New book co-authored by Heidrick & Struggles' Rose Gailey and Ian
Johnston offers insights on pivoting culture to prepare for
the future amidst a once-in-a-generation shift in work and office
life
CHICAGO, Oct. 28, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Released today,
"Future Focused: Shape Your Culture. Shape Your
Future." examines how leaders from all types of
organizations have used culture to drive successful organizational
change and deliver purposeful, sustained performance. The book's
release comes as the voices of employees take center stage
globally. "Future Focused" serves as a practical guide for
business leaders who are grappling with today's dramatic changes to
work life brought on by the pandemic and looking to sustain
and drive culture through numerous points of transformation.
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Building upon the book's core principles for shaping culture,
leaders can learn from the achievements of successful CEOs and
reinvent culture to meet the pandemic's myriad of forced changes,
and provide steady, transparent and future-focused leadership to
deliver improved business outcomes. The book highlights a number of
successful company cultures through the lens of leading
inspirational CEOs, including those from Anthem, Aptiv, Helen of
Troy, Jack in the Box, Lumen, Yum
Brands and more.
"Culture is the underpinning of great companies and supports
performance during unprecedented periods of uncertainty and
volatility," said Krishnan
Rajagopalan, President and CEO, Heidrick & Struggles.
"Today in the C-suite, discussions on hybrid and virtual work
policies are taking top priority as leaders redefine what it means
to be part of an organization in remote and increasingly
distributed settings. Values and mission, coalesced into a
meaningful purpose, are at the core of cultures that have helped
companies thrive both before and during the pandemic. This book
offers sound best practices built from more than four decades of
experience to guide leaders as they examine what the future will
look like for their teams and workplaces, and evolve their cultures
and purpose to meet the unique needs of their organizations."
Co-authored by Rose Gailey and
Ian Johnston, partners at Heidrick
& Struggles and leading experts on organization acceleration,
culture shaping and transforming organizations, "Future Focused"
stresses that leaders who lay a solid cultural foundation,
authentically commit to a set of values, and define and depend on
an inspiring purpose to build companies will show more resilience
and face less turmoil – and they will continue to have that
advantage no matter what the future holds. With flexibility named
as one of the fastest-rising job priorities in the U.S., and
younger generations of workers renegotiating the centrality of work
and its role in their personal lives, the authors also raise a
sense of urgency for companies to start focusing on culture now and
provide a straightforward framework to get started.
The new book offers four principles that highlight culture
as an ecosystem, impacting all stakeholders – from employees, to
customers, to shareholders. The principles define how to shape a
thriving, high-performing culture in a healthy ecosystem:
- Thriving cultures require purposeful leadership.
- Transformation is rooted in personal change.
- Broad engagement is key for the culture to be lived.
- Thriving into the future requires systemic alignment.
"We are at an important inflection point in the way workplaces
define culture," commented Gailey. "More than ever, the way we are
living and working today requires empathetic leadership and the
ability to listen with understanding and provide a psychologically
safe place for employees to voice concerns. Additionally,
as we learned from our 2021 global survey of top CEOs
regarding culture, leaders who link culture to strategy also
outperform their peers significantly – doubling their 3 year
compound growth rate for revenue. Culture, then serves to act not
only as a catalyst to break through uncertainty and stabilize an
organization and engage employees, but also to bolster financial
performance."
In "Future Focused", Gailey and Johnston warn that failure to
intentionally shape culture opens the door to risk, while
purposeful, future-focused cultures secure mindsets and behaviors
that deliver performance and minimize risk. CEOs and executive
leaders must make sure that culture is systemically "hardwired"
into the fabric of the organization's HR systems, quality and
operational excellence initiatives, and employee and customer
experience to be sustainable.
"Communication is oxygen for organizations at all times, but
most especially in times of transition," stated Johnston. "Leaders
who communicate openly, honestly, vulnerably and consistently will
enable employees to weather uncertainty and move to action."
"Future Focused," published by Networlding, is available for
purchase here.
About Heidrick & Struggles
Heidrick & Struggles (Nasdaq: HSII) is a premier provider of
global leadership advisory and on-demand talent solutions, serving
the senior-level talent and consulting needs of the world's top
organizations. In our role as trusted leadership advisors, we
partner with our clients to develop future-ready leaders and
organizations, bringing together our services and offerings in
executive search, diversity and inclusion, leadership assessment
and development, organization and team acceleration, culture
shaping and on-demand, independent talent solutions. Heidrick &
Struggles pioneered the profession of executive search more than 65
years ago. Today, the firm provides integrated talent and human
capital solutions to help our clients change the world, one
leadership team at a time.® www.heidrick.com
Heidrick & Struggles Media Contact:
Mindi Wood
+1 (212) 551-0930
mwood@heidrick.com
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