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Customer Service Week Q&A with Cornell hotelie grad

In honor of Customer Service Week 2018, Cornell Hotelie grad Kelly To recently spoke with eCornell about the value of customer service from the perspective of a recent Cornell Hotel School grad.

Kelly is a 2018 graduate of Cornell’s Hotel School, with a degree in hotel administration and a minor in design and environmental analysis. Originally from Long Island, she now works in New York City as an events operation coordinator at a management consulting firm, and has experience in customer service, outreach, and hospitality.

What follows is an abridged version of our Q&A with Kelly To.

eCornell: Congrats on your graduation! As you enter the working world, how do you feel your education at Cornell has prepared you to be successful in your career?

To: My Cornell education definitely helped prepare me to be successful in my day-to-day work responsibilities. Right now, I’m working as an Events Coordinator which involves outreach, market research, negotiations, and project management—all of which I have learned and experienced in my courses.

I believe Cornell has provided me a very practical education that I’m now able to directly apply to my work. For example, I studied business computing, management communications, and negotiations at the Hotel School that provided really valuable skills that now help me in my daily responsibilities here in NYC.

I’m also so grateful for the community and support that the Hotel School provided me not only while I attended Cornell, but even today as a graduate.

eCornell: What do you enjoy about working in the customer service industry?

To: What I enjoy the most about working in hospitality is the people. While working in a customer-facing role, you are constantly meeting new people from all walks of life. You get to learn their stories and where they come from, and you have the privilege of creating and providing them a memorable experience. I have also learned that the people who choose to work in hospitality are some of the most hardworking and passionate people that you will ever meet.

Throughout my service roles, I’ve been able to develop strong communication, interpersonal, and leadership skills. I was able to learn the operations of hotels, clubs, and restaurants—but more importantly, I learned how to quickly adapt to different environments and people—and how to react when things went wrong.

eCornell: On the flip side, what do you find challenging about the customer service industry or field?

To: Really, the most challenging aspects of a customer service role are the same things that make it exciting. You can never please everyone, and there will always be difficult customers and situations. However, this serves as a motivation for me to always keep improving and innovating in order to continuously raise standards.

It can also be challenging because every single day is different, and you never know what’s going to happen at any given moment. However, understanding the operational standards and being ready to solve any problem that comes your way definitely keeps things exciting and keeps you on your toes.

eCornell: More broadly, why do you think knowledge about customer service is valuable across organizations and for all team members?

To: Hospitality is important because it’s in everything that we do. Wherever there are people and interactions, there can be (and I think there should be) a focus on hospitality and service. This is not limited to the hotel, cruise, or airline industry or customer service roles that are externally client-facing. You can think of your “clients” as your coworkers and teammates. There are always opportunities to be of service to others.

It’s been a new, exciting experience working in corporate events because I’m now on the “client-side” of the hotels and restaurants. The “customers” that I am now serving are the internal employees of the company, which is exciting in its own way because I am able to help create and cultivate the company culture.

Ultimately, my goal is to build community and an inclusive culture through curated experiences. I enjoy this field because I’m able to interact with many different types of people every day, and it’s so rewarding to see events come to life knowing that your hard work has led up to an experience that others can have, enjoy, and remember.

eCornell: Finally, as a Cornell Hotelie yourself, how do you think the Service Excellence training through eCornell could benefit team members, employees, or anyone who engages in customer service?

To: The Service Excellence training through eCornell has a very practical curriculum that I think you can apply directly into your everyday life. Elizabeth Martyn, the author, is also a Hotel School ‘07 alum and worked as an undergraduate core curriculum instructor at Cornell, so I can definitely speak to the value of that background and experience.

Understanding how to effectively communicate and collaborate with others is definitely an essential skill for people working in customer service and hospitality, but it’s really applicable to anyone looking for further develop themselves as a leader. I believe that having first-hand experience and training in service excellence is crucial in developing the problem-solving and “people” skills that are necessary to excel in any job in any industry.

Photo of Kelly To by Jason Ben Nathan

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Empower Your Team Through Servant Leadership

Servant Leadership is fast-becoming a prominent leadership style, and for good reason: It tends to increase trust and collaboration among team members, helps to build coalitions and community, and promotes ethical business practices.

While many leaders use the power of their position to direct and control employees, the servant leader listens; her focus is on understanding employees to develop and support them. Servant leaders flip the traditional relationship between the employee and the leader, fostering a strong service culture by empowering and involving workers.

As part of the eCornell Entrepreneurship webinar series, Judi Brownell from Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration joined Chris Wofford for a interactive discussion on how servant leadership can transform your organization to one that is service-centered and culturally inclusive.

An abridged version of their conversation follows.

Wofford: Judi, we previously had a great conversation about the art of listening as it relates to leadership (((link to previous transcript))). Today we’re going to be covering the concept of servant leadership. What is that? It sounds like a response to a top-down leadership style.

Brownell: Well, servant leadership is relatively recent. The term was coined at some point in the early 1970s, but it was only recently that it became a truly prominent leadership style. What happens in servant leadership is that the follower experience really changes. Instead of followers taking a backseat and looking to a leader as the one who knows everything, servant leadership really puts the power front and center.

A servant leader follows a philosophy of service. A servant leader needs to believe that his or her role is really to serve, and they get satisfaction and gratification out of that type of behavior.

Wofford: I don’t want to preempt something you plan to talk about later, but does gender figure into this?

Brownell: It’s fine to talk about it now. I’ve done a lot of work with women’s career development and I do believe that men and women have different sets of competencies that come naturally to them. There are some people who would disagree, but men tend to be more assertive and more readily authoritative. Women tend to be better listeners. Women tend to be more emphatic.

The servant leader has a lot of characteristics that have always been associated with women’s leadership style. The wonderful thing is that, where in the past these characteristics may have been associated with weakness or pointed to as reasons why women are less effective, now the pendulum has swung and these same characteristics fit perfectly with the philosophy of servant leadership.

Wofford: And what’s at the heart of that philosophy?

