Carolyn Taylor Archive - Walking the Talk

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Update – finding our niche

It has been several months since I blogged in corporate culture and its contribution to organisational performance. At Walking the Talk we have spent this time further refining our products and testing them with our first clients from around the world. We have been training our first group of accredited local partners to incorporate the Walking the Talk culture management system into what they offer their clients. Above all we have been learning and correcting, finding out what the market wants, where we have a unique niche and how we can refine and improve.

We have learnt that culture does matter to executives and to HR managers, and that very few companies are confident that they have things in hand. We are finding an appetite to master the personal and managerial skills required to lead a culture which fits the organization’s business intent. We can provide the tools to achieve this. This blog is a small part of our intention to culture easier to understand and to share ideas which leaders can use in their quest to influence the behavior and values of their people.

How to use culture to improve engagement… and more

Employee engagement is now a metric measured annually in many corporations. At its most simple, it is an indicator of ’stay, say, strive’ – the likelihood that employees will stay with the organization, speak well of it to others and put in their best effort. The word ‘engagement’ speaks to commitment to each other. In short, engagement describes how employees feel, which can be considered the ‘climate’ of the organization.

What is the relevance of culture to an organization that is focused on engagement? Firstly, culture is not engagement. Culture relates to behavior, engagement (or climate) to motivation. Culture is the patterns of behavior that are encouraged or discouraged over time. These behaviors will either facilitate business performance, or they will hinder it. They will either be aligned to values that will build your brand and reputation, or they will not. Certain behaviors are more critical for certain strategies. For example, a strategy to win market share through being first to market with new products will require a culture which encourages innovation, fast implementation and the ability to correct fast. Engagement is a measure of how motivated people feel. But what type of people, and motivated to what end?

For sure having people motivated is better than having them demotivated. But what if the people who are motivated are slow moving and conservative. How will this help your new strategy? It can happen that when an organization adopts a new strategy, and demands a new culture, some people who fitted with the old ways actually need to leave, and these people may feel quite disengaged.

When you actively manage your culture in service of an intended business outcome, the people who you most need will become very engaged (in this case the innovators). So high engagement is an outcome of the right culture.

In the Walking the Talk methodology, we have one of six cultural archetypes as People-First. People-First cultures have made the decision that by placing ‘caring for their employees’ at the very top of their values hierarchy, they will best achieve their business outcomes. For these organizations, engagement is a perfect indicator of their culture goals. But for other organizations, Achievement, or building a more accountable and outcome focused business might be the most important culture goal. It is hard, however attractive it may sound, to focus on more than one cultural attribute at a time. So you need to consider the key communication message and area of focus that is most relevant for your business imperatives right now.

By focusing on this culture goal you will achieve high engagement as an outcome, but you will also achieve a whole lot more. Specifically the business outcome for which certain behaviors are critical. Be interested in your engagement scores, because they are a good indicator of your organization’s health. But invest the majority of your effort in building the culture you need to achieve your business goals. When you look up from this process, you will find that the employees you really need will be highly engaged, and the rest will either be striving to change to fit into the new culture, or go.

To offer a slightly different perspective, here is an article on culture and engagement by Hewitt, who own one of the most commonly used engagement surveys.

Zappos Corporate Culture

Zappos, a US on-line retailer, has built its success based on extraordinary customer service. Here, Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos describes how he learnt from bad experiences he had early in his career, and built his company with crystal clear beliefs and principles. Zappos has recently been acquired by Amazon. Watch this space on how two great organisations manage their merger.

Innovation: How Honda ‘kicks out the ladder’

There is always a challenge for leaders to learn the specific management techniques and behaviors they can adopt in order to build the culture they want. You’ve defined your target culture, innovation is one of your top priorities, now what do you actually have to DO as a leader?

I found a good video made by Honda in which the CEO Takeo Fukua describes a technique he uses called ‘kicking out the ladder’, similar to the English expression ‘burning your bridges’. By setting up a situation where not innovating will cause the team to fail, or to lose face, innovation follows. Here is the video.

I am often asked whether fear is a good motivator. My answer is that some fear, that adrenelin rush associated with being on the edge, does motivate and focus, (Think of the impact a deadline has on you). Too much fear will paralyse, or cause individuals to operate in a dysfunctional manner. A lot depends on the culture within which the people are operating. A culture of punishment and intimidation will increase fear levels and make normal situations fear inducing. A culture of support and encouragement, combined with a demanding stretch, will enable a healthy level of adrenelin flow.

