The series about team / organizational culture will look at the importance of being intentional about building culture, what it is and why its needed, the foundational building blocks of culture, how to lead a culture change in more.
The second conversation in the series will focus on the foundational building blocks of culture. Specifically, the role that each of the following plays in building a great culture:
Follow SAIT Corporate Training on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/saitcorporatetraining/?viewAsMember=true
Connect directly with Jennie and Craig on LinkedIn:
Have burning questions about leadership that you'd like us to address? Email them to leadership.questions@sait.ca and let your voice be heard.
The series about team / organizational culture will look at the importance of being intentional about building culture, what it is and why its needed, the foundational building blocks of culture, how to lead a culture change in more.
The second conversation in the series will focus on the foundational building blocks of culture. Specifically, the role that each of the following plays in building a great culture:
Follow SAIT Corporate Training on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/saitcorporatetraining/?viewAsMember=true
Connect directly with Jennie and Craig on LinkedIn:
Have burning questions about leadership that you'd like us to address? Email them to leadership.questions@sait.ca and let your voice be heard.
This is the Leading Beyond Any Title podcast, your guide to transformative leadership. We're your hosts. Hi, I'm Craig Hess.
Jennie:And I'm Jennie Gilbert. Each episode of Breakfast will bring you weekly quick lessons and conversations about topical leadership challenges. You're guaranteed to leave with one big idea, two applied strategies, and three questions to consider that can help enhance your leadership every day.
Craig:We'll bring you insights on how to lead beyond any title and unlock your own leadership potential.
Jennie:And we both hope you enjoy this episode.
Craig:Jennie, we are back for part two of our It's going to be at least three, maybe four episodes on culture. I'm enjoying the sun and sand and Maui and you are somewhere across the pond. I think sometime in March.
Jennie:Yes. Well, one of four places I might be in Copenhagen, I might be in Berlin. I might be in Paris. I might be in London.
Craig:Wow. Yeah. International lady of intrigue and mystery. There we go. Fantastic. So anyway, we spent a half an hour or so last time talking about culture, the importance of culture, the importance of being deliberate around building culture, why it's important on the team, how it affects importance, how it affects performance, and how it affects performance. Thank you. And I think that's probably a good place to stop and recap. Our one big idea that we touched on was that you should, and you need to be intentional. About building the culture on your team, right? This is not something you can leave to chance. And you had provided folks with a couple of strategies that they could walk away with and think about right away. What were those?
Jennie:I did. And we, yeah, so thinking pieces. So the first one was know your people. In our previous session, we talked about influencers, energizers, and blockers, which comes from Kevin Oaks. And if you know your people, you know who they are. And we did have a little word of warning in there around those blockers. Those sort of passionate critics and blockers are not the same effect. So, awareness towards that. And then the second one was pay attention to your team's behaviors. So know your behaviors. There are behaviors that your team gets up to that you can see the pride in the work they do. You can see the engagement. You can see the energy left. So what were they? And we did note that it's a really good conversation to involve your team in because as a leader, you don't always know. And then there's a few that maybe we don't connect so well to as well. So the sort of idea was pay attention to those and start to build a library, list, whatever it might be, of those behaviors. And we did have a question too. Which was really a challenge because there's a bit of self awareness in there for leaders. But what is the worst behavior that you currently reward and or tolerate?
Craig:Excellent. Great recap and a great jumping off point because you, we give folks some things to think about just in terms of the importance of culture, obviously. Now we want to get into the fundamental building blocks of culture. Know the importance. What are the pieces now that we need to focus on? And I'm going to list off a few that you mentioned in the last episode. But let's take it from there. You can decide where we go to first. But we talked about values and purpose being a block. We talked about priorities. We talked about non negotiables. Rewards and recognition. Psychological safety. I have a feeling we're going to touch on that. It always seems to be the foundation of just about any conversation we have. Conversations. Those are also a fundamental building block. And then artifacts and rituals and meetings and decision making. So where would you like to start here? These are the nine or ten foundational blocks of culture as you've identified them or as we've identified them. Where do we go? Where do we start?
