While most outside of the tech industry won’t know the Avaya brand, most will have experienced its technology if you’ve contacted customer support or communicated directly with a brand for any reason. It is a multinational technology company based in the U.S. that provides communications and collaboration technologies for contact centers in 172 countries, including 90% of the Fortune 100 companies in the U.S. Its product helps give a better customer service experience for its customer’s customers.
I had the opportunity to interview Alan Masarek about the Avaya story. Specifically, we discussed what happened since he joined the company less than one year ago. The short version of the story is that he and his leadership team successfully guided the company through Chapter 11 bankruptcy, restructuring its finances and streamlining its operations. And they did this while maintaining what Masarek calls Avaya’s North Star.
In referring to that “North Star,” Masarek says, “Customer service and experience is core to who we are and for every role in the company. Our customers count on us for the communications and collaboration technology that make customer interactions not only work, but work better.” He went on to explain the four core components they focus on:
1. Culture: Everything starts with culture. Masarek wants to make Avaya a “destination place to work,” which means attracting and keeping the best talent. Once you get good people, you must keep them there. His strategy for creating a “destination place to work” includes three components. The first is a rewards and recognition program that validates an employee’s efforts and creates a sense of accomplishment. The second is to create a culture employees want to be a part of. And third is to provide an opportunity for growth. Masarek says a company’s positive reviews and ratings on glassdoor.com, where employee rate their employers, is a success criteria he looks at.
2. Product: Avaya is a technology company and must continuously innovate and improve. They created a “product roadmap” where customers can see what products are being phased out, retained and, most importantly, being developed for the future. “We must deliver innovation—the right innovation—and we have to deliver it on time and with quality,” said Masarek. “We will be successful when we are both transparent (which is why Avaya published the roadmap) and reliable. When we deliver on that commitment over time, that reliability becomes trust.”
3. Customer Delight: If your customers don’t like the experience or the product doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do, they will find another company and product that meets their needs. Masarek recognizes the importance of customer delight and has invested heavily in hearing and understanding the “Voice of the Customer,” paying attention to customer satisfaction scores and NPS (Net Promoter Scores). Masarek is emphatic about customer delight, stating, “We are in service to the customer. CX is everyone’s responsibility.” And this isn’t just lip service. Those satisfaction and NPS numbers are tied to some of the employees’ compensation plans.
4. Accountability: “We must be accountable,” Masarek says, “to one another, to the customers, and to the results. When you take care of the first three (culture, product and customer delight), this fourth one becomes much easier to achieve.”
While sharing the entire story in a short article is impossible, you can see the overarching strategies and thinking behind Masarek’s leadership and Avaya’s success. And here’s my observation: It’s not complicated!
If you look at the four core components Avaya focuses on, you might say, “There’s nothing new here,” but don’t let simplicity, or that these seem like common sense, get in the way of incorporating them into your strategy. In good times and bad, focusing on culture, product, customer delight and accountability/results are the undeniable strategies that drive success.
It’s not about profit, you don’t have to be upbeat all the time and you actually have a hybrid mindset!
# 1 – Growth mindset equals business growth, profits
A common finding by Neuro Leadership Institute is that some leaders believe growth mindset is about profits. In reality, growth mindset is the continuous belief that improvement is possible and that failures are opportunities to learn
# 2 – You either have a growth or a fixed mindset
No, we have a hybrid mindset with growth and fixed traits. Whether one is stronger than the other is often situational. Know yourself in given situations and be careful when labeling others
# 3 – Organizations, rather than people, can have a growth mindset
A mindset is a personal thing and thus not a part of an organizational culture as such. However, the essence of the growth mindset in an organizational context is to instill a mindset that is wired towards always trying to get better rather than believing – and proving – that you are the best. It overlaps
# 4 – You have to be positive all the time
Developing a growth mindset is much more about self-awareness and development rather than being in a positive growth mode all the time. We all have our ups and downs
What’s your mindset and what behaviors does this bring along? What about your team? Let’s talk if you want some free resources or other help on this. Get in touch.
Image Credit: Stefan Lindegaard, Pexels
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We all arrive at leadership with certain preconceptions about what makes a successful leader.