Brownell: Servant leadership empowers followers. Rather than telling them what to do, and giving them a little bit of training here and there, servant leadership is about really developing your employees, really sitting down with them and asking, “What is it that you need to do your job better?”

It’s about looking at each employee as individually as possible. I believe that the opportunity to do this exists in most organizations. It could be as simply as just sitting down with people and asking, “Are you happy at your job? What is it that I can do as a leader to help?”

A leader presumably has more access to more resources and can perhaps shift an employee to a better position or cross-train them or whatever it is that they need to be happier and more effective in their work.

Wofford: We’ve got a good question here from Karen. She writes: “Yes, the servant leadership style may be more like a ‘woman’s style’ but in my experience (and I think research backs this up) men’s style of leadership includes a mentoring skill, whereas it is harder to find women leaders who mentor other females up the ranks.” Judi, any thoughts on that?

Brownell: Yeah, I’ve got lot of thoughts on that. I did a lot of work on that particular problem, in fact. This is really digressing from our main topic, but it’s interesting. I did a study asking women coming out of an MBA program whether they thought they would be as effective as men in a leadership role. They all said yes.

Then I asked them if they would rather work for men or women, and almost 90 percent of the women said they would rather work for a man than work for a woman. When it comes to mentoring, women either are the very best team ever or they are in conflict with one another, particularly when they are in an organization with very few women and a lot of men.

We need women mentoring women and we need women being advocates for women. And I think there are a lot of women out there who are great mentors – we just need to expand that pool. I think if organizations can build women’s confidence, then they will do a lot more to mentor other women.

Wofford: You said that was a bit of a digression. Where were you planning to go?

Brownell: I wanted to talk about the importance of compassion in the workplace. If you’re a servant leader and you really listen well to your employees and to your colleagues, it really does start a very positive chain reaction. People will see you as a role model and then they too will begin to also listen and be more compassionate in the workplace. Satisfaction at work really escalates when people feel like they are friends. There was a time when employers didn’t want their workers to be their friends because they thought the employees wouldn’t be as productive, but actually we’re finding that almost the opposite is true. The feeling that you’re surrounded by people who care about you makes a huge difference in how we feel about the workplace.

Wofford: Still, from an employer’s standpoint it’s a lot harder to fire someone you’ve become friends with.

Brownell: Yeah, well that’s true. It is harder to fire a friend, for sure. But I’m not talking about friends in the sense that you go bowling together after work. I mean a friend more in the sense of caring about someone because you know a little about them and they know a little about you. But your point is really well taken because that leads to another really interesting area, which is how close can you be with people that work for you without creating perceptions of preferential treatment or favoritism.

Nevertheless, compassion, empathy and caring is really important for a leader. The servant leader feels that the organization is in their care, so they care about its people and everything in it in a way that’s somewhat different than a leader who feels like they own the organization and that they’re driving it in whatever direction they want.

Another thing that I think is really interesting that characterizes the servant leader is self knowledge. I think often we’re so caught up in the actual doing – do this, do that, have this meeting, manage that project – that to have someone who is able to sit back and be introspective is a real treat.

You know, people are taught to talk, talk, talk but no one ever teaches anyone to really listen. Yet, to make good decisions you really need to gather information. Listening is really important to servant leaders. Not only that they’re listening but that people are able to see that they’re listening. Empowering employees and caring about them means paying attention to them.

I think the things that the servant leader focuses on are a little bit different. It’s more people-centric. It’s not that servant leaders are weak. They’re not weak at all. They’re very courageous in how they are honest and caring in the organization.

Wofford: It’s much more about making the best decisions even when they very well might be unpopular, right? Ultimately, the idea is to serve your vocation, right?

Brownell: Right, and being forthright with the information – some good, some bad – about what was done and what decisions were made. I think the whole transparency theme in organizations is important, and I think the servant leader facilitates that.

Wofford: We’ve got another great question from Karen here: “What about when servant leadership bites you in the butt? I tried to practice servant leadership but it comes back to bite me sometimes. Too much empathy, in particular, bites me.” What do you say to that?

Brownell: Empathy should be about recognizing someone else’s position and feeling how it affects them, but the consequences still need to be there. You know, if a student comes to me and says, “Oh I was trying to print and my printer broke down and that is why I’m a day late.” That’s when I say, “I understand that this happened and I’m sorry, but I’m still not giving you credit.”

Empathy is just indicating to the individual that you have in fact heard them, you understand how it could happen and you appreciate that they came to you and explained. But you still have a goal to reach. You still have a policy to meet. So empathy does not mean allowing people to slack off.

Rather than telling people what to do, servant leaders use persuasion whenever possible. This gets people sincerely on board and fosters ethical practices. Ethics have been a real big concern of mine. Sometimes we assume that someone is unethical when actually they haven’t even recognized that there was an ethical issue or an ethical component to what they were doing. They haven’t necessarily considered how their decision affects other people. So modeling ethical practices and being vocal about them are other important aspects of servant leadership.

Wofford: This also ties in to the self-reflection you mentioned earlier, right?

Brownell: That’s right and I think that self-reflection is actually a neglected leadership behavior and yet, if you read about really powerful leaders in various types of industries, almost without exception they mention how important it is to just sit back and kind of think about yourself and your own goals and what’s important to you, what you value, your strengths and weaknesses.

One of the things that a leader needs to do is to have what we call behavioral integrity, which means behaving in a way that corresponds with what they say. If I say I value being healthy but the bowl of M&Ms on my desk is the only thing I have for lunch, that is not displaying behavioral integrity. I think leaders should reflect on whether their actions back up their words.

Another thing to explore is who you become as a leader. One of the transformative things that I’ve been taking a look at is what being a leader does to one’s sense of self. There is this view that power corrupts, and I think servant leadership really helps prevent that.

I think self-reflection, no matter what position you’re in, is really important in the end. Sometimes it may have been so long since you last gave yourself the freedom to really think in these terms that it can be hard to know where to begin. One way to begin is to take some key themes and write down your own self-perceptions and then have someone else tell you what they think about you in those areas.

Wofford: And the servant leader is not only providing this sort of self feedback, they are also providing supportive feedback to their employees, right?

