Episode 12: Jana Adams with Touchstone Energy

On this episode, I talk culture with Jana Adams. She's the executive director of Touchstone Energy. She says culture is at the top of mind of today's cooperative CEOs. I've worked in the co-op world for over 25 years and happen to believe that co-ops are uniquely positioned to create great cultures and use that to attract some of the best and brightest of this next generation entering the workplace. 

Few takeaways to listen for: 

• Strategy doesn't matter if you don't have the culture in place to implement it. You need a culture in place that makes employees feel safe embracing new ideas and processes. 
• Jana says flexible work schedules can positively impact culture when you focus on collaboration and connection. She also shares tools you can use to do just that. 
• Associations should play a role in fostering cultures inside their industry.
• Don't be afraid if everyone doesn't get behind your culture change. It's called self-selections. Some people will leave because they aren't in alignment and that's ok.

Thanks for listening. Grab the book the podcast is based on at https://mybook.to/culturesecrets . Check out my website www.chelliephillips.com for more great content. Follow me on LinkedIn.

Transcript

Chellie Phillips: 0:06

If workplace culture is your jam, you're in the right place. Check out this episode of culture secrets, the podcast dedicated to creating workplaces for both employees and the company's thrive. Welcome to the culture secrets podcast. I'm your host Chellie Phillips. And this week, I've invited Jana Adams, Executive Director of touchstone energy to join me for a conversation about culture. I've worked in the electric cooperative world for over 25 years. So in all honesty, I'm biased. But I do believe the cooperative form of business has culture building built into its foundation, I also think it sets us up to be able to recruit the best and the brightest of the generations entering the workplace. Now, what is touched on energy. It's a national network of electric cooperatives from across 46 states, providing research, communications resources, and employee training programs that help member cooperatives engage with and serve our members better. So without further delay. Let's welcome Jana, to the program. Well, first, thank you so much for being part of this project with me.

Jana Adams: 1:06

Oh, thanks for thinking of me, this is exciting. It's like everything just kind of fell in place. And I was like, okay, so I woke up one night and said about the sleep because I was like, this is all about value, the value culture and value being the V is vision. A is accountability, L is leadership, E. Well, you uniqueness of the employee, and E is engagement. And how you have to have all of those things to have a thriving culture inside your organization. It was one of those moments, I'm like, Okay, fine, I'll write it down. So I can go back to sleep. And then it was two and a half hours later, as my brain kept hurting going, you could use this you could use that you could do the king of hops thing, you could do that. I mean, like it was just like, Okay, fine, I'll do it. Just let me sleep for.

Chellie Phillips: 1:54

Great. The reason I ask you is because I got to thinking about part of the piece of the vision that I'm talking about is that is that connecting it to a story. And I know one of the things that we do very well in the Electric Co Op world, and I talk about that in the book is and total on that front, it's like I you know, I work in this world. So I'm biased. You know, that the Electric Co Ops are very much attached to their story, how that story is evolving and changing and how they're using that to attract and retain the talent that they need. And I was thinking about touchdowns specifically with the second phase of the yammie project, which really dealt with, you know, onboarding, and setting up that culture inside your organization. And I gotta say, this is a perfect fit to tie in both worlds, the old and the new, and how we're shifting and and keeping that story alive, but making it relevant to this next generation in the workforce. I guess we'll just start off and ask what was the driving factor behind Touchstone taking an interest in the attraction of new talent for for electric cooperatives? Well, I think there's, there's a really practical one, and that the workforce is aging, and lots and lots of co op employees across all levels are either within five years of retirement or past their eligible retirement age. So from a practical matter, you have to create an environment that new generations want to come to, because there's a need just out of sheer numbers. What role does Touchstone take? And that seems, how you sit apart from each local Co Op. What role can touched on taking that up? Sure. So I think, you know, one of the things we do really well is collect examples of what works, we partnered with NRECA to create the framework for young adult member engagement as well, both externally looking at your your member owner base, as well as internally looking at your employee base. And so we have that framework. And we've got really good materials to help drive those initiatives forward and touched on energy. What we do best is connecting people, we're all about relationships, whether it's internally within the co op between coops and between coops and they're member owners. And and that's really how I think you get the good ideas to share and admire and acquire acquire across different cooperatives. But it's also how you learn. So that's kind of the role we play in collecting these examples. And we have an infrastructure to share them within our network so that people can learn from one another. how receptive has the coop nation as a whole been to the idea of growing cultures inside each individual Co Op? I had I think I had an aha moment last August at the CEO close up and there was a little breakout session just for

