Everything around us is changing at an exponential rate. For teams and organizations to truly thrive Leadership and therefore Leadership Development must change too.
For too long the focus has been on what to think, focused on here and now. Our belief structure around Leadership is peppered with beliefs of power, tension, focusing on constraints and expectations. Today's nature of work deserves a better approach, one focused on performance because of possibilities, collaboration, creativity harnessed in an environment that nurtures and invites participation from everyone.
Join Craig and Jennie as they discuss the benefits of focusing on how to think on your way to where you need to be, what are the Leadership mindsets that will inform effective action whatever the situation?
Diving into the six key intelligences that make up SAIT’s Leading Beyond Any Title Leadership journey, this conversation will be packed with top questions that inform our curated experiences, and offer practical, useable strategies in the intelligences.
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.
Everything around us is changing at an exponential rate. For teams and organizations to truly thrive Leadership and therefore Leadership Development must change too.
For too long the focus has been on what to think, focused on here and now. Our belief structure around Leadership is peppered with beliefs of power, tension, focusing on constraints and expectations. Today's nature of work deserves a better approach, one focused on performance because of possibilities, collaboration, creativity harnessed in an environment that nurtures and invites participation from everyone.
Join Craig and Jennie as they discuss the benefits of focusing on how to think on your way to where you need to be, what are the Leadership mindsets that will inform effective action whatever the situation?
Diving into the six key intelligences that make up SAIT’s Leading Beyond Any Title Leadership journey, this conversation will be packed with top questions that inform our curated experiences, and offer practical, useable strategies in the intelligences.
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'll both hope you enjoy this episode.
Craig:Okay, Jennie, we've had a great run of conversations live on Friday mornings that folks have been able to listen to through the podcast. We've recorded a couple of leader lessons, short versions of some important topics that we've touched on, but we are going to be off air or offline for the month of March between. your vacation, my vacation, et cetera. And what we thought we would try is to record a series of podcast only episodes around a specific topic. And I think for the next two or three episodes, what we're going to try and focus on is this whole concept of corporate culture, teen culture, and give folks some things to think about over the next few weeks as you and I are Enjoying our respective vacations. Jenniehow's that sound?
Jennie:Fabulous. I like the holiday part especially. The culture bit too.
Craig:ExactlyJennie, I think by the time this comes out, I may be sitting on a beach in Maui. JennieI'm good with that.
Jennie:That is a good holiday. Okay. Yeah,
Craig:I'll take it. Jennieculture. Let's dial this back in now and Craig get a little bit more serious. And I came to you with this idea of could we do a 2, 3, 4 part conversation on culture? It's something I've been thinking a lot about lately with my team and the team, the bigger team that I'm part of. Jennieit's something I think that's incredibly important to just about any team, any organization, but I think it's also something that
probably
Craig:just happens in a lot of organizations versus being intentionally built. So why don't we start simply with what does culture mean? In the context of leadership and organizations.
Jennie:Good question. Good place to start. And interesting perspective, true perspective, in that in some places it just happens. And little attention is paid to it. And in some Organizations, teams, it's intentional work. There's a huge difference between the two. JennieGustavo Rosati often says that it's the enabler to great work that everybody misses. And I think it was Tom Rath who said, maybe Kevin Oaks, that culture is like the fabric that sits under your team or under your organization. So if your fabric is tattered and torn, there will be pieces that drop through. And if your fabric is in great condition, intentional work, then there's a huge support for the work that's happening every day as part of that team or part of that organization.
Craig:Yeah, and it's, for me, it's just so interesting how, from my experience, So few organizations intentionally work on it, and I don't know if there's, again, I don't know if that's unique to me or if that's something that you've seen as well, but I guess a couple of questions come to mind for me out of that is. Why is that? Yeah. Why do organizations, I think, perhaps struggle in intentionally building culture? And is that necessarily a bad thing?