Brownell: It’s really about empowerment. As you empower someone, it implies that you trust them because you’re taking the time to coach them and mentor them. You’re giving them feedback, which is a sign that you care about them and how they are doing. You’re observing and helping them perform even better.

That then increases trust because as a leader you are basically saying, “I’m sure you’re not going to do it exactly the way that I would do it, but I trust that you understand the values and the goals and I trust that you are doing the best you can on behalf of the organization.”

Employees really take off when they feel like someone’s supporting them and that they can be instrumental in the organization’s success.

Wofford: Judi, thank you so much for this introduction to servant leadership.

Brownell: Thank you, Chris. It was nice to join you again.

Want to hear more? This interview is based on Judi Brownell’s live eCornell WebSeries event, Empower Your Team Through Servant Leadership. Subscribe now to gain access to a recording of this event and other Hospitality topics.

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Cornell’s new certificate program equips learners with essential critical thinking and problem-solving skills

Participants learn strategies for effective decision-making and influencing in their organizations

 

July, 2018 (Ithaca NY) –

Strong critical thinking skills consistently rank high on employers’ lists of must-have qualifications for hires. Yet a recent study revealed that nearly half rated their employees’ critical thinking skills as only average or below average. In today’s fast-paced business climate, careful and sound thought around decisions has never been a more essential mindset to adopt at every level of a company.

Recognizing the desirability of a workforce that possesses a disciplined, systematic approach to problem solving, Cornell has announced the launch of a new certificate program in Critical Thinking. Available 100% online through eCornell, this certificate program will help learners develop the skills needed to deeply analyze a problem, assess possible solutions and understand associated risks. Learners will hone their strategic decision-making skills following a methodology based on tested actions and sound approaches.

“Critically thoughtful problem-solving is both a discipline and a skill — one that helps teams and organizations thrive,” said Cornell Johnson School professor Risa Mish, who designed the program’s core course in Critical and Strategic Thinking. “The Critical Thinking certificate program is designed to better align learners’ skills with those desired by their current and future employers.”

Whether learners are interested in preparing for a management role or already lead in an executive capacity, the Critical Thinking certificate program will equip them to confidently tackle any decision large or small, make compelling business cases, and apply influence in their organization in a way that creates optimal conditions for success.

Learners enrolled in the certificate program can contribute to the success of their organization by understanding how to respond decisively and consistently when faced with situations requiring a decision, analyzing potential solutions from multiple perspectives, and establishing responsibilities and accountabilities to ensure effective follow-through once decisions are made. Courses include:

  • Solving Problems Using Evidence and Critical Thinking
  • Making a Convincing Case for Your Solution
  • Strategic Decision-Making
  • Navigating Power Relationships
  • Interpreting the Behavior of Others
  • Applying Strategic Influence

Upon successful completion of all six courses, learners earn a Critical Thinking Certificate from Cornell University’s SC Johnson College of Business.

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Cornell’s New Project Management Certificate Program Prepares Professionals for a Project-Driven Future

According to Deloitte, the successful organizations of the future will likely be those that can “move faster, adapt more quickly, and learn more rapidly.” Between 2010 and 2020, 15.7 million new project management jobs are expected to be created in the global job market as organizations position themselves to create the rapid velocity and agility today’s digital world demands. Now, professionals can build skills for the project-driven future with Cornell’s new Project Management online certificate program while accumulating 50 education hours toward their Project Management Professional (PMP)Ⓡ certification.

 

“This program is for anyone who works in a project environment, regardless of function or industry. Professionals gain a concise understanding of today’s project management space, learn practical skills and tools, and address crucial behavioral issues affecting project success,” said faculty author Linda Nozick, Ph.D., professor and director of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University.

 

Available through eCornell, the Project Management program includes five online courses that can be completed over three months in three to five hours per week. Students will learn and practice how to:

 

    • Get Organized: Schedule, track, and control projects using work breakdown structures, project networks, Gantt charts, and PERT calculations.

 

  • Plan and Manage Resources: Combat the “creeps”—in scope, budget, effort, and time—by identifying critical project resources, resource leveling, “crashing” or “fast tracking” certain tasks, and understanding behavioral dynamics.
  • Manage Risk: Understand types of project risk and use tools to assess the probability of project completion, make decisions, and mitigate risk.
  • Track Performance: Use earned value management (EVM) to summarize project performance across budget, deliverables, and schedule as work unfolds.
  • Think Agile: Learn the agile project management mindset, where best to use it, and how it differs from traditional waterfall and LEAN methodologies.

 

 

The Project Management certificate does not require formal project management training, is relevant for project team leaders, managers, and members, and is especially helpful for experienced project managers who seek a practical framework for project success.

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Cornell’s New Commercial Real Estate Certificate Launches

Faculty from The Hotel School at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business have partnered with eCornell, the university’s online learning unit, to develop a unique online program focused on commercial real estate investment projects. From property development to valuation and management, the new Commercial Real Estate certificate program prepares real estate professionals to successfully develop and manage real estate assets.

 

“We walk students through the entire real estate process, from start to finish, unifying the specialized knowledge and principles in a very intentional way. Whether you’re new to real estate or looking to move up in the industry, this certificate provides a robust overview grounded in application. Throughout the program, participants are sent out to do real work—modeling, inspecting, calculating,” said faculty co-author Jan deRoos, HVS Professor of Hotel Finance and Real Estate at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.

 

The Commercial Real Estate certificate, offered 100% online through eCornell, is comprised of six courses designed to be completed in three to five hours per week. To create a well-rounded curriculum, deRoos collaborated with Hotel School colleagues Jeanne Varney and Bradford Wellstead, combining expertise to provide a rich learning experience. Through the team’s courses, participants will learn and practice:

 

  • Planning a real estate development project
  • Managing a project budget, schedule, and contingencies
  • Developing a real estate investment strategy
  • Structuring and financing real estate investment deals
  • Effectively leasing and maintaining real estate properties
  • Managing real estate assets for success

 

This program is ideal for real estate developers, professionals with financial or operational responsibility for real estate investments, financing and asset management professionals, or people aspiring to work for real estate funds, REITs, or real estate advisory firms. Students who complete all courses receive a Commercial Real Estate Certificate from Cornell University’s SC Johnson College of Business.

