Leader Feeder Blog | Training & Development Blog

Want a great culture? Focus on these three things

The culture of your organization will either ensure your long term success or potentially leave your organization vulnerable to external threats. An effective culture leads to innovation, agility, great customer service, higher profit margins and high employee engagement. A weak culture creates and reinforces resistance to change, erratic financial performance, high employee absenteeism and turnover, and poor customer service.

Most culture change takes years to take hold (if it ever does) because management is often reluctant to address the most significant obstacles. However it can be accelerated if you target three main areas. The suggestions below are based on observing the behaviors of senior leaders in various companies and locations, research on how manager and leader behavior impacts their departments and overall company culture scores using validated models.

1. Drive for results combined with high-touch

The most consistently outstanding financial performance, employee satisfaction and culture scores can be linked to leadership behaviors that combine tenacity and focus on results with strong positive relationships and interactions with employees. Using a combination of formal and informal communication along with a rigorous focus on standardized work and continuous improvement can create a great culture and a great organization. Think lean without the mean.

2. Screaming and disrespectful conduct is not tolerated

The organizations with the best culture scores and long term track record of success do not tolerate any abusive leadership behaviors including screaming or yelling at subordinates or treating them in a demeaning or disrespectful way. In our experience, managers and supervisors with these traits can change, however rebuilding trust is a long, difficult journey. Whether it is addressed through training, coaching, reassignment or termination, any tolerance of these behaviors will drag the culture lower and keep performance from reaching its full potential. And these behaviors cannot be tolerated between employees and colleagues because the resulting conflict and lack of trust will block teamwork and limit performance.

3. Communication is the secret sauce

The second highest ranked motivator identified by employees is feeling that they are included in what is going on. To feel like an important part of the team, the employee needs to receive communication and be asked for their input. Using a combination of formal communication (newsletters, town hall meetings, small group discussion) and informal communication (conversations with managers as they interact with employees) – employees are keenly interested in how the organization is doing and the outlook for the future. This takes time, and the best leaders make the time to do it. They either invest more of their time, or they get so good at delegating less important tasks to lower levels in order to free up their time to do this. Any leader who stays in his or her office instead of mingling with the troops will never have the depth of relationships that truly motivate employees.

How good do you have to be?

During some recent training on the linkage between a manager’s or leader’s behavior and the impact on his or her department it was quite a surprise. Simply being above average, say having a 4 or 5 in a 7-point scale, often caused an incredible impact on culture. Only managers and leaders scoring a 6 or 7 out of 7 had the kind of positive impact that creates exceptional culture. This is not meant to discourage – simply to reinforce that truly exceptional leadership is required to create exceptional results and the best culture.

Our culture sucks but we make lots of money!

Companies can make profits for lots of reasons – few competitors, superior negotiating skills, proprietary technology, economies of scale. And some companies can confuse cause and effect, thinking that their aggressive or passive culture has made them successful when in fact it was other factors. This usually becomes apparent when the winds of change start to blow and the company can’t respond quickly or effectively enough.

It can be a challenge to change the culture when things appear to be going well. The symptoms of dysfunction are often apparent but ignored because the bottom line is strong or sales are growing rapidly.

Putting Ideas into Action

If you a senior leader in your organization, evaluate yourself and your leaders on how effective they are in the three areas above. Admit to your own short comings and get the training or coaching you need to make improvements. You will start to see an impact right away.

If you are a middle or front line leader, work on your own behaviors first. It is possible to create a positive sub culture at a departmental or divisional level.

Think someone else in your organization needs to read this, please send it along.

We can help you in a number of ways – training, coaching, measuring. It starts with a conversation.

Should you manage like Steve Jobs?

As I make my way through the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson I am struck by the apparent incompatible realities of Steve Jobs. As a manager, especially in his early days, Steve Jobs was as autocratic, manipulative and inconsistent as they come. And yet he transformed several industries, created an incredible amount of wealth and generated a fanatical following.

