E-Book, Englisch, Band 1, 136 Seiten
Reihe: Values Culture Period
Corey Atkinson / Ayo Owodunni Values Culture Period
1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-1-7779381-1-6
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)
Redefining the value of values to drive business results.
E-Book, Englisch, Band 1, 136 Seiten
Reihe: Values Culture Period
ISBN: 978-1-7779381-1-6
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)
Corey Atkinson, PMP is a Organizational Performance & Development Executive, Professional Speaker, Master Facilitator and Certified Coach. Author of the the Values & Culture Book Series, he is a highly requested Keynote Speaker. Corey works with organizations to craft culture solutions that create innovation and change. He has worked with organizations in all industries across North America and applies critical leadership practices, culture and DEI frameworks, emotional intelligence, motivational strategies, and the latest learning technologies to support organizational growth, at all levels. He combines corporate coaching insights with design thinking to develop solutions for leadership pipelines, high performing teams, change management, and impactful communication.
Autoren/Hrsg.
Weitere Infos & Material
Chapter 1:
The Signing
“Without ethical culture, there is no salvation for humanity”- Albert Einstein
It’s only 11:00 a.m. but Guy feels he’s been putting out fires all morning at the office. He arrived around 7:30 a.m.; since then, he already had a stressful conversation with Desean, one of his western area managers, to discuss reports about a kitchen manager in a yelling match with one of their team members. From there he jumped into an emergency meeting with the Chief Financial Officer to discuss discrepancies in the revenue document meant to be shown to the board by the end of the week; and now he is in a meeting with corporate sales, listening to their multiple excuses—oops, reasons—on why business development was slow this quarter.
As Guy walked back to his office and past Sara, his executive assistant, he said, “Please hold off any other meetings for the next hour.”
“Sure. I’ll take care of that for you,” Sara said, a bit concerned about the postponement. She quickly picked up the phone to reschedule his 11:00 a.m. and noon meetings.
Guy shut his door and slumped into his chair. All I seem to be doing here is constantly putting out fires. There has got to be a better way.
He looked out the window of his 15th floor office building to take in the skyline. It was beautiful this time of year. There were only a few trees in the downtown core, but the movement of the cars speeding out of and into the city gave him a sense of tranquility.
When he first started with the Toronto-based company, they were in the west end of the city in a three-story building. But as the organization grew in market share and profits, they were able to move to their current uptown location. He could now stare out into the horizon, gazing, thinking, and strategizing. Since becoming the President of Savos, a restaurant chain with 80 locations and 2,000 employees across the country, getting five minutes to himself to simply gaze at the city skyline was more of a mini escape to ground himself for the next wave of unpredictable challenges. A knock on his door robbed him of his tranquility.
It was Janni, the Vice President of HR. Guy looked out for Sara to figure out why she didn’t stop Janni from walking in. From the look on Janni’s face, there seemed to be a problem that needed to be addressed immediately. It was that type of day.
“What is it, Janni?” Guy sounded enthusiastic but nervous, hoping to get back to his moment of serenity.
“I think we might have a problem,” she said.
“Well, what is it?” Guy said, trying to read the expression on her face as she sat down.
This was very unlike Janni. She usually handled these matters by herself. Guy was not sure why this one was different.
“Just got a call from one of our area managers out east. A new staff member who just started working recently approached her to ask a question about signing a union card. Turns out that the new employee was approached by another staff member to sign up.”
“What? A union card? Which restaurant was that? Can we call to find out more to…?”
Janni cut Guy off immediately. “We cannot do that, Guy. We have to be very cautious. You know that labour laws have really strict rules on management behaviour during a union organizing drive.”
“What do you mean management behaviour? How are we so sure that’s what is happening? Shouldn’t we try to figure out what the heck is going on?”
“Once we are aware of anything like this,” Janni said, “we cannot be seen as campaigning against or interfering with the right to unionize.”
“So, we just sit around and wait for them to represent our employees? I mean, how will this affect the business?” Guy quickly caught himself as Janni gave him a sign to stay calm.
“Well, our job right now is to sit and wait.”