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How to Develop Your Personal Brand (And Live Up to It)

What adjectives would you use to describe yourself? Would your coworkers, friends and families use the same terms?

Pamela Stepp, who teaches leadership assessment at Cornell’s ILR School, joined eCornell’s Chris Wofford for a WebCast focusing on how to develop a personal leadership brand and ensure that you continue to live up it.

Wofford: I’m very excited to have you here with us, Pamela.

Stepp: Thank you Chris, and thanks to everyone who is tuning in. This is all about you.

I want to start by asking everyone watching to think about who you are as a professional and who you want to be.

I’m going to walk you through the steps to create your own personal leadership brand and then help you come up with a story that you can tell that will demonstrate that brand.

Wofford: That sounds great. I think our audience will really get something out of this. Where should we start?

Stepp: Power is very important to consider when you are developing your personal leadership brand. You need to think about how you present yourself powerfully in an organization and how to recognize if someone is powerful or powerless. A good way to start thinking about this is to choose a person—this could be anybody in the world—who you think is powerful. Think about the characteristics of that person and what helps them be powerful and write down this person’s leadership brand in one sentence.

Chris, let’s use you for an example. Who did you think of?

Wofford: The first person that came to my mind was Bob Dylan. And the adjectives I used to describe him were mysterious, direct, and honest.

Stepp: Isn’t that amazing how fast you could come up with these clear traits? Let’s turn to the audience members. Someone has chosen Oprah Winfrey, saying she is credible, empathetic, driven, and relatable. Does that sound like Oprah? I certainly think so. Another has chosen Barack Obama and described him as gentle, straightforward, and clear-speaking. So we can see that it’s quite easy to identify the personal brands of well-known leaders.

Now let’s move on to thinking about our own personal branding. What makes you different? What adjectives would you choose to describe this brand called “you”?

Wofford: Wow, the answers from our viewers are coming in very quickly. Maureen says she’s organized. Darius, passionate. Marcelo, accountable. Rebeka says she’s driven and has great attention to detail. Carol says she leads and inspires.

Stepp: I can see more results are still coming in, but now I want you to come up with your most noteworthy traits and values. It’s important to remember that your values change at different stages in your life, so I want you to come up with examples of your current value, either personal or professional.

Wofford: Some of the answers coming in include curiosity, family, integrity, honesty, kindness, empathy. These are great examples from our audience.

Stepp: Yes they are. Now I’m going to give you an example of two short descriptions of the leadership brand that I use. I teach at universities and business schools all over the world and one of the brands that I use—and I want people to let me know if I’m living up to this —is that I want to be known for being a knowledgeable and inclusive leadership educator who demonstrates her passion for the subject and genuinely cares about helping her participants or students to grow into the best leaders that they can be.

So that’s the personal brand I have when I’m giving these sorts of talks. I had a different brand when I was a full time businesswoman as the managing director at the Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies. There, I wanted to be known for being a knowledgeable and open-minded business leader who used her confidence, determination, and networking ability to help the center grow into a more global organization.

So that’s how I’ve used my values to create personal branding.

Wofford: Pamela, I’m just going to play devil’s advocate for a moment and ask what the point is in using these words to describe yourself. In your case, you say you’re inclusive, knowledgeable, and dedicated to making sure that people get results out of your talks. Isn’t this just an example of putting your best foot forward? Does it really help one’s leadership ability to go through this sort of exercise?

Stepp: It does, and that’s because once you’ve established your leadership brand, you want to live up to it. It helps keep things clear in your mind and remind you whether or not you’re living up to the way you’ve described yourself and the way you want others to see you. Does that answer your question?

Wofford: It does. You’re saying we’re always a work in progress and that developing a personal brand helps bring focus to our careers and our professional lives.

Stepp: That’s right. It helps us focus on the traits that we want to be known for. Some examples coming in from the audience include inspirational, politically savvy, collaborative, innovative, results driven, strategic.

Then you start to refine those and work toward finding your identity by combining those descriptors. For example, “I’m a strategic innovator who gets things done.” You want to construct your leadership brand statement by putting everything together, all those adjectives and values.

Then you need to start asking other people what they think your brand is because it will surprise you. Make your brand identity real by checking in with others around you. Are you living up to that brand? That’s the beauty of having a defined leadership brand. You can always check in to make sure you are living up to it.

Wofford: So is your recommendation to go to other people and ask them how they’d describe you?

Stepp: Absolutely. You’ve got to keep reminding yourself of your brand and keep asking others if you’re living up to it. For example, I teach undergrads at the university because I want to prepare 20 year olds for leadership and because I want to know that generation. I started writing about being an inclusive leader and when I get evaluations back at the end of the semester, I can see that inclusion is my highest score. That really inspires me to keep working on that and to make sure everybody participates, to make sure I’m including international students who maybe aren’t speaking English all that well, making sure that there aren’t gender imbalances in who I reach. The point is, you can gain confidence if you learn that you are living up to your brand. And if you’re not living up to it, you have to know that. My brand is the yardstick by which I measure myself.

Wofford: We invite you to take a minute and see if you can come up with your own personal brand statement. Don’t overthink it. This is just an exercise and something that hopefully you’ll continue to work on.

OK, we have some responses. Deborah says “I’m a mentor. Helping others is what I enjoy best.” Steve has a great one: “I’m an innovator who pushes the creative envelope by inspiring others to do the same.” Crystal says, “I’m an innovative, compassionate, and knowledgeable leader with a desire to help others become the best that they can possibly be.” I think people are getting there, right Pamela?

Stepp: Yes, you are all doing a great job. These are good examples of leadership brand statements. You can refine and change them, but they shouldn’t be long diatribes. It should just be a paragraph, so these are really well done.

