Leading Workplace Change™

The U.S. presidential election is in the news and there have been a number of in-depth articles about the organizational workings of some of the candidates’ campaign staffs.  One such article was by Peter Baker and Jim Rutenberg in the New York Times (6.8.08) called “The Long Road to a Clinton Exit.”  This article is a treasure trove of information about Mrs. Hilary Clinton’s campaign, but what caught my attention were the clues to understanding the culture of her campaign staff.

One of the first cultural clues identified from the article was, as would be expected, a strong drive to win.  But, there are myriad approaches in the world on how to win which in turn create differing ways of working within a staff.  Many of the quotes seemed to point to an offensive or attack approach to winning based on “overwhelming force” and the drive to capitalize on a reputation of past success.  The article authors noted – “…her (Mrs. Clinton’s) campaign represented a back-to-the-future effort to restore the Democratic dynasty of the 1990’s…”

Another cultural theme that jumped off the pages of the article was the strong sense of internal competition among campaign staff members which was noted as distracting them from battling their external opponents.  The following quote gave me an insight to the original source of this way of working - “On election night, Mr. Clinton grew playfully competitive with his wife over who had done more events or had more impact…Mr. Clinton wanted to know exactly what the returns were in the places he had been and Hillary hadn’t been. He kept showing Hillary and she would laugh.” So it appears that one of the sources for why the campaign staff competed so strongly against each other was the modeling of rivalry between Mr. and Mrs. Clinton themselves.

It is my sense that every grouping of people who work together over time with a common purpose develops a set of shared rules of behavior that can be identified as some form of an organizational culture.  These rules are many times not talked about, but primarily people watch how the leader(s) act - who they promote and follow the behaviors rewarded.  If these behaviors produce success in meeting the group’s purpose – a culture is set in place. 

The last sentence above sounds very final, but what happens if the culture does not help a group to achieve their purpose?  In a fast-paced environment, it just may be too late.  The alternative is for leader(s) to pay attention to the rules of behavior within their organization – ask the question if these rules are helping and if not, start first by modeling the behaviors they think will bring success.

Tags: Corporate Culture Observer, Leaders Leading by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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My family likes to eat shrimp all year and not only in season, but I recently read an article in the Atlanta Journal & Constitution (7/10/08) about “The Hidden Cost of Shrimp,” and I am ready to act differently. How I reacted to this article is a good example of one kind of push people usually need to change how they act.

The article outlines the pro’s and con’s between purchasing “wild-caught, farm-raised, U.S. or Asian shrimp.” The reporter, Meredith Ford gives the reader details about how shrimp gets to our fish markets and they are not pleasant - spread of disease, use of antibiotics & pesticides and destruction of ecosystems - all this info made me think differently about the shrimp I love to eat

But, the part of her article which affected me the most were her final thoughts - she recommends that we need to think about eating less shrimp; saving them for special occasions; and, to understand the greater cost to our planet than the price we pay per pound of shrimp!

Wow, this thought is coming from the Food & Drink section of a daily newspaper in the United States - asking us to think less rather than more. This pushes against the grain of our American cultural belief that we have unlimited natural resources. Essentially, she is asking us to think differently about the food we eat and our lives. 

Thinking differently is the first step towards acting differently.  

Tags: Corporate Culture Observer, Good Books and Articles by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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We have worked with a number of companies who use branding as a way to market their products.  These companies are diverse in the products or services they market from consumer goods, medical products to wilderness preservation, but an interesting common cultural theme amongst them all is the need for folks within these organizations to embody their organization’s  brand if they want to fit-in and be successful. The phrases we hear from these folks in our culture discovery work are:

• Need to manage your personal image as if it were a brand
• Important to represent our brand image when interacting with customers
• Need to live and breathe our mission in your personal life

This common cultural theme was confirmed for me again when I recently read an article about the transition in leadership occurring at Coca Cola. This is a company which uses branding to market its products and my sense is their brand image is upbeat, about feeling good and about fulfilling dreams.  The article by Joe Guy Collier in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution (7/2/08) quotes a  beverage industry specialist as saying that the retiring Coca-Cola CEO, Neville Isdell - “basically fixed the company and its culture … he used the force of his own personality and style to provide leadership - giving people faith and confidence in the company again.