Jennie:We could be here for days, which I think is an important part too. This is a big conversation. And we have to remember that, that's why culture is such hard work, because if it's intentional, you're working on it all the time. I think the key area to start is purpose, largely down to the fact that purpose is your why. And if we can get people to connect to why they're here, why they get up in the morning and dedicate their time to us, then there's a real part of commitment, there's an engagement in there, everything stems from that why. So when people understand the why The what and the how follow fairly naturally and that one how will take us into beliefs and behaviors and non negotiables and everything else that you listed just then.
Craig:Okay, so I'm going to double click on this a little bit because I think in some sense, talking about culture, talking about purpose, talking about values, great buzzwords, right? If we were playing, if we were playing corporate buzzword bingo, I might have half my card filled right now, but. If somebody is listening, what, what is one practical way or one or two things that a leader can do with their team to make values and purpose tangible? Is there an exercise that we can describe? Is there something that we can provide folks listening with? Okay, I want to get the team connected. I want to make sure we are aligned on why we are here, right? Hopefully it's more than just a paycheck, but how can they do that?
Jennie:So I think the first Okay, let's go fun team exercise. That's fun. Grab a piece of paper and a pen each and you can do this virtually or face to face and everybody draw The purpose of our team, and you'll get some pushback because there are many of us that decided in about kindergarten or grade one that we're no longer artists. And the key behind this is your purpose should be really, really simple. to describe. And the purpose of the team can be that simple too. And when it's that simple, it's very easy for us to connect to it. It's got to be the Velcro. We've, it's the sticky part that makes everything else happen. So if around your table, everybody's drawn a picture of something else and definitely, you know, allow the banter and the humor in each other's stick figures and everything else. If everything is different, you know where your conversation is starting from. There's some work to be done around what is our purpose. If everybody has pretty much the same thing, and there might be a little stretch in there, then first off, celebrate that, give yourselves a pass on the back. That's worth recognition right there, because there's not many teams that do that straight away. And then, you know, that vision, that's what it is, it's a vision, it's a picture, that helps to drive everything. And so that purpose becomes that sort of starting block. That's the reason that gives us, I'm going to use the word, it gives us a purpose every day. So if our purpose is to provide value to our clients, then my job, when I go out and visit with a client and we have conversation, does that conversation provide value? There's no doubt about it. I can go out and have a great fun day and everyone will tick the smiley box. But what value are they left with that pushes us in towards what we're engaging towards?
Craig:I love that. And I can just imagine from a kind of a little team exercise, the potential fun you could have with some drawings. I could also imagine it's going to cause some people some angst. As well, cause truly they probably don't believe they should be drawing or can draw. Is there a different way you can do this just through words, post it notes, other?
Jennie:100%. So five words that describe our purpose. Five words that bring us into the office each day. Word association. You can drive this any way that you want to go. And in the drawing piece too, it's interesting. So this is one of the reasons it's really important to involve your team. And think about, what is the parameter of our conversation? There's an entire drawing exercise that we use, that uses simply five symbols. A square, a triangle, a spiral, a circle, and it's like a cross with a circle on the top. And that's it. Five symbols each, and you can create the drawing. And I promise you, Anyone can do that during.
Craig:Perfect. Okay, very good. So we've touched on purpose. We now have our team hopefully aligned on our purpose and why we're here. Let's move to priorities next. How does the building block of priorities play into developing a great team culture?
Jennie:So priorities, I think priorities come in tandem. Priorities are the what, and then I think we head into those sort of values and beliefs for the how, and so priorities are useful because if this is our purpose, and if you're using words like vision and mission, that's fine too, if that's what that is, then the priorities say what is it that we're trying to achieve, and who was it? I think it was Shane Parrish who said, if you look at your calendar, That is a really good sort of point of reference as to where your priorities are, because what you're blocking time for, what you're making time for, Deems what you hold as important. And so priorities have to appear everywhere. And this is where, and we're going to end up laughing here because we say this every time. Priority used to be a singular word only in a, what the last decade, 15 years that we've made it plural. And I was in an organization two weeks ago where they had
96.
