Top execs should listen to their employees when looking to improve workplace functions. Plus: how to approach the culture conversation.

The CEO is the mother hen of your association’s overall efforts—making the skill of listening one of your leader’s essential traits. You hear that?

The details, and more, in today’s Social Media Roundup:

Lend Me Your Ears

https://twitter.com/TritiaPOCCI/statuses/405012835232522240

Listen up. (Really!): Listening, like any art, needs practice to be made perfect. As simple as it seems, harnessing that skill can do wonders in the workplace. That’s what Rent the Runway cofounder Jenn Hyman learned over time, she says in a transcribed Inc.com video interview. “Someone would tell me, ‘It was intimidating when you did X,’ and I’d say, ‘It wasn’t intimidating; it was just Y.’ All of a sudden, people were giving me less feedback, and I had to change that,” Hyman notes. Her team deployed an employee survey, finding that the staff viewed the company’s goals differently from the way leaders thought they’d presented them. As a result, the management team detailed each goal at an all-staff meeting, offering up a platform for employees to raise questions and concerns. “I’ve gone from never asking for feedback to asking for it in every one-on-one I have. Then I just listen. I do not respond. Instead, I take actions to address that feedback and, later, ask that employee if my actions made a difference,” Hyman says. How do you listen to employee feedback? (ht: @TritiaPOCCI).

Culture Clash

The Missing Link in Your Culture Conversations http://t.co/z9BlOEhZiX

— Jamie Notter (@jamienotter) November 25, 2013

Skirting the subject: Definitions of “culture” are about as varied as the concept itself. And when it comes to office chatter about workplace culture—sanctioned values, expectations, and behavior—“we are generally content to keep the conversation about it broad and messy,” writes consultant and author Jamie Notter. Culture can heavily influence how your organization works (e.g., your office dress code can set a distinct tone), so approaching the topic clearly and honestly is important. “If you really want to work on culture, then you need to be disciplined about getting clarity,” Notter writes. (ht @jamienotter)

How does your organization address workplace culture? Tell us in the comments.

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