Once you have that brand, it’s time to think about storytelling. It’s always helpful to demonstrate your brand through stories, whether you’re standing up in front of an audience or if you’re at a cocktail party or even just with your friends. When done well, a compelling story can inspire our beliefs and our motivation to reach a goal. So I recommend that you all think of a story that you enjoy telling and think about how you can use that in the workplace.

I also want you to think about nonverbal power. When you walk into a room, you want to stand up straight and have good eye contact.With nonverbal power, you want to express competence. You want to express trustworthiness, dynamism, energy. When you talk, you want to be sure to think about using a proper voice, making eye contact and scanning the whole room.

Another huge thing is that when you are speaking with someone, you need to take the effort to learn their name, maintain eye contact, and make them feel you are focused on them. I’ve always found that amongst the people that I admire, their leadership ability is to make you feel like you’re the only person in the room.

Wofford: Pamela, thanks so much for joining us. I’m excited to get my storytelling ability dialed in and I hope that those in the audience will start working on their personal leadership brand one-sentence mantras as well.

Stepp: Thanks so much for having me.

 

Want to hear more? This interview is based on Pamela Stepp’s live eCornell WebSeries event, How to Develop a Personal Leadership Brand. Subscribe now to gain access to a recording of this event and other Women in Leadership topics. 

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Cornell’s New Programs Equip Managers and HR Leaders to Build an Aware Organizational Culture

Participants learn critical strategies for creating a supportive and engaging workplace

As today’s headlines prove, an inclusive work environment is not just a nice-to-have, it can make or break a company. Engaged employees, a diverse workforce, and an inclusive climate provide organizations with a competitive advantage. Recognizing the need for companies to understand the complex dynamics underlying diversity challenges and opportunities within their organizations, Cornell has now announced the launch of two new online Diversity and Inclusion certificate programs.

Available 100% online through eCornell, learners can choose from a program designed expressly for HR professionals and a track for managers in any part of the organization. The programs teach learners critical strategies to help their teams increase employee engagement, counter unconscious bias, and build a more inclusive work environment.

“An organization is only as good as its culture—and every manager and HR leader is responsible for culture,” said Cornell ILR professor Lisa H. Nishii, who authored the program. “It goes without saying that organizations today must move beyond mere compliance and focus on constructing a work culture that promotes inclusion. The problem is, despite the ubiquity of the term inclusion, its definition and implementation often remain murky. This set of courses is designed to train workplace professionals to decode unconscious bias and how it affects employees, and to design work practices and norms that more effectively leverage the potential among all employees.”

Learners enrolled in the certificate programs can help make their organization a more inclusive and engaging place to work by understanding the perceptual, institutional, and psychological processes that impact the ways people interact with each other. Courses include:

  • Improving Engagement
  • Counteracting Unconscious Bias
  • Diversity and Inclusion in Practice
  • Fostering an Inclusive Climate

Upon successful completion of all four courses, learners earn a Diversity and Inclusion Certificate from Cornell University’s ILR School.

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Women in Leadership Program Enrolls 1,000 Students

eCornell’s Women in Leadership certificate program has reached a major milestone, enrolling 1,000 students since it launched in January 2017.

Authored by Dyson School professor Deborah Streeter, the Women in Leadership certificate program identifies issues facing women in leadership positions and offers actionable strategies to address them.

Women hold just 5.2 percent of CEO positions at top companies and are underrepresented at every level of workplace leadership. They earn just 78 cents for every dollar a man makes; the gap is even wider for women of color.

“Every day at work, women must present a very public face of leadership, one which balances being powerful and effective with being ‘nice.’ There isn’t much room for error as they navigate the so-called double-bind,” Streeter said. “But while participating in the Women in Leadership certificate program, each woman has an intimate and confidential setting to apply the course content to her own life and context. This is a rare, private opportunity for reflection and personal career-building, separate from the professional environment they share with colleagues.”

Throughout the program’s five courses, women learn how to recognize and navigate gender dynamics in the workplace, advocate for themselves and their teams, and strengthen their emotional intelligence to stand out as a leader of men and women.

“Since completing the program, I am more cognizant of the way in which I speak. I avoid softening my message with apologetic words, and I am bolder when articulating my ideas. These courses empower female professionals to embrace leadership opportunities that once seemed too daunting,” said Laura Woodard Clark, corporate communications officer at P&S Surgical Hospital.

Upon completion of this certificate program, students receive a Women in Leadership Certificate from the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.

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Legal Issues That Can Affect the Value of Your Business

Laying proper legal groundwork might not be the sexiest aspect of a startup venture. But a failure to adequately address legal issues has real potential to negatively affect the value of your business down the road.

That’s why Rhonda Carniol, a partner at CSG Law, recommends getting a legal footing established for your company from the very outset.

As part of eCornell’s Entrepreneurship webinar series, Carniol joined Chris Wofford for a wide-ranging discussion of the legal issues that can affect startups. What follows is an abridged version of their conversation.

Wofford: Thanks for joining us, Rhonda. Could you start by telling us a bit about some of the work you do?

Carniol: Thanks, Chris. As a partner at CSG Law, I represent entrepreneurs from startup to exit. I find with my clients that it’s very important for their legal counsel to get an in-depth understanding of their business so they can advise them as to what sort of things they have to address that could really affect their business.

Wofford: Ideally you’d want to hit these people as they’re in the early phases of business development, right? Getting yourself legally established seems like kind of a no-brainer and maybe the first thing you should think about doing. On the other hand, it’s never too late, right?

Carniol: That’s so right. It’s never too late. The most important thing is to get yourself in great shape legally before you try to sell your business. It’s easier in the beginning, but even if you’ve been up and running for four or five years, I still think the things we’re going to discuss today are going to be helpful.

I’d like to start by talking about what makes a business valuable. For example, you’re solving a problem or you’re adding something new and innovative into the market. If you have something valuable, you need to protect your intellectual property. You also need to think about limiting your liability to your vendors or your customers. Additionally, you want to avoid disputes with your co-owners, your employees and your contractors. These conflicts take up time and energy.

The first thing to really talk about is protecting your personal assets. If you’re currently operating a business in your own name, you need to immediately stop. Why? Because your personal assets are at risk. But if you form a corporate entity, like a subchapter S corporation or an LLC, then your personal assets, in most instances, would not be at risk except for in fraud situations.