Jennie:And the poor gentleman talking to me was so honest. We've got 96 of these. Where do I even start? That's how difficult we're making it for people to show up and do great work. We didn't all show up and do the day job. Yep, a hundred percent. Let's help people out. What is the priority? If we're going to provide value, let's come back to that example I gave earlier on, then our priority is our content has got to be relevant, we've got to be up to date, and we've got to be solving the problems that keep people awake. So, there in how do I get to that, that's where my priorities are.
Craig:That's good. And on priorities, this is something, you know, that we've talked about previously, but. Should they be bottom up or top down? And if they are top down, how do you allow your team to have input into those priorities?
Jennie:I think that meaning comes top down. The meaning of what we do, the meaning of the work that we do, and telling that story, telling that picture, helping people to connect. And then from there, when I get the meaning from you, I can be a part of the conversation that says, okay, here's how I can contribute to that. Or if, as a team, we say, if we're going to get to this or provide this, then our priority has to be X, Y, and Z. Because if we focus on A, B, and C, we're looking at something completely different. So there might be a lining by the leader, but I think the leader's job is really to connect the dots between meaning, purpose, and ensuring that those priorities will get us to that point.
Craig:I like that. And I think for me, the other thing that comes to mind is if a priority is an outcome, produce X number of widget, hit whatever dollar, we have to get there, folks. What are the priorities that you see that will drive us to that result? That may be where the team gets the ability to play in that priority space.
Jennie:And here's where a really good sort of caution arrives when we're talking about culture. So let's tie it back to the culture there. Sometimes when we do that and we focus on the outcomes all of the time, We look for compliance and we look for staying within the boundaries and we look for follow the process and all of that is good. I'm not taking away from that, but if that is all we do, that's quite disengaging. And especially for someone who doesn't like rules so much. Okay, that's exhausting. And so it's a real case of yes, and we mustn't forget the creativity that can come with. Here's what we know works. What else can we do? Or we know this and what do we see happening further down the road? So allowing that creativity alongside All of the compliance I think is probably a decent word for it. Boundaries, whatever that might be.
Craig:Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, values and purpose we've covered. Priorities we've covered. Uh, another one that I know you like highlighting a lot because we've touched on it many times. What are the non negotiables that you have on your team and how do non negotiables tie in as a great building block of culture?
Jennie:Yes. So, values and non negotiables tend to run side by side. They really do. And I think, When you have your values and you make them, to your earlier point, you make them tangible, what does that look like? And we said in our last recording too, that leaders need to lead by example here. So, if we have a value, we have to walk the walk and talk the talk as well, it's not, there's no option in there. And then, once we've got those, what are our, the observable behaviours, non negotiables, our habits, They are things that we can consistently work by, and there's rarely more than three. And the interesting part to it is that we all have them. Individually, I have non negotiables, you have non negotiables. And as a team, we can have non negotiable. So this becomes a really healthy conversation because if we all spend some moments thinking about that, we learn a lot about ourselves and what we're showing up with, but we also learn a lot about our own self boundaries
Craig:and.
Jennie:One of the fundamental pieces for culture is social capital. Do we know each other and do we have the relationship? Because without that, you won't have the trust and everything else that comes with the depth of connection within relationships. And then we can also decide as a team, what will we hold as non negotiable and where that really works in culture, because culture is what we do and culture is who we are. Then when somebody new comes to the team, You hear the comments, like, here's how we do it here, and this is what we live by, this is how we operate, and we love that, your last place did this, this is our version of that. Those kind of conversations start to happen, and they happen organically, that's not leader driven, that's culture driven.
