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October 09, 2020

Cultural Transformation Live - SPEAKER SPOTLIGHT : Adapt to change quickly and transform your business to win

Courtesy of Caesars Entertainment's Rias Attar, below is a transcript of his speaking session on 'Adapt to change quickly and transform your business to win' to Build a Thriving Enterprise that took place at BTOES Cultural Transformation Live, A Virtual Conference.

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Session Information:

Adapt to change quickly and transform your business to win

Organizations deal with continuous shifting, change in the past few years has been happening more frequently than ever before in history. Driven by many factors such as technology, politics, globalization and health crisis, many companies have not been able to catch up fast enough to adapt to the frequent and wide changes in the market place.

While many organizations feel that “change” is a threat, others that generally succeed feel that change brings opportunities to find areas to improve products, services, technologies, people, and processes to realize sustainable competitive advantage. Changing for the sake of change is meaningless without a defined brighter future. In recent years many businesses have focused on transforming and optimizing their operations.

However, many efforts fail because of one or more of the following three pillars do not get the proper attention from the leadership: Strategy, Project Management, Change Management. It is a three-legged stool as those three elements must all be addressed to find the right balance and ensure organizations are able to deliver their objectives while addressing any constraints they may have.

  • Embrace change but changing for the sake of change is meaningless without a defined brighter future
  • Develop an action-oriented mindset and adopt a customer-centric approach while leveraging proven technology
  • Enable a healthy culture
  • Exploit market disruption and cope with catastrophic events
  • Transform businesses and deliver positive results
  • Always start with Safer, then better, faster, and cheaper (maybe)

Session Transcript:

So, I'd like to welcome Maria zaatari's, Please do join us, ... is an Accomplished Business Strategist, Business Transformation, Expert, and Operational Excellence Leader, is also a very experienced program and Change Management leader.

He is a book author in the industry award winner of a track record of increasing profits in delivering strategic initiatives that successfully transform businesses from the Fission to profitability. He's a champion of continuous improvement efforts, deliver challenging, cross functional programs while working collaboratively with diverse types of shareholders. He leads and coaches winning teams, and inspires his staff to welcome change and deliver ambitious results. So, ladies and gentlemen, please, welcome ..., Thank you so much for being here. Anticipating your presentation, being ready with the technology to drive the culture. So, thank you. We look forward to your presentation.

Thank you. Thank you today. And thank you, everyone, for joining.

And thanks again for for Brooke ISM vetoes for inviting me.

So, I, I'm so passionate about transformation. As some of you may know me, I love transformation. I think people need to change.

Organizations need to change to realize potentials.

And this is probably more applicable at this point of time than any other time in history. And in my view, transformation is a combination of few things.

It's an action oriented mindset, has to be combined with a customer centric approach, with a digital transformation and proven technology embracing, and it got an accepting change, and then enabling a healthy culture. All of those combined should deliver the positive results that companies seek. one of them missing. I think this would put the effort into jeopardy and delays the the outcome, or or grabbing the positive outcome that the company expects. So that's why I wanted to kind of highlight those elements.

And those elements I kind of put in in my book, which has come this fall called Change to Win, I called a change to win, because if we change for the sake of change without a winning strategy, then then there's there's just a waste of time and energy.

We have to change to win and feel free to to join the waitlist. But this is what I'm passionate about.

And the reason why I love this topic, because, again, if we go back to the basics, even like as creatures and Darwin highlighted, that, tens of years ago, and he said it's not the most intellectual, nor the strongest of the species that survives was the most adaptable to change. So we always have to think about, if we do not change, we will die. Change is not easy. Change is very, very hard, but not changing can be fatal.

Screenshot - 2020-08-31T141848.112And, and if you just look at a few examples. And the, and the industry, look at, I'm sorry, I look at those companies that either no longer exist, or probably gonna disappear the next few months. Or few years. If, they are lucky. I mean, it's, it's mind blowing these days to hear those names every day.

And it's like, this company is disappearing this company disappearing, and those companies have tried to change and transform, but they did not transform fast.