A call came through the office line, it was Sara.
“Guy, you have a call from one of the Board of Directors. It sounds like Ms. Peterson. She’s on line 2.”
“Thanks.”
Guy looked at Janni while he reached for the phone pad to press line 2. “Sorry, this might take some time.”
“No worries, Guy. I will call you when I get more information.” She headed out of the office.
In the three years he’d been president of Savos, Guy recalled the company’s pride in its chain of casual dining restaurants across Canada. Savos represented a memorable dining experience with fantastic food selection, welcoming spaces, and modern interiors. As a result, Savos has enjoyed great customer service ratings over the past ten years, consistently scoring over 4.5 stars across the country. Unfortunately, the customer was very different from the employee experience.
Since Guy joined the organization, turnover had always been a problem. However, due to the non-stop pace of the industry, nobody, including himself, had really paid much attention. As many say in the restaurant business, this is the nature of the beast. With some luck, though, Savos always found a way to hire new staff members, bring them up to speed, and get them in front of customers as quickly as possible. Sometimes success had a way of blinding you to your flaws. At least, that is how Guy had reasoned it so far. As Guy chatted with the board member, he couldn’t help but think about what was happening at the restaurant and the employees who were looking to bring in a union.
Why would staff want a union? I thought we had created the environment and offered the flexibility for people to feel good about working here. What have I missed?
“Hey, Guy, are you there?” Ann Peterson’s voice from the other end of the phone line jolted him back into reality.
“Sorry, Ann, yes, I can join the committee for a quick meeting tomorrow evening.”
“Great. I will email you the agenda and start time later today. Bye.” And with that Ann hung up.
Guy got off the call and stood staring out of his office window again. He needed to think and plan the next steps to take the organization out of the current situation.
While staring into the abyss, his office phone rang. It was Sara.
“You have a 4:15 p.m. meeting with Chief Information Officer Misha today. He has some updates for you on the new inventory software that is to be installed at the restaurants. The meeting should only last 20 minutes. But please remember that your son has a basketball game at 6:00 p.m. He is playing in Kitchener, so you’ll need to leave right after to get there on time.”
“And Janni just called to let you know that the Assistant Store Manager at the Vancouver North restaurant has handed in his two weeks’ notice today. She said that you should be aware that this is the fourth notice from restaurant management in the past month.”
“What!” Guy yelled with his inside voice. He was glad that Sara was not standing in front of him to see his reaction to this news. The fourth this month? What was going on? This was not good and he needed to get to the bottom of this quickly.
After a moment, he said, “Thank you, Sara. Please book a call with him for tomorrow. I’d like to personally wish him good luck.”
“Okay, I’ll do that.”
As Guy moved from the window and slumped into his chair, there was a knock at the door. It was his 4:15 p.m. meeting with the CIO.
“Come in,” he said, summoning the strength to keep the day going.
AWARD
“This year’s Board of Trade Business Impact Award goes to TBO Bank’s Director of Operations, Kathleen Brown!”
The room filled with applause once Kathleen’s name was announced. The ballroom was filled with about 100 professionals from across the Toronto area. Kathleen walked up to the podium to accept her award and give her speech.
She had never been good at standing in front of a crowd to make a speech. Despite being a strong and resourceful leader at TBO, Kathleen always tried to shy away from the spotlight. Thank heavens for presentation coaches! The last time she had to give an acceptance speech was over 20 years ago at university. She smiled to herself as she remembered looking at out at her fellow students, opening her mouth—and nothing coming out.
This time Kathleen was ready. She stood at the podium, looked down at her notes and then looked at the audience, smiled, and said, “Thank you. Thank you all very much. I want to first thank the organizers of this event for honouring me. I’m very grateful. I would also like to thank my mentor, Bill Weathers, for really pushing me to become the leader I am today.”
Many business leaders in the crowd knew and respected Bill. Kathleen could see heads nodding in the crowd.
“When I graduated from university, I thought I wanted to work in corporate finance. But, after six long months, I knew that finance was the biggest mistake of my life. After my second week...