Jana Adams: 5:00

New CEOs to chat and being a new CEO and wanting to hear from them I joined in. And by a huge margin, the number one issue that they knew they needed to address was the culture of their Co Op. So I think it's happening almost organically, this isn't something that's needed needing to be pushed new employees, whether it's CEOs or others are coming into co ops and seeing a lot of good, sort of the good foundation, there's not a great foundation, I think the coop model is very relevant. Today, it works. And it's attractive across generations. But just like any organization, things get stuck. And you don't always incorporate new ways of thinking or new ideas or new processes. And so they recognized that they needed to take that foundation of goodness, that is the cooperative business model, and make it relevant to today's workforce to today's challenges, and culture comes first. You know, everybody says it, but but strategy is downstream of culture, and you can have the best idea and the best strategy in the world. But if you don't have a culture that's receptive to that new way of doing things is going to fail. And so they know in order to be successful, they've got to have a culture that's willing to try new things that's willing to make mistakes, that's, you know, going to be leaning forward on how to best serve member owners today, not how we baby served them 50 plus years ago, looking at some of those workforce challenges locally, we're finding it harder and harder to fill certain positions because of the expectation. Now, since COVID, about the flexible work schedules, some coops probably have not made that shift or where they're willing to look at it and entertain that as as a feature, touchdown. kinergy itself already kind of has that remote workforce in place, like a lot of your employees are not local to where the organization is housed. So how are you taking some of these things and incorporating that and continuing to grow the culture inside your organization, too? Sure. So I will say from a personal standpoint, I was a very early adopter on remote work, I have always worked from home multiple days a week, probably for two or three, close to three decades. And my belief on that is, it can have an incredibly positive influence on culture. And here's why, when you are no longer working in the same desk, five days a week, eight hours, nine hours a day, work becomes your output, not your environment. Too often, when you've got a traditional structure where everybody comes to the same office, five days a week, work is simply being there. And you can you can see productivity drops, because it doesn't matter what you're doing, you're there and you're working. And so you can see a very positive shift and what the what work means simply by opening up some flexibility, I totally agree that COVID has made that a requirement, I don't see a scenario where it goes back to the predominant model being five days a week sitting in a in an office, or in a building together. And I think the challenges that you face are in building connections collaborating across projects. And so what we do internally to sprint energy, I think works really, really well, we've got a bunch of tools, collaborative tools, we are big users of Slack. So I can, I can get a response from any member of my team 1000 times faster than if I had to stand up and walk to an office on the other side of the hallway. There. It's an immediate collaborative tool. So that works really well for us, we've got other productivity tools that help keep us aligned on what everyone's working on. So you don't have to all be sitting in a room sharing. Here's my update of the big things I've got going on. It's all in our system, we use one called monday.com, which is really flexible and helpful to build those collaborative teams around different projects. One area where I think it's important to have an in person process is in managers, it's hard to fully manage remotely. So that's kind of a little bit of a, an area that we've been evolving in is you know, if you've got a team of people, I need to have a better connection with with those management points. So we all come into the office, if you're in the DC area, everybody comes to the office on Tuesdays. We do all of our in person stuff doesn't even have to be a full day but it gets that it gets us connected and you We see each other we have the side conversations, which are incredibly important in developing a shared culture. It's not just about the work. So it's really just a balance of having that in person time. Obviously, things like teams and zoom have made remote face to face much easier and more successful. One of the a challenge that I think everybody's going to have to get better at our ourselves included are hybrid meetings, where there's a big chunk of people in person, chunk of people, virtual, those I don't think are as effective for the virtual folks, because the regular banter happens in person, and it's hard to engage. So that's a sort of area in the back of my mind, I feel like we need to be better at but all in all, technology has enabled it circumstances with COVID have required it. And, you know, I think co ops and every industry is having to embrace the ability to have different work workplace models, the book is going to be touching on several different industries, from entertainment, hospitality to manufacturing, and of course, with us utilities, what is the role that associations can play in and helping facilitate the culture growth inside maybe the main corporate entity, I think they play a huge role. And that's, that's what we love. And what I love about Touchstone energy is we are an association. We are, you know, a network of 700 cooperatives across the country. And we give that the ability to convene, so convene groups of coops to address shared issues and share and exchange information, and then we give the infrastructure to make that happen. And I think that all associations are going to have to address that. And I think to a large extent, they are, you know, government relations is not a part of touchstone energies portfolio. So it enables us to better focus on those cultural issues. But even a traditional trade association, I think, is going to have to really embrace the need to address how the world is shifting, and how their individual industry should be adapting to that and provide that opportunity to share between different members. When someone is looking at building a culture, I spoke with Kevin Monroe, who is what I call it, gratitude guru, we're talking about the role that gratitude plays and how it needs to be built into the cultures that we're creating. And I'm thinking about the co op principles, and then also our Touchstone Guidestones