Corporate Culture - All Posts - Ze'ev Ronen - Business Excellence

While bike riding with a group of friends, A. and H. began a heated argument. As I got closer to them I heard it was about a bike riding event that took place many years ago, and they each had a different memory of. Each was convinced their memory was more accurate, and as often happens in such cases, they only listened to each other in order to quickly contradict each other. This wasn’t a dialogue, but two monologues.

Every year, CofaceBDI and The Marker magazine conduct a survey, on the topic "the 100 best companies to work at in Israel". The survey had about 150 thousand participants, and also uses internal surveys by the above companies. The survey then asked 2,000 participants to rank the parameters according to their importance.

I once met with a CEO of a big organization we very much wanted to work with. From the beginning I looked at him with an encouraging smile. He answered in the same optimistic spirit. We grabbed a cup of coffee and settled in the meeting room, opening with some small talk. He mentioned he likes to listen to a certain radio program, of which I am also a frequent listener, and shared his opinions of it, with which I agreed.

One of the first stages of personal coaching is identifying personal goals. Not defining, but identifying. We don’t choose pretty words and decide those are our values only because they look good. Personal values are an inherent part of us.

When you get into a cab, the first question the driver asks you is - where are you going? You probably always have an answer to that. After all, you wouldn't get in a cab without a destination in mind. Yet I meet people, and even businesses, with no goals. And without goals, you can’t have purposeful progress.

At 6:15 I started riding my bicycle towards Ramat Ha'Nadiv and we started making our way up to Mansur el-Aqeb. We were supposed to meet Uri there. When we reached the top, there was no sign of Uri. We waited. Uri didn’t arrive, nor call. We tried calling him, and there was no answer. After about fifteen minutes, we started riding again, heading north. A short while later, Uri came riding towards us, smiling.

Javier is a young tour guide, Until recently, he had a lot of work. He speaks Spanish fluently, and as a result he had, among is other clients, many Birthright groups from South America.
And then came the Coronavirus, and Javier found himself without work, and with the realisation that life is unlikely to return to how it was anytime soon.

A medical start-up I worked with in the past faced a considerable schedule delay. I suggested the CEO display the company's goals and schedules in a prominent location, breakdown company goals to personal ones assigned to each managers, and thus delegate responsibility to them.

My last article dealt with the question – how to approach the crisis in your business. Among other issues, I discussed employee retention vs. employment costs. In this article I'm going to take a big step forward, and present the opportunity this crisis offers you, to engage employees with company goals.

In some companies, working with improvement teams brings quick, clear, and considerable success. On the other hand, in others the work done by improvement teams is accompanied by frustration, and has no quick and clear results. Why? What's the difference?

wonder of wonders, CEOs who aren’t machine-maintenance people, are sure they "know enough", or "know best", how to maintain the "human machines" in their company. And if not the CEO, then one of the executives will be able to do it, in addition to their regular job.

At first results seem great. Especially when before the authoritative manager there was an indecisive one. Now decisions are made quickly and everybody falls in line. But this kind of management suffocates the company. It suppresses positive initiatives and when the authoritative CEO makes a mistake no one will dare correct them or point out the possible harm.

The kibbutz assembly needed to approve participation of a team from the company in a professional conference in Italy. I remember a heated debate. Travelling abroad was rare, and every trip was a cause for envy. In the assembly, a suggestion was raised – instead of one of the executives, "Sarah", a kibbutz member, will go, because she hadn’t been abroad yet.

I examined 13 well-known and proven management methods from all over the world, which I myself use, and asked the participants to rank them through three questions: familiarity with the method, experience with the method, and how successful it was for them.

Everyone can contribute something to someone else. For an employee, knowing this and feeling they can do something meaningful for someone else, brings great satisfaction. When your employees renovate a youth club in the nearest city, or help kids with homework at the community center – they feel incredibly meaningful.

I drew a big pyramid on the board, with him at the top, below him 8 VPs, and at the bottom 10,000 employees. I asked – how can you guarantee they'll efficiently produce quality products, if they aren’t engaged or invested in company goals?

Nestle is a world leader in constant improvement and striving for excellence. And the Sderot site, with approximately 650 employees, is without a doubt one of their leading sites in all aspects. Nestlé's motto, which you'll find displayed at each one of their sites and to which everybody strives, is "0 waste, 1 team, 100% employee involvement".

Facit is a famous example, but there were others. A recent example from Israel comes from the world of cellular parking services. I heard it from Ro'ee Elbaz, Pango's CEO ever since it was a small startup of four employees. In 2007 a tender for cellular paying services for parking was published by the center for local government.

The local market is growing more competitive and diminishing, customs defenses are disappearing and imports make sales harder. Both Gad and Shim'on have turned to exports. They don't only compete with each other, but with the global market.

As kids we played the game Telephone. We sat in a line, the first kid whispered something in the ear of the second, who whispered what they heard in the ear of the third, and so on until the last in line. Of course there was a considerable difference between what was originally whispered and what the last kid heard. That's how it is. There's a gap between what we thought and what we said, and an even greater one between what we said and what was heard and understood.

American companies reward participants based on how much money was saved for the company as a result of their proposal. The rewards average 458 USD. Comparatively, Japanese rewards average 3.88 USD (less than a hundredth of American rewards).

I used to manage an organization with several hundred employees, under a collective agreement. The premium paid to employees who exceeded production goal was set in the collective agreement, old an anachronistic. It wasn’t a real encouragement and it didn’t contribute to motivation, and didn’t change employees' way of doing their work. 

Israel added that Tomer was unwilling to teach other employees to operate "his" machine. It was clear that Israel postponed meeting Tomer as much as he could that morning, and once we finally got to him they communicated poorly. I couldn't understand what Tomer was saying and I'm not sure Israel clearly understood him either.

Our event focused on changing the production department and increasing efficiency. The team led a radical change in the department, including opening a wall which separated the two parts of the production space. On the third day, Osnat, one of the team members, burst into tears and couldn’t continue. She went home and returned to work only after a week of sick-leave.

In it they could see how, at the end of the work day on Thursday, at three in the afternoon, the door to one of the departments was left open. Actually, it wasn’t a door, but a wide gate, made of two metal doors. Its width is about three meters, its height about four meters.

Space itself is thus affected by the people and objects in it. All matter is made up of electrons and protons which vibrate and influence the energy field - colors, which are themselves a frequency, textures, and the way a certain space is designed.

The CEO is in charge as far the law, the share-holders or the board of directors are concerned (meaning he's the one accountable). So he must ensure the company reaches its goals and targets, first and foremost profit and resiliency. Of course the CEO's instinct is, then, to be involved in everything, and try and personally lead all processes in the company.

About a year ago I started working with a medium-sized company, about 200 employees, and a shift-supervisor listed as CEO a consultant who would come to the site once a week. I asked what job the actual CEO did, and he said he had no idea.

Often excitement is so overwhelming that companied start developing a new business without first examining risks and chance of success. Sometimes, we look at a business close to ours, competitors are profiting in it, and we decided to enter it and join the big players. We jump into the water, and discover too late we jumped into a red ocean.

Around the end of every year I get questions about creating a work-plan for the upcoming year. First, I'd like to point out that the very end of the year is too late to start working on a yearly-plan for the next year. Additionally, it is better to base yearly plans on a larger, multi-year plan.