Sometimes we form an idea of what great leaders do based on historical leaders or modern-day leaders who are always getting media attention. Other times we form a picture of great leadership based on our own past experiences—both leaders we’ve worked under and even what attributes got us promoted into leadership. But those are often anecdotes.
And the plural of anecdote is not data. When you look at the data on effective leaders, pretty quickly you notice that some of these notions are misconceptions or outright leadership myths.
In this article, we’ll outline six leadership myths that are holding you back as a leader and may even be ruining your team—if you believe them of course.
Myth 1: Your Title Is Your Power
The first leadership myth is that your title is your power. It’s great that you’ve been promoted into a leadership role, but the mere title of leader doesn’t actually give you a lot of power over the team. Sure, your name is one box higher than your team members on the organizational chart. But if you work for a large organization, you may not actually have much ability to fire or punish people without getting approval from your boss or from human resources. Instead of trying to gain “legitimate power,” new leaders are better served by gaining rapport or respect from their team (what’s often called referent power and expert power respectively). When your team feels connected to you and respects your expertise, they’re much more likely to be influenced by you than if you’re merely trying to command them.
Myth 2: You Need To Have The Answers
The second leadership myth is that you need to have all the answers. This myth is most common in new leaders. Often, it’s the individual contributors who are hugely productive and who often have all the answers that get promoted into leadership roles. You were promoted for your expertise, so you protect your expertise at all costs. But the longer you stay in a leadership role, the more likely it is that your people know how to do the work better than you do. Pretending you know better may actually trigger their disrespect. In addition, leaders gain a lot of trust among their team when they’re willing to say, “I don’t know” and then look to the team for answers or commit to finding the answers and bringing them back. You don’t need to have all the answers, you just need to be committed to helping your find them.
Myth 3: Your Style Works For Everyone
The third leadership myth is that your style works for everyone. This myth is most common with middle managers. In the first leadership role, you often develop your preferred leadership style. And it often works because you’re leading a team of people who do a lot of the same work. But as you move up in an organization, and as your “team” starts to be a collection of different roles with different preferences, your preferred style becomes less important. It stops being about how you want to lead and starts being about how they want to be led—and led on an individual level. The best leaders understand the motivations and skillsets of each of their people individually and adjust their leadership style accordingly.
Myth 4: Disagreement Equals Disrespect
The fourth leadership myth is that disagreement equals disrespect. When someone on a team speaks up and disagrees with your idea, it can be easy to become defensive and see their disagreement as an act of defiance. And while some people can be downright belligerent, most disagreement on a team is healthy. The best teams are marked by a sense of psychological safety where everyone feels free to speak up, to express themselves, and even admit failure. And when team members disagree respectfully with you, how you respond affects how much psychological safety the team feels. Treat conflict as collaboration and remember that task-focused disagreement not only helps improve your idea, it helps everyone on the team know their opinions are valued.
Myth 5: Silence Signals Consent
The fifth leadership myth is that silence signals consent. This myth is the reverse of the previous one. Disagreement does not equal disrespect but at the same time, no one saying anything doesn’t mean everyone agrees with you. It could be that they have disagreements, but don’t yet feel safe to share them. (Or it could mean that everyone agrees…which means your team might not get much independent thinking.) When you feel your team reaching consensus early, or when no one is pushing back on your ideas, you’ll have to look harder for disagreements and encourage more candor on the team. Be willing to wait in silence for someone to speak up. Then treat that conflict as collaboration and over time your team will be less and less silent.
Myth 6: Performance Is Personal
The sixth leadership myth is that performance is personal. This final myth is less of a leadership myth and more of an organizational one. For most organizations, performance is measured individually and performance reviews conducted individually. But great leaders know it takes a team effort, and a growing body of research suggests that most of individual performance is better explained by the resources and collaboration of the team as a whole—whether high performance or low. So, when coaching members of your team, remember to take into consideration that much of their performance isn’t something they can fix, but rather something in the system or on the team that they need you to fix.
As you review this list, one myth in particular probably stood out to you—depending on your style and your leadership journey. That reaction is a good signal that the particular myth is one to focus your attention on and work on improving. But keep a lookout for the other myths as well. You may not believe them, but you may need to defend your team from other leaders who do. And as you move from myth to reality, your team will move toward greater performance until eventually they, and you, are doing their best work ever.