What type of entity should you form? Well, there are several choices. There’s a limited liability company, a subchapter S, a C corporation, and a benefit corporation. A limited liability corporation is usually what most people choose when doing a startup because it has the most flexibility. Owners of the company don’t have to be individuals and it’s easy to bring investors into the mix. It also has tax benefits because it’s a flow-through, unlike a C corporation.

Sometimes you might instead choose to form a subchapter S corporation. There are less expenses involved but it’s taxed the same way as an LLC. The hot new thing is a benefit corporation, in which you’re supposed to do something good for the community or for your customers or the environment. The problem with that is there are a lot of filing requirements and recordkeeping, so I find that most of my clients, although they may want to do good with their companies, don’t want to be bothered with that.

Wofford: How is a benefit corporation different from a 501(c)(3) nonprofit?

Carniol: Well, a benefit corporation is still being formed to make profits. But they can sacrifice some of those profits in order to do good. A nonprofit, of course, is not out to make a profit. So it’s a different type of entity.

Wofford: Okay, got it.

Carniol: What I really recommend is to get an agreement in place right away between the owners if there are multiple owners involved. As soon as possible. In an LLC, this would be called an operating agreement. In a corporation, it would be a shareholders agreement.

A lot of people say, “I don’t need an agreement. I worked with Tim for 20 years. We love each other.” Well, let me share a story. I recently represented someone who had worked with their co-owners for 10 years in various corporations. They waited a year and a half after they started a new business to do an agreement. They were almost ready to launch when they discovered that they had a lot of disagreements, even over how much of the business each person should own. So the cost to them was significantly higher than if they had sat down in the beginning and had the discussion initially. The thing that made them finally come to a decision was everyone’s worst nightmare, which was the creditors of the company coming forward and saying, “We’re going to put you in bankruptcy. You’re not paying your bills.” That’s not a situation I want to see anyone in. You need to sit down in the beginning, find out if you have any differences, find out if your visions are the same, and enter into an agreement.

I often see situations in which a company is about to be sold and it comes out that the assets of the company aren’t in the company’s name. Instead, they’re in the original owner’s name. This is a major problem. The assets then have to be transferred into the company and they may have significant value at this point and therefore pose tax issues.

Another messy situation can arise in a multi-owner deal. If one person owns the patent, for example, then that individual has considerable negotiating power going into any deal – much more than the other owners. The easiest way to avoid these things is to move your assets over to the company at the outset. If you’ve already started a business and your assets aren’t with the company, move them over now.

Wofford: This goes back to your earlier point about doing all you can to avoid disputes.

Carniol: Exactly. That’s also why I can’t stress enough the value of a contract.

You should also always have a contract with your independent contractors that includes enforceable ownership language and confidentiality protections. You want to protect your customer list, your contacts, your vendors, your unique processes and your way of providing products. If you don’t have a confidentiality agreement, these things could skip right out the door with an independent contractor or a departing employee.

Wofford: Are these contracts something that should be drawn up by individuals? Do they need to involve highly complex legal language? Would you craft an NDA, for instance, without legal counsel?

Carniol: I know there are templates online, but you should not have an NDA without legal counsel. This is a really inexpensive document for your lawyer to draft. They will draft it geared to what’s important for your business. I don’t suggest just doing it yourself because you just may not protect what you need to.

Ideally, you should have a separate agreement for your employees and another for your independent contractors. If you’re further along in the process – let’s say a private equity firm is starting to look at you – you will need a different type of confidentiality agreement. Sometimes you’re going to have confidentiality provisions even in your customer agreements. But they won’t be as big as what you put in your independent contractor agreement because you don’t want to scare the customer away.

There are some other things that you might think of putting in the independent contractor agreements. You might include indemnities. If you get sued by a third party because of something the independent contractor did, you want them to step up and indemnify you. Of course, there are things that are standard in the industry so you cannot be too far-reaching, or the vendor is going to tell you to go take a walk.

You may also want to think about including an anti-competition provision. Sometimes this is appropriate and sometimes it is just not. You cannot stop someone from running their business but in some situations, you may want to prohibit them from making the same product as you, at least for a short period. You just need to evaluate it and this is a good time to call a lawyer to find out what the standard in the industry is and what is reasonable.

Wofford: What about contracts and agreements with your own employees?

Carniol: Your employees will probably become your most valuable assets, so you need them to sign confidentiality and ownership agreements. Without an agreement, an employee who conceives of an invention typically owns the patent rights, not the company. So, think about how this is going to look when you try to sell your business or get an investor. The best way to deal with this is to put it in an agreement.

Depending on your particular business, you may also want to consider whether non-competes and non-solicitation agreements are needed with your employees. In some industries, requiring a non-compete would mean you could not successfully hire anyone, but you at least want to establish a non-solicitation of your customers and definitely a non-solicitation of your other employees because this will prevent a group of employees from leaving and forming a competing business.

Since your employees are such valuable assets, you may also want to consider allowing them to have a stake in the success of the company. Consider whether certain employees should have an ownership interest or a phantom interest in the business. This is also something you would definitely need to talk to an attorney about because a lot of it depends on how far along you are in the process of building your business.

Wofford: Obviously, giving employees ownership encourages them to work hard for your company and to remain loyal.

Carniol: Absolutely.

I’d like to now talk a little bit about customer agreements, which are often needed in the business-to-business market and even in the consumer market. In the consumer market, if you have a web platform up, you will usually see an acceptance agreement that most people click without reading. Even though most people won’t read it, you should have an agreement that people must accept in order to do business with you, in order to protect yourself. Of course, the type of agreement you are going to have depends on your product, industry standards and your customer base. It needs to be tailored to your business.

In the business-to-business market, let’s say you are providing software that another company is going to use to operate and it is integral to their business. You want to limit your liability, because one lawsuit could put you out of business before you have even started. You also want to make sure that it is clear that you own everything and you are not giving ownership to the other company.