Jennie:I think the first one's easier, so we'll start there. In that the struggle, I think some companies, some teams, some leaders, some companies, I think they believe they're doing a good job. And at its worst, and I would love to say we're beyond this now, but I don't think that we are. At its worst, it's some values that a company has spent thousands of dollars hiring a consultant to come on in and work out the values and then they're posted on a intranet or even worse, on the wall and yet nothing's ever Bye. Done with them. And we all know one of the worst things you can do when you want to start the conversation about culture is to close your leadership team in a room and let them decide because they truly don't know. And that's with no disrespect at all. They just don't know beyond their. Level and culture really is what's going on for everybody. It's the choices that everyone makes within your team or within your organization. The other part where we think we're doing great work is the, and again, it's always got this cost play to it, but we spend thousands on engagement surveys and then do nothing with the results or we get better. We do a pulse survey. So less questions for everybody, less to take on, and still we don't see anything. on the other side. So I think often we think we're doing the work. Is it a bad thing? It depends what you want. It depends because your culture really Jennieis who you are. That's what culture is. It's not what you, it's not a thing that you do. It's who you are as an organization. So it speaks volumes.
Jennie
Craig:it's who you are and how you do it. And I think what you tolerate as well. Yeah. So you said something there that I think maybe we should perhaps take a step back and just somewhat clarify. So you talked about values, right? I've been through those exercises. I've been part of those teams that have been locked in the room to come up with the values. I've been part of the teams that have sat outside the room and watched others come up with the values as well. But when we talk about culture, maybe can we just distinguish between culture? Mission, Vision, Values. There is a piece there to somewhat tease apart, I think.
Jennie:Yes. Your mission and your vision. People can combine these terms, confuse these terms. I think the one that's more commonly being used these days is the purpose. What connects us as individuals that show up for work every day? What connects us or you could even take it down to why do we want to work together? What is it that we're achieving? And what we're seeing more now is that purpose. We have fortunately begun to recognize nobody cares about putting money in somebody else's pocket. We care about much more societal, constructive offices that allow us to want to belong, allow us to want to contribute, allow us to want to provide value. Now the purpose of a business always is going to be making money. I'm not taking away from that. But that's not our common purpose, shared goal, the reason that we get up in the morning. The reason that we get up in the morning. In my world is the opportunity to help somebody grow, the opportunity to provide support to somebody taking on a new role. And you could go onJennie teens can spend ages figuring that out. Underneath there, the values become. That sort of track, let's say, for what's most important to us, and that becomes an identity when they use properly. And when we work in alignment personally, so personally we have values as well, everybody does. Some of us know what they are and some of us don't. But when we work in alignment with our values, we naturally feel more engaged and more satisfied. Life feels good. When we're in disalignment with our values, life doesn't feel good at all. And then so when our personal values align with a company values and they don't have to be identical, then that allows those basic parameters of engagement, satisfaction, wanting to show up to happen organically, as opposed to forced.
Craig:Okay. And so we all want to have purpose. We all want to work at an organization or part of a team. If you're happen to be part of a team that has great. connection and great purpose, but perhaps you don't feel that with the larger organization. There's those situations that can arise. How do we look at the tie then between purpose and culture? How does, how do you as a organization or a team? Align your culture with that purpose or with those values and then what's, what is the, what's the benefit of that
Jennie:and
Craig:the flip side of that because this is always going to be a multi part question from Craig is what happens when it goes wrong? What happens when there isn't alignment between that culture and the purpose and the values?
Jennie:Okay, I think that's it. The first one and the second one actually, but I think it's a brilliant question because when we have our purpose and our values and more, those are like our cues to culture. So culture is made up of, if you, if we want a laundry list, purpose, values, recognition, behavior, rituals, some people call them artifacts. There's, yeah, and some have shortened it to only three and you can find lists of 12. So those are our cues to what our culture is and it gives us a framework if you like, because people like a framework to work with. And the reason that it's healthy to have those conversations and dial into that is there's a filter then and I forget them off the top of my head, but Disney's number one quality. I think they call them is safety and then there's customer next. And so for any employee at Disney safety first. Deems what route that employee will take. So your values when they're used properly lead to behavior. So Jenniewe even have organizations now, it used to be always about the KPI and you and I have pulled those apart in the past, but now you've got a KBI as well. Key behavior indicators, but that allows those values to come to life. And so we say that we are collaborative. What does that look like? What does that mean? What is the filter that allows that to happen? And that ties in another key part with sort of culture and building culture is leading by example. It's not an optional thing. It's a must. And culture is one of the organizational traits that starts at the top and it really matters what leaders do and say. And then the other part of that, and this might answer in part the second question, is that if we don't, we try and be everything. And so if an organization or a team wants to be, wants to have a learning culture and a performance culture and an inclusive culture and a customer focus culture and a quality culture. There's absolutely 20 million things that can happen within there. Whereas when we define it, we narrow the focus. It's much easier for people to perform within there. And if you take it, performance culture and a learning culture have really different traits to them. Both are great, but they have very different employee traits that we need.
