A Culture of Collaboration

in partnership with Aspatore Books

™ ExecBlueprints

www.execblueprints.com

Copyright 2014 Books24x7®. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part is prohibited without the prior written permission of the publisher. This ExecBlueprints™ document was published as part of a subscription based service. ExecBlueprints, a Referenceware® collection from Books24x7, provides concise, easy to absorb, practical information to help organizations address pressing strategic issues. For more information about ExecBlueprints, please visit www.execblueprints.com.

The CEOs from WorldPay US, QuisLex, WD-40 Company, Wayfair, and Gorkana Group on:

A Culture of Collaboration: How the CEO Can Enable

Teamwork Across the Organization

Tony Catalfano President and Chief Executive Officer, WorldPay US

Ram Vasudevan Chief Executive Officer, QuisLex

Garry Ridge Chief Executive Officer, WD-40 Company

Niraj Shah Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder, Wayfair

Jeremy Thompson Chief Executive Officer, Gorkana Group

Unfortunately, silos are deeply entrenched in many organizations. Your employees may have been keeping their heads down and “digging their own ditch” for years, and without strong, determined leadership they will

not change. But there’s a lot to be said about open, team-oriented environments. More ideas tend to percolate. Products roll out quicker. People acquire new knowledge and work more effectively. This ExecBlueprint discusses strategies for fostering a spirit of collaboration at your company. The process will first require promoting a more “flat” organization. Downplay the significance of titles. Don’t just walk around, but get people into the room and empower them to share views, including those different from your own. Encourage managers across divisions to plan projects together, and let their people participate in the early phases when decisions affecting their work are being made. Show all employees how their efforts contribute to the goals of the organization. Reward efforts to mentor others. And, finally, appreciate that change will not happen overnight, and not everyone will be able to make the adjustment. n

Action Points

I. What Qualities Characterize a “Culture of Collaboration”?Virtually any organization can benefit from a culture of col-laboration because it fosters the cross-pollination of ideas and enables its people to achieve excellence. Common indicators of such an ethos are ability to work in cross-functional groups, shared data, open communication between leaders and staff, and incentives for collective achievements.

II. The Bottom LineIntuitively, you can probably sense that organizations that cultivate collaboration are more agile and innovative, but this can be hard to measure. Still, it is possible to make qualitative assessments by asking employees: Do you feel you are part of a team? Can you disagree with leader-ship? Are pathways for advancement within the organiza-tion visible?

III. Must-Have Strategies for Addressing Silos and Other ChallengesIf you want to develop a culture of collaboration — especially in a legacy environment that has operated in silos for a long time — you must be willing to discourage “good old boy” networks. This is accomplished by bring-ing people together to work out issues and showing them how they’ll benefit by teamwork, using external consultants if necessary.

IV. The Golden Rules for Spreading the Word About CollaborationTo effectively transform a company culture, you need to communicate often about your vision and how employees — and the organization — will be impacted. Employ mul-tiple channels to give people the chance to hear directly where the company is going, what you are doing, what you expect, what you want the culture to be, and what challenges loom.

V. Essential Take-AwaysAs CEO, collaboration begins with you and your own behavior. If you want to foster an open culture, start by being approachable yourself, to employees of all levels. Listen to ideas (even those you may not like), and familiar-ize people with the work of other business units by devel-oping cross-functional approaches to project planning.

Contents

About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.2

Tony Catalfano . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.3

Ram Vasudevan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.7

Garry Ridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.10

Niraj Shah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.12

Jeremy Thompson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.14

Ideas to Build Upon & Action Points . . . . . . . . p.16

© Books24x7, 2014 About the Authors ExecBlueprints 2

About the Authors

Niraj ShahChief Executive Officer and Co-founder, Wayfair

Garry RidgeChief Executive Officer, WD-40 Company

Jeremy ThompsonChief Executive Officer, Gorkana Group

Niraj Shah is the CEO and co-founder of Wayfair, the leading online home goods retailer. Before Wayfair, Mr.

Shah was CEO and co-founder of Sim-plify Mobile and Spinners, and was also

an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Greylock Partners.

Mr. Shah has been included in Fortune magazine’s 40 Under 40, and has won the Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year

award. He is also on the board of MITX and the Cornell University Council.

Garry Ridge is president and chief executive officer of the WD-40 Com-pany headquartered in San Diego,

California. WD-40 Company is the maker of the ever-popular WD-40® multi-use product and the 3-IN-ONE®, BLUE WORKS®, and WD-40 Specialist™ product lines.

Mr. Ridge has been with WD-40 since 1987 in various management posi-tions, including executive vice president, chief operating officer, and vice president of

international. He has worked directly with WD-40 in 50 countries.

His honors include Director of the Year for Enhancement of Economic Value by the Corporate Directors forum in 2003, the Arthur E. Hughes Career Achievement Award from the University of San Diego in 2004, and the Ernst & Young – Master Enterpre-neur Award in 2006. A native of Australia, Mr. Ridge has served as national vice presi-dent of the Australian Marketing Institute

and the Australian Automotive Aftermarket Association.

In 2009, he co-authored a book with Ken Blanchard titled, Helping People Win at Work: A Business Philosophy Called “Don’t Mark My Paper, Help Me Get an A.”

Jeremy Thompson is chief executive of the Gorkana Group, the market-leading media intelligence business with offices in

London and New York. Mr. Thompson led a team that put together a group of market-leading data and insight services which allow over 4,000 organizations around the world to connect with the media, manage reputa-tion, track the effectiveness of PR campaigns, and demonstrate return on investment in

communications programs. He sets the stra-tegic direction for the business as well as overseeing the day-to-day operations of the company.