Another thing that is really important is to clarify payment terms. You have to specify in these agreements when the customer has to pay you. You do not want to have to get into a lawsuit situation as a startup, so having these kinds of provisions is going to help you avoid disputes and litigation.

Wofford: What other legal angles are essential to consider?

Carniol: Once you have your agreements in place, the most important thing is to develop and protect your brand. This is what differentiates you and makes your business unique. The example I like to give is toothpaste because it’s so boring. Even so, most of us have a favorite brand of toothpaste. Everyone has brand loyalty and that’s why you have to take care of your brand. Trademark your name, your logos and your designs. Doing a trademark only costs about $2,000, and it’s money well spent. You don’t want to start operating your business and then have another company come in and say, “Hey, you can’t operate under this name because I’m using it in the same business.” One of the most important things at the outset of starting a business is avoiding disputes.

Wofford: But a $2,000 layout in the early stages might seem like a lot to people, right?

Carniol: Well, a trademark adds value to your business because you own the intellectual property. You now have a name when you go to sell your business or when you’re looking for investors.

If you have the opportunity to do trademarks to protect your business and your assets, it makes your company more valuable when you go to sell because you have something that makes you unique. Plus, if you have a good idea and you’ve got a patent or a copyright or a trade secret, it slows down anybody else who wants to copy your idea.

Of course, not every idea can be protected. Establishing a trade secret isn’t easy because, generally speaking, for a company to be considered the owner of a trade secret, it usually must be shown that the subject matter has economic value. On top of that, you’ve got to use reasonable precautions to maintain the privacy of it. One famous trade secret is the recipe for Coke and they’ve maintained the confidentiality of that forever.

But you can also use contracts to protect the disclosure of confidential information. Ask people to sign a confidentiality agreement. The only time that this is really a problem is when you approach potential investors and venture capital. Often, they will not sign a confidentiality agreement because they hear so many ideas. Once you’re an established company, it’s different. You can get investors in private equity to agree to limited confidentiality agreements.

Wofford: What about the process of establishing copyright?

Carniol: Filing for copyright allows you to seek statutory damages. However, filing copyrights all the time isn’t realistic. If your business is about updating content constantly or you have a lot of content, you’re just not going to do this. It’s going to slow you down. And not everything you create can be copyrighted.

For instance, facts can’t be copyrighted. If you’ve done a lot of research and you’ve accumulated a lot of facts and data, that’s great — but you can’t copyright it.

The next thing I want to talk about is patents. Getting a patent is the most expensive process — it costs more than getting a trademark or a copyright. But again, not every product can be patented. And for those that can, the patent office has to approve it and that is a long process. Even when you get the patent, you can face lawsuits trying to claim that your patent is invalid. In your filing to the Patent Office, you also have to have to publicly disclose much of your invention and a lot of times, you won’t want to do that. You could do that disclosure and not get the patent and then your secret sauce is out there.

Patents also have a limited life. They last between 18 and 20 years. Once the patent’s life is over, you can’t license what you patented anymore and get money for it.

Wofford: That’s a lot to consider.

Carniol: It is, and it all goes back to doing an initial analysis. What is the goal? Do you want your business to go on for 40 years with a product that you can continue to license or is it something you’re constantly going to be innovating and updating?

Wofford: As we wrap up, I want to ask how much legal stuff can be sorted out by individuals on their own or would you always advise people to seek legal counsel one way or another?

Carniol: Yes, I think you should seek legal advice. I’m sure people are going to walk away from this going, “Wow there’s a lot to do. This is going to cost me a fortune.” It’s actually not going to cost that much.

Even if you don’t hire a lawyer, there is a lot of free advice out there from universities and other organizations for startups. There are accelerator programs where you can get free legal advice. Of course I’m biased because I’m a lawyer but I think that when you start out, you should at least have an initial conversation with a lawyer and find out what is important and what isn’t. Then you can spend your dollars wisely and not waste money on things that aren’t important.

Wofford: I think this conversation was very useful to our audience. I appreciate it, Rhonda.

Carniol: Thanks, Chris.

Want to hear more? This article is based on Rhonda Carniol’s live eCornell WebSeries event, Six Legal Issues That Can Affect the Value of Your Business Subscribe now gain access to a recording of this event and other Entrepreneurship topics.

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How to Successfully Pivot Your Startup

The fundraising and engagement platform GiveGab made waves in January 2018 by purchasing one of its biggest national competitors. With the acquisition of Kimbia, GiveGab is one step closer to becoming the biggest charitable software program out there.

But that success would not have happened if the company hadn’t decided to completely change direction from its original vision of being a social network connecting volunteers and nonprofits. In 2015, GiveGab pivoted to focusing on helping nonprofits attract and maintain donors rather than volunteers.

The company’s CEO and co-founder, Charlie Mulligan, spoke with eCornell’s Chris Wofford about his “painful” yet highly successful pivot decision and to share tips on how to decide when it’s the right time to change strategic direction. What follows is an abridged version of Mulligan’s presentation, delivered as part of eCornell’s Entrepreneurship webinar series.

Mulligan: I’ve met thousands of entrepreneurs at this point. I think almost all of them would describe themselves as having a vision of what they want to happen and being very persistent. While I agree that these are really important traits, they can also impact the challenges of pivoting. If you really pride yourself on what you are doing, it can be very hard to have to admit that your vision was wrong. When reality hits, it’s sometimes like you suddenly realize you’re climbing the wrong mountain. It’s not a matter of changing little tactics. You have to change your entire strategy. That’s what a pivot is to me.

When you are starting out, there is really no way to predict the future. Yeah, some people get lucky but for a lot of startups you’ll find that the reality is different than what you envisioned so you’ll have to decide what to do. You can quit or you can be flexible and make a different choice.

Wofford: How do you know when it’s the right time to change direction?

Mulligan: It could come at any stage. When you’re starting out, you have this idea of what the customer wants. Well, you better talk to as many customers as you can and you need to realize that oftentimes you will hear what you want to hear so you have to be very careful and make sure that you start to listen before you get too far down the road. You might have to pivot very early once you’ve assessed the demand and done the research.

