Sneak In The Vegetables
Whether you call it leadership development, organizational development, talent management, or culture - it’s about making an environment for employees to thrive and deliver results.
I heard a long sigh as soon as my zoom connected and my camera turned on.
“Ugh – I just got out of a meeting with the CEO. He went on a five-minute rant on how we need to be focused on improving business results and not spending any time on HR things like culture.”
Allison was my client - the head of HR in a small tech company.
I listened to her frustration pour out of her like a burst of people suddenly leaving a subway at rush hour.
She exclaimed, “How am I supposed to do my job?!” before falling silent.
I sat with her for a moment and then said, “Don’t worry, we will still work on culture.”
“How?” she asked
“We’re going to sneak in the vegetables.”
She raised an eyebrow at me, half curious and half skeptical.
“Have you ever hidden vegetables in a dish and didn’t tell your kids?”
She nodded silently.
“Not only did they eat it and enjoy it, but they also didn’t know they were benefiting from all the nutrients. However, if you told them what they were eating, they would have pitched a fit and refused to eat it. It’s all mindset.
This is the same thing. He is hung up on the word culture but doesn’t understand that we are talking about the same thing: addressing the underlying problems that are hurting performance.”
Is it concerning that a CEO would say negative things about culture?
Sure, but I don’t blame him.
He has the wrong idea about what culture, thinking it is a bunch of initiatives.
Probably ones with fancy names that hang on posters around the office with images of bridges, eagles, or skydiving teams.
There is a lot of conversation about it for a month, but nothing really changes.
In his mind, those things are a waste of time – and I would agree.
But that isn’t culture.
Initiatives are great for fundraisers. Or to bring attention to the new company podcast that launched.
An initiative implies that something has an end.
And culture never ends.
It’s reinforced or discouraged daily - intentionally or not.
For many companies, their understanding of culture begins and ends with their annual voice of employee or pulse survey.
Many questions are asked, most of which are irrelevant to the true experience of the company or team.
Results aren’t received for several months.
A great effort is put into the “We heard you…” response and not much is done.
No wonder Allison’s CEO didn’t want to do anything.
It’s hard to do anything impactful with data that doesn’t feel current or meaningful.
Culture is a loaded term. I often don’t use it when I am speaking with companies.
As soon as they hear culture, they immediately assume fluffy things.
Time spent on things that distract from doing business instead of improving the day-to-day work.
THAT should always be the focus of culture.
There is a scene in the movie “Pretty Woman” when Julia Roberts character is stopped by the hotel manager.
He asks her, “What is your name?” She replies, “What do you want it to be?”
Culture is the same thing.
Call it whatever you want.
Just make sure you are improving the work experience and creating an environment for employees to thrive and deliver business results.
It’s about:
Unpacking the obstacles that cause slow decision making and performance.
Defining expectations and providing development for your leaders.
Equipping leaders and teams to leverage behaviors that reinforce trust and result in performance.
Practicing constructive challenge.
Listening, monitoring, and calibrating in an ongoing way.
The past few years have reinforced that culture is never finished.
Your attention and priorities shift as your business strategy needs to shift.
Remote work and the great resignation should have you defining necessary shifts in your culture.
Companies and leaders that think culture will resume where it was in February 2020 lack agility and imagination.
Their struggle is a symptom of a larger culture problem.
They don’t know the different levers to pull.
Things that appear as business problems are often culture problems.
The instinct is to implement more policies or operations to address the problems.
But those address symptoms, not the source of the problem.
Which is often a breakdown in communication, trust, and team interactions.
Allison and I mapped out the challenges the company was having that impacted performance, including quality issues and delays in product delivery.
Then we went back to the CEO, acknowledging the priority to improve business performance.
We described focusing on:
A series of workshops to increase trust and collaboration on the C-suite team.
A plan for assessing and strengthening the trust and communication issues behind the growing quality complaints.
Tools for people leaders and teams to work through conflict constructively.
A recognition program for people who identify problems contributing to quality issues.
Biweekly email nudges to people leaders: brief stories and tip for the people leaders to try that week to keep desired behaviors front of mind.
His response: “This is exactly what we should be focused on to turn the business around.”
Every time I work with a C-suite team I get the same comment: “We thought you were going to come in here and have us do all this touchy-feely culture stuff. Instead, we did practical things and learned how to confront our biggest problems. This was really helpful.”
Sneak in the vegetables my friends.
***
When you are ready, there are three ways we can help you sneak in the vegetables:
What story does your culture tell?: Assessing and defining how to shape leaders and teams to help you deliver results.
The Healthy Team: Just like the operating system on your phone needs updates, so does the operating system of your team. We guide you through concepts and tools to define strategy, collaboration and cultivate psychological safety.
Design for the future: how do you create leaders and teams that are flexible for any situation? If you struggled with how to maintain culture outside the office or leading without being in person, that is an indication that it’s time for you to reimagine and evolve work.
***
Want to receive more articles like this one? Sign up for Brain Food here.
