In Great Company Read online

  Praise for In Great Company

  In Great Company explores the humanity of an organization and the importance of emotional connectedness. The book offers a set of frameworks and a plethora of practical examples and approaches that can help unleash the power of the people and extraordinary performance.

  —Hubert Joly, Chairman and CEO, Best Buy

  For nearly three decades, Louis Carter has been a visionary and pioneer in helping organizations achieve peak performance from their employees. Louis’s process for In Great Company really works. I have been practicing this with him in my companies for over 15 years, creating wins for everyone—clients/customers, company, teams, individuals. The process develops the greatest culture, with the greatest people in place, and the greatest systems for collaboration, which is the best way to transform and generate real results.

  —Brian Fishel, Chief Human Resources Officer, KeyBank

  An incredibly important book that will change the way we lead and manage today. Carter distills the essence of what it takes to be a truly great leader—forge functional, respectful, generous relationships with those you lead and follow.

  —Frances Hesselbein, Chairman, Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute; Editor in Chief, Leader to Leader journal; Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient

  An invaluable toolkit for experienced and aspiring leaders alike! Recognizing people as central to success, Carter leverages his vast insight into corporate America to coach managers on how to build and leverage strong relationships to thrive and win in today’s dynamic, changing world. His guidance through best practices checklists and immediate action steps gives every leader a place to start or improve leadership skills, build effective teams, continue to grow, and, ultimately, achieve positive results.

  —Karen Dyson, Lieutenant General, U.S. Army (retired); formerly, Military Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Financial Management and Comptroller; currently, Board Director, USAA Federal Savings Bank and CALIBRE

  Move over IQ and EQ—it’s time to make room on the shelf for EC (emotional connectedness). In his new book, In Great Company, Louis Carter shares a rare combination of in-depth analysis and Monday-morning pragmatism to uncover the essential (and usually missing) ingredient of true organizational and leadership success: deep emotional connectedness.

  —Paul L. Corona, MBA, EdD, Clinical Associate Professor of Leadership; Director of full-time MBA Leadership Development, Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University

  I care deeply about becoming the best possible CEO and leader, which is why I have chosen to work with Louis on the principles and practices in this book, In Great Company, and I can say without doubt that they really work. His executive coaching on emotional connectedness has brought me great insights for my leadership at Springfield Clinic because it has helped me forge more emotionally connected relationships within my company, community, and patients—enrolling everyone as thought partners in my development and the betterment of the organization.

  There is no more important task in healthcare than to care deeply about the development and highest quality of care within our clinic. Lou’s coaching has helped me to do what is top of my mind as a CEO—developing and sustaining caring, respectful, collaborative relationships that have the very best outcome for our staff and patients. When you forge a bond that is respectful of patients and employees, you will always win.

  —Ray Williams, CEO, Springfield Clinic

  I have a passion and mission to do what is right for patients and help to save lives and reduce the suffering caused by hospital infections like staph, C. diff, MRSA, and VRE.

  Louis’s book In Great Company and his coaching and work around emotional connectedness have helped us further our mission.

  After incorporating his methods for becoming a more emotionally connected leader, I have become more aware of the incredible possibilities with clients, employees, and prospects to forge respectful, values-driven, and deep collaborative relationships where everyone wins.

  We are applying the new principles of emotional connectedness to our client relationships as well as internally, and we have already seen unexpected and impressive outcomes.

  —Morris Miller, CEO, Xenex Disinfection Systems and cofounder, Rackspace

  Copyright © 2019 by Best Practice Institute, Inc. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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  I dedicate this book to

  all those in pursuit of a

  better world of work.