Take a look at the examples Honda gives on how they manage this. I think they do it pretty well.

We found this video in a blog written by a consulting firm called Innovate on Purpose, who seem to have other good things to say about innovation.

Successful companies build strong internal culture capability

In my many years of consulting to organizations who are actively managing their culture I discovered an unexpected fact. The organizations who were doing it best were doing it with only limited external help, or none at all. This was an uncomfortable truth, in the days where I worked for companies which made their money selling ‘consultant days’. “What, you mean the client doesn’t need us!” Building internal capability has to be a top priority for any organization that is serious about culture. The core drive and strength must come from inside. (My yoga teacher tells me the same thing!)

This capability needs to include the understanding of how to build the right culture; the capability to build and execute an on-going culture plan; the personal capability to challenge and to hold true to values. Ultimately, this capability needs to become a core leadership compentence, initially it can sit with a few line leaders and a strong OD/HR team.

Many organizations talk about their culture without having this capability. When this occurs there are a number of risks

Lack of alignment: There are lots of activities around culture, but there is not a core framework within which they all sit. As a result, the messages is diluted and employees get confused. When this occurs, the likelihood that anyone will actually change their behavior is significantly reduced.

Sporadic focus: When times get tough, an organization will cut back on those activities which it does not see as important. Culture is the pattern of beaviors that are encouraged or discouraged over time. Sporadic encouragement is not enough. So when the investment in culture is not constant, the investment that is incurred is wasted.

Too much to do: What are the most important levers to pull to change your culture? Or, if the culture you have is an asset, what are the critical elements which might be at risk as you grow? In any particular culture, how can you know which initiatives will have the biggest impact, and focus yourselves there?

Walking the Talk is making a contribution to building internal capability by offering tools and training programmes for HR/OD and key culture champions. As those people increase their know-how, they are able to design the best culture strategy for their organization. They may well choose to use external vendors to help them with specific activities. But they do so from a position of knowledge and strength, within a framework that their organization understands.

Why customers feel bullied

A recent study cited in the New York Times has shown that school children, if left without influence, tend towards bullying and other selfish behavior. And conversely, that it is quite possible to instil in a school values of teamwork, tolerance and support for each other. This study concluded that values have to be, and can, be taught. Fast forward 20 years and the child takes his or her place in the organization. How many organizations take responsibility for instilling the important values in their employees?

I have often wondered why it is that basically good, constructive individuals can become rude, unattentive and often bullies themselves when placed into the world of their organization. Unguided, organizational culture tends towards the lowest common demoninator. Some individuals are actively offensive, and most of the rest, lacking support to be otherwise, take steps down that same path in order to survive.

Instilling the right values is a key role of leaders. Some education occurs explictly through conversation, induction and training. Much occurs through role modelling. The rest occurs through the process of encouraging and discouraging behaviors when they are displayed in others. This process forms the foundation on which a culture is built naturally and over time. It is particularly obvious in companies with strong cultures in which they are proud. But there are many others which remind me of the school yard. Lots of focus on technical development, but very little on the development of values. And in these environments, the lowest common demoninator behavior tends to prevail. Selfish behavior inside the organization spills out to the outside world. The consequence is that customers and other stakeholders are bullied. The techniques used become more sophisticated, but the experience of the customer remains similar – helpless, co-erced, ignored, unappreciated.

When an organization wants to introduce new behavior and a new value, the natural evolutionary process is usually not enough. The leaders themselves need to change, as well as everyone else in the organization. In these circumstances a more proactive plan to build the desired culture is necessary to speed the process along. The same challenge occurs when, as an organization grows rapidly, the established, natural process of values instillation becomes strained by the sheer speed of growth.

Some techniques can help improve the values instillation process

Explicit expression of what the important values are
Explicitly link a good behavior to the value of which it is an example – (eg. “The way you are asking questions is exactly what I mean when I say we need to become an organization which challenges status quo”)
Setting standards and sticking to them – (eg.”We will not speak badly of someone behind their back unless we have also spoken to them directly”).