A good idea will sell itself, right? Unfortunately not — Emerson was spectacularly wrong when he suggested that all you needed to do was build that better mousetrap to have the world beating a path to your door.
History is full of examples of innovations that, whilst being good and proven solutions, more than just a gleam in their inventor’s eye, stubbornly refused to scale. They failed to have impact on a widespread basis.
Think about Earl Tupper and his alchemical miracle, creating an award-winning product out of the unpromising raw material of black sludge waste from oil refining. Tupperware eventually made it as an innovation which scaled but it was only after Brownie Wise teamed up with him and pioneered the social marketing which brought the product into the homes of key influencers.
Or Toshiba, investing close to a billion dollars in the technology underpinning what they saw as the next generation of high quality DVD recording, only to fall in the final straight as the market opted instead for Sony’s Blu Ray system. This was a fascinating echo of the story which Sony had encountered decades earlier when its Betamax video tape format lost the battle to the VHS standard, despite having many technical advantages over its rival.
Or Better Place, an ambitious green start-up that offered to make the world more sustainable by introducing battery swap technology for electromobility. Despite raising a huge amount of venture finance and gaining the backing of world leaders and CEOs prepared to set up factories the vision fell apart after three years.
These are not the failures of foolish and unprepared entrepreneurs; they all had much to offer and had proven their technologies worked. But they each stumbled over one or other of the many rocks strewn in the way of those trying to make the journey to scale. There are plenty of them in the world of commercial innovation — and in the field of social change, innovations designed to have an impact and change the world, it’s even more difficult.
Evidence and scale
One of the challenges is around the role of evidence. At its simplest we adopt new things because we see some benefit in them, they make our lives easier, more comfortable or better in some way. That’s what gives rise to the S-curve shape which you can find associated with any innovation — it isn’t a case of all or nothing, adoption takes time. And one of the key influences on that is the role of evidence.
For early adopters it’s a matter of being convinced enough by data or demonstrations that the innovation has real advantages to offer — they’re looking for hard and measurable facts to underpin their decision. But as we move along the road diffusion becomes more of a social process as well.
The more we see others getting benefit, the more we’re prepared to take the risk. Shaping our perceptions of new things so that we adopt them sooner is a huge part of what advertising does and it plays on our desire for evidence. Being persuaded — by facts, figures, demonstrations or simple observation accelerates the process.
Think of Washington Carver’s famous attempts to get rural farmers in the southern USA (a sceptical breed) to adopt new strains and methods. Simply giving them the hard facts wasn’t enough — his success came when he could show that the crops in his demonstration fields grew higher or thicker than those around. Seeing is believing — and it reminds us that evidence comes in many forms and can be communicated in different ways.
It’s also a matter of who is offering us the evidence — can we trust it, can we believe it? The advertising industry has played this tune for a long time, persuading us about the virtues of better toothpaste or headache pills by invoking the (eminently trustworthy) authority of medical practitioners. We also listen to key influencers, opinion leaders whose perceptions we trust — and we’re much more likely to adopt something if it is recommended by ‘people like us’.
All of these factors help shape the familiar S-curve pattern which we see over the life of innovations whereby adoption accelerates after the initial first wave. There’s a kind of snowball effect with the accumulation of evidence (especially the experience of satisfied adopters) driving up the pace of adoption. (Or not — negative evidence or word of it can quickly stop adoption in its tracks).
So if we are concerned with trying to scale our innovation it’s worth looking a little more closely at the role evidence plays, at the monitoring and evaluation processes which build that evidence base, and at how evidence is communicated. We could do a lot worse than break our review down into some key question areas — the who, what, when and how of scaling evidence.
Who?
Who needs evidence? Well, self-evidently (!) adopters, as we’ve seen, it’s a key part of the innovation decision process. But we often use proxies — opinion leaders — to influence our decisions — whether it’s the Jones’s we try to keep up with or our favourite social media influencer. Adoption is based on trusting others judgment and we assume they have reviewed the ‘evidence’ in coming to their decision.