Craig:Yeah, and when you can get the players in the room holding each other accountable or indoctrinating each other to the standards, I think it's really, you really hit a good spot there. Similarly, to The conversation around values and purpose. Is there a tactical, practical way that a leader can take a team through setting what their non-negotiables are? And I know ultimately we're not looking for a poster that's then hung on the wall of here's our non-negotiables. But how do you, I think in light culture, I, I. You need to be a little bit intentional about setting your non negotiables, don't you?
Jennie:Yes. And I think the first part, I don't think there's a fancy play way to do this. Although, leave it with me, I'll find you one. But I think to start with And then we did this a long time ago. It was a simple team's message between what are your non negotiables? Like we had heard someone else use the term on a podcast. Okay. This is cool. And your three were quite different to my three. And I think that in itself is a good exercise for everybody is bring them to the table. We always talk about connecting before the content of your meeting, build your social capital. There is no better way to get them to know the people around your table, then understand. They're non negotiables. Now, the key with this is they're personal and they matter. So, for some people, this is a courage to bring this to the table. So, we have to enter with that awareness. And as a leader, it's not, it's definitely not our job to negate somebody else's story. The non negotiables don't match yours. That's actually really cool because that makes them very different to you now you've got diversity of perspective, thought, thinking, everything else. And then once you've done that and you're building that foundation of trust, the relationship piece, the conversation becomes much easier as a team. And a team's non negotiables, usually it's easiest to start with the values because from our values come our behaviors and if they're non negotiable and you're chatting about them and you get to some consensus, okay, let's try them out. Let's see how well these stick for us. Is this actually something that will stick? How do we hold ourselves responsible? It's not about leader holding you accountable, it's about each of us holding ourselves responsible. And try them out for a while, or you might find that in your conversation, as you start to look at it, people will say, this is obvious. One of our non negotiables is that you arrive before the meeting start time, period. Might already be there. And that's K2?
Craig:Yeah, no, and I like the way, I like the way you frame responsibility versus accountability, uh, there, and I think the other thing that it leads into is the next piece around rewards and recognition. If we know our non negotiables, we know our values, I think it makes it easier to look for ways to reward and recognize when your team is living those values or living those non negotiables. Similar to the other points, where and how does Rewards and recognition fit into the development of a great culture.
Jennie:So this is, for those of us that like to live in the world of positive optimism, this is a cool place to hang out because it's about catching everything that we've talked about. It's about catching people doing it right, which was also in a Feedback conversation, which will be ahead of these. And I think the part we need to remember in culture is when we have these values, behaviors, non negotiables, whatever that might be. Is there's three different levels that we want them to happen on. Cause we don't want this just to be a surface exercise so that when you turn your back, none of this happens. Hey, if somebody else has said this, I forget who it should be attributed to. The culture is what happens when nobody else is looking. That's your real culture. And so the levels that we need to remember, we want people to think within our values. We want people to act within our values and we want people to interact within our values. Now, the bonus of that for. Leaders and peers, colleagues, is that when it comes to recognition is simply see it, say it. Recognition costs us nothing. It is recognizing that somebody has operated within the value or within the behavior. If it's brand new, and we're moving towards that, we have to up the cadence of that recognition. If it's new, The day job and the expectation, probably we're going to back off a little bit. The key thing I think to remember with recognition is the worst thing that a leader can do is offer none, because when there's none, we actually extinguish the behaviors. We hear the language similar to, I don't know why I bother, nobody even knows I'm here, or this is a really thankless job or those kinds of things. And it's never, ever too late to offer recognition as well. That would be the other part that I would lean into. The other, last one, sorry, one more. Is being aware of the ratio. I feel like we've mentioned this quite a few times recently, but that five to one ratio, five positive to one negative for high performing teams, this is a great way to build your culture, but then also it's fine to build your performance. Okay. Now we're doing something that's intentional. It is work. But it's also worthwhile.
Craig:Yeah, that's so good. And speaking of five to one, we've covered off five points already around creating one great culture. There's a few more that we want to get through and probably the one that is the biggest, I think that leaders, teams, when it happens and when it's not there, and that is the role that psychological safety plays. in helping a leader and a team create, sustain, build a great culture.