The values hierarchy

We use a great exercise in one our training programs in which participants select and then rank their own values. The ranking process is the part I like the most. I have found that it is the HIERARCHY of values which is the strongest determinant of an individual’s behavior, and that of an organization. Most of us will agree that we hold a set of principles to be important, that we value integrity, and accountability, team freedom and respect for others. Most organizations will describe their values as including care for the customer, safety of their employees, innovation and performance. But it is idealistic to believe that every action can fulfil all of these. We have to choose, and in doing so our values hierarchy is revealed.

When a choice has to be made, which comes first? The hierarchy of values is seen most clearly when there are limited resources, and we have to choose how they will be applied. In Walking the Talk methdology, these choices become Symbols of what is really valued.

Time – there is only a limited amount, how do you use it? What do you prioritize? In those choices you show your values in action

Money – also limited, how do you spend it? Personally? And in budget allocations at work? Values in action again

Selection of people – only one space to fill. Who do you choose? What does that say about your values hierarchy? Which qualities in the possible candidates did you prioritize in your selection?

Office, car park space – how do you assign it?

Often, when leaders want to change or develop their culture, what is required is a realignment of the values hierarchy. In the past, new customers (sales effort) was valued more than existing customers (retention effort). In the future, looking after existing customers needs to become more important. In the past, we valued safety, but sometimes we cut corners in order to push through production volume. In the future, we will never compromise safety. These changes represent a change in the values hierarchy, and in the choices that are made at critical moments where it is not possible to fulfil both.

Thinking about the desird change in this way makes it more do-able. Often it is not necessary to introduce a totally new value (difficult), but rather to give more weight to an existing one (easier).

5 essentials to build a team culture

I could really not let this whole month go by without a reference to the World Cup. My sister-in-law tells me that what you need as a woman in business is to develop two very good sentences on every sporting topic. To introduce this blog I offer you mine on soccer.

As I watch different teams play, and read the commentaries in the newspapers which I get delivered each day to my Kindle, I remember the impact on performance that the culture of a team can have. France and Germany come to mind, for those of you watching the soccer. A lot of my attention is taken with working on the culture of larger organizations, but of course a team leader can create their own unique culture within their team. The team sits within the environment of a wider culture, and today the English newspapers have moved on to writing about the different cultures in the national football federations of England, and of Germany, who beat them soundly. They don’t use the word culture, but those readers familiar with the framework for building culture covered in my book will be able to spot the references to behaviors, symbols and systems. But, with the right leadership, individual teams can operate above and beyond the culture within which they sit.

So back to teams. What are the five essentials to build the culture you want in your team?

Set standards together and agree to be held to them. Standards need to be objective and observable. They can relate to behavior and to actions. ‘No interruptions’ is a standard. So is ‘Start and end all meetings on time’. ‘Be supportive to each other’ is not.
Point out examples when the standards are exceeded, and call it when they are breached. If people are not good at doing this, offer training. This is a learnable skill.
Line up the agendas of your meetings with the purpose of the team, which is the value the team adds as a team, over and above the value they add as individuals. If the primary purpose of the team is to share best practice, don’t spend most of the time reviewing last month’s performance results.
Select, promote and restructure team members with the team in mind. The culture of the team matters if it is delivering a value in excess of that which the individuals could add if you managed them one on one. A new team member whose behavior is out of line with the developing team culture can diminish the performance of the overall team.
Clear the air. Schedule time to resolve differences or unspoken resentments. Get help from outside the team if you need it. Internal Organizational Development people or external facilitators. This has symbolic as well as immediate impact. It shows that you value relationships as much as task.

If I had a third intelligent sentence to say on soccer, I would end this blog with a comment about the standards that I think England should have adopted. But I will have to leave that to you to work out.

In Portuguese – Cultura: é agora e somos nós

Today we launched our company in Brazil. In celebration, I offer a blog in Portuguese for the many people who are showing interest.

Escrevi um blog no início do ano e volto a publicar uma versão atualizada, pois hoje vi um artigo publicado na “Fast Company” , que enfatiza pontos valiosos. Quando escrevi eu estava visualizando o futuro. Desde que lançamos os nossos novos produtos no mercado, os quais tem como objetivo treinar os profissionais de RH em como liderar, gerir e apoiar a cultura, eu passei a ter tinha um veículo para fazer isso acontecer. Acreditamos que a gestão de cultura é possível, e quero oferecer estes produtos de apoio a organizações que pretendam desenvolver a sua cultura e tenham necessidade de construir uma capacidade interna maior para conseguir tal resultado. Esta capacidade permitirá que a área de HR consiga posicionar-se com uma contribuição de forma mais direta para o negócio.