that we have, when someone is looking at creating a culture inside their organization, how much of that should be valued based, in your opinion? And what are some of the areas that they should look at? I honestly think it's 100% value based, I don't, I don't know how you can have a positive culture without looking at the values that you share. Fundamental is, is trust and honesty, loyalty, all of those sorts of base needs that everyone has in order to be able to come together and be productive and successful as a group. If you don't have those, you can't build a culture. So that's always been really, really important to be on a funny level. I am a big I gossip drives me nuts. And I think it has a stake in the heart of culture and teamwork. And so I just, that's an area I don't tolerate. It's also human nature to share things. But that's just something that that is kind of my personal core value. I guess, if you don't want other people to hear it, don't say it. It's that kind of small change and focus on honesty and openness, that I think gives the opportunity for a strong culture to thrive without that you simply can't. So we're hearing more and more about the role that doing meaningful work plays. And I think that's one of the places where coops have kind of a leg up on some other industries because not only for the service that we provide, but you look at what happens during storms. And you look at the commitment to community that we have that way we give back. What role are you seeing nationally driving potential employees to look at that, that overall doing meaningful work? I think it's absolutely I mean, there's tons of studies about particularly millennials, Gen Z, z's, the, you know, more recent additions to the workforce. That's one of their number one needs is to feel like they're doing meaningful work. I think you're exactly right that co ops have that and I think it is an unused attractor. I don't think that we leverage that nearly enough and we focus more on Oh, you know, we provide the essential service to our community. nutty, but we don't talk about all of the other things that co ops do. And I think that, that we should I think that is a huge part of what makes this community so special is that, yeah, you have your your day job and your day job might be keeping the lights on or whatever your role is in that particular function. And yet, there are so many other ways that you touch and embrace your community that that we honestly should lead with that the fact that the electricity is that's a base and a given and must happen. But it's all of the other things that the local cooperative, does that really share that story of why it's a special business model. And that's one of the things that certainly comes out in our research at Touchstone energy is that we need to be more forward looking with with those those activities. So one of the things that I've been hearing a lot, too is like when, as a CEO, and referencing, like your conversation that you had with with other CEOs recognizing that there's an issue and developing it, if you were to go back and say, Okay, I know we have an issue with culture, what is the first step as a CEO that you should take to start developing a program implementing a program or putting thoughts to paper, I think the first step is defining that culture, we're potentially I fear, we're at a point where it means something different to everyone. And so you have to have a shared definition. So if you're hearing and you're seeing, hey, there's an issue with culture, you need to get your stakeholders within your organization together, and really define what that means to everybody. Is it an issue that, you know, it could be a productivity issue, it could, you know, there could be some negative undercurrents of people not being honest, are people not, you know, being good stewards of their resources or their job. And so you have to figure out what you have to define that. And then once you understand and define that culture challenge, then you can start to address it because it would be aligned. Yeah, if you have an issue where, where people really aren't, aren't being good teammates, and they're not being good stewards of the resources they're given, then you need to align that with, Hey, we're here for each other, we're stronger if we work together and collaboratively. And here's our plan to make that happen. But it starts with digging in on that shared definition of what the challenge really is, how important you talked about getting stakeholders together, how important is it to pull people from different aspects of the organization together to help create plan, I think that's, that's critical. It can't be led from the top, it's got to be a, you know, up and down side to side, the organization of people who are at you to borrow Social Media Language, who are the influencers in your organization, who are the ones that people listen to, when they say something that, you know, the room quiets down when their hand goes up, and you need to get those folks together. But also the quiet people who, who, you know, are really the absorbing some of the potentially negative culture that's happening. And then you've got to get everybody on board with that shared understanding of exactly what are we trying to do here and have that group be your ambassadors within within your full employee base. And without that, it's very, very hard to be successful. So what's a good rule of thumb, everybody's busy, everybody's got their, their list of things to do that kind of thing. What keeps a culture initiative from becoming just something that we've checked the box and say, we've talked about culture, it has to be fun, it's got to be it's got to be a part of your job, like, underlying everything you do. It's not an another activity. Not Oh, now's the, it's on my 11 o'clock time window, that I'm going to think about culture. It's the always it's how you work, not what you work on. And if you if you convey it in that way, that integrity a core value, you don't need to stop and have integrity on your your list of to do. It just means that anytime you're engaging with anyone you're doing it with, with a good heart with an honest, you know, honest voice, and you're proud of that how you work. And so it doesn't become a to do list. It's not just a thing that you shove aside because you finished with that because it is ingrained. And all you do. And that's when you know you've been successful that people are actually thinking in those terms that you create, what whatever mechanism, I always love the core value mechanism because that is usually pretty simple to think about regularly as you're engaging your day to day work, and then it doesn't become another another checkbox you need to