Beyond that there’s another group — investors. Whether it is donors funding social innovation or government promoting a new technology or individual investors in a crowdfunding campaign those investors are looking for evidence to shape their behaviour. Is the innovation worth doing — is there evidence of demand and potential impact? Is there evidence downstream of actual impact, and along the way are the trends in the right direction? And afterwards, was the investment worthwhile, was it done well, could it have been done better, what have we learned? All questions which require evidence.
And then there’s the innovators themselves, the teams growing and scaling their innovation. Their core approach in coming up with their original solution will have been based on prototyping and experimenting, pivoting as they learn from the market what works and what doesn’t. And that experimental learning cycle doesn’t stop once the solution is established. If anything the journey to scale requires even more of this pivoting and adaptation to suit different contexts and situations on the scaling journey. Once again what the team needs is evidence.
In the field of social innovation there are other stakeholders to consider, all of whom have influence on whether or not an innovation can scale. Research on innovation scaling in the humanitarian sector suggests that there are many different players involved, each of whom have different evidence needs, as shown here.
So what kind of evidence do we need? And, in a world increasingly plagued by fake news and unreliable facts ,what constitutes ‘good’ evidence? There isn’t one size fits all, different players (as we’ve just seen) look for different kinds of evidence.
During a recent webinar Lydia Tanner of The Research People showed a helpful graphic which underlines this point; evidence is very much a matter of horses for courses.
Of course we’re looking for evidence of impact, of relative advantage. But in the field of social innovation where donors and funders may be asking the question there’s also a need to provide evidence that the problem is important and the ‘right’ one to address, and that the solution has real value to end-users. Is there real advantage to the solution, is it compatible with the context into which it will operate?
And on the left had side of the diagram there are considerations of how well the solution is delivered. This involves reflecting and collecting data on the innovation process itself and how well it is working , alongside the nature and experience of the solutions being offered.
There’s also something important about the quality and reliability of the evidence we assemble. Clearly our aim should be to provide proof, facts which can be verified — not for nothing does the healthcare sector place so much weight on randomised control trials as a gold standard to help determine whether a new medicine is effective or not. RCTs are all about assembling an evidence base of reliable and robust data. The trouble is that getting at good evidence is difficult, not least because there are so many kinds of information we can assemble as ‘evidence’ — not least those vanity metrics which tell us that ‘20,000 people can’t be wrong…..’!
When?
And then there’s the when question. When should we start to assemble our evidence base and when does it have most impact? The simple answer is ‘always’ — throughout the innovation and scaling process.
At the start of the scaling journey we want evidence to reassure us that there is potential demand, that our innovation will be solving a big enough and important enough problem and that what we have developed represents a robust solution which is capable of being scaled. Without this to back up our claims we’re unlikely to get very far in trying to convince others to buy into or support our solutions.
During the process it’s all about pivoting, using evidence of success and failure to help shape and adapt our innovation to suit different contexts. In the social innovation field the ‘market’ may involve a number of different players but the principle is the same. We can use the different kinds of evidence outlined above to help us get a better fit between innovation and context. Which will increase our chances of successfully scaling it.
A simple example might be the case of Netflix. Early on in their innovation journey Netflix realised that their entertainment supply model based on shipping DVDs by post was not the way to go; whilst their model worked there was increasing evidence that people were turning to online streaming of music and the same was likely to happen to video as high speed internet bandwidth became available. So they pivoted to a streaming approach, learning with the newly-emerging market while at the same time maintaining their video-by-post approach.
(And contrary to popular myth Blockbuster didn’t simply plough on with its old bricks and mortar solution using shops as rental hubs. They saw the evidence of Netflix ‘s successful new online model and developed their own solutions to emulate it. But their wider value network had too much invested in the original model and was reluctant to let go. So in spite of the evidence they couldn’t change their business model with the resulting collapse of their operations).
And at the end of the process there’s an opportunity for collecting a different kind of evidence, around learning. If we succeeded, why and what can we do more of next time? And if we failed, what can we change? Smart organizations concerned with learning to repeat the innovation trick develop ‘routines’ — embedded patterns of behaviour which become ‘the way we do things’ around innovation. These routines find their way into polices , procedures and processes — but not by accident. There’s a need for post-project reviews, set down meetings and other devices to capture learning. The trouble is , particularly with projects which have not gone so well, that there’s a tendency to cover up and disguise things — obscuring the evidence we need so badly to help us improve things next time.