Jennie:So psychological safety, just in case we have anybody listening who's, it's not quite on the radar or it still seems like a checkbox. It's not a solution. Psychological safety is as continuous and as intentional as culture is. And it's allowing or creating an environment where people can speak up without worry, fear, anxiety around humiliation or punishment. That's sort of short form version definition. So psychological safety, there's many different thought lines, but it's almost like a collective trust. And it's that notion that I can challenge the status quo, I can ask a dumb question, I can Offer a suggestion as incomplete as it might be, and it'll be held with value and contribution as opposed to being slammed down or shut out or laughter, let's say. So it actually works really with culture, because if we take Amy Edmondson's, I call them foundations, I'm not actually sure what she called them, but she has three things that are really quick, they're quick in terms of to understand, they're not quick to implement. But if we as leaders set the stage and then create space for voice and then respond productively, we are building that environment that allows a psychologically safe conversation, if you like. So what is setting the stage is setting norms, is talking about the behaviors that we will tolerate and not tolerate. So it's okay for you to get angry. But it is not okay for you to yell at me in front of our team or slam your fist on the table or whatever that might be. That's setting the stage. That's a behavior and it's observable. So they tie in pretty closely there. And then creating space for voice. It's all about who's doing the talking. And so this is really key. You, we said this, I think last time, leaders can't define the culture. You really can't. It has to be a team exercise. And if you're going organizationally, it has to be an organization part. And so one of the things we also mentioned last time is the importance of listening. And so if we're talking about culture as a leader, I'm going to ask good questions, and now they've got to listen and create the space for everybody else to speak up. And then that takes us to the last one. How productive is your response? And we measure everything that we see. And here, in that response, and not just verbal.
Craig:Yeah, it is such a big topic, psychological safety. We've touched on it many times, and I think what we'll do is we'll link to prior conversations in the show notes that we've had around psych safety, because it's ours in and of itself. You've got the good foundation of psychological safety. It then leads you into a couple of other things that become great pieces of culture. And one of those is conversation, right? And this includes feedback, and we've talked about this many times before. It works. If you are struggling on your team or you want to clarify, you want to, you're just not feeling sure about something. Go have the conversation, right? But how do we, I don't know if you want to expand on that anymore, but there's just something about this piece. I think that so often gets lost in companies and in teams that the act of having the conversation is really what you're being paid to do. And so how can you leverage conversation to create great culture?
Jennie:I tell you, I think it takes us back to where we started this series on in that Culture can never be a poster on the wall, or culture can never be one conversation behind a closed door, and if we think about one of the first steps that everybody talks about, if you want to transform your culture or the expression that we picked up on last time, renovate your culture. The first thing that you have to do is listen. And so it really doesn't matter what you're doing, whether your culture is pretty stable and you're maintaining it, or whether you're trying to transform and bring in new parts, that conversation is crucial. And conversation in itself drives engagement, drives satisfaction, drives value, especially if our voice share, the amount that we're talking is equal, if not more the person who's being asked on a team, that would be the individual contributor or the person who reports into the leader, but equal or more in their weight. And then through conversation is how we get connection. And then with connection, we've got relationships and adventure, you're building pretty much a great big circle. And in the middle of that circle, that culture just keeps growing and building and getting stronger. If we just talk about it, or just throw it on a wall, or Save it for town halls only. There's no cadence of conversation that keeps it alive. And we've said this before too, if you're not talking about it, your people definitely aren't even thinking about it. And yeah, that conversation is crucial.
Craig:Couple more to go. And the next one probably sounds the most academic or intellectual of them all. At least that's how I think about it, because I'm probably not either of those things. But artifacts and rituals. First of all. Yeah, see that? You knew where I was going with that. I do. It doesn't sound quite the same as rewards and recognition. Artifacts and rituals. Feels like they should be in italics. But anyway, how about we define them first and then just speak about the role that they play.