We, as organizations, are part of consistent change, we change, everything changes around us, you know, market condition changes, trade wars, new, presidential candidates, or new presidential, or new presidents or new government, government, all of those organizations. Customer demand customers are becoming extremely needed, these days, and they're changing their priorities, so, we need to make sure, that we adapt to those customer, to the changes of customer demands, technology, everything, Now, is it related to technology?

We, we are the companies that are winning these days, If you look at the current list of companies that are beating market expectations, they are always having technology as a competitive advantage, Google, Amazon, Tesla, Apple, all of those are technical technology enabled companies. Competitive pressure competitions are becoming more fierce than ever. So they're trying to grab and eat your market share. Input cost is increasing, labor, electricity, utility, anything you, you name it, mergers, and acquisition, or become are, are, are, are. creating. those bigger companies that could potentially add economies of scale and also threatened the organization. and, of course, catastrophic events look at the curve at 19, and when it did to the industry in the world. So, all of those are, are are enabling, are forcing us to change.

But again, as I mentioned earlier, changing for the sake of change is meaningless without defining future bright future. So, with that, we need to think about how I can increase volume, how I can increase market share, how I can increase revenue, how I can increase the company value. like Tesla, did not really enjoy any, any positive ... for the past. I think 10 years and then in one year The the the the the value of the company search from like what was it like $400 would like now to one thousand dollars or something? I don't know what the test the stock price, I think 1314100 dollars per share.

It's the increase of market value. The company value, how we can save cost, how we can avoid costs. All of those are important, and sometimes it's just soft benefits. Customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, so change for the sake of change is, is, is, is, is meaningless without a defined future.

So, so now we say, OK, now I need to change, and let's go ahead and do it, too. So the leaders put the strategy, they hire consultants, they put neath presentations, they get the budget approval.

They announced it in town halls and bulletin boards, and then employees are told that they have to change, and they put all the initiatives and boom, two months, three months, six months later, nothing happens. You see, people are doing things, but it's not feasible. It's not meaningful. So what happens?

Btog CTAUnfortunately, most companies hit with major roadblocks and sometimes as soon as they saw that transformation journey.

And this is kind of where I like to put it in this kind of the three legged stool. Because 70%, if not more of efforts.

Any transformation efforts fail miserably, and that's because I call it and I mentioned that in my book is a three legged stools. It's the strategy, The delivery, and the culture, and capabilities and change management. So, usually, if so, think about it this way. If you have a very powerful engine, and you want to go from point A to point B, but you don't have a northern star. You don't have a goal. You're spinning in your place. So, you have a great deal delivery mechanism, but you don't have a strategy. Now, if you have a great northern star, but you have a poor engine, then you are not going anywhere. So So Then you're, you know, it's meaningless. Now if you have a great strategy and a great mechanism for delivery, but your culture is terrible, people will jump ship every day, and then you're left alone and most likely will also be doomed. So culture is extremely important and this is, as you see here in my, in my in my three legged stool, the ugly 3, 3 legged stools.

It's it's almost always missed almost always. Most people think about, oh, that strategy and the delivery, but they forget about the people. People is very important. I usually like to see it in this shape.

Some sort of equilibrium or it may not be equilibrium. But, but, alignment between those three efforts. So, today, again, sorry for this kind of, you know, introduction, but, I felt it's really important to take us through the cultural transformation because it's important to combine all those together.

So, now, as for today, we're going to be talking about culture transformation, specifically. So, where does where does culture transformation starts?

If we think about it from a, from 30,000 feet perspective, it's really the business strategy that whatever we want to accomplish on the change is as good as the people who implement it.

Now, the people is as good as the culture, that the, that allows them to be who they are, and the culture is as good as the leaders who form that culture. So if you think about it this way, it starts with the leaders.

The leaders who have good communicators, they're passionate, they're fair, they're visionary. They have their full of integrity and ethics. It starts there.

And then from there, they build, and transform, and shape the corporate culture, which promote trust and collaboration and respect. And that kind of inspires the people, people, and motivate them, who actually then deliver this strategy. It actually goes in that flow every single time.

Now, the problem that we have most of the time is that most leaders fail.

Literally many, many leaders fail. I mean, if you look at many organizations, you see it really starts at the top: why? Why leaders fail because they either lack vision, they're they're very myopic. they don't think long term, they think about, OK, I want to be in this company for 35 year.

