ARE YOUVIBINGWITHYOUR BUSINESS?
BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S CULTURE WITH ‘FIVE FREQUENCIES’
or not. Teams take cues from those who lead them, so if leaders aren’t dialed into the frequencies they’re giving off, they could be transmitting troublesome signals. Instead, leaders should always be dialed into their “vibes” and be particularly aware of five specific frequencies:
If you dive deep into the tactics of successful businesses and startups, a common thread among them is that culture reigns king. More and more value is placed on fostering an uplifting atmosphere for employees, which allows them to generate better business. The general consensus says great culture is built over time and can take many tries in an attempt to get it “just right.” But one book suggests that you might not need to look very far to pinpoint the biggest influence behind company culture. In “Five Frequencies: Leadership Signals That Turn Culture Into Competitive Advantage,” a team of four authors compile their years of extensive experience working with companies to execute cohesive strategies for building effective culture. Jeff Grimshaw, Tanya Mann, Lynne Viscio, and Jennifer Landis have witnessed company cultures of every type be successful and fail. They concluded that culture doesn’t cultivate from the many but, rather, is affected by the few. In this case, the few are the leaders of the business.
1. Their decisions and actions 2. What they choose to reward and recognize 3. What they do and do not tolerate 4. The way they show up informally 5. How they compose formal communications
“Five Frequencies” illustrates how correctly tuning into these frequencies can give leaders the tools they need to make bad culture good and good culture great. Full of tried-and-true examples from real companies around the globe, this guide proves that culture is not something tangible you can hold, nor is it a procedural element you can simply implement. It’s something people feel, and it’s built and explained by the behaviors that surround it. This means it can be difficult to manage, measure, and, most importantly, change. But if leaders take the time to look at themselves and the actions they exemplify, they’ll have a solid foundation to start.
The authors assert that leaders are, at every moment, transmitting signals to their team, whether intentionally
BIZ TOOL OF THE MONTH: ASANA
WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT AT YOUR FINGERTIPS
companies that need a looser, more customizable interface while still being able to manage teamwork and connect employees. Businesses tend to get the most out of Asana when the leadership team — or another group of designated administrators within the business — decides how Asana will be used before it’s rolled out to the entire company. Because it is so customizable, it’s easy to get lost in all the options if you don’t have some sense of your mission going in. As the folks at PC Magazine sum up, “Asana is like a deck of cards, whereas project management software is like a board game.” Because of the open-ended format, Asana also tends to work best for ongoing work, like weekly blog posts or emails, versus projects with a clear start and end date. You can choose from four tiers of services from Asana, ranging from Basic, which is the free plan, to Enterprise, which is the highest level. About once a year, Asana rolls out a new feature to keep things fresh and up to date for customers.
Amid the plethora of project management software out there determining the flow of your and
your employees' days, Asana seeks to provide you with more options. Like many similar tools, Asana helps you track who is responsible for a task, the information connected to each task, and information related to the progress on the task. Asana also shows you the daily stats for a bird’s-eye view of performance. Rather than setting everything in stone when it comes to project structure, though, Asana allows you to make the workflow management tool work for you and your business. This ability to endlessly customize is one of the main features that sets Asana apart. Asana doesn’t have a defined structure, meaning you can adapt it to what best suits your business’s needs, from automation to daily stats. Some project templates are provided, but a lot of the day- to-day use of the tool is up to you. While establishing the initial setup can take some time, it can be a great option for
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