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.

Occasionally I receive a phone call or email asking if I can come in and conduct a training workshop for employees on a subject like harassment and respectful communication. With a little probing it turns out that many of these group training sessions are in response to the actions of a few misbehaving individuals.

Instead of (or in addition to) dealing with these individuals directly, the whole group has to endure training on a subject they already comply with.

Recently I was re-reading an excellent book, The Speed of Trust by Stephen M.R. Covey. In the book Covey illustrates a number of examples where we pay a trust ‘tax’ – essentially extra cost and reduced speed because of a lack of trust. Many policies, procedures, regulations and compliance training add to this trust tax – slowing down the organization and adding to its cost.

This is very evident to my HR clients who often see big chunks of their training budgets allocated to compliance training with precious little left over to develop the organization in a more proactive way (think leadership training and customer service skills training).

One example that stands out in my mind was in a health care setting where staff had to endure multiple in-services (health care term for training) on patient documentation because a few staff failed to maintain complete and accurate documentation. Instead of taking those few people aside, everyone had to endure needless retraining. It took up valuable time and money in an already cash-strapped environment. The manager was avoiding the confrontation and because of her fear, everyone paid the price.

Putting Ideas into Action

• Instead of creating a ‘rules based’ organization, consider focusing on your values and attributes. This clarifies the expectations of behavior and defines your culture.
• Train your leaders on coaching, confronting and correcting skills so that they will talk to employees whose behavior differs from expectations.
• Think twice after an incident before deploying additional policies and procedures. Assess severity and probability before adding this extra burden to your organization.
• Consider reviewing your existing policies and procedures and eliminating those that cause the greatest amount of aggravation for employees and supervisors.

The vast majority of your employees want to behave consistently with your expectations. Avoid allowing the behaviors of a few to slow down your organization from focusing on the real prize – the customer.

• Think about the talents and potential of the people who work for you.
• Have conversations with them about their ambitions.
• Provide challenging job assignments.
• Delegate greater responsibility to them.
• Recommend worthy candidates for promotion.
• Give tough love to those who need to adjust their thinking.
• Encourage and push employees to stretch themselves beyond their current beliefs about what is possible. 

1. Reflect on the clues you might be receiving from the people you interact with, the projects you undertake and the challenges you overcome.
2. Ask for feedback from people who know you best.
3. Experiment, take some measured risks.
4. Go out of your way to tell a friend, colleague or acquaintance about a strength you notice in them.

Like William Wrigley, Jr. I hope you can discover that next great idea that moves you toward fulfilling your potential.

It seems that almost every organization has at least one individual who everyone puts up with for longer than they should because the person has some special knowledge and experience.
 
In effect they hold the organization hostage. And it can be a significant risk to the organization if the person were to leave suddenly… or would it?
 
An HR Manager was sharing her organization’s experience in having a former plant manager demoted several times and put on special projects because of his considerable knowledge of the plant facilities and equipment. He was deemed untouchable despite the fact that there were many long serving employees in production and maintenance who likely could handle most situations that arose.
 
What to do if your organization is a knowledge hostage

• Assess the real risk. Does the individual have real or only perceived special knowledge? What would the consequences be if the person wasn’t there?
• If there is a real risk, develop a strategy now to mitigate that risk. Use documentation and cross training to get others up to speed.
• Explain that it isn’t acceptable for the individual to hoard knowledge and expertise and that there are consequences to him or her for continuing to do so.
• Confront, correct and encourage the individual to be less defensive about their knowledge and focus on helping the team succeed.

What to do if you are the person holding the organization hostage

• Realize that you may not be creating the security you had hoped for.
• Reposition yourself as a teacher of others and think of your legacy of leaving the organization stronger instead of putting it at risk.
• Seek training, coaching or mentoring to change behaviors that are hurting your job performance and ability to interact constructively with others.

—
 
Dr. Peter DeShane and I are scheduling another workshop: The Psychology of Persuasion and Influence on June 9th in London, Ontario.
 
Now is the time of year when companies plan leadership retreats – see how we can make these meetings more positive and productive.
  
Have a great week!

The Missing Ingredient
 
Most process improvement initiatives involve a tool kit of problem solving tools, methodology and intensive training. Some, like Six Sigma come with fancy names like Black Belt and Green Belt and business books and consultants trumpet the extraordinary payback, with a sizable investment!
 
Some cynics might think that greedy consultants are really just repackaging concepts such as value stream mapping and continuous improvement into fancier systems and there is some truth there.
 
Management can be forgiven for being seduced into paying big bucks for training and consulting. The promised payback is extraordinary, especially in the early stages when the low hanging fruit is picked. Once the initiative moves from the most enthusiastic managers involved in pilot projects to the broader organization, many initiatives begin to fade.
 