The key thing about a startup is a lot of times you’re trying to create something new or completely different, but when you’re doing research, the research is about old products or old ways of thinking. So you won’t really know for sure whether your new way is going to be right.

Wofford I’m sure the audience would love to hear the details of your decision to switch tactics at GiveGab.

Mulligan GiveGab set out to be the social network for volunteers, which meant that we were a connection portal to help volunteers and nonprofits find each other. We interacted with a lot of nonprofits and they were really happy to talk about this. They loved the idea and then as we built our product they thought it was great. We had a free product so we had thousands of nonprofits and hundreds of universities sign on. We passed 100,000, things were growing and moving fast and we were getting great press and great feedback.

But it didn’t take us long to realize that there was really low engagement. Nonprofits would sign up but then only come back like every six months to do something. It was really challenging to get them to actually post volunteer opportunities.

When I first started I thought it was going to be really easy to get nonprofits to post volunteer opportunities because they were consistently telling us that they need more volunteers. But we couldn’t get nonprofits to actually sign in and create volunteer opportunities. That meant that we were having a hard time matching the volunteers who had signed up with opportunities in their area. You know, a volunteer in Montana and a nonprofit in Minnesota don’t really match up.

That’s why we decided to go after universities to help build an ecosystem because a lot of times they have volunteers and nonprofit partnerships. The problem we found there was that it was a super long sale because we were talking to low level employees. We should’ve noticed this problem earlier but if you want to know what a nonprofit really cares about, you need to go see what the executive directors are doing. What the directors are doing is looking for donors, not volunteers.

Raising money is really what mattered the most and we weren’t listening to that. So we decided to go down a new path. We sat down and really looked at what the nonprofits were using their volunteers for. Almost always, the volunteers were being used as a direct or indirect way to get donors. It’s really about money for nonprofits and volunteers are a way to get donors more engaged. One of the things we kept hearing all of the time – and the research backs this up – is that only 19 percent of first-time donors ever come back. Nonprofits spend all of this time getting donors and then four out of five of them are gone and never come back. We were skirting around the edges with volunteering but the core problem was how to get more donors and keep them coming back. So that’s now the problem that we decided to solve.

Wofford How big was your organization when you decided to make this pivot?

Mulligan We had 90 employees and we had a lot of funding. We had dozens of investors and so I had to go back to all of them and admit I was wrong. Then we had to let about half our company go. These were really good employees so that was a very painful day.

For a lot of people, ‘pivot’ is just a word, just a strategic choice. For me, it’s a painful memory. It was necessary and I’m really glad we did it, but it was painful.

We had to totally re-brand. We were the social network for volunteers so we were highlighting happy volunteers and like things like that, which makes no sense for a fundraising platform. So conceptually we had to change everything. Then we had to build it and go back to our development team and say, “Ok, we’re starting from scratch, let’s learn how to do this.”

There are also laws around fundraising so there was a lot of work in just making sure we were doing things the right way.

Wofford That sounds really challenging.

Mulligan It was, but one of the great things about pivoting is that if you’ve built a great team, as we had, then you’ve already figured out how to work well together. In our case, the employees we were left with were great, so we got a second shot at something and the second product looked a million times better than the first product because we really knew what we were doing by that point and we had a system in place.

There’s also a certain amount of incentive in a pivot situation because maybe you’ve run out of money, so you know that this could be your last lifeline. So you better make progress and you better make it quick. There is nothing like the gallows to give people focus.

As an entrepreneur, it can be very challenging because you have told a lot of people about your vision and you’ve been very persistent and then you have to go and tell them, “OK my vision sucks but now I have a new one.” You’re asking people to buy into this new idea even though your first was wrong.

Wofford That must take a certain humility.

Mulligan Sure, and you also have to make some super painful choices. Like I said, we had to let employees go. We had to go back and talk to investors and let them know that all of their investments just went backwards. Nothing about it is fun but you have to just face it head on, so I just owned it. I think that approach was super helpful.

You have to pick your new course of action and then you have to forget the past. Pick your new vision and just sell that like that was the only one you ever believed in. And of course you’ve got to somehow get everyone to buy into this one as much as they we’re into the first one. These are all way harder things than I think people realize.

Wofford It certainly sounds hard. Was it a challenge to keep morale up?

Mulligan Well, when you’ve just let half your workforce go, keeping morale up was already a challenge. People’s workloads had doubled and then it was like, “Now let’s do it over.” I think what helped us is that we spent a lot of time making sure that our new course of action was picked by everyone, not just me.

Wofford Everyone needs to be on board to make a pivot work.

Mulligan Right. We had conversations with the people that we were going to keep and said, “Look, if your heart’s not 100 percent in this, you need to let us know because there are people we are letting go whose hearts are 100 percent in this.” That wasn’t a threat, it was just the reality. I think people really appreciated the openness and transparency. When we let people go, we really supported them but we also sat everyone down and said, “OK guys, we’ve got to forget about it. There is a lot of pain here, but we need to just move forward.”

When we did our pivot in January 2015, we had five nonprofits raising money on GiveGab.
At the end of the year, we had 700. All paying customers, so we were making money off all of them. We are currently on pace to potentially have well over 20,000 nonprofits by this year. We also have 10 states using us as their statewide giving day platform later this year. So the pivot worked.

Wofford Wow, it’s very impressive. Congratulations.

Mulligan We’re really excited and of course relieved. We saw the bottom and that makes you appreciate it more when things are really working.

So much of the startup ethos is ‘vision and persistence’. I think you need vision and flexibility. You can also think about it in terms of the difference between persistence and resilience. Persistence is putting your head down and running into the wall. Resilience is putting your head down but looking around a little and realizing there’s a door over there and you can walk right through it.

Wofford Charlie, thank you so much for sharing your experience and giving such great advice about changing strategic direction.

Mulligan Thank you, Chris. I enjoyed being with you.

Want to hear more? This interview is based on Charlie Mulligan’s live eCornell WebSeries event,The Startup Pivot: Changing Strategic Direction. Subscribe now to gain access to a recording of this event and other Entrepreneurship topics.