As a culture consultant, I have the opportunity to work with leaders at all levels of all kinds of organizations. About half of my work involves leadership skill building and team effectiveness; culture work makes up the other half.
Because of my experience with refining cultures, it is impossible for me to go into an organization without subconsciously (maybe consciously) assessing the culture of their work environment. I observe and listen for how people are expected to behave, to perform, to treat each other and customers.
I often hear about practices and norms that exist which will NOT support the skills we’re teaching in the leadership or team session. It is not always appropriate for me to raise that issue with the client; if they are committed to a training solution, learning about culture issues is a complication they may not be able to do anything about.
AND I love “sharpening the saw,” keeping my observation and consultative skills honed by listening and evaluating different cultures I’m exposed to. Whether an organization has intentionally created their culture or that culture evolved by default, it does have a culture that is tangible and observable. If your culture was created by default, it is likely that unintentional values or norms exist. If you consistently see conflicts, blame, poor performance, and frustration, your culture is eroding employee morale with every passing minute! Let’s look at two very powerful systems which may reinforce undesirable valued behaviors in your organization.
Rewards and Incentives
Whether you have formalized values and valued behaviors or not, rewards and incentive systems can cause distinct behaviors, some good, some not good. For example, if you desire a team culture but your organization offers only individual compensation, you will likely see “I win, you lose” behaviors by team members.
A few years back a client described the following inappropriate, incentive-driven behaviors by a salesperson. The company paid a very low base; over 70% of sales staff compensation was in the form of commissions. One salesperson negotiated with a few of his big clients to sell them product at the end of each quarter. The saleperson enjoyed commissions on these sales. Then, one month into the new quarter, he would process returns of that product and refund the client’s money. He was generating commissions on “ghost” sales. This went on every quarter. Everyone – the salesperson, the client, the finance team of his company – knew what he was doing and tolerated this behavior. Eventually the company changed the rules about commissions on product returns, but the damage had been done.
Recognition and Messaging
Every time you publicly celebrate someone for a behavior or action, you are reinforcing that behavior or action. If you recognize a player for goal accomplishment but everyone knows that they’ve taken inappropriate short cuts (for example) to reach that goal, you are reinforcing undesirable actions.
Even praising the RIGHT behavior can have unintended (and undesirable) consequences. One client celebrated a staff member who learned the wrong materials had been shipped to a client. That person packed the right material and drove to the airport just in time for overnight shipment by UPS. Recovery was expensive but the materials arrived on time. The client celebrated this terrific proactive solution and such recoveries became more frequent. The client realized they needed to celebrate solving the “why do we ship the wrong materials?” problem more than celebrating the recovery!
You don’t have to be a CEO to create values clarity in your own workteam. If you experience unintentional values in your workplace, start setting values expectations now.
The unintended values you describe are so pervasive! It’s impressive how otherwise smart leaders are so near-sighted in their actions sometimes. I once was consulting with a client. We had done much teambuilding and openness training. He was curious why his team didn’t give him more feedback. In observing a meeting he actually said: “Alright, any ideas? Just please, skip the stupid ones” Of course, everyone was silent. He hadn’t realized he said this until we pointed it out. His intention and his discourse were clearly not talking to eachother! 😉 Thanks for a great post.
Thanks for your kind words, Monica – we’ve all seen values mis-aligned behaviors in the workplace. They cost time, quality, and hard dollars! If my posts can help change workplaces to be more engaging, gratifying, and even FUN places for staff, I’m a happy man.
Cheers!
C.
Thanks for this piece of writing.
It is true culture in workplaces has great effect on our productivity for our firms.You find what is enshrined in the company policy is contrary to what is happening.The end result is less productivity.Late coming for work for instance,one will try to encourage subornates by reporting in good time and slowly others try to improve while others still interprete it negatively.
I have enjoyed reading it and hope to do more of it.
Rgds.
Eng.Abel Manangi
Thanks for your insights, Abel! Leaders must be very intentional to ensure the enshrined values, behaviors, and norms are the desired ones.
Cheers!
C.
Terrific post, Chris, and couldn’t agree more. It sounds as though you and I think very similarly on proactive management of company culture — not only CAN It be done, but it MUST be done. We’ve found the most effective way to do that is through strategic employee recognition.
Responding specifically to this post, I’ve written elsewhere, “The missing, but critical, point to understand is that values and culture are inextricably intertwined. The problem arises when a company has its STATED values (on a plaque on the wall, coffee mugs, ID badges) that are entirely different from the demonstrated and TOLERATED values. Regardless of the STATED values, it’s the TOLERATED values around which the culture is formed. ” (That post in full was written in response to a Bnet article that company culture is a myth and can be found in full here: http://blog.globoforce.com/2010/06/corporate-culture-myth-or-reality.html).
And on the larger topic of proactive culture management through recognition, you may be interested in our new book, Winning with a Culture of Recognition (www.recognitionculture.com). Personally, I think culture management is the next employee engagement. We were talking about engagement a decade before it became the “new hot thing.” I think the same will happen over the next few years for culture management.
Thanks so much, Derek – it’s a pleasure to discover another culture proponent! Our proven culture refinement process is totally driven by clear expectations of performance and values, followed by accountability for both. Blanchard hosted our annual client conference last week and two of the six client presentations were on culture successes (Walmart’s Northern Plains Division and Taylor Corporation’s IGH Solutions group). Immensely gratifying work –
I’ll bet we’ll be talking more!
Cheers!
C.