Leading Workplace Change™

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.

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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.

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I just wrote a blog about a top-down culture which made me remember my first  visceral experience as a culture consultant in a company with a Daddy Knows Best culture. These kind of workplaces are similar to top-down cultures, but there is clearly a more family feel about the work environment where employees are taken care of; job security is usually guaranteed; and in return, employees are expected to be loyal.  There are not many of these Daddy Knows Best or Family cultures left as most companies broke the psychological contract with employees of life-time employment in the last 10 to 15 years.

But now, back to my first visceral experience with a Daddy Knows Best culture - we were presenting the results of our culture assessment to the top management team of the company - we had come to the point of offering recommended next steps, but then quietly, the CEO’s assistant came in and whispered in the CEO’s ear about something.  The CEO politely excused himself . No one said anything, we all just waited - 10 minutes - 30, 45 minutes.  It was very uncomfortable for everyone and it was clear (nonverbally) that it was our role as consultants to wait for the CEO to come back before we should continue.

I remember looking around the room and thinking that all of the company officers sitting around the table were male, the age of my Father and most likely had children my age - in their mid-30’s.  I suddenly realized that my Father was not infallible and that he probably sometimes worked in environments where he was treated like a child without any power.  I started to worry about the leadership of this company, of our country…  Finally, the door opened and the CEO came back into the room - we took up where we left off. 

The CEO led a spirited debate about our recommended next steps and then politely thanked us for our work.  We presented the findings to differing levels over the next 6 months, but follow-up actions were minimal. Within the next 10 years, this company was purchased by another company in its industry. Another time, we will talk about the delicate balance between loyalty, security and innovation.

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We recently started a culture project with an organization that was once part of the federal government and became “privatized” in the last 10 years.  This organization is also very safety conscious and rightly so, as they deal in hazardous materials.  So as you might expect guidelines on how work gets done are specific - expectations are that you follow all process steps.

As in many companies, they wanted their culture results in time for a big management meeting - two months away.  We were told, “don’t worry, we can get this project done quickly, we are a top-down kind of place.  We can send out notices today and people will be at a meeting tomorrow!  This sounded like a nice break from some of the companies, we had been working with where work gets done through relationships, and scheduling meetings can take forever.

Planning moved along quickly, but we came up with a few snags that are also part of top-down cultures. We got push back on some of our culture questions as being “too vague and employees would never understand them.” We are used to these kind of “level conscious” comments from managers and were able to help them realize that the openness was on purpose to enable line employees as well as managers to express in their own way how work gets done in their company.

The major barrier turned out to be waiting for the CEO to sign off on an introductory letter explaining the purpose of the culture project.  In a top-down culture, this is very important and the right process step to adhere to.  But, here we are - four weeks later, waiting for the CEO to return from a trip to Asia; attend a son’s graduation; and leave time for a long holiday weekend.  Yes, the command and control culture is alive and well. You have to wait for the commander’s OK.

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During a recent after dinner discussion on a Saturday night, a friend started talking about his work and how the “young folks just did not want to pay their dues.” His voice started getting louder and he stated that they need to put their time in and not expect to be leading the big jobs right away. My response was - “so it sounds like you value tenure over training and expertise?” No, he said, I just think this younger generation is pushy (remember, he is the friend of the “older, but wiser white lady”). His wife smiled and gave his arm a light tap. He looked at me and said - “what do you mean?”

I replied - “You may want to think about what is really needed for a job - experience, expertise or both and then make your decision accordingly and communicate why when talking to folks.” He replied - “that sounds like work!” We all laughed, and I said - “yes, that is what we ‘old-timers’ need to be doing - managing people as part of our job.”

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I was moved to start a blog due to recent experiences with long-term clients. I realized these clients were stuck - nothing new in change management consulting, especially if you focus on helping leaders adapt their organizational cultures! I finally realized that the difficulty was a few key members of the management teams were not making important decisions, holding the whole team back and mostly because they were unable to personally act differently.