Craig:Yeah, that's fascinating to me. You just, I wasn't going to go this direction, but no, I think as always you. Inevitably say something where I go, Oh, or as you I've reminded me to do throw my hands up in the air and say, isn't that fascinating?
Jennie:Yeah.
Craig:Yes. And this is one of those. So the type of culture. And so let's touch briefly on that because we may dive into this in a subsequent episode here, but performance culture versus a learning culture versus. Why can't you have them all and why can't you pick and how tough is it to pick just one, right?
Jennie:It's incredibly difficult to pick just one and some let's be fair if you have a really good learning culture There was probably a bad example for me to pick because you have a really good healthy learning culture your performance is likely to go up
If
Jennie:you're a high performance culture, and a good example would be Netflix, probably you need your people to a degree to be competitive and driven and goal orientated, that kind of focus. So those might be some of the values that pop up within there, or the behaviors that attach to that. are very different than the behaviors that attach to a learning culture. So a learning culture might be more maybe aspirational, maybe inspirational, maybe, you can be ambitious still within how they're working. That humility piece will be high. The experimental piece will be high. And so again, those are different values. And those aren't values that I've just listed. That's just trying to look at the traits that would be involved. But then that's a different way to approach. We come into a meeting where we're goal driven. We're in a different conversation than where we're experiment driven.
Craig:Ah, okay. There, that for me, that, that kind of closed the loop on that thought. That was, that's interesting. Okay. And so we've touched on purpose. We've touched on mission and vision. We've touched on the importance of culture. Let's switch a little bit now and think about. How does, and this is not talking about being a performance culture, but how does culture impact performance? And are there any kind of elements of culture that correspond with better performance?
Jennie:Yeah, I think they're so closely connected in that if performance is how you do the works that you do. Jennieso you and I've had this conversation a lot, performance is how you do it. Results are results. You will always get results. So if we're focusing on performance, we know that when somebody shows up to perform, Chris Franbuck gives Jenniethis laundry list if you like, but it is so relevant. When I show up to perform, I need technical skills, I need tactical understanding, and then we want to bear in mind mental, physical, emotional, and contextual. aspects. Those are the six pieces that make up performance of a person. And we don't often think beyond technical and tactical in the workplace. So if we attach that idea of performance, and there's obviously so much more in it, to the idea of culture. So culture, the culture of the organization or the team that I work in has a lot to do with my energy and how I feel, mental, physical and emotional. We just named that in performance. So if I come to work and the culture is toxic, there's no psychological safety, I live much of the day either in fear, anxiety, shame, judgment, whatever all those toxic pieces are, I come home with not much energy, I don't have much to give in the family world. And my wellbeing will take a hit, but if my wellbeing is taking a hit, my performance is never going to be optimal. And so it's been sad and I cannot remember where it came from, but culture is one, singularly one of the most important parts for building collective wellbeing or societal wellbeing because as adults, we all spend so much time at work. So it really affects.Jennieour well being shows, affects how we show up to perform. So they're all joined together quite tightly.