Mr. Thompson started out on the gradu-ate program at Thomson Reuters before being introduced to the public relations world at United Business Media. He has experience building businesses organically and through acquisition and, for the last 10 years, has

worked in a private equity environment where growth is key. He has experienced several mergers and acquisitions and has led Gorkana Group to a position of market leadership in the U.K. He now has global growth aspirations.

Ram Vasudevan is founder and CEO of QuisLex. He has nearly 20 years of experience in providing high-quality

services to clients in a variety of settings.Prior to founding QuisLex, Mr. Vasude-

van spent eight years advising clients on corporate and M&A transactions with Skad-den Arps and Sidley Austin in New York. Before this he was with a multinational

consulting company, managing projects for large financial services clients. Both as a con-sultant, and as an attorney, Mr. Vasudevan’s focus has been to minimize risk and cost for clients, and navigate the ever-changing regulatory landscape. From his dual vantage point of consultant and practicing attorney, Mr. Vasudevan recognized an opportunity to positively impact how law is practiced

by providing legal support services that use Six Sigma process controls and advanced statistics-based analytics to increase quality. This continues to be the singular focus of QuisLex.

Ram VasudevanChief Executive Officer, QuisLex

Tony Catalfano became the president and CEO of WorldPay US in March 2012, bringing more than 20 years of

global financial industry management and implementation experience. Prior to join-ing Worldpay, Mr. Catalfano held positions with Fiserv, including division president of

electronic payments, where his responsibilities focused on Fiserv’s digital payment strategy as well as global banking solutions for core banking channels and payment solutions.

Mr. Catalfano also served as president and chief operating officer of Fiserv ETF/CNS, one of the largest providers of electronic

funds transfer processing. He joined Fiserv in 2002 when the company acquired Electronic Data Systems (EDS) Corporations’ Consumer Network Services business.

Tony CatalfanoPresident and Chief Executive Officer, WorldPay US

☛ Read Niraj’s insights on Page 12

☛ Read Garry’s insights on Page 10

☛ Read Jeremy’s insights on Page 14

☛ Read Ram’s insights on Page 7

☛ Read Tony’s insights on Page 3

© Books24x7, 2014 Tony Catalfano ExecBlueprints 3

Tony CatalfanoPresident and Chief Executive Officer, WorldPay US

Changing Culture to Encourage CollaborationAs chief executive officer for World-Pay, it is my job to encourage collab-oration. To provide some context, the company I run was once part of a bank and was acquired in 2010. Since then, we have been heavily in the midst of changing the company’s culture and it has been an interesting transition. We are transitioning the

company from a hierarchical bank organization, with its risk manage-ment programs and rigid structure, to a technologically focused com-pany. This has enabled our culture to move at a faster pace and work across organizational lines.

We have made great strides in moving the culture in that direc-tion. While I would not say we are anywhere near my dream state yet, you can definitely see evidence that groups of individuals at different levels of the organization are able to get together and collaborate on different types of business ini-tiatives, run those effectively, and communicate across all historical silos of our business. Sales, legal, and finance would normally have conflicts; their roles are designed for that. However, the company has evolved to a point where we can get those teams in a room, bring those different points of view to the table, understand them, and be

able to collaborate and move for-ward at a good pace. We are doing a great job at enabling a company we acquired to roll out numerous products within rapid timeframes because of these improvements in collaboration.

Compared to the rest of the industry, we are a typical com-pany, though we are striving to move beyond the industry norm

in terms of collaboration levels. We have brought together a mix of individuals from different indus-tries and done a good job of think-ing and acting differently than the legacy industry. We are creating a new culture by getting titles and roles out of the way and familiar-izing people with thinking cross-functionally. That is getting us to a place where we can move at a pace that exceeds our standard or legacy competitors.

Personally Driving TeamworkFor me, driving teamwork through-out the organization begins with how I act and behave. My job is to break down silos and discourage the “good old boy” networks and politicking environments that cre-ate a divisive company culture. Out of the larger environment, some of those things had filtered into our

business — job titles, who you knew, and backdoor conversations — and those were the things that drove the company.

But I do not tolerate them. To me getting things done is about entering a room, engaging with individuals, and empowering peo-ple that are frontline. Lead by example. When people were pol-iticking, my normal reaction was to stop it and then bring a team of people together into a room. I would facilitate bringing those dif-ferent views together myself. You need to walk the talk and not tol-erate behaviors that are different than what you want, and then be

Tony CatalfanoPresident and Chief Executive Officer

WorldPay US

“Collaboration is about building an organization in which a cross-functional group of people can com-fortably work together to achieve a common goal, without requiring some-body with a title to get things done.”

• With company since 2012

• More than 20 years of global finan-cial industry management experience

• Previously division president of elec-tronic payments at Fiserv

Mr. Catalfano can be e-mailed [email protected]

When employees have insight into how each person contributes to the joint goals, they start thinking in terms of the bigger picture and that kind of thinking starts to break down the silos.

Tony Catalfano

President and Chief Executive Officer

WorldPay US


Tony CatalfanoPresident and Chief Executive Officer, WorldPay US (continued)

open to helping people bring differ-ent points of views together. When conflicts arise, help bring the peo-ple into the room and assist them in working through the issues.

Leading CollaborationWhen leading collaboration across my executive team, my first step is to recognize that it is a team; I include the entire leadership team in most of the decisions. On a weekly basis we hold a for-mal, multiple-hour team meeting. Although I make the final deci-sion in many areas, the leadership team is involved in the decisions related to running the company. If you work in human resources, you understand and are involved in the business decisions. If you are the technologist, you understand how we go to market and engage in sales decisions.