A decada ’00s marcou a ascensão da cultura como um fator importante de desempenho do negócio. Nos anos ’60, ’70, foi a vez de marketing e gerenciamento de marca, com o correspondente aumento da importância dos profissionais de marketing. Nos anos ’80-’90 marcou o surgimento da tecnologia como fator essencial, do desenvolvimento do papel do CIO. Agora é a vez da cultura e o papel do líder de RH vem se transformando a partir do ‘velho gerente do departamento pessoal ” em um parceiro estratégico fundamental para o negócio com um assento no topo, sentando-se lado a lado com o “top team” nas empresas.

Existem alguns símbolos que apontam para essa tendência:

Em praticamente todas as principais empresas de consultoria, incluindo aqueles que um dia já “torceram o nariz” na hora de trabalhar com pessoas de RH, agora passaram a ter uma oferta na área “capital humano”. McKinsey, PWC, Accenture, etc. McKinsey, PWC, Accenture, etc etc. Etc Estes serviços foram o seu motor de crescimento nos últimos anos.
CEOs e as empresas que enfatizam a cultura e pessoas estão ganhando maior cobertura da mídia. Jack Welch na GE foi uma das primeiras, e outros lideres como da Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Google, Zappos, etc As pessoas querem trabalhar e comprar de empresas que colocam as pessoas e a cultura em primeiro lugar.
Gastar em desenvolvimento de liderança está aumentando rapidamente.. Segundo a ASTD, somente nos Estados Unidos, as empresas gastaram 109.000 milhões dólares em 2005, aumentando para $ 134 bilhões em 200. Deste último montante, 29.500 milhões dólares americanos foram gastos em recursos externos.

Vejo uma série de fatores que combinados provocaram esse aumento da importância da cultura:

Cultura tem sido identificada como a causa de muitos males corporativos, de falhas de concentração, às práticas antiéticas trazendo as empresas (Enron, etc), à crise financeira recente. Comportamento de liderança é o principal motor da cultura corporativa. Citação de Alan Greenspan: “O principal fator para prever se uma empresa vai ser honesta ou não é o caráter do seu CEO. Se o CEO estiver com o foco de seus relatórios de gestão em acompanhamento dos ganhos pessoais, essa atitude irá conduzir todo o regime contábil da empresa. Se ele ou ela insiste em tornar-se claramente um/uma representante objetiva dos valores da empresa, estando presente em negociações por exemplo, esse padrão irá reger os dados que são armazenados e os sistemas de auditoria”.
Com o envelhecimento dos baby boomers, há menos gente disponível para ocupar cargos de liderança. Um estudo de 2007 Bersin Associates mostrou que 53% das organizações enfrenta escassez de lideranças, nos níveis de gerência e diretoria de alto nível. Os talentos de uma empresa esperam uma cultura saudável.
Geração X & Y não tem nenhum problema de deixar a sua empresa se não conseguir o que quer. A era de lealdade do empregado e do desejo de segurança não existe mais.
O aumento do número de indústrias de serviços significa que a experiência de marca e os níveis de satisfação do cliente são muito mais intimamente ligados aos funcionários.
Novas tecnologias impulsionaram mudanças nos métodos de trabalho e tomada de decisão (por exemplo, equipes globais, a qualidade da gestão da informação, a complexidade do processo decisório, a velocidade da mudança competitiva) trazendo maiores demandas para os líderes. O antigo estilo de “comando e controle”não irá funcionar mais, e os líderes precisam de uma competência de nível superior em áreas como inteligência emocional, auto-conhecimento, habilidades de comunicação e construção de relacionamento. Essas habilidades podem ser aprendidas e incorporadas como característica intrínseca da cultura.
A ascensão das mulheres no mercado de trabalho mudou a “balança” mais para o colaborativo e reflexivo entre os elementos de gestão
As empresas de recrutamento abordam de forma agressiva os melhores talentos de uma organização praticamente todos os dias, e essas pessoas precisam estar muito comprometidas e alinhadas com o seu empregador para resistir às tentações que recebem. Líderes estão recebendo treinamento através de coaching, na tentativa de aumentar o seu nível de engajamento, ao aprender a lidar de forma mais positiva com as situações que frustração.
Fora do trabalho, tem havido um enorme aumento na atividade de desenvolvimento pessoal (pense no setor de livros de auto ajuda) e muitos líderes vem trabalhar já ciente de que existe uma relação entre a forma como eles pensam, como eles se comportam e os resultados que eles produzem . Essas pessoas querem o apoio ao desenvolvimento pessoal, incluindo treinamento, para ajudá-los a atingir um nível superior de desempenho.