Get my bonus, get my retirement, and then leave. If they really care about the company, if they really have, like, long term perspective, this is kind of assess leaders from success, or lack of vision, is one, we can uncaring, many leaders are, they, again, like, they don't really care for long term objectives, or they're like not very not strong enough, there moody or inconsistent. They cannot motivate the team. They lack the energy, They lack the motivation. Basically, see some of those leaders these days. They sit, they feel that in most of those townhall, they just leading reading from from, from a script instead of like being so motivational. I'm not saying all of them, but I'm saying many of them: they're arrogant. Again, like, sometimes, you know, the ego, you know, kind of becomes a cause of leaders failure.

They're unsure untrustworthy or Untruthful went to their employees and they're they're bored. They worry about being popular.

They want people to like them, but they sometimes, you, you, By just having that goal, you miss on the company's objectives, Sometimes you just need to be realistic and move forward without just being accepting everybody, every everything that people say and every demand, because sometimes you have to say, No. So, that's kind of another another reason. They do not empower people. They like to do everything themselves, and they like to take all the credits sometimes, and that kinda also position them for failure.

19They pass the blame, It's not my fault's economy.

It's not my fault, is the department, it's not my fault, is the Board take ownership and build and deliver.

They, again, this is what I said, just take ownership. Sometimes do not take, not taking ownership.

It kind of dooms the transformation efforts: Demeaning, sometimes they do not inspire and motivate people.

And they actually try to kind of keep themselves in that Crystal palace, you know, at the top and, you know, they like to demean everybody else. They are unfair and and and and practice favoritism or they're simply unethical. I mean, all of those are one of those. Good physician leader, or failures, I can remember it starts with the leader, we need to fix those items. Need to kinda be genuine and, and, and lead and inspire those people. Now, once that's done, then it kind of enables hopefully a good culture how we can enable a good culture. We start with creating a purpose. Many people, they just do not actually many people want to go for it to work because they just want to earn money and just you know pay for their expenses But these days many, many people, they want to go to accompany each for the purpose. So, we need that culture to create purpose.

You're going there to help the society, the customer, or the ad, planet Earth, you know, the poor, the, the, the state, the city, the country, that, that URL, right. So, it creates the purpose, what's the purpose of, of that, of that organization, and then link the measurable objective to that burst the purpose. So, every employee, every department, every levels should have some sort of a measurable objective that should be linked to that purpose.

And then create a positive workplace. It's, it shouldn't, it should not be negative. It should not be demeaning. It should be positive unhappy.

Communication is a huge part of that, because we communicate, every day, we communicate at home, we communicated the office, we communicate by phone, we communicate without talking, visually by my body language, all of that is extremely important.

Encourage healthy and wellness, or health, and wellness.

Many companies these days invest in in the health, Healthy practices, or they subscribe in gym memberships for their employees. They care about employees, they establish a zero tolerance policy for those who are offenders or, or, or unethical. This is, like, extremely important, Important, zero tolerance policy because other employees will feel that they are protected.

So, this is important. They listen to feedback and take action, you know, you know, the leaders in the company. So that enables a healthy culture and clarify the roles or responsibilities. So people understand exactly what they need to do and when you need, when they need to do it. And they're not just guessing and trying to figure out now what I have to do and why am I not measured on this and why I have not been rewarded on this. Or so on so forth.

This is extremely and almost always myths celebrate success We always get so busy with We're doing our everyday job when we finish a project. We jump to another project without really take a deep breath like Thank you good job, a pat on the back. So that's really important. Incur encourage a work-life balance. This is extremely important in this, in those, in this, in these generations. Probably not much in the, in the baby boomers. And maybe the swing in our generation.

But right now, these generations, they want, they want to work to live, not live to work. You know what I'm saying? So this is kind of extremely important. Show appreciation, Genuine appreciation to the employees. Encourage social connection. And also, most importantly, promote diversity and inclusion. And we'll talk about this in a bit, but diversity and inclusion is really important. It's, it creates a diverse culture that people feel welcome and home and also increase the bandwidth and the spectrum of the Of the thoughts and ideas that come from those employees. All of those are extremely important. So, how would you invest in employees?

