John Mattone’s Cultural Transformation 3-Day Retreat Program conducted for the senior leadership team of one of our most valued clients was a major success. Senior executives were highly engaged before, during and after the Retreat due to the multi-faceted and comprehensive approach he used….combining lecture, group discussion, the results from his 5CCA culture assessment, team analysis and action-planning. For the first time we can remember, our client is leveraging what they learned through this annual retreat and are now making positive improvements to their culture and operations”
Labeed S. Hamid
President MEMC (Middle East Management Centre)
Co-Founder and Member of the Board MCT (Management Centre Turkey)
Who is our Typical Client?
While we do work with Fortune 1000 organizations to help them with their transformation initiatives, our real “sweet spot” is working with small to mid-sized global entrepreneurial companies. Through my own research as well as the interviews I did with 14 of the top CEO’s in the world (many of whom lead small to mid-sized entrepreneurial companies) that appear in my most-recent best-seller Cultural Transformations, I have discovered two reasons why small to mid-sized entrepreneurial organizations usually fail to explode to the “next level” and sustain success.
Reason # 1: The CEO/Owner/Entrepreneur massively underestimates the importance of creating a culture of leadership from Day One.
Reason # 2: The CEO/Owner/Entrepreneur massively underestimates the importance of creating and sustaining a culture that supports the primary business or operating imperative.
Most CEO’s, owners and entrepreneurs from Day One, as they should be, are laser-focused on creating and producing clearly differentiated products and services and acquiring clients and customers who need their differentiated products and services. While no one will argue with the importance of these operating pursuits, we have learned, however, that it is truly the savvy and, ultimately the most successful, entrepreneurial CEO’s who place equal if not greater value and focus on creating and sustaining the right leadership and operating culture from Day One. Check out my recent interviews in Dubai on this subject:
Lastly, here’s what Forbes Magazine (February, 2016) had to say about Cultural Transformations as well as the stated imperative they have for all global organizations based on their Review—especially the small to mid-sized entrepreneurial companies: focus on creating, sustaining and measuring culture if you are to realize sustained growth and operating success.
What is Culture?
Your organization’s culture represents the collective character, values, thoughts, emotions, beliefs and behaviors of your leaders and individual contributors. Your organization’s culture is a product of such factors as its’ history and how your leaders and individual contributors ascribe meaning and value to it as well as leadership style (legacy and current) which is then reflected in the creation and implementation of your organization’s values, vision, mission, purpose, strategy, structure and roles.
Why is Culture Important?
Your organization’s current and future operating success is tied to the “health and vibrancy” and overall “maturity” of your culture. Regardless of your unique transformation challenge (e.g., the need to be more innovative, collaborative, global, more responsive, more efficient, execute better, become more customer-focused, or even integrate or merge with another organization, etc.), your culture and how strong and vibrant it is, will determine if you succeed or fail. There isn’t an organization that exists in the world today that doesn’t desire to get better. Organizations that are effective, want to be more effective. Organizations that are lagging their competition want to be leading their competition. And, organizations that are leading their market want to make sure they continue to lead and dominate their competition.
Regardless of your organizations operating imperative, two things are certain based on my 35 years’ experience working with leaders and organizations all over the world, achieving and sustaining operating success in your organization will be in direct proportion to how effectively your senior leaders: (1) create the “right culture” and (2) continuously transform culture in support of operating goals. These are the two most important jobs of a CEO, owner, entrepreneur and their senior executive teams.
The infographic below, Transforming Culture: The 6 Critical Steps, highlights those steps and my new best-selling book, Cultural Transformations: Lessons of Leadership and Corporate Reinvention provides additional detail to help you and your organization successfully navigate your transformation challenges. Beyond the Book, I have listed below eight ways my team and I can help you with your transformation efforts.
Here Are Some Important Facts…
Whether your organization is a “market leader” or “laggard” doesn’t matter. The NEED to transform never ends as all businesses are facing growing DISRUPTION from all angles. 75% of business transformations flat-out fail, meaning that these organizations no longer exist or they are at risk of no longer existing. They failed in their transformation efforts because they were not as diligent as they needed to be in creating and transforming the culture in support of operating goals. The real culprit? A lack of leadership. Here’s bad leadership again: Only 25% of organization’s who are considered “market leaders”, transform from a position of strength to sustain their position of strength, while 75% of “market leaders” currently are not engaged in positive and pre-emptive transformation efforts—which almost guarantees their eventual failure.
How Can I Help?
Here are six ways you can access my knowledge and experience to help you and your organization with your cultural transformation initiative. I have arranged these in order, from those that require the least investment to those that require the most.
- Search My Website. I have written more than 250 blog posts and articles that can be accessed directly on this site and I am currently writing two blogs per week on the topics of leadership, culture and talent. Also, order my books including my new release, Cultural Transformations.
Read My Most Popular Article-Ever-on Culture: How to Measure Culture and Prevent Leadership Malpractice
- Access My Assessments and Resources. Many of our proprietary resources, assessments and diagnostic tools you will find extremely cost-effective. Some of the assessments, such as the Mattone Leadership Enneagram Inventory and Strategic-Tactical Leadership Index-360, I use in my senior executive coaching. Our proprietary cultural assessments were researched and created by my team and I parallel to writing Cultural Transformations, my Inc. Magazine best-seller. They are world-class assessments that are easy to administer, yet generate easy to understand detailed reports that will help you pinpoint the “health and vibrancy” of your organization’s current culture (The 5 Cultures of Culture Assessment), as well as determine your organization’s overall “readiness” to transform its’ culture (Cultural Transformation Readiness Assessment-40) in support of your operating goals. Learn More
- Hire Me to Debrief Your Culture Assessment Results. Many clients ask me to debrief their 5 Cultures of Culture Assessment (5CCA) Results and Report. I offer 2-hour Virtual Debriefs as well as Cultural Advisory half-or full-day sessions. Learn More
- Book Me as a Speaker. Learn More
- Hire Me as your Culture & Leadership Coach. Learn More
- Engage Me and My Team to Support your Cultural Transformation Initiative: Here’s the Roadmap
1. Meet with the C-level team and sponsor team to learn more.
2. Administer our 5 Cultures of Culture Assessment (5CCA) to your employee population.
3. Conduct C-Team Cultural Transformation 3-Day “Bootcamp” (See Model Below)
· Pre-“Bootcamp”
–Senior executive individual leadership assessments and coaching debrief with John Mattone
–Administer our Cultural Transformation Readiness Assessment-40 (CTRA-40) to C-level team
· 3-Day “Bootcamp” (with John Mattone)
-Discuss the latest research and ideas about culture and leadership
-Debrief 5CCA and CTRA-40 results and reports
-How to successfully transform your culture in support of operating goals and vision
-How to lead as a C-level team to best support your transformation initiatives and ensure sustained success
-Define your transformation/change imperative and set goals
-Define your transformation strategy focused on leveraging culture “strengths” and addressing “gaps”
4. Implementation Journey (2 to 3 years)
5. Re-administer the 5CCA and CTRA-40 at agreed upon intervals and course-correct
We are looking for help to document our culture core values over the next 3-6 months.
Dear Brett, a team member will contact you shortly. Thank you so much for contacting us!