The Right Culture For the
Office Team
Culture eats strategy for lunch
Like the proverbial drunk searching for his keys under the light—rather than in
the dark place where he dropped them—most managers search for business success
under their strategy rather than in their culture.
Who could blame them? Culture seems like an ethereal concept, difficult to grasp
and impossible to design.
But culture need not be a dark place where only fluffy concepts lie. Culture can
be clearly defined, and easily established.
Culture, Crystal Clear
Lets define culture as the set of beliefs people hold about the way in which we
do things around here.
Culture is the set of expectations that members of an organization hold about
what one has to think, say and do in order to be one of us.
Culture is neither written in official documents, nor expressed in leaders’
speeches. Culture lives in the minds of the people who live it. It is not what
anyone says, but what everyone understands. It is mostly subconscious, a mental
map of how to proceed in alignment with the group’s customs.
Culture is learned by example. Just like children learn the culture of their
family by observing their parents, new members learn the culture of their group
by observing their leaders. People in power have succeeded. So anyone who wants
to achieve a good standing will emulate the behaviors of those who reached the
top.
Organizations are always tempted to impart culture as a lesson. Mission, vision,
core values, rules of behavior, and other imperatives are dutifully presented as
culture pillars. However, leaders would be better served heeding Ralph Waldo
Emerson’s warning, “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you
say.”
So how can you set the right culture?
You can set culture through a three-step process:
1. Define the standards
2. Demonstrate the standards
3. Demand the standards
1. Define the standards
Have a conversation with your team where you define together the ways of
thinking, speaking and acting that you all want to enact. These are the ways in
which you will implement your strategy, achieve your mission, and realize your
vision. Choose them carefully.
Although anyone could initiate this conversation, it is normally the leader who
takes the first step. I have found that the best standard-setting conversations
follow this pattern:
1.a. Propose
Explain why you think your standard can help the group work more effectively.
For example, I start my workshops with this proposal: “In order to better work
together, I suggest that we all put our phones in silent mode, and that we do
not use them within the room. If someone needs to answer a call or check
messages, he or she can step out and do it.”
1.b. Check
Make sure that everybody agrees that the standard is workable and truly improves
effectiveness. For example, after my suggestion I add, “Is that acceptable to
you?” If people say “yes,” we move on. But this is not a perfunctory step. It is
quite possible that someone might have a problem with the suggestion. In that
case, a negotiation is in order.
For example, a participant might say, “Sorry Fred. I’m expecting an important
email that requires an urgent response. I’m happy to step out of the room to
read it and reply to it, but it would be terribly cumbersome to stand up and
leave every time my phone vibrates. I’d like to be able to quickly look and see
if it’s the important email. If it is, I’ll step out. If it isn’t, I’ll wait
till the break to read it.”
1.c. Commit
At the end of the negotiation, ask people to make a commitment. As I explained
in Are You Making This Mistake…? , admonishments or agreements mean nothing if
they don’t turn into commitments. What binds people to behave in a certain way
is their word. A promise is the crucial step to engage people’s integrity.
That’s why the standard cannot be just a request, or even worse, an imposition.
It needs to be a collective commitment.
In my workshops, after the negotiation I conclude, “We have agreed that we will
keep our phones silent. That we might look at them to see who’s calling or what
message is arriving, but that anything requiring more than a few seconds we will
do outside of the room. Unless someone understands it differently, let’s make
this a commitment.”
2. Demonstrate the standards
You must give the example. You must behave according to the standard. If you
don’t, not only you will destroy the commitment, you will also destroy the
team’s integrity. Nothing creates more cynicism than a leader who says one thing
and does another, especially when he or she demands that people do as he or she
says.
Imagine what would be the effect in my workshop, if five minutes into it, my
phone rang, I took the call, and had a conversation in front of the room.
Devastating.
People can have different interpretations of what the commitment might imply in
a specific situation. It is possible that you believe you are behaving in line
with the standard, and someone else doesn’t believe so. In that case, it is
crucial to discuss the difference of opinion. The permission to challenge
anybody who seems to break the standard, especially the leader, is a crucial
standard itself.
In my workshops, I encourage people to express any questions they might have
about my behavior. I explain that my commitment is firm, but at times I may make
a mistake or act unconsciously, and that I welcome people challenging me to
discuss if I am aligned or not with the behavioral promise I made.
The leader can make a mistake, but he or she cannot refuse to discuss the
possible mistake without destroying the standard.
3. Demand the standards
As important as demonstrating the standard is demanding that others do the same.
If you don’t, you will destroy the commitment, and the team’s integrity, as
surely as if you had broken the standard.
Imagine what would be the effect in my workshop, if five minutes into it, your
phone rang, you took the call in front of me, and I didn’t say anything. It
would be as devastating as if I had taken the call.
The leader must be a guardian of the standard—“a” but not “the” guardian. It is
crucial that every member of the team feel empowered and committed to demand the
standard from every other member of the team. This is because the promise to
behave according to the standard is not to the leader, but to every member of
the group. The role of the leader is not just to demand the standard, but also
to demand that every member demand the standard from every other member of the
group.
Next Step
What standard might improve the effectiveness of your team? What would you
propose to improve performance, relationships, or people’s well being?
Try out the conversation, and let us know how it goes. By sharing your
suggestion and experience in the comments below you will help many other
LinkedIn members who can propose it to their teams.
You don’t need to be a formal leader to shape the culture of your team. Just the
opposite: when you take responsibility to shape the culture of your team, you
become a leader.