Unknown: 20:00

checkoff.

Chellie Phillips: 20:01

I like that. As I'm sitting here making notes on my notes, I highlight this right here. How can you as an individual, or you, as a team leader inside that organization begin to exhibit your own culture? And what can you do to help it spread to others inside that organization? You know, I think everybody organizations have core values, individuals have core values. And if you have the, you know, I mentioned, honesty, truth, transparency are just super important to me. So, any individual have those those values that are important to their heart. And if you work in a way that it's obvious to everyone that you've got that under penning of a values that you're aligned with, you can absolutely, an individual can influence culture in a very quick and positive way. Not as quick as an individual can negatively impact culture, we all know the power of bad and how quickly somebody can can have negative influence. But the opposite is true as well, you can definitely positively impact simply by adhering to what is important to you, especially when those are aligned with you what you understand is important to the organization. The other piece is the accountability, the culture movement has to be owned, it can't be someone else's job inside that organization. So how can that message get conveyed in a way that accountability doesn't mean, it's the CEOs job, it means that it's the entire organization's job. It is and it's when you when you convey and you're really instill the idea that culture is how you work, it becomes clear that it's everybody's job, because you should always be aligned with with the core values and how your organization, what your organization believes is important and good and worth caring about, in terms of, you know, making sure it's part of everybody's job, it's really, it's kind of practice what you preach, there's ways in a lot of different ideas about how to incorporate that into practice. I know at one organization I've been a part of, we had our core values, and then we had specific behaviors that exemplifies those values, or we're not aligned with those values, just example. And it starts to help people think about the process, think about how they can be incorporating these in their day to day work. Another tool I use that I love is the it's the RACI model, it's out of Procter and Gamble, but it's a way to for any project. This is more project management, but it's related to how to instill core values. It's you know, who's responsible, who's accountable, who needs to be consulted on a project, who supports the project, and who's who influences that. And if you look at those different areas in, in core value structure, implementing a strong culture, everyone supports it. So you just start to realize that everybody is involved in this, if you regularly think and how do you advance any initiative, and you think of your role in it, everyone is involved. And so if you have those different models about how you advance any project, and you put the culture piece through that people start to see, hey, yeah, I'm involved in that. And so is everyone else. So especially in our industry, we have a lot of engineers, a lot of accountants that move into the role of CEO and everything needs to have a number associated with it and return on their investment. So as a CEO, maybe some of this is not something that you can you can put, oh, I'm gonna get a 15% increase. If I if I start focusing on culture, what are the things that a CEO can look at inside the organization to see if they are effectively changing culture in a way that positively impacts not only the employees there, but the bottom line of that organization? It's absolutely tied to the bottom line. I'm not an accountant, but I really like spreadsheets, that retention, if you have a good strong positive culture in your organization, people are going to stay how easy and how, you know, what, what's the time it takes to fill positions when they do become open? Certainly bottom line things like the you know, how fast does a project go from conception to implementation in a strong culture environment, that's going to be faster than in something where there's a negative influence. So there's absolutely bottom line measurements, but retention I think is one of the best ones because when you when you work on, I will say, when you implement and focus on culture, it's going to be threatened.