Now, changing how you act is a difficult task for anyone, let alone folks who now realize that whatever they do as leaders will be watched like a hawk by all employees of their organization. As consultants’ we had done a good job in communicating the responsibility of leaders to model and reward how they wanted everyone to act if they wanted a shift in their workplace culture - maybe too good a job. Eventually, I realized these leaders were human and nervous about their abilities to change their day-to-day behaviors. I remembered the same feeling when I ran an organization 15 years ago and mandated that everyone use an electronic client update system and I personally still did not understand how Windows worked on my computer!

We initiated individual coaching processes in our client organizations, but it was not enough.  So, the idea of a blog came to me as a way to more privately support people to act differently through the use of personal and workplace stories. I knew in my bones the power to inspire when you tell stories in small groups and big presentations and it seemed worth trying this new blog technology to tell stories in a more intimate way.

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An acquaintance who works in executive search, recently called me to talk about how she could improve her confidence in providing good “culture fit” candidates for her clients.  When I asked her how she does it now, she said - it is a rather informal process.  I listen to the words a client uses to describe their organization, and then to the personal characteristics they are looking for in a person.  I then look at the accomplishments of candidates and use that as a predictor of future abilities and “culture fit.”

My response was that she was on track in thinking of “culture fit” by listening to her clients’ own words.  We talked more and I offered a way of defining “culture fit” more systematically by asking four questions to get more specific info on what an organization values which would allow her to be clearer on what characteristics to look for in candidates.

1. What are your organization’s current sources of competitive advantage?

a. Such as technical superiority; listening to the customer; or, by dominating the industry

2. How do executives currently work together to meet business goals?

a. Such as being a team player; being results-oriented; or, being a builder of relationships

3. How are decisions made currently among the management team?

a. Such as: top down; collaborative give & take; or, through debate & conflict

4. Is the organization looking for any different ways of working in the future?

I counseled her that the last question is very important in that she needs to know the difference between how things really work and what are just desired ways of working.  A candidate with good “culture fit” has to know how to maneuver through the middle ground of what is and what is desired!

Tags: Workplace Stories // Add Comment »

Here is a story that is representative of findings from our field work. I recently worked with a cross-section of employees within an organization to help them identify their organizational culture.  Let’s call them, the Culture Team.  We discussed one of the findings - that job security and advancement are more likely to be determined by “knowing the right people” than it is by job performance.   An employee quote that seemed to define this culture characteristic is - … we tend to not be a meritocracy.  Capabilities and performance are less important than personal relationships, friendships, history and tenure in being personally successful here.

The longer-tenured members of the culture team looked confused, and noted there was talk about putting in a pay-for-performance process.  While an articulate young man could not help himself and burst out with - “this is crazy, I want to be measured by what I do, not by how well I network and make other people look good!” 

The room fell silent and finally, an older female Team member said - “yes, our culture does honor the use of relationships to get our work done and it is not all bad.  Working together well and having interpersonal skills in how to relate with people is important for our success - we are in the service business.”  The discussion then moved to how quickly the organization is growing and how the work is getting more complex and that there are more younger people here from many different backgrounds.  The discussion concluded with the thought that using relationships to get our work done probably worked better when the organization was smaller, more homogeneous and a simpler work place.  

The Culture Team agreed upon the need for balance - and that the first step for culture change was for leaders to start talking about the importance of setting clear goals and measuring results while working together.  And, the new pay-for-performance system must be clear in its rewards for people who meet performance goals as well as for building relationship skills.

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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.

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I recently read a good article that relates storytelling to leading change. It is called “The Four Truths of the Storyteller” by Peter Guber in the Harvard Business School (12/07). The cool thing is that Guber is a film producer of such movies as Rain Man, Batman and The Color Purple, so the article interweaves the world of filmmaking and leadership. What I like the best about the article is that Guber gives very specific and behavioral info about how to tell a story that people will get wrapped up in like a movie. He connects storytelling to the shamans’ and griots’ of pre-history who helped groups, tribes and civilizations to pass on their beliefs, values and rules in their tales of great heroes, triumphs and tragedies.

This connects directly to my thoughts that leaders who want to consciously manage culture change need to be good storytellers, because there is power in stories – we, as humans are biologically wired to like listening to stories – to be entertained and to learn at the same time. And the end goal for leaders who aspire to manage culture change is - to get people to act the way you want them to in a natural and self-sustaining way. So read this article to get the basics of how to tell a good story.

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