  * * *

  CONTENTS

  * * *

  FOREWORD BY

  MARSHALL GOLDSMITH

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  THE IN GREAT COMPANY ADVANTAGE

  CHAPTER 1

  MAXIMIZING
THE EC EQUATION

  CHAPTER 2

  THE EMOTIONALLY CONNECTED LEADER

  CHAPTER 3

  SYSTEMIC COLLABORATION

  CHAPTER 4

  POSITIVE FUTURE

  CHAPTER 5

  ALIGNMENT OF VALUES

  CHAPTER 6

  RESPECT

  CHAPTER 7

  KILLER ACHIEVEMENT

  CHAPTER 8

  CONCLUSION: FIVE THINGS TO DO RIGHT NOW

  APPENDIX A

  LEADER’S SELF-ASSESSMENT:

  DO I LEAD IN GREAT COMPANY?

  APPENDIX B

  SAMPLE EMPLOYEE PULSE SURVEY:

  ARE YOUR ASSOCIATES IN GREAT COMPANY?

  APPENDIX C

  THE IN GREAT COMPANY BEST PRACTICES PLAYBOOK

  APPENDIX D

  RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

  NOTES

  INDEX

  * * *

  FOREWORD

  * * *

  When Louis told me his new book would be called In Great Company, I found the title immensely fitting. I’ve known Louis for over 20 years. I respect his work and admire his approach because it is based on his extensive experience working with CEOs and HR leaders to help them create a workplace where people love to be and do their best. As CEO of the Best Practice Institute and one of my Top 100 Coaches, Louis understands that being “in great company” is not about workplace perks or even pay. It is about leaders doing the right thing, showing respect, and empowering people to succeed on a daily basis. These seemingly simple ideas are very difficult to implement.

  Luckily, In Great Company offers a practical plan to help leaders at all levels make the commitment to ongoing improvement and organizational change. I believe that it will become a valuable addition to leadership and management literature because it combines strategic and human elements of management, and it adheres to some of the ideals that I value most:

  Lead with respect. The central finding in Louis’s research, the main idea upon which this book is based, is that people require one thing in order to be at their best at work: respect. All of my work coaching top CEOs tells me that this is correct—leaders need to act with humility, become effective listeners, and value the expertise of the people around them. These things signal respect, and they bring out the best in everyone.

  Set people up to succeed. Whether your objective is to design team goals or to sell people on a new strategy, In Great Company puts the alignment of shared values at the center of the endeavor and positions achievement of outcomes as the most important task at hand. The type of alignment Louis describes not only makes success easier to measure but also brings more people in the organization into the process and helps them focus on the future.

  Listen and learn. I teach my clients to ask key stakeholders for suggestions on how they can become more effective leaders. I tell them to listen to these ideas and think about them in order to keep doing what works and let go of what does not. Similarly, one of the central elements of being In Great Company is creating an environment in which we look to the people around us for coaching and feedback to build on our strengths, fix what is broken, and focus on becoming better than ever in the future.

  Change yourself first. This book is designed to create an emotional connection among employees—one that fosters a shared passion for excellence. Yet, as you will see, it starts with leaders and filters down and across the organization. This ethos of personal discovery and ongoing improvement resonates with me. I believe that one of the most impactful aspirations any of us can have is to become a better version of ourselves. When we are open to change and improvement, it encourages others in the organization to do the same.

  Louis has studied organizations. He understands what they do well and what they don’t do well. He is an expert on multiple facets of developing people. With considerable research and practice behind him, I can say this is his best work yet. This is an approach that, with practice, can elevate performance, improve retention, and have a positive impact on business outcomes. And by practicing the prescriptions in this book, people can be their best at work, become emotionally connected to each other, and truly feel like they are In Great Company.

  —Marshall Goldsmith, August 2018

  * * *

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  * * *

  Thank you to Jacqueline Murphy, Marshall Goldsmith, Michael Varouhas, Noah Schwartzberg, and Scott Baxt who were instrumental in making In Great Company happen.