Craig:Yeah, they sure are. And what this is raising for me is coming back to the original question around can or should you be intentional about building culture? At work, and I think you've everything that you've spelled out here, especially in that last section around performance suggest. Yes. Yes. If you leave it, if you leave it to chance and you end up with a great group of people who are passionate about the work that they're doing and are just connected. Inevitably, I think you're going to fluke into a great culture, but the odds of that happening on every team, every organization are probably slim to none, right? Leaders inherit teams. Leaders don't get to build their teams all the time. There's other issues. So the case for why you need to be intentional about building culture, I think, is one that makes a lot of sense. And so the question I would have here is, just off the top of your head, what are the two or three things, and I know we're going to try and delve into changing culture later, But if you're starting out, one of the two or three things to think about is in terms of building a great culture,
Jennie:I think if you're starting,
Craig:I'll give you like that. The hypothetical situation of you are the first person to form a team, right? Perhaps this is startup kind of situation, or Jennieyou're in a situationJenniea new manager leading up a new group within an organization to take on a certain, how do you, if you had that moment.
Jennie:So you just made the question harder, actually.
Craig:Oh, sorry. We'll do
Jennie:that first. And then let's talk about if you want to start with your team. If you're listening to this and you're like, Ooh, I've never thought about that. My team is fantastic. And that's where I'm at, but let's go back. So brand new team, brand new. Startup, whatever it might be. I think I would come back to what are the cues for culture? So what is our purpose? And values, which would be what connects us or why do we do the work that we do? There's a purpose and what are our values? What's most important? And from your values come those behaviors. So they're the actions that you're guided by. And I love the idea of non negotiables. So as a group, here are our non negotiables and we all have our own great conversation for a team to be having. And then what are a team? Non negotiables. Where will we stand by each other? Where will we draw the line when we need to? What does all of that look like? As your team builds, then you'd be looking to add recognition. So any of those behaviors that you have outlined or. Put in as part of your blueprint. See it, say it. So when you see it happening, recognize it. And we talked about this just last week, catch people doing it right. The more you reinforce and recognize that, the more the value goes up of that, and the more chance you have of people replace redoing or re-performing that behavior. And then with more time, you'll hit the rituals and the artifacts. And the key part in here is just because you do that when you set up, it doesn't mean that you're done. So in culture is intentional, continuous work. So it needs to be revisited because it might shift and it might change. And then all along the way, the easiest sort of self reflection, self awareness tagline in culture is what is the worst behavior that you are rewarding or that you are tolerating? And if you keep a sort of a check on that allows you to ensure that you're staying within your boundary lines and then as you go leads into the easier version of the question. So now your team set up and you want to revisit this conversation. Excuse me in that. What are we doing that really works and that we really connect to and we think is good. And what are we doing that perhaps doesn't identify who we are or show us in the best light that we want to be seen or want to act in? Why don't we feel as good? Or that kind of conversation. And Kevin Oakes actually has a really good book on it and it's called Renovating Culture. And it's such a good terminology because when we say transforming or building, that's exhausting. Whereas renovating, we've got some good, we've got some really good stuff going on. What can we keep and what will we add to that?
Craig:Yeah, very good. Jenniewhat I'm hearing in here, there is a whole set of foundations around culture that we could perhaps dig into in a future conversation. The other piece that comes to mind is, okay, so you've got these foundations, you've got these tools of culture, if we can call them
Jennie:that.
Craig:You need people to help do this. You do. Inevitably, you're going to have some people who are On board, right? They're all in, they're there to help build a great culture. You've got others who are probably, I like showing up at work. Do we have to talk about this culture stuff? Yes. And then if you're in the unfortunate position where you might even have some blockers goingJennie JennieJennieno. I don't want to change anything. And I guess I've said it there, but what roles do the people on your team or those type of roles play in the building of culture? And how do you think about these architects of your culture? Because ultimately your team becomes your architect of your culture.
Jennie:If you're doing it right, they do. Because this is a whole team conversation back to our, it can't just be the leader deciding who we are and what we do. And you mentioned blockers. So I think it's Kevin Oakes actually. Again, we've mentioned a couple of times now. Who names them influencers, energizers, and blockers. And if you really want to dive into this, there's a whole organizational network analysis that you can do that will tell you who those are in your company, especially if you're a really big company. If you're doing this team based, you probably can figure that out. Just by watching, by paying attention, who, who influences, who brings the energy, who brings the positive energy to the meeting, who brings the negative energy to the meeting. What does that look like? So you can do a lot of it by observation. And one of the things, when we talk about foundations and changing, renovating culture, if we use that terminology, is listening as well. Like listening is so fundamental in this. And those. Influencers, energizers, we need to know who they are. The problem is for a lot, they often don't sit in hierarchy. They sit buried in the masses. And when we all worked face to face, they were the people who everybody gravitated towards in the lunchroom or the coffee room, or in a big meeting. If you just watch the dynamics, people flock towards them for a conversation or wait back and chat with them, you'd see them. And then the blockers to your point. Try and stop progress, dampen progress, they're your naysayers. There's nothing wrong with a naysayer, but it's the approach that they're bringing. And at their most toxic, and they do sit there, they're in our decision making makers, and they change the course. And because of the power that they hold within their decision making position, it's really hard to put a finger on. So you can feel like you're running into a brick wall all of the time. And you've actually got a blocker sitting in there in one place in your hierarchy as well.