In addition, all our employ-ees have a broad view of what we do. They are aligned in shared goals, and their incentive structures are absolutely aligned. Everyone is rewarded — or not — for the success of the company. Individ-ual successes are also important and we hold each other account-able. My job is to hold each person accountable for their component, but together the team considers the key metrics that make the com-pany successful. They are all being asked to step out of their individ-ual roles and, in a way, govern the company, if you will. As a result, I believe every person on the lead-ership team has been personally engaged with frontline employees.

Addressing SilosAddressing silos that may arise in the company starts with governing

the top of the company. We have engaged consultants to bring peo-ple together from those multiple silos and assist in educating and communicating about the bigger

picture while explaining what we are trying to accomplish. Those employees then facilitate under-standing of joint goals all the way down to the frontline employees.

From Silos to Collaboration:A CEO’s Recipe for

Transforming a Legacy Culture

Lead by example in breaking down silos and discouraging “good old boy” networks.

Communicate directly to the organization about what the culture should be and how to get there.

Personally engage with individuals, assist with resolving conflicts, and empower frontline employees.

Invest in consultants who can provide training to help people think collaboratively, and drive change across the

organization.

Include the entire leadership team in most decisions.

Turn collaboration into a performance metric, and hold people accountable for progress.



We have them walk the frontline while serving merchants and we have employees at the call center working to ensure people under-stand what we are trying to do at the customer level. As a result, mar-keting begins to consider call vol-ume impact and engages the call center when developing campaigns. The call center in turn understands their role in helping achieve a mar-keting campaign’s revenue goals. When employees have insight into how each person contributes to the joint goals, they start think-ing in terms of the bigger picture and that kind of thinking starts to break down the silos. In that way, you foster a culture of communica-tion across the organization.

Communicating CollaborationMy approach to communicating with the organization begins with conveying the message in my own voice. I host frequent all-employee meetings as a mechanism to hear directly from all levels of employ-ees. In these meetings employees also have a chance to hear me, not a speech someone has written for me. They hear directly how I view our challenges and how I respond — on the spot — to the questions they raise.

Since I took over as the leader of this organization in May 2012, I have spoken at multiple all-employee meetings and have stood in front of smaller groups (typi-cally 25-30) of employees at vari-ous times. I am open with the entire organization about where we are going and what we are doing, and the expectations around how we work together. Achieving this open-ness begins with communicating

directly to the organization, being overt about what you want the cul-ture to be, and how you want peo-ple to get there.

The next step involves actually standing up and reporting status, not just on business initiatives, but on cultural initiatives that we have been working to accomplish.

Collaboration as a Performance MetricFrom an HR perspective, we changed the performance appraisal process, changed our views of com-pensation, and put the right met-rics in place for measuring the right behaviors. When we are evaluat-ing our people for promotions and increased compensation, collabora-tion is one of the things we assess and measure. Someone may be the best person to sit in the cube and create code — and that is an impor-tant measure for a technical person — but we are also interested in how well they are collaborating: how do their internal customers perceive their success? We look at how peo-ple stand up and communicate the

direction for the company, and how they report culture-change initia-tives to leadership, and then along the way link those actions to our rewards systems. It is that whole stack that enables our company to change the culture and actually establish the kind of engagement and collaboration that we want at the corporate level.

We measure the success of our collaboration promotions through internal studies at the employee level. We have brought in external assistance for some of the key HR functions and have done a good job recruiting talent to help us put metrics in place that measure us against cultural change. We seek the employee’s perspective, but are also implementing measurements to track that the culture is mov-ing in the right direction. We then gauge employee feedback on com-munication. Finally, you need to get out on the floor and walk around. I spend time with leaders and front-line employees from different lev-els of the organization and ask them questions to gain their direct feedback.

Expert Advice

Collaboration Between Groups A good example of how different groups at our company collaborated in a significant way was a product packaging rollout. People from sales and marketing, customer service, and operations were consulted for their feedback on ideas. Then the technology organization was consulted to define, create, and build the packages at a rapid pace. They had to get them onto the street, and measure to see what was working and what was not, and then provide a feedback loop for the rest of the group regarding what was success-ful, what can be improved, and how we move forward with those improvements.

Other companies may not have involved the technicians in the upfront design, but bringing some of the people that build the product into that discussion upfront can help them understand why it is important and what it does for the culture and mission of the company. You must bring people from finance and technology into a market-facing decision early on so they are a part of the process. This dramati-cally changes the buy-in. You also change people’s expectations and you build collaboration around it.



Challenges in Increasing CollaborationFor us, the first challenge of increas-ing collaboration is transforming the legacy culture — a culture that we acquired and which is hard to break. Some people can change and others cannot. The hard part for me was removing some competent leadership that could not work in a collaborative way; they were still tied to silos. We have done work — including education and training — to move the organization onto a new path and that has helped. It is also important to remember that you cannot communicate enough. Communication is always difficult, but you must do it to control the rumor mill and make your thought processes visible.

It is also important to remem-ber that we do not always have the skills to effect change on our own, which is why we brought in some management consulting sup-port. I brought in a change man-agement coach (who I have used before) and he has worked with the leadership team for about a year. We also brought in facilita-tors. These experts teach us and help us practice how to behave in a different way so that we can mas-ter the skills. Early on, people did not understand this new way to work and so, because part of the time was spent teaching people different behaviors, we may have progressed slowly. We are moving much faster now.