Estou animada! Todos nós incluindo consultores, profissionais do setor de RH, os líderes empresariais – têm um papel para contribuir e ganhar com esta tendência, e provavelmente a responsabilidade de construir padrões mais elevados no comportamento das empresas. Estou pronta para explorar como podemos buscar esse objetivo de forma conjunta em sua empresa.

Culture: It’s now and it’s our role

I wrote a blog at the beginning of the year and I want to re-post an updated version today having seen an article in Fast Company which made some valuable points. When I wrote I was visioning the future. Since we launched our new products into the market, which train HR professionals how to lead, manage and support culture, I ave a vehicle to make it happen. We believe that culture is do-able, and want to offer these products to support organizations who intend to develop their culture and need build more internal capability to achieve this. This capability will enable HR to link their contribution more closely to the business.

The ’00s marked the rise of culture as a serious enabler of business performance. In the ’60s-’70s it was marketing and brand management, with the corresponding rise in the importance of the marketing professionals. The ’80s-’90s marked the emergence of technology as the key enabler, and the development of the CIO role. Now it is the turn of culture and the HR manager is turning from the old ‘personal manager’ role into a key strategic partner in the business with a seat at the top table.

There are some symbols of this trend:

Every major consulting firm, including those who would previously have turned up their nose at HR, now have a ‘human capital’ business. McKinsey, PWC, Accenture, etc. etc. It has been their growth engine in recent years.
CEOs and companies who emphasize people and culture are getting more media coverage. Jack Walsh at GE was one of the first, think now of Starbucks, SouthWest Airlines, Google, Zappos, etc. People want to work for and buy from companies that put people and culture first.
Spend on leadership development is increasing rapidly. According to the ASTD, in the US alone, companies spent $109 billion in 2005, increasing to $134 billion in 2007. Of this latter figure, $29.5 billion was spent on external resources.

I see a number of factors that have combined to cause this rise in the importance of culture

Culture has been identified as the cause of many corporate woes, from merger failures, to unethical practices bringing whole businesses down (Enron, etc), to the recent financial crisis. Leadership behavior is the key driver of corporate culture. Quote Alan Greenspan: ‘The prime factor in predicting whether a company will be honest or not is the character of its CEO. If the CEO countenances managing reported earnings, that attitude will drive the entire accounting regime of the firm. If he or she instead insists on an objective representation of a company’s business dealings, that standard will govern recordkeeping and due diligence”.
Changes in demographics mean that top talent will become a scarcer resource. With the aging of the Baby Boomers there are fewer people available to fill leadership roles. A 2007 Bersin Associates study showed that 53% of organizations face leadership shortages, most of which are at the mid-management and director level. Talent expects a healthy culture.
Gen X & Y have no problem leaving their company if they are not getting what they want. The age of employee loyalty and desire for security is gone.
Rise of service industries means that the brand experience and customer satisfaction levels are much more closely linked to employees.
Technology driven changes in work practices and decision making (e.g., global teams, quality of management information, complexity of decision making, speed of competitive change) place higher demands on leaders. The old ‘command & control’ style is just not going to work, and leaders need a higher order of emotional intelligence, self awareness, communication and relationship building skills. These skills are all learnable and can be embedded as expections in the culture.
The rise of women in the workplace has moved the balance more towards the more collaborative and reflective elements of management
Aggressive and well informed recruitment firms approach an organization’s best talent every day, and these people need to feel very engaged with their employer to resist the temptations they receive. Leaders who are receiving coaching increase their level of engagement by learning to more successfully address the challenges which frustrate them.
Outside of work, there has been a massive rise in personal development activity (think of the self help book sector alone) and many leaders come to work already aware that there is a link between how they think, how they behave and the outcomes they produce. These people want development support, including coaching, to help them perform to a higher level.

I am excited! All of us – consultants, HR professsionals, business leaders – have a role to contribute to and gain from this trend, and perhaps a responsibility to build higher standards for the behavior in corporations. I look forward to exploring with you how we can pursue this goal.

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