It appears that Isdell knew how to embody the Coke brand and capitalize on it, and employees felt comfortable and galvanized with this kind of leader.  Sure he did many other things to return the company to growth and profitability, but improving employee morale is mentioned many times as one of his successes.  So the question is when do leaders in organizations that have what I call - brand corporate cultures need to live and breathe their organization’s brand image in order to be successful in their role?

Tags: Corporate Culture Observer, Good Books and Articles by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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I cannot help myself from writing more about the hustler  instinct in the American persona and how it manifests itself in the corporate cultures of some companies.   One of the clear themes in historian, Walter A. McDougall’s book, Freedom Just Around the Corner - A New American History, 1585-1828 is that “we are a country and a people with a ‘penchant for hustling’ - in both the positive and negative senses.”  He talks about “how hustlers are folks who are known for getting things done, but also cut corners and cheat and above all are always in a hurry… fleeing into the future.” 

You can sense that hustler persona emerge in companies today, especially those with a “win-at-all-costs” culture.  When asked what it takes to be successful in these companies,  the following  behaviors are many times noted by employees:

• must create opportunities & exploit them
• must be aggressive, compete & take calculated risks
• do whatever it takes to get the deal done

In the more successful of these companies, there are two important values that are in place in order to harness the hustler instincts and these are:

• Achieve Results for the Good of the Customer/Public Mission
  • not for industry dominance or for personal gain
• Working Together to Serve the Customer/Public Mission

It is clear from these two required values that having a focus linking the hustler instinct to something beyond personal gain or power is important.  This is not an easy job and usually very much of a juggling act on the part of leadership. Their work is to set and maintain the customer/public service mission front and center at all times without sacrificing the willingness of individuals to take personal risks and create opportunities for the future.

Tags: Corporate Culture Observer, Good Books and Articles, Leaders Leading by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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I recently saw the documentary movie – “Bigger, Stronger, Faster*, and was enamored how this movie so unexpectedly summarizes a powerful aspect of American popular and corporate culture.  The movie filters out the American “win-at-all-costs” characteristic as one of the underlying drivers for rampant steroid use in sports today.  We see this characteristic as a strategic cultural driver in many American companies as well and it can be hard to manage.

Then I read Bob Longino’s interview with the film’s director, Chris Bell in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (6/13/08).  I realized director Bell’s perspective that you need rules and they need to be reinforced in sports as similar to how the “win-at-all-costs” culture driver needs to be harnessed in companies.  In new fields or markets when the game has not been clearly defined, there are great opportunities and usually a lack of rules – think of the de-regulation of the energy business in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.  Some individuals and companies were solely out for personal gain – they saw the energy trading business as a “gravy train and they did not want to do anything to upset the train for themselves.”

Harnessing the hustler instincts of the American persona is what good leaders should be about – providing ground rules, incentives and adherence to an over-riding mission and values.  The culture of a company does not develop in a vacuum and director Bell’s sub-title to his movie – “*The Side Effects of Being American” reminds us that we are all part of the great American dream and having rules to play by can help us all.

Tags: Corporate Culture Observer by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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I am always putting on my “corporate culture observer” hat - most times because it is my job and that is what people pay me for, but other times - I just cannot help it.  I interact with people in casual conversation and hear them talk about their work and community lives, and I unconsciously latch onto clues that tell me something about how culture is influencing them in what they do.

For example, yesterday I went early with my dog to the park down the street and I met a neighbor who I regularly meet with his dog.  We know each other well through our early morning conversations about most everything.  This morning, we talked about his son’s baseball team and how as a coach, he has to raise money for the team’s upcoming trip to Cooperstown.  He said, “you know it is easy for me, because raising money is what I am rewarded for in my work.”  I looked at him with a question in my eyes and he said - “as a medical researcher/professor in a university, writing grants is what I do all the time - I have to find a way for the funders to believe in me, my ideas and find a way to feed the funders’ egos enough so they will give me money - I am a salesman.”

I locked that bit of info up in my culture bin for future reference - one of the keys to personal success at a research university is to be good at sales - selling the intangible.  I never would have thought of that on my own, but it makes sense.

Tags: Corporate Culture Observer by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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