When you first make these kinds of changes people ask why they are not downstairs writing code instead of wasting their time under-taking these other tasks. Those are the kinds of attitudes you must be aware of and plan to break through. You need to do a great deal of communicating to ensure that people understand where they are going. You need to be patient and understand that change will have an impact. You need to be okay with the fact that the first few times may take longer and keep in mind that you are making an investment in the future.

Increasing Collaboration in the FutureIn the next 12 months we will facil-itate and increase collaboration by investing time and effort in com-munication and leadership models. For example, we just had a two-day offsite meeting with the top 50 leaders of the company. Some of the content was around stan-dard budget planning and other business mainstays. However, day two was dedicated to situational leadership, which teaches people to think about the different kinds of skills in the organization and how to empower and communicate.

We are continuing to make tan-gible investments in building the strengths of the leadership team and encourage them to work in this way. We will also continue to invest in strong people who can get in a room, facilitate, help people think

collaboratively, and drive change across the organization. We will work to develop further training, tools, and skills to further improve how we work across the organiza-tion. Then each leader must com-municate across the organization and continue to provide visibility into where we are going, what we are doing, and how different ini-tiatives are impacting the whole. We will continue to work on our change management, development processes, and the upfront phases of creating a product.

Advice on CollaborationThe most important thing to always remember is that the communica-tions side of collaboration is abso-lutely critical. The hardest part is thinking through the change you are trying to bring about and help-ing prepare the leaders in the orga-nization for that change. How you communicate on a company and individual level concerning how people’s work is connected to the enterprise level is very important. When people understand that their team is part of something bigger, their motivation — and their feeling of worth within the organization — go up. It is a matter of com-municating on a daily basis how decisions are being made, how peo-ple are being affected, and where we are going as a company. The more you communicate the enter-prise view, the greater increase in employee satisfaction and personal net worth you will see. n

© Books24x7, 2014 Ram Vasudevan ExecBlueprints 7

Ram VasudevanChief Executive Officer, QuisLex

Creating a Culture of CollaborationFrom a structural perspective our organization is pretty flat. We have associates and senior associates, team leaders and project manag-ers, but those are more rule-based classifications as opposed to a tra-ditional hierarchy. Our substantive project work requires large teams of 50 or 100 people. It is not possi-ble for two or three people to carry a project through.

Our incentive mechanisms and systems are all geared toward rewarding teamwork. For exam-ple, during annual reviews, people are evaluated on their individual contributions as well as how many people they have mentored and the extent of their mentoring. Our val-ues are focused on people work-ing together. Collaboration is not an industry-specific concept. If an organization has a culture of open-ness where people can communi-cate freely, propose ideas, and offer evaluations based on merit, and as long as the incentive structure is aligned toward rewarding people to working collectively, a culture of teamwork will be fostered.

The best way to drive this team-work is to ignore titles. There can’t

be exceptions to the rules or people who believe they can operate out-side of the culture. As CEO, I need to walk the walk and follow the same rules as the newest employee. Anyone can walk up to me at any time, addressing me by my first name. This is more important in India where folks tend to be defer-ential to age and title. For culture to be true, everyone in the organi-zation needs to know what behav-ior to model and the tone is often set at the top.

Eliminating SilosIf my job is to dig a ditch, then once I move below ground level, I will have no connection to the rest of the world. I will be too busy in my hole to notice others. If there are 100 people doing the exact same thing, then that creates an entire field covered with little holes, but no foundation. Each individual is working hard, digging a hole, but without communication, the holes never connect to something wider.

Silos in business create the same effect. When people hunker down and focus on their own work, in their own department, then silos unintentionally spring up around them. This is basic human nature. The key is to get people to stop what they are doing and poke their

head out of their ditch, as it were, so that they can understand that, by working together, they can dig faster and more efficiently. We try to uncover best practices by doing project analytics at the end of proj-ects so that we understand what worked and what didn’t. Frequent communication is also a touch-stone of teamwork, and by building a system that fosters and rewards that behavior, we have been able to

Ram VasudevanChief Executive Officer

QuisLex

“I talk about teamwork a lot and expect people to collaborate, so I cannot lock myself in my office all day and never communicate with my colleagues. That would send entirely the wrong message.”

• Previously advised clients on cor-porate and M&A transactions with Skadden Arps and Sidley Austin

• As consultant and attorney, helps clients minimize risk and cost, and navigate regulatory landscape

• Bachelor of Laws, University of Madras

• Master’s degree, Law, Columbia University

• M.B.A., Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University

Mr. Vasudevan can be e-mailed [email protected]

If an organization has a culture of openness where people can communicate freely, propose ideas, and offer evaluations based on merit, and as long as the incentive structure is aligned toward rewarding people to working collectively, a culture of teamwork will be fostered.

Ram Vasudevan

Chief Executive Officer

QuisLex


Ram VasudevanChief Executive Officer, QuisLex (continued)

make teamwork a top priority and all but eliminate silos.

Encouraging CollaborationOne of the best practices for encouraging collaboration is hold-ing meetings where people can share ideas. However, in order for people to feel comfortable doing so, there must be a free and open culture of communication. But, while communication is essential, people need to feel comfortable talking to one another before they are willing to share ideas. If peo-ple are afraid to voice their views, then no new ideas will ever emerge.

We have tried to create a culture of irreverence. We are not encour-aging disrespectful behavior, but rather, approachability. People are expected to call each other by their first names. We also encourage col-laboration by rewarding it. New hires are assigned a senior mentor to help them adjust and acclimate. During annual reviews, our people are recognized not just for their solo performance, but also for how well their teams performed, and how much mentoring they have offered to others.