It might make you wonder if you should toss out your leadership manuals, disregard the expert research and say the heck with it – if Steve Jobs managed like a tyrant, why shouldn’t I? It worked for him.

Reading about Steve Jobs’ management style is like reading about exactly how you are not supposed to manage people. He openly and viciously criticized the work of employees and then would take some of those ideas and present them as his own. When he couldn’t persuade or seduce someone into doing what he wanted he would get emotional and cry. And he was famous for his reality distortion field… or lying. That’s right; he was known for dramatically bending the truth and exaggerating. That kind of behavior would have many people marching into HR and likely result in a termination. (Okay, that actually did happen when Jobs was ousted from Apple, a company he co-founded.)

Perhaps the ends justify the means? After all Jobs created the world’s most valuable company at Apple with a market value of $367 billion. And he turned an initial $10 million investment in Pixar into $7.9 billion when it was purchased by Disney.

As with any successful person, there were grim days like the failed NeXT computer company he started after leaving Apple the first time. And how he kept Apple from being more successful in the early days because of the ill will he fostered, the lack of teamwork and internal competition between various divisions of Apple.

In the biography, Isaacson shares how Jobs insisted that he tell it like it is. Jobs, knowing of his pending mortality wanted Isaacson to tell the whole story. Perhaps one of the reasons is that Steve Jobs wanted people to know the whole story – the good parts and the darkest parts.

Autocratic bosses often take comfort in knowing that several titans of industry have been known to have prickly, autocratic leadership styles. Even Jobs’ “frenemy” Bill Gates at Microsoft wasn’t known for his warmth.

When we explore the Autocratic management style in our leadership sessions we acknowledge that sometimes the autocratic style can work. Where the manager has a crystal clear vision, a tight time frame, a lot of personal knowledge and a lucrative opportunity, he or she can carry the day. Of course they will leave behind them a trail of defensive culture and damaged employees.

So as an aspiring manager, avoid the temptation to copy Steve Jobs’ management style, thinking it was the cause of his success. Upon further examination you will discover that he succeeded despite his approach, not because of it. In reality it was his revolutionary vision combined with good marketing skills and tenacity that truly defined his success. If anything his management style likely held back even greater success in the early days. Like many managers, his less publicized failures helped make him stronger.

Today’s Leadership Action Tip

Reading about successful entrepreneurs and business leaders should always be taken in context. There are lessons to be learned from every story. Consider other factors that helped the person succeed including the operating environment, the profit margins they enjoyed, and the level of competition.
Remember that for the relatively few examples of tyrannical managers enjoying awe-inspiring success there are many more examples of those types of managers ruining their companies, getting fired and destroying shareholder value.
Focus on being constructive – setting ambitious and challenging goals, being curious about achieving fulfillment for yourself and others, encouraging the growth of others and being approachable. It has proven to be the winning strategy for far more managers, supervisors and business owners.

By the way, the book is a fascinating read and I highly recommend it!

Helping or Harping?

When front line supervisors and managers are asked to share some of the characteristics of the best manager or supervisor they had ever worked for, they will include “supportive” on that list. One participant was even more emphatic – his best boss was focused on “helping” not “harping”.

A boss who is constantly critical and focuses on problems without being willing to provide support and suggestions is not helping. In fact they may be demotivating the team. The resulting decline of morale and attitude will hamper long term performance.

Can you be too helpful?

Being helpful and supportive does not mean sheltering your team from challenges and set backs. Some leaders take back tasks at the first sign that an individual is struggling instead of taking the role of coach. As a coach you job is to empathize with the struggles, ask questions to help the person discover a solution and encourage them to persevere. You can also share suggestions and how you dealt with a similar challenge in the past.

Is there a time for “harping”?

