Roberts - Nimble, focused, feisty: organizational cultures that win in the new era and how to create them

PRAISE FOR NIMBLE, FOCUSED, FEISTY

It is often said that culture eats strategy for breakfast. In Nimble, Focused, Feisty, Sara Roberts demonstrates just how important organizational culture is for success and shows you what kind of nimble and focused culture you need to build to thrive in todays turbulent world. She offers a highly practical book that is invaluable not just for senior leaders but for anyone who yearns to thrive at work.

MORTEN T. HANSEN, professor and faculty director at UC Berkeleys Center for Leadership, coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Great by Choice, and author of Collaboration

Having worked with Sara over the years, I have learned that fostering a strong culture is THE key ingredient for a business to adapt to ever changing market dynamics and challenges. Nimble, Focused, Feisty is a fantastic and straightforward guide to driving your own vibrant culture and succinctly clarifies why culture is critical to your success as a contemporary leader.

PAUL ROGERS, president and chief executive officer at GE Wurldtech

As a strategy leader in a large complex organization tasked with driving transformation, I have found that culture work is tricky business. Robertss emphasis on mindset, connected leadership, and the feisty spark is the right recipe to begin the cultural change journey. She gets down to the brass tacks of what it takes to steer a big ship onto a better, more enlightened course.

ERIN SELLMAN, senior vice president and head of strategy, insights, and planning at Lowes Companies, Inc.

What is company culture? Its something you cant afford to ignore. Its the difference between sinking or swimming in todays consumer-driven marketplace. Nimble, Focused, Feisty is the ultimate guide to staying afloat by learning from the best. And I speak from first-hand experience having worked with Sara and her team.

CYNTHIA STODDARD, senior vice president and chief information officer at NetApp

Innovation gets all the buzz, but thats not whats going to save your company. We live in a new world. You need to transform your culture to thrive... to have impact. Sara Roberts shows you how.

BRANT COOPER, founder of Moves the Needle and author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Entrepreneur

There is no Wizard of Oz curtain between how customers perceive you and how your employees think, collaborate, execute, and maneuver change. The only way to sustainably and authentically deliver great experiences to customers in todays complex environment is to create a company culture that enables people to contribute fearlessly and connect passionately to the organizations purpose. Nimble, Focused, Feisty will shift your thinking about how to lead and thrive in a marketplace, and a world, exploding with change.

ROBIN BEERS, head of customer experience insights at Wells Fargo Bank

Nimble, Focused, Feisty shines an important light on company culture. Chilling to those who would ignore culture and inspiring to those wishing to build it, Sara Robertss words are vital to those who care about the future of their companies.

DAN ADAMS, founder of the AIM Institute and author of New Product Blueprinting

Sara astutely synthesizes, in a meaningful and actionable way, the most powerful trends facing corporations. Its a great introduction for executives who are trying to understand why this crazy thing called culture is so important, while providing a layer of depth for current cultural change agents. Nimble, Focused, Feisty explores the importance of creating a corporate culture that empowers employees. She demonstrates how companies that have embraced collaboration have been able to adapt and thrive, and how the lack of attention to culture has led to the downfall of corporate giants. Sara makes the case for why 21st century leaders need to be both self-aware and responsive to an increasingly quickening environment. Sara brings together all of the current thought leadership around the importance of new models for corporate culturethe winning strategy for companies interested in adapting to survive. She provides concrete, actionable steps, and thought provoking questions to kickstart the journey of organizational transformation, which arguably all companies will need to embrace.

SHANNON LUCAS, change agent and director of innovation at Vodafone Global Enterprise

What is the difference between a great company and all the others? In a word, culture. Sara Roberts has cracked the code on what a great culture looks like... and offers practical guidelines on how you can build a great one in your company.

DAN WARD, U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and author of F.I.R.E.: How Fast, Inexpensive, Restrained, and Elegant Methods Ignite Innovation and The Simplicity Cycle

SARA ROBERTS

NIMBLE
FOCUSED
FEISTY

Organizational Cultures
That Win in the New Era
and How to Create Them

Copyright 2016 by Sara Roberts

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

BenBella Books, Inc.

10440 N. Central Expy., Suite #800

Dallas, TX 75231

www.benbellabooks.com

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First E-Book Edition: August 2016

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

LCCN: 2016011919

978-1-942952-13-8 (hardback)

978-1-942952-14-5 (e-book)

Editing by Debbie Harmsen

Copyediting by Brian Buchanan

Proofreading by James Fraleigh and Brittney Martinez

Indexing by Jigsaw Information

Text design and composition by John Reinhardt Book Design

Cover illustration and design by Joel Holland

Jacket design by Sarah Dombrowsky

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To place orders through Perseus Distribution:

Tel: (800) 343-4499

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For Vinn and Joerg.
Im beyond blessed for the life
I get to share with you two.

CONTENTS

Part 1
Organizations That Win: How Theyre Nimble, Focused, and Feisty

Part 2
Organizations That Win: How to Create Them

HOW DO TWENTIETH-CENTURY COMPANIES become nimble, focused, and feisty? Thats a question Sara Roberts asks and answers in this book, and its a problem I grappled with firsthand while leading a coaching community as Innovation Leader at GE.

In 2013, I initially thought the challenge of rolling out an organization-wide innovation methodology through a large group of willing and eager team members would be relatively straightforward. We had a bevy of supportive tools and templates at our disposal and a century of confidence in the companys track record of reinvention. Yet, we encountered the sort of widespread and subconscious resistance to change that brings to mind Peter Druckers famous observation that Culture eats strategy for lunch.

My role was to get several hundred internal coaches aligned around that strategy and equip them to lead their teams through new external offerings and internal processes. I soon discovered that I could not simply rely on templates and methodology to make this happen; there were other, unspoken barriers in the mindset of the coaching team holding us back. Essentially, we were running into an invisible fence called culture. Sara and her group helped make that invisible fence far more visible.