Collaboration Between DepartmentsOur two main areas of substantive work are litigation and corporate. Litigations involve a lot of data that needs to be analyzed very, very quickly. For our litigation-related work we specialize in recogniz-ing patterns and making sense of a lot of unstructured data. However, now we have started applying this knowledge to contracts when we aggregate provisions among vari-ous contracts for a particular client, for example, and prepare risk pro-files and perform other risk/return based analytics for them.

For example, we set up a collab-oration between the statisticians in the contracts group and the experts in our litigation group. While con-tracts tend to be more substantive with a higher degree of legal analy-sis, there is still a very high volume of information that has to be assim-ilated. In one case alone, there were greater than 20,000 agreements over a specific period of time with more than 400,000 substantive clauses that needed to be analyzed. By working together, we were able to apply the metrics and measure-ments learned in litigation to the

area of contracts with great success and drive tremendous efficiency into our contracts workflows.

Benchmarking CollaborationEmpirically measuring collabora-tion and benchmarking it is very difficult. It is one of those things that you know it when you see it but it is very difficult to measure. While you can encourage collab-oration and see that it does hap-pen, it’s hard to assess actual value. More meetings, for example, do not automatically lead to greater collaboration but they could be a facilitator. Generally, having an ecosystem that drives collaboration physically, logically, and culturally generates perhaps the best results as opposed to trying to calculate quantitatively how much collabo-ration happens and what its precise impact might be.

Within our company, we track how many leaders have been cre-ated because we feel that the more people work together, the more junior employees are able to rise to senior levels. Those that are men-tored, that are being heard, and

Essential Steps for Encouraging Collaboration

Holdmeetings

Promote open communication

between junior and senior employees

Create a culture of irreverence

Recognize people for:• Solo performance• Team

accomplishments• Mentoring offered

to others

Culture of collaboration+ + + =


Ram VasudevanChief Executive Officer, QuisLex (continued)

whose talent is being recognized will be promoted faster. Going back to the example of the ditch digger, if everyone just plugs away in their own hole, then no one will ever know how far they have dug, how quickly, or what they are find-ing along the way.

Promoting Collaboration InternationallyCollaboration can be difficult across different offices. When you factor in continents and time zones, the distance alone renders collab-oration automatically more dif-ficult. However, when you factor in cultural differences, then col-laboration becomes exponentially more difficult and a great deal of patience and understanding is required to foster it.

For example, Americans are very vocal and freely express their

opinions. However, in Japan, neg-ative points of view are rarely expressed for fear that offense will be taken. In the U.S., senior staff are regularly addressed and questioned by lower level staff, whereas in India, there is a much higher level of deference. As a result, I had to institute a policy preventing people from calling me “sir.” In our Indian office, a junior employee addressing a senior as “sir” forms an invisible, yet imper-meable, boundary between the two

and the presumption usually is that the senior will have the better ideas and be the larger contributor. That is not always the case. To foster a culture in which contributions come freely from all levels, the first thing we did was to do away with the “sir” or “madam” concept. It is difficult to root out though, as are most culturally embedded behaviors. I can now tell who is new to our company by the way they address me: new employees invariably call me sir. n

Expert Advice

Opportunities for Collaboration The key to our success is that we try to bridge the gap between all of our employees so that even the most junior-level employees function as effectively as our most experienced senior staff. We pro-vide litigation analytics support to companies and major law firms in some of the largest litigations and investigations in the world, and we also help clients draft and negotiate contracts. While these are two entirely different areas, they do have many similarities in process that may not be obvious. For example, both areas present great opportunities for collaboration and cross-application of innovations.

© Books24x7, 2014 Garry Ridge ExecBlueprints 10

Garry RidgeChief Executive Officer, WD-40 Company

Defining CollaborationCollaboration is really about encouraging communication. The goal is to use a set of pre-determined and agreed-upon out-comes to meet the vision of the organization. Our culture of col-laboration has naturally evolved over the past few years. Think of a petri dish — as external elements affect the growth of things inside the dish, we try to make sure pol-lutants don’t get into it. To do this, we try to encourage teamwork and communication so that everyone works well together and the culture naturally grows into a fertile com-pany. If collaboration isn’t happen-ing, it is important for people see the opportunities they are missing when they choose not to benefit from the counsel of others.

A key attribute of leadership is understanding and valuing the gift of contrarians and resisters. Good leaders don’t like yes men and syco-phants. They know these people will cause them to fail. They are not afraid to surround themselves with strong people.

At WD-40 Company we take a pledge of communication that we call the “Maniac Pledge.” It reminds us that we are all responsible for collaboration and communication:

“I am responsible for taking action, asking questions, getting answers, and making decisions. I won’t wait for someone to tell me. If I need to know, I am responsible for ask-ing. I have no right to be offended that I didn’t get this sooner. If I am doing something others should know about, I am responsible for telling them.”

Driving TeamworkAs CEO, I set a clear vision and goals for the organization with a clear line of sight to achieving them. Our vision is: Create posi-tive lasting memories by solving problems in the homes and facto-ries of the world. Problem solved. Job done right!

I encourage collaboration to breed great ideas and offer the freedom that comes from viewing

mistakes as “learning moments.” We run an employee opinion sur-vey every two years and use the results to measure how our peo-ple are reacting to the company and our culture. In our last survey, I was thrilled to learn that greater than 98 percent of respondents throughout our worldwide orga-nization feel free to openly discuss alternative points of view. Another great attribute we found through our surveys was that more than 97 percent of the workforce said that they know what results are expected of them. It is a good feel-ing to have such a positive response from our employees who believe

Expert Advice

Employee Rewards At WD-40 Company, the employees are rewarded based on both personal and business unit performance. I believe that we are one of a very few companies that created an employee growth reward program that benefits all employees. Part of the reward is based on year-over-year growth and part is based on personal performance. We also keep track of how people live our values. It is not enough to do good work, we expect our people to do good work within our values. Good work simply means getting the results. We want to get the results while working within our company’s framework of principles. Once people have instilled our company values into their behavior, then we have built a fence around them, as it were, that provides them with a feeling of security and clearly delineates what is and is not acceptable.