Jennie:Hehe. Hehe. It's really simple, okay? And isn't that the case? We often make it way too complex or complicated when it's just a people piece. Rituals are the things that we do again and again. Right? A big part of the culture, the All Blacks rugby. Right? The Haka, before, that is a ritual. Artifacts are pretty much, they're usually a tangible thing. They're something that we have, or maybe that we're left with, that defines our culture. And they can change. Both of them can change as well.
Craig:So an artifact's like an employee of the month plaque?
Jennie:Careful, that is not something that we want to endorse.
Craig:Ah, fair enough. No, I, again, they do sound so complex relative to what they are, and they can, to your point, they can be those. Quick things that you do at the start of a meeting, they can be those, those fun team awards that you hand out, best presentation, biggest mistake this quarter or something like that. You can have fun with them as well, right? Absolutely. And you might as well. Probably
Jennie:the better. Yeah. No, I was just agreeing with you. Probably the better. The more fun and engaging that they are, the more meaning they have.
Craig:Yeah. Perfect. Okay. Final point. Meetings and decision making, right? It kind of is a weird way to word it, but how can leaders use the time that you have together with your team, i. e. your meetings to reinforce culture and how does decision making play into that as well?
Jennie:I think it's a good one to finish with because I think it ties in everything that we've spoken about beforehand. So if you think of a meeting and you have non negotiables and observable behaviors, they will probably show up in that meeting. And a great example might be a culture of collaboration would deem that we create space for each other's voice. And in a meeting, if you've got one person that hijacks the whole conversation or somebody who interrupts and you let that go. You're saying to the rest of the team, nah, this isn't actually all that important to us. This is a team where it's perfectly acceptable to have a hijacker or somebody who interrupts each other. We don't value each other's contribution. The meetings are something that we do a lot. And yes, we do it too much in most cases. And when they're done right, they're a really good vehicle because we get work done. And we get plenty of opportunity to reinforce the connections, the relationships and the culture that we are, and that brings in the recognition that we were talking about previously as well.
Craig:Love it. I love the way you sum that up. Before we get on to our one big idea, I'm just going to quickly recap. The 9. Values and purpose, priorities, non negotiables, rewards and recognition, psychological safety, conversations and feedback, the big intellectual one, artifacts and rituals, and, uh, meetings and decision making. And that leads us into our one big idea, Jennie.
Jennie:Okay, so, big idea, I think that stems from this conversation, is that culture comes from people. Who choices make. People make choices, make culture. And so for your people, how can you help them to think or maybe to act or behave or interact with other people? Into the culture that you're working on to give two things that you can take away. Let's go back to the first one that we started with the drawing exercise, whatever format that might come in words, drawings, et cetera, towards purpose. And it's very simple, blank piece of paper each. What is our purpose? Start from there and then build the conversation. It is okay if you aren't all immediately aligned. And then the second one, I would hold around those values and non negotiables. So what are the team's values? And stemming from there, what are the key behaviors that you would want to see? And then from there is a downward list. Three, no more than three non negotiables for the team. And obviously wrapped in there, as we talked about, are your own individual non negotiables as well. And then the question becomes really easy. Are you being intentional in your own culture or in building your own culture?
Craig:Love it. There's some great thinking that you could probably walk away and do just following those questions. And if you're not being intentional, that's okay. There's time to start. And we will, the next time we are back, we've talked about building culture. What if you need to change? What if you feel your culture is due for a tune up or a renovation, as we've talked about before? So when we are back next time, we will be talking about how to lead a culture change within your team, within your organization. With that. Thank you, Jennie, and we'll be back again next time. Take care. Thank you once again for joining us on the Leading Beyond Any title podcast. If you'd like to stay connected and receive more updates from us, please follow state corporate training on LinkedIn. Stay in the loop with the latest insights and valuable content to the link in the show notes.
Jennie:Additionally, don't miss out on the opportunity to experience leading beyond any title Live Sign on for our webinars and experience the podcast before anyone else. Finally, make sure to rate, review and subscribe wherever it is that you listen to your podcast. Thank you again for listening.