In our book Employees Not Doing What You Expect by Irwin and I describe one of the reasons employees don’t meet expectations is because of mixed signals from the boss. The manager or supervisor might describe his or her expectations and then never follow-up. Employees get the message that it really can’t be that important. In this case it can be helpful for the manager to follow-up to demonstrate the importance of the task. This kind of constructive “harping” sends the signal to employees that the standard of performance is higher. An effective leader follows up on what she says and applies positive and negative consequences when expectations are met or not met.

Action tips to being a helpful manager or supervisor

Clarify your expectations so that your employees can meet them.
Help employees find solutions for themselves.
Allow employees to learn from mistakes.
Backup the decisions of employees and coach them privately.
Coach by sharing personal stories, asking questions and challenging assumptions.

As a leader, focus on how you can support the people who work for you to achieve the expectations you have set. You might even be the manager or supervisor they think of when asked “Who is the best boss you have ever worked for?”

Fear of mistakes or search for success?

Some organizations, especially ones that are more bureaucratic can begin to develop a culture where the punishment for mistakes exceeds the praise for success.

Organizations can get bogged down because employees are focused on playing it safe, fearing career-limiting consequences for making mistakes. In sporting terms, they play defense more than offence.

This hiding tendency makes it difficult for senior management to size up what it going wrong in the organization and sometimes even senior leaders are playing things too safe.

Continue reading →

Leadership whack-a-mole?

When we head to the amusement park, a favorite game is Whack-a-mole where the little critters stick their heads up and you try to whack them with a mallet. The person with the highest score wins a prize. Management and supervision can be like playing a never-ending game of whack-a-mole except there usually is no prize – just more moles to whack.

In the same way, a supervisor can fill his day with reacting to the problems-du-jour of which there will be plenty. Their employees can bring them a never ending string of problems to solve and questions to answer. Trying to be helpful, the supervisor or manager shoulders the biggest burden and can end up feeling burnt out.

Continue reading →

Employee Performance: Terminate or Rehabilitate?

Today we look at the one or two bottom performing employees you might have on your team or in your company. It could be job performance related or it could be negativity or behavior problems. Can they be ‘fixed’ or should you let them go and move forward with hiring a replacement?

An HR Manager shared with me they as she looked back on all the people they had put on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) most ended up being terminated either in the short term or the long term. Does that mean we should just go ahead and pull the plug on poor performers? Can any be salvaged?

Continue reading →

Is laziness a powerful motivator?

Could laziness be the most powerful motivator of all? And if it is, how can you use this to your advantage?

As a people watcher have you ever noticed that the majority of people gravitate to the easiest way of accomplishing a task?

Continue reading →

Decision making waste?

When asked, the majority of executives, managers and supervisors agree that they frequently make decisions, answer questions and solve problems that should be handled at one or two levels below them.

By handling these problems, decisions and questions at the wrong level, the organization is experiencing a kind of waste. Wasted talent, reduced quality and decreased capacity.

Whenever an executive, manager or supervisor gets involved in a decision, question or problem that should be solved at a lower level, they cause waste.

Continue reading →

Negativity saps productivity

After nearly five years since my last flight as a private pilot, it felt great to get out flying again with an instructor. It was amazing how much past knowledge came back so quickly. That shows the power of repetition from the original flight training nearly 10 years ago!

And speaking of repetition… it seems that every time I’m working with front line supervisors and managers they identify ‘negativity’ as one of the employee behaviors they ‘put up with’.

When asked what they are putting up with, front line supervisors and managers always put employee negativity on the list. And the reason the leader puts up with it is because despite the negativity, the employee is often able to do their job to at least an acceptable level. Sometimes a negative employee is one of the top performers.

Continue reading →

Hiding in plain sight

Have you ever worked for a manager who was extra fussy about policies, procedures and doing things in a very specific way? One of the exercises in our Front Line Leadership program involves having participants act out different leadership styles to see how they impact results and employee satisfaction.

One of the styles is called The Conformist. This type of manager makes his or her employees comply with onerous unnecessary requirements. This rigid pursuit of policies and procedures demotivates employees because they cannot see the value and it blocks innovation and creativity.

Continue reading →