So, we did the leaders we did, the culture is how do we invest in employees, Compare the paycheck, if you want above average employees, you have to pay them above average salaries, right? Good benefits, health and insurance benefits extremely important. These days. More vacation days, this is really, really popular in Europe. I don't know, in other countries, it's not as popular, because, again, we, we kinda like to live toward versus work to live. So it's really important to give like more vacation days and let them take that time off of work enabled. Flexible hours and work remotely, This is now as covert hits, it's funny, now, companies are now forced to do this and now there's like why we haven't done this earlier.

It is really important. It's improved productivity, sometimes, and are many times, but also provide a flexible working hours, paid training, increase engagement opportunities to grow and get promoted. Like, not only stay where they are, those employees want to know what what they're going to be doing over the next five years or 10 years and how they're going to be improving education or reimbursement professional development.

Extended PID paternally, maternity leave, right?

Subsidized gym membership, assisted daycare service is extremely important, right? Now, even with go with many, many, many schools are now closed and they're enforcing appearance to do remote, sorry, students to do remote study. And now it's like, well, I have to go to work.

So now, many companies also are offering, like, assisted daycare services as, well, subsidized food, and then recognition, and know what, again, we always forget about this one. Award and recognition.

So this is kind of how we go to, you know, now the employees aspect.

Many times, we focus too much on training and developing employees capabilities.

Screenshot (4)The dilute and delivering, or focused on the intel in the IQ, Intelligence Quotient, but we forget about the EQ, which is extremely important, and they do not change to teach that in schools. It's about self awareness, self management, self motivation, and empathy. I cannot talk a lot about this in today's presentation, because each one of those can take an hour to explain. But we almost always forget about showing and teaching, and coaching our employees on the how versus the what. The what is your IQ. You're smart, this is an Excel spreadsheet. This is a PowerPoint presentation. This isn't an ERP system, go and do your work. We forget to teach them, OK, here's how you manage a difficult situation. Here's how you would need to control yourself. Anxiety or anger.

Here's how you self manage yourself, is how you should be aware of what you're doing and the other people around you. And here's how you should be self motivated and so on and so forth. Please focus on. This is extremely important.

All right, So, Alvin Toffler says, In the 21st century, that literature would be that not the one who cannot read and write but who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.

So, we need to think outside of the box a little bit.

And we cannot just think about what we know, what we have learned over the past hundreds of years and we need to focus about what the future is and the future and we need to be ready for that future. So, this is where we start, and people really are, always, you know, stuck in this comfort zone. So, the, this, they're stuck in that comfort zone, they feel happy and safe and peaceful and normal. And then they hit, like, change That, covered 19, right. So, they feel, Oh, now, it's a, it's a danger zone, are unfamiliar with this status, I'm, I'm, I'm afraid I'm hesitant expose. I have no protection, I'm very stressed.

So, sometimes, people reach that there is a danger zone, and then, take a step back to their comfort zone, where they are actually very comfortable.

The trick here, and, again, to the unlearn, and relearn, is to learn a few, few new things. If you know a few new tricks, and, and, and, and reach to the learning zone, which now presents new opportunities and excitement, and, now we are re benchmarking. We are now setting a new benchmark and it inspires adventurous mindset. Also, you sometimes people tend to kind of pull back to their comfort zone a little bit after the there they go and reach the learning zone, but once they reached that growth zone, this is, this sets a whole new benchmark. Now, they're happy, again, it's like, I'm never gonna go back to where I was. This is I don't know why. I haven't done it earlier. You hear that a lot from those people who realize that, that status and reach that growth zone.

So, again, I encourage you all to think about inspiring your people to think about how they can move from the comfort zone all the way through the roaster.

And with that, there is a change management aspect.

And many companies are, do not really put, a lot of emphasis on change management.

There's a concept called add car, that's created by a company called Proceed change management, It starts with awareness, and then people hear an awareness that as they say, OK, now. I understand why I need to do this.

when you send flyers, you send you, you pitch the change and people, it's like, OK, now I understand why I need to change, then its desire. So, this is kind of where you need to move from, OK, I have decided to help and support this change. So, first, you are aware, now you have the desire and the people they have the desire to change. So now that you hear something like OK, I have decided to support the change, I have decided to help onboard this effort.