How?
Which brings us to the how? How do we set up robust and flexible monitoring and evaluation so we can collect the different kinds of evidence needed to by different stakeholders? What frameworks and tools are available? What different approaches might be needed under different circumstances? Not surprisingly there is no simple answer to this but a clear need to put an evidence strategy in place at the outset of the innovation scaling journey. Since evidence will play such a key role we need to allow time and resources and develop or bring in expertise to work on this aspect of our project in parallel with rolling out our solution.
And we need to think hard about how we communicate the evidence we acquire to a variety of different audiences. How do we build on good evidence to tell the innovation story? Adoption of innovation is a social process which is accelerated or retarded by more than facts; it depends on perceptions and on social influence. That’s a lesson which comes through repeatedly in the work of Everett Rogers, the ‘godfather’ of innovation diffusion research and it continues to play a key role according to current research findings. It’s also clear from the experience of would-be innovators trying to scale their solutions
There was nothing wrong with Earl Tupper’s product innovation except that no-one was particularly interested in buying it. That all changed when he switched his marketing from in store sales to doorstep selling and through that to the in-home party. Brownie Wise was one of the early demonstrators and quickly proved her facility at persuading home-makers to adopt the product. Her sales pitch was essentially around changing the way in which the core evidence — that the product worked and was a viable better food storage solution than traditional glass jars — was communicated and perceived.
She had great attention-grabbing skills — for example one of her ‘party tricks’ involved filling a Tupperware bowl with tomato soup and throwing it across the room where it landed, seal still intact and without spilling and staining the carpet. But she accompanied these tricks with a much more powerful approach which was to engage the party hostesses as sales agents. Their ‘source credibility’ — the degree of trust and respect in which they were held by their peers — meant that they were powerful opinion leaders, able to accelerate adoption across social networks. These days we’d call them ‘influencers’ but whatever the label the way in which they could amplify the positive perception of evidence played a key role on the successful scaling.
So what lessons can we take from this? First we should remind ourselves that scaling innovation is not automatic it’s a long and difficult Journey — and one in which evidence makes a difference. Evidence is what drives and accelerates (or retards) that S-curve around adoption.
But we need to consider an evidence strategy — it’s not just that we need evidence but we need to think about who’s it for and their different needs, what form it can take that will be convincing, how are we going to communicate the story, etc.?
Innovation is what what’s helped us as a species to survive and grow in what is still a very hostile, turbulent and uncertain world. But that innovation process hasn’t been a matter of simply adopting every new idea because it’s new. That’s a very dangerous approach, not least because many innovations may take us in the wrong direction. We’re actually quite cautious about adoption; we’re not risk averse but we’ve evolved to be careful about the risks we take. Having credible evidence occupies a place centre stage in that adoption decision. Which means that if we’re serious about scaling our innovation then we need to take the evidence question seriously.
Unhappy: When you want things to be different than they are. Happy: When you accept things as they are.
Sad: When you fixate on times when things turned out differently than you wanted. Neutral: When you know you have little control over how things will turn out. Anxious: When you fixate on times when things might turn out differently than you want.
Stressed: When you think you have control over how things will turn out. Relaxed: When you know you don’t have control over how things will turn out.
Agitated: When you live in the future. Calm: When you live in the present. Sad: When you live in the past.
Angry: When you expect a just world, but it isn’t. Neutral: When you expect that it could be a just world, but likely isn’t. Happy: When you know it doesn’t matter if the world is just.
Angry: When others don’t meet your expectations. Neutral: When you know your expectations are about you. Happy: When you have no expectations.
Timid: When you think people will judge you negatively. Neutral: When you think people may judge you negatively or positively. Happy: When you know what people think about you is none of your business.
Distracted: When you live in the past or future. Focused: When you live in the now.
Afraid of change: When you think all things are static. Accepting change: When you know all things are dynamic.
Intimidated: When you think you don’t meet someone’s expectations. Confident: When you know you did your best.