  * * *

  THE IN GREAT COMPANY ADVANTAGE

  * * *

  What if we could create a world of work where employees were so deeply engaged that they loved doing their job every day? What if they were so invested in building a better workplace for themselves and others that putting in the extra effort was virtually guaranteed? And what if they could focus so exclusively on doing what’s right for customers that profits were essentially a by-product of the process? This would be a place where people were dedicated to working toward collective success. Where mutual respect was the norm and all people felt heard. Everyone would be excited, eager, and poised to collaborate to achieve objectives that they all believed in (Figure I.1).

  FIGURE I.1 Being In Great Company

  I can envision this world because I have spent the last 15 years creating a path to make it happen. I call it being “In Great Company.” You are In Great Company when you experience a spark that lights your desire for peak performance. This spark comes from the deep emotional connection you feel to your company and the people with whom you work.

  As founder and CEO of the Best Practice Institute (BPI) and as an executive coach and organizational psychologist, I spend my day working with leaders to help them ignite their spark. The psychologist in me dives down to diagnose problems and identify opportunities, while the executive coach in me formulates a practical action plan to help leaders discover how they can become better through feedback and the power of their stakeholder, peer, or customer network.

  The In Great Company approach I describe throughout this book is based largely on my work with the Best Practice Institute, a leadership development and solutions center for senior talent and human resources (HR) executives. As a subset of that, I formed the BPI Talent Consortiums, otherwise known as the Senior Executive Board (SEB). The SEB is a leadership experience where C-level leaders can come together to be In Great Company—surrounded by supportive peers who care about each other’s growth and share similar goals. These experiences include curated conversations, custom research on current challenges, provocative online learning, and in-person venues where leaders meet with industry colleagues and stakeholders to share best and next practices, hold each other accountable for objectives, publish important new findings, and collaborate to solve larger national and world issues.

  The BPI Senior Executive Board formed in New York City in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks as a way to reconnect to our passions and become even more successful together. Since then, we often assemble executives from the same value chain to solve stubborn challenges and support each other’s growth. Other times, it is industry “competitors” coming together to share insights and advice. We have met at the United Nations to discover how to become more sustainable and socially responsible. And we’ve met at the Pentagon to dive into veteran hiring processes with top-level officials.

  To further this work, we came back to Manhattan on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, where I led an especially memorable executive session. The venue overlooked the site of Ground Zero from the executive dining room of Manhattan’s Westin New York at Times Square. Many of the leaders at the BPI Senior Executive Board meeting had lost family members, close friends, and colleagues. They opened up about deeply personal moments in their lives and shared stories until the early hours of the morning. We talked about how our personal feelings and experiences affect our mindset and motivation at work. As you can imagine, there were tears flowing, and peers provided support. We closed the restaurant with the staff tha
t evening, leaving as a strong group, intact and in solidarity. We were no longer just colleagues, we felt bound together like a family.

  Not every interaction at work can or should be like that one, but when employees connect to each other in a deeper way, and when they feel supported by leaders and able to be themselves, it alters their perception of their workplace. It creates the positive dynamic that I call “being In Great Company.” When you are In Great Company, you are in a place you love to be, you choose to add value, and you want to give more of yourself. As a result, you are more willing and able to achieve your business goals.

  You can be In Great Company by sparking deeper emotional connections with colleagues—by aligning your values, collaborating, cocreating a positive future, giving respect, and focusing on achievement. When this dynamic is set into motion in the workplace, everyone is aligned and willing to do whatever it takes to preserve and grow the business together. It is a scenario in which everyone wins.

  The Core of In Great Company: Emotional Connectedness

  * * *

  Every program I have implemented and all of the advice and cases in my 10 previous books have been aimed at creating a workplace people love and funneling their positive feelings to set up the entire business for sustainable success. Yet, I am also a data junkie. I feel compelled to examine the facts before I can move from theory to action. I use data to identify best practices and write cases that generalize what I have learned. That is how I made a discovery—one that changed my thinking about what people really want from work and what motivates them to be their best.

  It started with one simple question about being In Great Company. As part of my research initiative, I asked 100 executives: “What is the one factor you need most from an employer to motivate your performance and help you be great at your job?”