So, you put the training, you put the coaching element and then you put the knowledge, you, you inject the knowledge and the people and this is kind of you hear something like, I know how to do this. I know how to do to change this and so on and so forth.

Now, the most important one is the ability, and it's a whole big difference between knowledge and ability.

So, I may, I may acquire the knowledge of performing an open heart surgery by reading 55 books in 12 months.

OK, now I know everything about an open heart surgery, and I know it very well, very well, I am aware, I have the desire, and I have the knowledge.

But will I be able to perform an open heart surgery? Will you be under my knife? Really?

So, so, this is kind of where the ability takes years and years, in multiple, It depends on, in this situation of open heart surgery, It takes years and years, and coaching, and trial, but in other, like, more simplistic terms, that, you know, certain business processes, it needs weeks and months, it's not like, OK, it's like a magic pill. So, focus on that transition from knowledge, the ability, and the reinforcement, always, always reinforcement will continue to improve, and so on, so forth. So, this is, generally speaking, we missed that. We usually start our transformation, and like mid mid course. We start, Oh, wait a second, we forgot about change. We need to, oh, now we have to tell people, we have to tell. We have to, we have to work on this ad car in awareness, desire knowledge, and we're, like, in the build status.

Screenshot - 2020-08-31T141848.112While, in the real and best case scenario, it should be really aligned, Every every status or step, or phase in the project management should be aligned with every status in phase, with change management. That's almost always missed. And this is why it takes usually longer. It costs more money and so on, so forth. Along that journey, you will, you will.

You will face some resistance, a lot of resistance from employees, from board members, from customers, you name it, usually, five to 10% of the people are supporting that change, so whatever you tell that they said, yes. We're with, you will go with you, five to 10%. They're almost always against you no matter how much you bet. you, no matter how much you tell them what you need to do, they're almost always against you. And the majority of the people who are in the center is like this bell curve that I have on my screen.

So what do you do, similar to what politicians do? This is what they usually do. They do not spend all their time with their supporters because they're, they're gonna support them no matter what. They don't change. They don't focus all their time on the people who are against them, because they're not going to change their mind easily. They're almost almost always made a decision to not support.

So, you focus your efforts on the majority that big, not sure, kind of crowd and you move them to the support, right?

Once you try to spend more time and you move them to the support, the ones who are against the either follow naturally, oh, they would just leave, right?

So, so this is kind of, I feel, this is like the best element to increase adoption and to change, OK. so along that journey as well, you will face a lot of complexities and sometimes we, we fell into the trap of bureaucracy. We create so many, so many unrelated processes and shadow organizations and becomes very complicated when we transform our culture or our processes. So I encourage you to reduce bureaucracy, but enforce governance. There's a big difference between governance and bureaucracy. If it's a big organization, you have 55 offices, They cannot buy 50 types, different types of computers, or 550 types of network setting, or 50 different types of furniture. You realize the economies of scale and the security, and you protect your company, and your people by having a certain type of governance in place. So, don't, don't mix the governance with bureaucracy, but, try to reduce bureaucracy. So, again, finally, you know what? When you reach that good culture, there are certain sizeable chunk. Good culture. First, you'll see happy customers.

You will see smiles and pleasant attitude, You walk into any office you, Pete, you see people smiling, they're happy. You feel like the team spirit, You, you will see the leader is very well respected and very effective.

You see a work-life balance between those people who are those people at work between what they do at work and what they do at home, to their happy that you feel there's a low employee turnover, job security, open communication, energy, And most importantly, successful, profitable, and sustainable. All of those are signs that the culture, once you reach that state, again, all of this I spoke our I speak about in my book, which is going to be publishing. We're going to be published in October, so, feel free to check it out. Come this fall. And I hope that you'd like my presentation.

Rail, sanding, outstanding. So let's talk some more about culture here. We have a question that came in as your account as you as you're discussing.

