is The New Marketing Director?

Our friend Tom Fishburne once again creates a clever cartoon to make an important point: “the best brands and businesses market from the inside out”. To quote Tom, “We all work in marketing, no matter our functional expertise.  Everyone in the company has the ability to impact the brand, whether they work in accounts payable or marketing. That means that the HR Director is the new Marketing Director.  Recruitment is as important to how a brand is marketed as creating a marketing plan.” In our parlance, the best brands grow from the inside out by fostering a...
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Part 5: The Meaningful Workplace – Become Fit For Humans

Part 5: The Meaningful Workplace – Become Fit For Humans

Employees respond positively and actively to a meaningful workplace As the company transforms the way it reaches out to their employees, their employees change the way they respond back to the company.  Employees eagerly engage in the work at hand, align with the company strategies, collaborate with one another and contribute their energy and skills. They confidently deal with peers, prospects, customers, partners and suppliers. They proudly tell their family and friends about the company they work for. And all the other people vital to the business’s success (customers, partners,...
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Part 4: The Meaningful Workplace – Adopt A New Stance

Part 4: The Meaningful Workplace – Adopt A New Stance

Toward the meaningful workplace Meaningful workplaces are built by companies that aim to produce a more meaningful outcome from, and for, their people. To become meaningful, these companies adopt a new stance vis-à-vis their relationship with their employees. They strive to reduce the distance that’s been imposed through organization structures and prevailing attitudes. They seek stronger emotional connections up and down and across their enterprise. They see their task as making their company fit for the future by making it fit for humans. They create a meaningful workplace...
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The Meaning Hidden Deep Within Your B2B Brand

The Meaning Hidden Deep Within Your B2B Brand

For decades many B2B brands have been able to prosper by taking a “business as usual” approach to the marketplace. This means they have been able to build their brands exclusively around their product propositions.  But as B2B brands look out into the world today they see changing expectations in the marketplace. The people making decisions about their brands are looking through a new set of filters. They are looking to align with brands that are aligned to their own personal values. They look for, and appreciate, gestures that speak to the brand’s sense of humanity....
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Part 3: The Meaningful Workplace – Meaningful Defined

Part 3: The Meaningful Workplace – Meaningful Defined

Understanding what makes something “meaningful” In the course of a day, our senses open us up to millions of stimuli, each of which presents itself and demands our attention. To cope with the avalanche of input, our system quickly decides which stimuli are significant enough to be acknowledged and, which are so significant that they must be remembered. In other words, what matters…and what doesn’t. The stimuli we remember can be significant in two ways. On a primal level, some of our memories help us survive against danger. On a higher-order level, some of our...
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The Meaningful Workplace – Workplace In Crisis

The Meaningful Workplace – Workplace In Crisis

The workplace is in crisis. Workers are not engaged. Productivity is down. Morale is low. Many employees obviously don’t see the point of what they – or their employer – are doing. How can a business turn the tide of employee dissonance?  How can it become fit for a future that’s bound to be more competitive, complex and commoditized?  How can it connect with people who are no longer blindly accepting corporate propaganda? People who are more “we” than “me” focused? People who are more discerning about the ideas, products and brands they buy into, the businesses they...
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Part 1: The Meaningful Workplace – Series Overview

Part 1: The Meaningful Workplace – Series Overview

Introduction This blog series introduces the “meaningful workplace”, an idea which seeks to address many of the pain points businesses are feeling as they try to get their enterprises fit for the future. It will explain the notion of “meaningful” and what it means in the context of creating a meaningful workplace.  This series will set out the advantages of building a purposeful, values-driven workplace with a meaningful culture that better balances the needs of both the employer and the employee.  It will explore how businesses can reach out to their...
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To Be Fit For The Future Professional Services Need To Leapfrog To Emotive Branding

Professional services like law firms would do well to move beyond the rudimentary basics of branding such as identities, symbols and colors, according to a recent blog post on Forbes.com. We couldn’t agree more. Like all businesses, professional firms face a challenging future with hyper-competition, commoditized knowledge and accelerating change all looming on the horizon. These firms clearly need to get fit for the future – and  their preparedness plan needs to include a major tune-up for their brands. However, we believe professional firms need to also leapfrog over the...
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What Employers Can Learn From The Thriving Danes

What Employers Can Learn From The Thriving Danes

Photo by @drmeaningful According to a recent Gallup Poll, Denmark once again has achieved the highest sense of well-being of any country in the world. In a world where typically only 21 percent of people consider themselves to be “thriving”, 72 percent of Danish people feel they are. Why is this? And what could employers learn from the nature of the world’s “happiest” people? A recent article in The Atlantic pinpointed several behavioral imperatives that contribute to the “thriving” Danish character: Do not tolerate abusive behavior...
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An Unmissable Video for Anyone Looking to Engage Employees

We came across this 15-minute video of a talk by Gary Hamel in which he outlines his thoughts on the future of management: “You can’t build a company that’s fit for the future without building one that’s fit for human beings.” He pinpoints three challenges facing today’s organizations: accelerating change, hyper-competition and commoditized knowledge. Commoditized knowledge was the challenge that got our brain cells fired up, particulary when Mr Hamel posed this: “How do you build an organization where people are willing to bring their gifts of...
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TOMS Shoes: When Being Meaningful Becomes the Business You Are In

TOMS Shoes: When Being Meaningful Becomes the Business You Are In

TOMS Shoes has built a strong business and huge following based on its altruistic approach to selling shoes: buy a pair from TOMS and TOMS gives a second pair to someone who really needs them. Now they’re taking this “one-for-one” philosophy used to build the image of the company and turning it into their business model. To us, this is far more than a “rebranding” exercise, it’s the transformation of TOMS into a business inspired by a noble ambition. It is emblematic of the next generation of business in which enterprises take on broad social...
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What Makes People Want to Work (or Not) for Your Brand?

What Makes People Want to Work (or Not) for Your Brand?

Every brand faces two employee challenges: Recruiting the best people Engaging their employees Brands that have no clearly stated brand promise and no hint of a noble ambition lack the magnetic power to attract and engage people. Brands that register “neutral” (or worse) on the feelings dial lack the energy to motivate, align and inspire people. So, how do you bring magnetic energy to your brand’s recruitment and employee engagement activities? Before you start thinking of posters, campaigns, incentives, websites, films, activities and all the other expected tools, consider...
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Strong Brands Give Employees an Idea to Rally Around

Strong Brands Give Employees an Idea to Rally Around

  How to give employees something to believe in Take a moment to think about the employees working for your brand right now: They are in elevators, at desks, in conference rooms,  in home offices,  on the phone. They are in cars, on planes, in taxis, on a teleconference. They are closing deals, answering questions, presenting ideas, pitching prospects, processing orders, producing goods, answering phones, inventing products, serving customers, designing packaging, building factories, budgeting projects, balancing the books, convincing investors, meeting community leaders, hiring...
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