Craig:Yeah, it's fascinating that the roles that individuals can play. And I think most leaders intuitively are going to know when they look at their team, who's going to be on board for a renovation, who's not. Although having just gone through a kitchen and an ensuite renovation myself, I'm not sure that's the best term to use, but anyway.
Jennie:No, it's not. And the other thing we have to say this year too, if you're really careful, it was Ben Zander who brought this up. Your most passionate critic. Don't label them as a blocker straight off without a conversation, because a lot of passionate critics are simply people who have been disappointed before, and they don't want to be let down again. So we have to be really careful. Yes, we can see it. And that listening part is really crucial, because until we understand where they're coming from and what their story is, we actually don't know. We're making up a story by labeling the people around us.
Craig:That's a great point. Okay, one final question for you before we move on to our one big idea to close up this initial conversation. And that is going to be quite simply, what's the, what are the tangible benefits of a great culture?
Jennie:Oh, that's a short question with a long potential answer. The, you know what, simply, you're going to increase your engagement, you're going to increase your satisfaction, you're going to improve the quality of life and Jenniebeing on your team, which inevitably will lead to an improved performance and energy. And we can't control the conditions, but in creating that environment, It will have an impact on your results.
Craig:Very cool.
Jennie:There you go. This is going to be a point where Taryn
Craig:is going to have listened. It's about 27 minutes, 27 and a half minutes in, Taryn.
Jennie:Done.
Craig:Oh, very good. Okay. All right, Jennie. Jenniewe've had a good conversation here. As we usually do, I think we need to wrap up with one big idea for folks. What's the one big idea about culture?
Jennie:Okay, and I'm going to, I'll expand it. It'll be quite unusual. We won't get to 1, 2, 3Jennie but we'll go a bit further. So a big idea, and I think this emerged quite nicely as we were chatting, is you can't hope to have a culture. And I believe it was in one of the Hunger Games movies, actually, but Donald Solomon's character said Hope is incredibly powerful. And it's a rubbish strategy. So I don't think he had the rubbish strategy. He had the hope is powerful, but that's the same for your culture. And so it needs to be intentional. We cannot leave it to chance, especially as leaders. So from there, if you wanted two things to do straight away. Get to know your people, and by know your people, on a level of who are your influencers, your energizers, potential blockers, what are you seeing, and just pay attention, I think is the key one in there, and then the second one would be what behaviors are happening as you look at your team and you could involve your team in this conversation, what do we do that really speaks to who we are and that we're proud of in what we do, and then maybe how are there things that don't sit at that level? And then you'll be really delighted with this. I can't get to three questions in a hurry in this format, but I have one question I'll leave everybody with. And that is what is the worst behavior? I love it. PerfecJennienny, this was great.
Craig:We will be back in the next episode. I think we've touched on a couple of things here that we're going to expand on. And the first thing that we're going to expand on are going to be the foundations of culture. All those pieces that you talked about, values and purpose, priorities, non negotiables, rewards and punishment, etc. I think that's what we're going to come back with next. Hopefully folks, this 2, 3, 4 part series, we're not quite sure where it's going to end up by the time it's done. That's going to give you some great things to think about being intentional about building culture on your team. Until 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 SAIT corporate training on LinkedIn. Stay in the loop with the latest insights and valuable content through the link in the show notes.
Jennie:Additionally, don't miss out on the opportunity to experience Leading Beyond Any Title live. Sign up 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.