And the very first, I think this is something that you address in your presentation, but I want to follow up and ask one more time, because there was a question that one of our participants had, which she has: people talk about cultural transformation, which implies that you know what a good culture may look like. And the and the answer to that question may be a little bit elusive, so, and you've talked a little bit about this re-emphasize for us here. How do you know if you have a good culture? Because we have a culture, whether we like it or not, it's always there. It's always present. And then when you're trying to transform it, hopefully you're trying to transform into something better. So what does, what does a good culture?

Interesting question. Yeah, Yeah, it's a good culture, again, as I mentioned a little bit in my, my presentation. Well, well, let me start by saying you need to.

To think about the future state, what your current state is, is is something that you you may think is really good, you may think is very healthy, but have you ever have you tried to establish KPIs to understand if it is truly a, a, a healthy culture? Have you try to understand and diagnose the current capabilities that you have, Maybe how, how aligned are the leaders and the functions.

How are they really seamlessly working with their employees, did do we have certain KPIs, like turn over rates that we monitor monitor all the time, maybe Net Promoter Score? I don't know if you've heard about those terms. They are many elements that measure net promoter scores, employee turnover rates, social responsibility rates, wellness program, stress level, of course, performance, rating, equality, rights, you know, all of those loyalty, you know, maybe placement, speed and effectiveness. So, I think when you set and measure, because without data, you're just the person with opinion. I think, my culture is good.

I think we're in a good state, but when you go back to the numbers, and you try to measure, and either try to measure yourself, or benchmark against the top leaders in the, in the organization, you start to think, like, Wait a second.

I have a long journey to achieve, and this is why you go back, and you say, OK, my future state will be a culture. Or, again, as I mentioned in my patient, is my presentation where we have equality, we have energy, we have happier customer, we have smiles. We have teams Paris, we have work-life balance, low turnover, high net promoter score, very job, a very good job security, and so on and so forth.

So, this is kind of what I believe, is a key success factor, is like monitor and measure with data, and then set your future state, and to be achievable, and, and meaningful, right?

Yeah. So, another question here, these are good questions are coming up here. They're gonna put you on the spot right now, and the, and that's awesome, because this is what this conference is all about, having real leaders, practical leaders with, with insights on how to deal with difficult situations. There was a lot of commentary while you're presenting that, you know great presentation, awesome topics really, a lot of compliments on your kind of like failure modes for leaders and failure modes for leadership because quite often that's the elephant in the room. You know you'd know that leadership plays a disproportional role in casting a shadow in your organization of the values of the vision of everything that you need to build a good culture. And You identify the many failure modes that leaders have and that's the reality. The average CEO in the United States is there between 3 and 4 years. So, how do you build a sustainable culture?

19When the guy or girl on top are leaving, you know, every 3 or 4 years, right? And the whole new truth comes in, and they have different vision on things. So, the question is, really, that I get from all this comment there is that, I mean, I don't want to be moving jobs every 3 to 4 years to follow my CEO. So how do you survive?

And then, how do you help build that culture if you're not the top person in the organization?

Yeah, it's actually a difficult, difficult question to answer. So you mentioned the shadow of the leader. I like that. It's something that Larry sent from Kundalini, I don't know if some of you have heard about their incentives and Delaney, they have, they talk about the shadow of the leader. Where the leader cast their shadows to everybody in the organization. In my book, I actually changed that to call it the halo of the leader. Because if you are a leader in a certain place. Your Positive Energy and your your.

Your spirit will actually shine, like a hollow, not only for people below you, but to your peers and sometimes people above you. So sometimes, you may be able to inspire and change the leader above you and by being convincing, by bringing facts and figures.

Now, if the leader cares only about those 2 or 3 or 4 year, 10 years that that that he or she wants to be, add to grab his or her bonus and go on to retire in an island or something, I don't know what you can do. It really should come from the board, then.

So, so, so, this is something that, I guess, it's a, it's a difficult situation.

When your top leader is probably not on board and you're trying, you're, like, spinning or real, so might as well either try to go with the other leaders and and, and go and convince the top leaders like, hey, if we do not change, we will die. If we cannot help us, we will not survive in order for us to reach those objectives. Here are the elements that we have to do for your, for the period that you're going to be here and for many, many years and generations to follow.