Uncomfortable: When you want things to be different than they are. Comfortable: When you know the Universe doesn’t care what you think.
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Our world requires collaboration. Just about every job now requires collaborating on teams and every employee’s calendar is full of evidence of collaboration. In one study, up to 85% of participants’ work weeks were spent working in direct collaboration or a result of collaboration with a team.
But it can be difficult to collaborate with people whose perspectives, preferences, and personalities are different from our own. Still, getting what you want from your work and career requires being a great team player. And if you want to be a leader, you’ll need to be a great team player first. (And really…that will never stop…even leaders often lead in teams.)
In this article, we’ll outline the five (5) essential qualities needed to become a great team player—and offer a few ways to develop those qualities and get them noticed.
1. Capable
The first quality is that great team players are capable. This is a fundamental quality of anyone working, really. You must have the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities to do the tasks being asked of you. But on teams, it’s just as important to be seen as capable by the other members of your team. The team needs to know they can rely on you—and that when you say you’ll have something completed it will be completed on time and as you said.
Working with teams, the way you demonstrate your capability is two-fold: Do what you say you’re going to do, and don’t say something you don’t know to be true. Over time, keeping these two commitments will demonstrate that you can be relied on—because you are capable.
2. Humble
The second quality is that great team players are humble. While great team players are capable, they also don’t think too highly of the skills and knowledge they have. Great team players don’t think little of themselves, they just understand that the needs of the team come before their own. Humble teammates aren’t fighting for their ideas to be heard all the time or seeking to dominate in debates. Instead, they use their voice to amplify others and contribute the bigger, team-wide wins.
Working with teams, humility is often inferred based on behavior in meetings, whether in-person or virtual. Humble teammates aren’t trying to be the lead role in the meeting, instead they’re often acting as a facilitator ensuring every teammate has a chance to speak. And when they do speak, it’s often to build upon others’ ideas instead of constantly insisting on their own.
3. Helpful
The third quality is that great team players are helpful. The best way to put capabilities and humility into practice is by helping others on the team—not constantly trying to convince others to help you. Great team players are the ones in meetings thinking about what they can contribute and how they can help others get unstuck. At the same time, it’s important to be careful not to over-help and lose the needed time to complete your own commitments.
Working with teams, the easiest way to assess your helpfulness is to audit your calendar. Look at everything scheduled on your calendar last week and compared the appointments that furthered your personal goals versus the appointments that helped others hit their goals. You don’t want helpful appointments to dominate, or even be half and half. But if 25 percent of your calendar is spent helping others, then it’s a safe assumption that they see you as helpful.
4. Flexible
The fourth quality is that great team players are flexible. As teams work to complete projects, changes will happen—pivots are required. All work requires flexibility. But often in the face of change many people respond by becoming more stubborn and insisting even more on their original ideas or plan of action. Great team players serve the team by reading the changes in the environment and helping the plan pivot quickly.
Working with teams, the most common changes that require flexibility often happen around priorities. New tasks get added to the team’s list, or environmental changes reshuffle what is urgent. When that happens, taking the lead to check-in with the team and discuss how changes affect priorities can keep the team more productive and keep you seen as a flexible, but high performer.
5. Purposeful
The fifth quality is that great team players are purposeful. All great teams have a sense of purpose behind their work—they know why their work matters and that keeps them bonded together and motivated to achieve more. Great team players amplify this purpose by becoming a source of supporting stories and constant reminders about that purpose. This includes not just talking about why the work that team does matters, but also how it fits into the larger mission or vision of the organization and why that matters.
Working with teams, the easiest way to reinforce purpose is to share gratitude on a regular basis. But not just any old thank you note. Purposeful gratitude expresses appreciation for the effort someone else put in, but also includes a reminder of how that effort helped serve the purpose of the team. Regularly done, it not only builds camaraderie amongst the team, but it also enhances motivation.
As you review this list, one or two qualities probably stood out as ones you already embodied—but one or two probably stood out as ones you need to work on. That’s true for nearly everyone, and it creates a great plan of action. Get started improving where you need to—and get started getting noticed where you already shine. That will help you not only raise your own performance, but help support everyone else on the team as they do their best work ever.