Garry RidgeChief Executive Officer

WD-40 Company

“Everyone knows where we want to go, so we work together to find the best way to get there.”

• With company since 1987

• Previously held positions of VP, EVP, and COO at WD-40

• Adjunct professor, Executive Leader-ship program at University of San Diego

• M.S., Executive Leadership, Univer-sity of San Diego

Mr. Ridge can be e-mailed [email protected]

A key attribute of leadership is under-standing and valuing the gift of contrarians and resisters.

Garry Ridge


WD-40 Company

© Books24x7, 2014 Garry Ridge ExecBlueprints 11

Garry RidgeChief Executive Officer, WD-40 Company (continued)

that we offer open and accessible channels of communication. Hav-ing a response like this helps us to follow through with our commit-ments and achieve results.

Promoting International CollaborationWe just launched an extension of the WD-40 brand called WD-40 Specialist across a number of geographies and different work-ing units. We established a global cross-functional team to help share the learning in that launch and it has been very successful. One of the reasons for this success is that we understand the differences inherent in working internation-ally. While those in the U.S. pre-fer a more direct approach, those in many European nations have a relationship-driven style. It is incredibly important to be aware of the differences between cultures and to be respectful of them. If you assume that everyone has the same cultural communication styles and needs as your company, then you will quickly find yourself in some very sticky situations. n

WD-40 Company’s“Maniac Pledge”

“I am responsible for taking action, asking questions, getting answers, and making decisions. I won’t wait for someone to tell me. If I need to know, I am responsible for asking. I have no right to be offended that I didn’t get this sooner. If I am doing something others should know about, I am responsible for telling them.”

© Books24x7, 2014 Niraj Shah ExecBlueprints 12

Niraj ShahChief Executive Officer and Co-founder, Wayfair

Driving TeamworkThe first thing that our company does to drive teamwork is hire the right people. We tend to hire people who are intelligent, hardworking, and team-oriented. It is my belief that you cannot truly teach some-one to be a team member; they are either good team members or they

are not. The second thing we do is set ourselves up for collaboration. To illustrate this, we have no pri-vate offices. All 12 floors in our main office building are set up like a trading floor — there are confer-ence rooms and some private space but everyone has a desk and if you have a question you can ask the person sitting near you.

Another example of our col-laborative nature is that we have an analytics platform where all of the data is available to everybody.

Data is not hoarded by a small group of employees while others do not know what is going on. We make all of the data widely acces-sible with the idea that when you go through all of the effort to bring talented people into the company, you then want to empower them so that they can achieve the maximum

possible. We think giving them full access to all of the information and data is one piece of that. Another thing that helps is that many of our initiatives are cross-functional and involve teams from different parts of the company which allows us to collaborate all of the time.

Reward StructureOur current compensation pro-gram is one of cash via a base sal-ary and bonus, and also equity. The equity provides a large reward and is also inherently tied to team-

work. We are a private company and there is a common belief that our equity will continue to grow at a fast pace. There is a general sense that we will all succeed while the company is succeeding, and the company will succeed by doing the right things for our customers. We engage in various efforts based on the premise that if we work together to get things done, we will all be better off. Roles and respon-sibilities are another area that sup-port our employees and reward their work ethic.

Expert Advice

Collaboration Initiatives Earlier this year we launched a program for Wayfair.com that is called Daily Sales. As a result, we dramatically changed our promotional program, which involved significant collaboration between different groups within the company. Instead of holding weekly sales events, we launched new sales every day. While always giving our customers new and interesting events to consider, the initiative did require our company to be much more agile and produce many more sale events. Several areas within the company all have roles in the process. A dedicated merchant team sourced and chose the events, and our product team built the web site and met all of the functionality needs. We chose someone from each group to drive the program, provide clear direction for the integrated effort, and also manage the cross-functional team around it. We now meet on a regular basis to maintain consistency as well as further develop the program.

Niraj ShahChief Executive Officer and Co-founder

Wayfair

“Because our company is growing so quickly, we hire on a regular basis and promote from within whenever possible. This sends a positive mes-sage to our employees that people are being promoted into leadership roles, creating constant opportunity.”

• Previously CEO and co-founder, Simplify Mobile and Spinners

• Featured in Fortune’s 40 Under 40

• Recipient, Ernst and Young’s Entre-preneur of the Year award

• B.S., Cornell University

Mr. Shah can be e-mailed [email protected]

We proactively avoid silos by encouraging people to move within the company into various roles over time.

Niraj Shah

Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder

Wayfair

© Books24x7, 2014 Niraj Shah ExecBlueprints 13

Niraj ShahChief Executive Officer and Co-founder, Wayfair (continued)

Benchmarking EffectivenessTo benchmark our effectiveness, we do regular surveys—quarterly or bi-annually—and we ask ques-tions that will help us understand success from our employee’s point of view. We look at which efforts are going well and if efforts are not going well, then we investigate the reasons. Are resources are falling short, is a group not getting sup-port from another area of the com-pany, or perhaps this project is not

being viewed as high priority for one group like it is for another? It is about feedback rather than bench-marking right now; we are focusing on when things are not going well and figuring out why so that we can drive continuous improvement.