The missing ingredient is Leadership.
 
In fact, for most businesses, the exhaustive tool kits are overkill and can overwhelm the organization.
 
Without leadership, all of these initiatives fail to connect the people to the process. For managers without effective people skills the technical tools appear to do away with the need to engage and motivate. It’s not that the tools are ineffective – they just don’t create the full benefit without leadership.
 
It could be argued that an effective manager with good leadership skills could achieve similar results with the basic premise of reducing wasted effort, getting employees to engage in finding better ways of doing their work and measuring key aspects of the process.
 
Before embarking on a large process improvement, consider how your leadership team will keep the process alive and ensure benefits are sustained.

Reflection Questions

• Is the proposed process improvement overkill for your type of organization? 
• Is the leadership team (from executives to the front line) capable and consistent in managing people and process? 
• How would consistent and capable leadership help run the business better, perhaps without lots of additional training/consulting?

Action Items

• Continue to invest in the leadership capabilities of your team from the executive suites to the front line leaders.
• Make continuous improvement and lean part of the culture instead of being a special project.
• Ensure sustainability by having consistent management attention over a long period of time.

1. Challenge – Even high-potential employees will leave an organization if they are bored so managers need to provide a steady diet of new challenges, projects and assignments to create growth.
2. Recognition and acknowledgement – Let employees know that their contribution makes a difference. Say thank-you and let employees know that you see the impact they are having on the team, the customers and the organization as a whole.
3. Inclusion – While you might have favorites, it is crucial to reinforce teamwork through fair and consistent treatment.
4. Likeability and respect for the boss – A major reason employees look for opportunities is because they really don’t like the person they report to. This isn’t simply a popularity contest – they want a manager who is consistent, positive, knowledgeable, supportive and ambitious.

Reflection Questions

• How many of the four motivational elements above exist in your organization?
• Are you the kind of boss employees enjoy working for or do you need to make changes?
• What needs to change in order to have an engaging and motivating workplace?

Action Items

• Assess your personal satisfaction level, identify what is missing and what it will take to fill the void.
• Evaluate your workplace on the four motivational elements and commit yourself to making it better.
• Make adjustments and see the impact on both productivity and job satisfaction.

• If you are in a leadership role, are there questions you answer and problems you solve that you know could be handled by your team?
• If you are constantly giving answers, how does it impact your job satisfaction and the morale of your workgroup?
• How would your leadership role be more rewarding if you could get the team to solve most of the problems they encounter? 

Action Items

• Size up your work group – do they have the capability to think more for themselves without coming to you for every little question and problem?
• Begin asking, “What do you think would work?” when you are presented with a question or problem.
• Give coaching to help the employee make better decisions and develop good judgement.
• Give positive feedback when the employee takes initiative to solve problems on their own.
• Enjoy having some extra time to focus on bigger issues and problems that need your attention.

• Do you provide adequate training so that employees understand both what is expected and how to perform in their jobs?
• Do you provide regular, detailed performance feedback both informally and formally?
• How to you treat your temporary employees? Do they feel that they play a worthy role on the team even though they might not work for you for a long time?

Action Items

• Refrain from maligning so called McJobs, especially if your organization doesn’t measure up to the robust people management practices of McDonalds.
• If you manage in an organization that employs relatively low-skilled employees it doesn’t mean that you should treat them with less respect.
• If you manage higher-skilled and higher-paid staff then you really should be implementing positive and proactive leadership practices. It will help you better manage your business.

• Complaints without solutions.
• Hints about a problem without being direct.
• Saying they will do something and then not doing it.
• Checking in with the leader even when they know what needs to be done.
• Looking busy but not having enough to do.
• Being overly concerned about whether people like and accept them.
• Avoiding conflict and avoiding decisions.
• Wanting to take extra long on a project that only requires a fraction of the time.

As a leader, here is what you can do:

• Listen for hints of problems and dissatisfaction and deal with them directly. In some cases you may even have to say what you think they are thinking to validate it. “I sense that you might have a concern about the project, can you let me know what it is?”
• Consult and ask questions to get input from passive individuals in advance.
• Where possible, give advance notice of what you want in order to avoid surprising people.
• Be specific about what you want and when you want it.
• Explain yourself – give a logical reason why it is necessary to do what you want.
• Deal with concerns or potential concerns to show how your proposed action poses little risk and will help make things letter.
• Ask for a commitment or buy-in instead of assuming there is agreement.

For achievement oriented individuals, this approach will feel excruciatingly slow. However if success is measured by what actually gets done well, this approach will yield better results.