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.

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.

One of our clients relayed the story of their mail room. There were eleven employees working in the mail room of a large financial services company. One of the employees did his job but also was very negative in his interactions with co-workers. Finally management terminated the employee and the remaining ten employees were able to do more work, more quickly than the eleven had done previously. The negative employee was acting as a productivity drain on the rest of the work group.

What impact does negativity have in your workplace? Do you find it difficult to schedule two employees to work side by side because of conflicts? Do you notice employees going out of their way to avoid dealing with someone who is known to be difficult?

As a leader it is tempting to label the person as having a negative attitude. However most of us have negative attitudes from time to time. It is not the attitude, it is the behavior that is a problem. The behaviors might include speaking in a demeaning tone, always criticizing, talking negatively about other departments or coworkers, being abrupt with customers, being disrespectful, or not cooperating.

The manager has a right (and obligation) to address the situation. It can be simply by commenting and questioning in private, or if the behavior continues it might escalate into a disciplinary conversation.

Some supervisors and managers in a unionized environment will avoid the disciplinary route because they know that the discipline will likely be overturned in the grievance process. Effective leaders aren’t preoccupied by the fact that the discipline won’t stick – they still proceed because they know that at least the message has been sent that the behavior is unacceptable.

Putting Ideas into Action

• Identify the source of negativity in your work group.
• Think about the cost of putting up with the problem in terms of your time being wasted, customers not being serviced or employees not working well together.
• Consult with your manager and the HR department to develop a strategy and to practice what to say to the employee.
• Have the meeting with the employee.
• If you notice an improvement, offer praise and reinforcement for the changed behavior.
• Observe how your life as a leader gets easier and how the productivity of your work group increases without the negative influence.

When you tackle the negativity you will gain the respect of your employees and your manager.

A front line supervisor, manager or team leader can make things better or worse, both with what they DO and what they DON’T do.

Commit- things you DO and shouldn’t

These errors of ‘commission’ can hurt employees and make the leader’s job more challenging:

• Destroying teamwork by setting up internal competition instead of getting everyone to focus on achieving their full potential.
• Answering every question and solving every problem instead of getting employees to learn and grow by thinking for themselves.
• Being overly sarcastic, cynical and negative instead of being more positive and optimistic and saying it like it is.
• Being unapproachable by looking either too aggressive or by avoiding eye contact instead of being more approachable and friendly.
• Overloading good employees and letting poor performers coast instead of proactively confronting the performance issue.

Omit – things you DON’T DO and should

These errors of ‘omission’ can hurt employees and make the leader’s job more challenging:

• Forgetting to explain ‘WHY’ when asking employees to do something.
• Waiting for employees to bring problems and questions to you instead of proactively touching base with them every day.
• Ignoring difficult employees and spending time only with your favorite employees instead of giving attention to all employees.
• Avoiding decisions and problems, hoping they will take care of themselves.

Being an effective front line leader involves both STOPPING negative behaviors and STARTING more positive ones.

Communication continues to be cited as a problem in nearly all organizations. Solving communication problems is kind of like finding a cure for the common cold. Instead of fixing it, we put up with the symptoms.

One of our clients measured the time it took for a juicy rumor to spread from the front office to the shipping dock. 20 minutes! And yet at the same time it can take months or years to deliver key management messages.

An organization with an over active grapevine tends to be one where the official lines of communication are either overly controlled or not plentiful enough in their sharing.

Many managers, supervisors and executives are overly guarded in what they communicate. Either this is because the manager feels it unnecessary to share information or thinks that employees need not concerns themselves with information seemingly irrelevant to their specific job function. Certainly leaders do need to be cautious when musing about what might happen down the road. However, when it comes to discussing present-day facts and past performance we encourage over communication. Employees have such a desire to know what is going on they will make up information if management isn’t communicating enough.

Putting the Ideas into Action

1. Do you have information that employees would like to know? Is there a down side to sharing it? Would employees be more likely to help you achieve success if they knew more about what was going on? Then begin sharing more. When holding back information, ask yourself if there is a good reason to do so.
2. Use all means available to you – town hall meetings, one on ones, emails, newsletters.
3. Be prepared to repeat yourself. Key messages can take a long time to sink in so repetition will help.
4. Observe how morale and attitude improves with more frequent communication about what is going on.

Ian Thomas, a professional speaker from South Africa was using the illustration of a pride of lions and the lessons we could learn in terms of our workplace teams.

A few observations:

• Studies show that as little as 5% of employees actually understand the goals they are supposed to pursue. There is a pretty good chance then that your team is not pulling in the same direction.
• Strong teams require strong individuals. Thomas suggests that every member of a lion pride has a job to do – some protect territory, some chase prey towards other members who go in for the kill. If any one of the team members is weak it automatically causes other team members to mistrust them because they are not helping advance towards the objective.
• The team must challenge one another in order to make absolutely sure that they trust one another to pursue the goal together.

The conflict comes when the team debates the goal, makes sure they understand it completely and are totally committed to achieving the goal. They also have to challenge one another to bring 100% of themselves to the pursuit of the goal.

By not challenging one another in a work team, it might at first appear that everything is ‘okay’ with the team. In reality a team that loses confidence in itself and what the goal is will also breed mistrust and ultimately performance will suffer.

Putting it into action

1. Instead of assuming the team understands the goal – clarify it, debate it and ensure complete understanding.
2. Challenge each member of the team to be the absolute best at what they do and make sure you hire people who can perform to your expectations.
3. Encourage conflict be having the team challenge one another to be the best they can be.

I’m talking about the tendency to send emails instead of going and talking to people.

In extreme cases it might even be to the person in the office or cubical next door.

With technology, it has become easy to avoid talking to people. Even cell phone providers are noticing that subscribers aren’t using many voice minutes, preferring instead to send texts and emails. For a manager, the use of technology can create an illusion of productivity and leave behind a wake of destruction in terms of engagement and less than stellar results.

Email isn’t a problem when dealing with facts and figures. It is a problem when dealing with conflict, persuasion and criticism. You may have been on the receiving end of a caustic email, or perhaps caught in the cross fire between two colleagues trying to out do one another with criticism. Hopefully you haven’t been the sender of this type of communication.

One of the exercises in our front line leadership course is reflecting on a communication situation in which you feel uncomfortable. Some of the most frequent responses:

• Delivering bad news
• Dealing with authority figures
• Communicating with negative people

The discomfort leads to avoidance and makes it easier to type out an email instead of doing the right thing – going to talk to the person. Yes it takes longer and it could get a little messy and yet it is the only way to achieve the results you are looking for.

Putting it Into Action

• When you are avoiding a conversation, stop yourself from sending the email and go talk to the person.
• Before you send criticism by email and copy everyone in the organization – stop and go talk to the person.
• Before you hit ‘reply to all’ and send back a zinger to someone who maligned you, stop and go talk to the person.

Need help to be able to have those uncomfortable conversations with people – come take our courses…

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