You feel many, I think many of the successful successful organization start with, with either a family business. Really that they really care about what they want to do and the legacy or like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk or or or or Bill Gates or Warren Buffett there. They're like really on top of their business until that Business reach a certain status. Whether it's like enough, I'm tired. I'm gonna retire.

But you feel like they really care they really want their job and their business to succeed versus many leaders.

I'm not saying all, but I say many many leaders they know that they're here for 3 to 5 years those that have high ethics and and and they're Honest. They Just Give it a 110% no matter What, right? And these are just like, you know, this is what I love this one.

I want to do and those are the elements that I want to improve this organization while I'm here whether or not I'm here and There are other leaders like OK, All I care about is this like three years Do whatever It takes to amplify the bottom line? So I can sell the company I can capitalize on my stock and leave It's not healthy for the longer term, right? So I, I, and I understand, I feel, the pain.

Unfortunately, it is, like, where we are, right now at this. I mean, ever changing environment and companies. But I think, again, going back to the hollow of the leader. I think we, as leaders in our own area and our position, we can maybe pull each other's hands and then go together and, and again, inspire the people around us.

The very true very challenging to to shape culture from, from the bottom-up, right? So I have lots of different questions. Yeah. I'm gonna pick one. Or if it the Costa College, talking to us today from the south of France, or of a great to see you. And he asks, the question is that the culture tends to precede and survive the leader what five key factors would help define a culture and concretely where you start to make it evolve? So, I'll say it again. He's looking for, what are the key five factors that will help define the culture and the, and the, and the, and where do you start to make it evolve?

Yeah, it's interesting, because, I mean, sometimes the culture, sometimes, you feel like a CEO comes into a company, and then 2 or 3 years later, they don't fit the culture itself, kicked them out, they do not fit, you can feel it and, you know, the, the, you can feel it in the energy and people leaving, jumping ship, you can feel it in the performance. And so on and so forth. So I think what defines the culture, sometimes, again, in the culture is extremely, extremely powerful in this. I think that, that's a, that's like, culture eats strategy for breakfast, right? So, so, it really is the culture, the thing with culture, it's embedded in everything we do with the hello, how May I help you versus hello? Right? So, it's really, it's really is in everything in the customer, service agent, in the frontline employee, in the accountant You know, who's just not seeing everybody sitting there and just cannot wait for the eight hours to pass to go back home versus.

I can't wait to go to work. I'm so energetic. I know, again, as I mentioned in my, in my, in my presentation, there's certain elements that would encourage this, this, this culture or enabling a healthy culture like create a purpose. Create the purpose for your employees. Link that to measurable objectives. And define the roles and responsibilities for the people, so they understand what their goals are and invest in their employees and their health. Show them that you care about her. Health. Give me, give them more vacation days, Maybe subsidize their gym membership. Be transparent, completely transparent communicate with them.

Sometimes the most brilliant ideas come from the floor, from the bottom, from, from the, from the line workers, right? It's not it's not from the leaders. The leaders are sitting in their ivory towers and they don't interact with customers every day. So, So, those are elements. I mean, listen to feedback. Not only listen, take action, I listen to you. Those are the actions that I'm going to be taking, right? Issue, appreciation. Those are the amendments that I believe the culture should, should own and have in order for the companies to lift.

I mean, you feel that the whole company, spirit and the employees, I see sometimes in the boardrooms you go to the boardroom, And as soon as a intellectual, inspiring CEO comes in, starts with a thank you, right? Thank you for coming here, I appreciate you all. Let us go and do whatever you feel the whole spirit lifts in that boardroom just by thank you appreciation, right? So just reflect that on a larger scale to the whole organization, and again, create that hollow where this appreciation and thank you spreads and and it's not only fluff and and letters and and billboards, but also actually meaningful actions that those, either.

Screenshot (4)Reyes tremendous insights, Thank you for sharing your passion about culture, your passion, about making meaningful transformations that create value. It's it's always a pleasure talking with you.

Thank you, Joe. The pleasure talking to you as well. Thank you, everyone.