What’s happening on the inside of an organization is felt on the outside by the customer. It is more important than ever to create a culture that attracts and retains the best employees. Good or bad, the culture and employees operating within it will influence the customer experience. That’s why today we’re going to dive into creating a workplace culture that gets and keeps your best people.
“Toxic workplace” is a common buzzword in today’s society. An article in Business Insider says nearly 30 million U.S. workers think their workplace is toxic. However, toxic workplaces don’t usually start out that way, and if they do, they find it difficult to survive in today’s hyper-competitive landscape. So, assuming the path is paved with good intentions, what goes wrong along the way?
While many companies are founded upon core values, rarely are those values consistently seen throughout the organization’s leadership. The two keywords in this statement are consistent and leadership. If your organization’s leadership and management aren’t representing its stated values, how can you expect their supporting employees to do so? Moreover, if the leadership isn’t consistently representing the company values, their actions can be even more polarizing.
Like it or not, humans remember bad memories longer than good memories; it’s a scientific fact that leads back to evolutionary behaviors. That means if your leaders are not consistently, meaning always, acting with the organization’s core values in mind, they aren’t representing the values at all. This will be noticed and remembered by employees. And, you can’t expect your people to act any differently than the leaders they are supposed to follow and admire.
So why implement a corporate culture in the first place? Jonathan Keyser, the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of You Don’t Have to Be Ruthless to Win, states, “A good culture equates to so much more than just an enjoyable workplace or a happy team. A strong culture acts as a safeguard to protect your business’s most valuable resources. When companies do not focus on their culture, they are prone to significant setbacks, including a loss of brain trust, costly recruiting fees, training and development time, and stunted interpersonal collaboration, which all equate to a financial loss.”
When Keyser is not out speaking to organizations about how to create the culture of selfless service that gets employees to stay, he’s running a successful commercial real estate company. USA Today calls Keyser “The Commercial Real Estate Industry Disrupter.” I had a chance to meet with Keyser to discuss his book and he shared five steps to creating a healthy workplace culture:
1. Reflect – Keyser asks, “What type of employee do you want to attract?” You start by creating a mental persona for that individual. You want to define the behaviors and attitudes you are seeking. You also want to know what would attract that person to your organization. That will be reflected in your organization’s behavior. Keyser adds, “Once you define what’s important to your employees, follow the same process for your clients.”
2. Specify – Keyser says, “The problem with most corporate values is they are ambiguous. Companies will write words and phrases like integrity, teamwork and hard work on their office walls and don’t give context as to what those words truly mean within the workplace.” Go beyond the writing of the words and add simple and clear definitions or descriptions of how they are to be used at work. Start with your core value key phrases—what do they mean in relation to how your team interacts with each other and the outside world?
3. Differentiate – Is the culture you are implementing different enough from your competitors to win the attention of recruits? If not, you’re just like any other employer. You want to find your difference. For example, one of Keyser’s core principles is to be bold. Plenty of companies claim to be bold. However, Keyser takes it one step further and clearly defines what this means in his company. He says that they do not punish mistakes, because fear of mistakes keeps a person from being bold and willing to take massive action, which is where value is created.
4. Implement – This goes back to the second step, specify. One toxic person can destroy a culture, so it’s crucial to be specific when you outline what type of behavior is expected of your team and what corrective action should be taken if you find misalignment. The words you “write on your walls” must come to life.
5. Realign – The question isn’t if you’ll go out of alignment with the culture you’ve created (or want to create), it’s when. Keyser suggests constantly monitoring and evaluating the culture. Speak to members at the top and bottom of your organization, have your HR team conduct exit interviews, and check online sources like Glassdoor regularly. Keyser says, “A toxic workplace can spread like wildfire, so it’s your job to investigate proactively and realign when necessary.” I refer to this as defending the culture, which may be one of the most important jobs of a leader.
A toxic workplace will challenge the company to keep not only employees, but also customers. The leaders’ ability to define core values, as well as live and demonstrate them to employees is the key to creating an enduring, positive culture. These five steps to creating a healthy workplace culture will also help you prevent a toxic culture so you retain your best employees—and your best customers.
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