Jana Adams: 25:00

To some people who've been places for a long time, so it's the beginning, you might have a little uptick in retirements or folks leaving for other other opportunities. And that's okay. Because that means that people are self selecting, hey, this isn't a process I'm willing to go through. But once you've got it in place, and you've got the people, the right people in the right seats, then they're going to want to stay because they believe in what you're doing. And that belief is absolutely contributes to your bottom line. So we talked about, maybe there's some people that are hesitant to, this is the way we've always done it, I don't want to change that, what are some of the other roadblocks that a CEO or management shouldn't, should be prepared for when they are looking at instituting a new culture inside an organization, you're gonna have the skeptics, there's gonna be the outright, like, I don't want any part of this, because I do my job fine. And I don't need to change anything. So that's the obvious ones. But then there's just going to be the people who are skeptical who think this is just some new trend. And this is some new management fad that's coming in and, and they're gonna, you know, they're the kind of quiet killers of a culture. And so you have to be very, very wary of the skeptic. And then, you know, honestly, you'll probably have the early adopters who are all gung ho, but then tire themselves out. So it's, it's about, I think, a measured pace. So that you're not like, A, you're not saying, Hey, here's a piece of paper, this is our culture, let's go run out and do it. It's built from within. And so people naturally start to join in the process, because they see the benefits. They see the happier employees, they see the better service to their community that comes out of having that strong and defined culture. But you do have to be wary about the just super outright hostile people, but then all the also the really skeptical people who you can turn into advocates, but you have to address it pretty quickly. So a lot of our a lot of our organizations have boards the answer to get budgets approved. And generally when you're thinking culture, you think some employee engagement activities, you think some, you know, swag, maybe to get people motivated, you think some recognition along the ways and different things like that, to kind of keep it moving and keeping it out there. What is the driving factor that if you were presenting this to a board for you know, a budget to do this, that you could convince them use? What's the one thing that you would use to convince your board that this is totally something they should invest in, and that the change is going to be worth it? I think it's I don't think it's too much different than getting funding, quote, unquote, for any kind of project, you outline the problems, because anytime somebody you're saying we need to work on our culture, it's the underpinnings are because there are problems with how you're working now. So you have to outline those for the for the board and say, Hey, we've got this issue, we've got retention problems we've got, you know, people aren't working well in teams, because they don't like each other, or whatever the different issues are. And when you outline those, and you say, here's our solution, we're going to have you know, we're going to go through a team building exercise, we're going to have a small group that gets together to identify core values, we're going to then have some various trainings, when it's aligned with addressing a specific problem, my, my experience, just like with anything else, they're going to do a cost benefit in their head. Most of the time, though, you can convey it in a way that makes it very, very clear that this is going to be a net positive to the organization based on the problem that it's going to address. Thank you for being part of this and helping me put this together. Oh, well, thanks for thanking me and definitely let me know if there's anything any clarification or follow up. So I'm happy to happy to do it. This has been a good conversation. I do love this kind of stuff. I I think how we work is

Chellie Phillips: 29:04

dictates the value that we provide to whatever our our organization or industry is, and, and so the culture drives that and I think it's an important topic. Thanks for listening to the culture secret podcast. What takeaways Do you have? For me when Jana said strategy doesn't matter if you don't have the culture in place to implement it really made me think I couldn't agree more that you need a people centered culture that means people feel safe to embrace the new and give it a try. That they aren't fearful to experiment because they think if something goes wrong, it means they could lose their job. being receptive to new ideas positions us to continue meeting the changing needs of our members for years to come. If you're interested in learning more about the secrets you can use to build a strong people centered culture in your workplace. Grab a copy of my book culture secrets. It's on Amazon or ask your favorite bookseller to order you a copy. If you have comments or questions, please feel free to reach out to me on link In Facebook or Twitter. If you like what you heard today, please subscribe, drop me a rating and share a link with a friend. I'm currently looking for corporate training and workshop presentations. I'd love the chance to come work with you or your company. If you're interested, please visit my website at WWW dot Chellie phillips.com That's C H E L L I E P H I L L i p s.com. And remember, building a value culture is your competitive advantage and the backbone of any successful organization.