Ladies and gentlemen, this completes this segment of cultural transformation live. They one of cultural transformation life. So, thank you for your patience on some of the technological issues that we had early on with bandwidth connections, and things like that with some of our speakers. that, fortunately, we away, but you'll work through all of those issues, and it's still deliver the messages to you. Remember, that you can follow up on a lot of these messages, and ask other questions, by just going to LinkedIn. And we have, you can look under, my name, shows that Paris, And there is a posting there on the conversations that we're having here. I'll provide an update later today.

If you have questions for the speakers, you can post them on that link, as well, and they'll provide answers throughout the day, But I would like to take a quick moment here, to look at what expects us, what we have to look forward to tomorrow, And tomorrow, our first segment will come directly from the UK, from Aberdeen in Scotland, and we have Tim wegman, who is the head of performance for X C, That Upstream Energy Company That's going to be sharing his journey of cultural transformation with us. After the team's presentation, we're going to, we're going to welcome the culture and business change management Leader for Cisco, and you'll see, ... will talk to us about leading and adapting for the unexpected.

And he'll describe the journey of cultural transformation at Cisco. After that, we will, will, will, will have ..., sobre me in, joining us, to talk about, if you're not growing and growing, you're missing some good opportunities and cannot there is a Operational excellence and the cultural transformation leader for voice. And he's going to be discussing with us, the cultural transformation in his organization. And then tomorrow, to wrap up the day tomorrow. We have doctor Marlene College, who is the vice-president of Centralized Services from Rico. And the she's going to talk to us about how they're leveraging augmented reality in today's post pandemic supports, Sandra plans.

So, she's going to have a very specific application of technology, advanced technologies on support centers and, and discuss cultural transformation in the context of a very real, practical application. So, great insights from great cross industry thought leaders tomorrow. I hope you can join us again, and I hope we can continue to this exchange. So, saying goodbye for now. Have a great rest of your day, and I will see you tomorrow. Thank you.

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About the Author

more (62)-3Rias Attar,
Vice President – Enterprise Project Management Office & Strategic Initiatives,
Caesars Entertainment.

Rias Attar is an accomplished operational excellence and project management professional. He is recognized for his ability to help strategize business architecture, identify areas to improve processes and outcomes, turn around businesses from deficient to profitability, champion continuous improvement efforts, deliver challenging cross-functional programs while working collaboratively with diverse types of stakeholders, lead and coach winning teams, and inspire staff to deliver ambitious results.

Mr. Attar has planned and executed transformational projects (Business and Technology) that contributed over $500M of combined EBITDA impact and is managing a portfolio of initiatives that adds between $200 and $300M of EBITDA annually. He established PMOs, led Lean and Six Sigma efforts, championed Change Management, ensured proper Governance while reducing Bureaucracy, and has set proper business directions while staying focused on motivating staff, inspiring trust and confidence, developing people’s skills, and generating enthusiasm.

Mr. Attar worked for different companies at a variety of industries such as: Michelin (Tires), Friede Goldman Halter (Oil & Gas) , DHL Express (Courier), and General Electric/Genworth (Mortgage Insurance), and Maple Leaf Foods (Food Processing and Supply Chain). Prior to working at Caesars (Entertainment/Hospitality), he spent a few years in the consulting business working with companies such as Danone Dairy (Food Processing), Steel Tech (Steel Manufacturing/Rolling Mill), Sport Master (Clothing/Retail), and dipndip (Chocolate F&B). 

Mr. Attar started his professional career in Finance as an FP&A analyst then moved to project management and operational excellence about 18 years ago. During that time, he worked/lived in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Connecticut, New York, The Middle East, Toronto-Canada, and now in Las Vegas. 

Mr. Attar has a bachelor degree in Finance, got his MBA from University of Texas, and have a few certifications in project management such as (PMP) Project Management Professional, (ACP) Agile Certified Practitioner, and (CSM) Certified Scrum Master. He is also a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt (LSSBB).

Outside of work, Rias is a devoted family man with a wife and 3 kids. His best time is when he spends it with his kids playing board games, riding bikes, swimming, or just watching movies. Rias loves sport, tries to work out often, practiced Jiu Jitsu and Kick Boxing for years, and enjoys lap swimming every once and a while. He also loves music and plays the classical guitar.

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