Increasing CollaborationAt present, we are not specifi-cally focused on increasing col-laboration since it is happening everyday already. We are com-fortable with the current amount

of collaboration, and the chal-lenge now becomes maintaining that level. As we grow, there will be more people in each department — and this could potentially increase isolation between the different areas of the company. That is our main concern. To tackle it, we pro-actively avoid silos by encouraging people to move within the com-pany into various roles over time. That tends to break down and communication or other barriers that can inhibit collaboration. n

Hire the right people: intelligent, hardworking, and team-oriented

Create open architecture: no private offices

Make data accessible to everybody: no hoarding

Create cross-functional teams: different

departments working together

1 2 3 4

Wayfair’s 4 Best Practices for Fostering a Culture of Collaboration

© Books24x7, 2014 Jeremy Thompson ExecBlueprints 14

Jeremy ThompsonChief Executive Officer, Gorkana Group

RestructuringGorkana Group was created through a three-way integration of three market-leading businesses — Durrants, Metrica, and Gorkana. The integration began in 2010 and was completed earlier this year. The three organizations were work-ing extremely well independently, so the rationale for the integration was all about the revenue, not the cost synergies. The ambition was

to bring them together slowly, but surely, over time, beginning with product and finishing with the back office.

Today, we have created a clear market leader and powerful force in the media intelligence industry. But it has not been without its chal-lenges. For example, slow-rolling the integration had the negative effect of preserving the cultures of the legacy businesses, which cre-ated silos. It also led to multiple lines of responsibility and a lack of clear accountability in some areas.

Breaking Down the BarriersBringing together three culturally different organizations can be dif-ficult, but any integration needs to be led from the top with a clear plan. You have to accept that there will always be winners and losers, and focus on the broader benefits for the wider commu-nity. In our example, integration

started with a vision for a com-bined future; it included a major exercise to harmonize pay, terms, and conditions to combine the best of all worlds, where possible, within the framework of our bud-get and plans. Clearly we could not include everything; small businesses often have quirky benefits that do not scale. You need to accept that, explain the rationale for change, and move on. Not everyone will

like it, but you need to focus on the broader plan and remain reso-lute. You must also accept that you will not be able to bring everyone along with you. Some will not buy into your vision, whatever you do, and you should accept that and focus on the majority who will make the difference. This often happens when you want to intro-duce scale to smaller businesses, without compromising quality, but sometimes at the expense of an ele-ment of customization. Not every-one wants scale; some like running small businesses, and the very per-sonal touch you can offer. But that can stifle growth.

Change is never easy to drive; people naturally resist it, even when it is clearly for the better. That is because change creates uncertainty and leaves vacuums. A company needs to have a clear plan, com-municate clearly and regularly, and act quickly and decisively if you believe that what you are doing is

fundamentally right. It is important to bring the team with you and that challenge can and should be shared among managers. You cannot do it all yourself.

Focusing on the Customer Experience to Achieve SuccessCustomers expect a seamless, inte-grated experience. They do not want to have to speak to three dif-ferent executives if they have prob-lems with three different services. They want one point of contact,

Jeremy ThompsonChief Executive Officer

Gorkana Group

“Focus on selling the benefits of inte-gration and accept from the start that you will not get everyone on board. Play the long game.”

• Sets strategic direction for the business and oversees day-to-day operations

• Has led company to position of mar-ket leadership

• Experienced in mergers and acquisitions

• Previously with United Business Media

Mr. Thompson can be e-mailed [email protected]

Bringing together three culturally different orga-nizations can be difficult, but any integration needs to be led from the top with a clear plan.

Jeremy Thompson


Gorkana Group

© Books24x7, 2014 Jeremy Thompson ExecBlueprints 15

Jeremy ThompsonChief Executive Officer, Gorkana Group (continued)

one point of accountability. They want to be able to get through to that person the first time. They want to feel looked after. By com-bining the teams, integrating cus-tomer relations management, and developing a common approach to account management, we have dramatically improved the cus-tomer experience and have clearer data on our customers. By defin-ing clearer points of ownership, we have driven greater accountability. We have also been able to focus more clearly on the strength of our relationships.

For Gorkana Group, success is an integrated media intelligence business that is more compel-ling and successful in combina-tion. We have tracked the revenue synergies closely and have man-aged a hugely successful cross-sell program between the three

lines of business. We have more “triple play” customers than ever before, and have improved reten-tion and renewal rates in the busi-ness. Margins are well up in the acquired businesses, offsetting some re-engineering required in the core. We are delivering high single-digit growth across the group, with much stronger numbers in the new territories where we are moving.

Integrating three businesses has taken the best part of three years to complete, but it has ultimately been successful. We have built the market-leading business in the U.K. and are now proving that we can drop the blueprint into other mar-kets. And, finally, we have dropped the legacy brands and formed one business, Gorkana Group. n

Expert Advice

Strong communication begins with building a plan and thinking about your objec-tives and important stakeholders, and working out the frequency with which you will engage. That will determine the tools or forums you can use. Communicating in small businesses is easy. Once you start to scale, and work across geographies, it gets more difficult. Town hall, face-to-face meetings are important, but not always possible. We use technology to bridge the gap. At Gorkana Group, we have built an internal communication plan that employs a range of forums such as regular Chatter through Salesforce.com to semi-annual theater-style formal updates to groups of 100, where face-to-face interaction is still possible.

© Books24x7, 2014 Ideas to Build Upon & Action Points ExecBlueprints 16

Ideas to Build Upon & Action Points I. What Qualities Characterize a “Culture of Collaboration”?Teamwork and collaboration are not industry-specific concepts; with the right, inspired lead-ership and determined effort, most, if not all, organizations can increase the incidence of these positive activities — and benefit accord-ingly. What are telltale features of such cul-tures? The authors reveal several:

• Cross-functional groups work comfort-ably together to achieve common goals.

• People are able to communicate freely to propose ideas and resolve conflicts.

• People from different professions cross-pollinate skills and knowledge to create new organizational synergies.

• Data is not hoarded, but available to all authorized employees to achieve as much insight as possible.

• Due to the early participation of all stakeholder groups, products and ser-vices are rolled out quickly.

• Working collectively and mentoring others is a performance expectation, and rewarded accordingly.

• Even frontline employees have insights into how each person contributes to the enterprise-level picture.

• Leaders and staff share a common organizational vision.

II. The Bottom LineYou probably know collaboration when you see it, but its value to the organization can be very difficult to empirically measure. For example, more meetings do not automati-cally lead to greater collaboration and, unfor-tunately, a direct line can rarely be drawn between increased teamwork and profitabil-ity. But one way you can gauge your prog-ress in this area is through direct observation and employee opinion surveys. Questions to explore include:

• How does each team member contribute and help others?

• How many employees feel free to openly discuss alternative points of view?

• How many know what results are expected of them?

• To what extent do employees perceive that their efforts/projects are valued by the organization as a whole?

• How many leaders have been developed internally as a direct result of the opportunities they have gained from teamwork?

• What revenue synergies have been cre-ated as a result of collaboration across business units?

III. Must-Have Strategies for Addressing Silos and Other ChallengesWhen people hunker down and focus on their own work, silos can unintentionally spring up. The CEO’s job, therefore, is to motivate employees to poke their heads out of their “ditches,” leave their comfort zones, and work together with others on broader ini-tiatives. Proven methods for accomplishing this, even when faced with resistance, include:

• Engaging external consultants to assist with educating and communicating with all levels about the bigger picture

• Facilitating the resolution of conflict by bringing people together and assisting them to work through issues

• Showing people the opportunities they are missing when they choose not to benefit from the knowledge and experi-ence of others

• Removing people, including executives, who are unable or unwilling to be part of the change

IV. The Golden Rules for Spreading the Word About CollaborationIt is important to remember that when endeavoring to transform a company’s cul-ture you really cannot communicate often enough. Try to control the rumor mill and ensure that people know where the organiza-tion is headed. While this may be more eas-ily accomplished in smaller businesses, you should still plan to reach out via town hall meetings and technology-enabled forums to your employees, even if you lead a large orga-nization. Essential points to convey are:

• What you want the culture to look and feel like

• How you are viewing the challenges ahead

• How you are envisioning that people should work together

• How different initiatives will impact the company at an enterprise level

• How people will be affected

• What progress toward goals is being made

V. Essential Take-AwaysDriving teamwork across the organization begins with how you, the CEO, act and behave. If you want to foster a culture of col-laboration, you cannot lock yourself in your office all day and never communicate with colleagues. Instead, you should lead by exam-ple. Best practices for fostering an open envi-ronment at your company are:

• Invest in teaching all levels (from leaders to frontline staff) new collaborative skills and behaviors.

• Help new hires to adjust and acclimate by assigning senior mentors.

• Familiarize people with thinking cross-functionally.

• Involve multiple business units in upstream project planning — even those whose specific responsibilities lie in downstream activities.

• Include your entire leadership team in most decisions.

• Encourage approachability from people of all levels; discourage the use of titles, including “sir” and “madam.”

• Empower people to voice their views, including contrary opinions.

• Allow people to make mistakes; see these as “learning moments.”

• Accept that not all strategies will work in all settings, especially those in offshore locations with different cultural practices.

• Reward people for collective as well as individual contributions that align with company values.

• Promote your people when possible, and provide opportunities for employees to move within the company into various roles.

• Be patient and appreciate that effecting change will impact people as well as the organization. n

© Books24x7, 2014 Ideas to Build Upon & Action Points ExecBlueprints 17

Ideas to Build Upon & Action Points (continued)

ExecBlueprints is a subscription-based offering from Books24x7, a SkillSoft Company. For more information on subscribing, please visit www.books24x7.com.

10 Key Questions and discussion Points

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1 At present, how does the culture of your organization encourage collaboration? How has this culture evolved over the past few years? Do you think the level of collaboration at your company is typical of your industry?

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

As CEO, how do you personally drive teamwork through the organization? Has your strategy changed at all over the years? How have you modified your leadership style to encourage collaboration?

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

How do you determine where the greatest opportunities for collaboration exist within the organization? Do you tend to look across departments? Across different regions or offices?

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

How do you address silos that arise within the organization? Is this a problem at present? Have you attempted to break down silos in the past?

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

As CEO, how do you lead collaboration across the executive team? How do you communicate with the executive team? How do you encourage communication between other members of the team? How do you address conflicts or disagreements that may arise?

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

What are your best practices for communicating with the organization about collaboration? What methods do you use to you use to share ideas and priorities with employees? How do you encourage employees to share their feedback?

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

Can you give an example of a recent company initiative that involved significant collaboration between different groups? How did those involved collaborate effectively? Were any lessons learned for the future?

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

How do you benchmark the effectiveness of your efforts to promote collaboration? What can you measure? Through what means? Engagement surveys? Improved outcomes?

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

What are the top challenges in increasing collaboration in an organization? How can you overcome these challenges? How do you overcome resistance to change? How do you avoid creating additional bureaucracy?

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

What unique challenges exist in promoting collaboration across international sites? Are language barriers an issue? Different cultures/ways of working? How can these challenges be overcome?

?

Documents

A Culture of Collaboration