master text as power point 2

8/9/2019 Master Text as Power Point 2

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. . . L E S S O N S Y O U C A N A P P LY I N Y O U R O W N L I F E

G R A P H I C / I M A G E T O B E I N P U T T E D

B Y T E R R I K R U Z A N

My Career As a Culture Sleuth


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Culture Matters. W hat I learned in my 20 years as a change management consultant is that culture matters.

If you expect to be a 21 st century leader - taking charge of culture is your job , within organizations and working across national boundaries. It will be your personal sourceof competitive advantage.

Culture Is Bigger Than an Individual.

Leadersmost of whom inherited their organizational culturesdo not understand its magnitude, what needs to be done to shape it and how to model new behaviors. Thenext generation of leaders is quicker to understand this. Cultural barriers can hinder your ability to change behaviors needed to achieve goals - and move forward.

Thus, understanding the role of culture is critical for those who want to spur progress.

Why Blog About Culture? I began blogging to help people adapt to change more easily and become better leaders. I wanted to share my skills on culture sleuthing.

As a medium, blogging is the best way to reach an international, diverse audience with immediacy. By sharing examples of those who are shaping governments, companies,countries, communities and families - we can demystify culture.

Ive grouped the most compelling posts to tell a storyto help readers start their journey of taking charge of culture as 21 st century leaders . and compiled them into thisfree e-book.

The (Cultural) Bottom Line. Culture is all around us. Its impact is enduring and profoundendlessly fascinating and there to be shaped.

Through blogging, Ive engaged with people in the U.S., Asia, Australia, the Middle East and Europeespecially young people, students and leaders responsible for change within their organizations.

I hope you'll join our online community: Leading- W orkplace-Change .

Terri KruzanFounder, Culture Consulting turned Culture Sleuth

April 2010

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After being introduced to the idea that culture matters for 21 st century leaders , your nextthought is how do I know where to look fo r cultu re

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H ow To Be a Culture Sleuth

Lesson Learned... by digging below the surface, skillful cultural sleuths can solve problems

The job of an armchair culture sleuth is to find the underlying reasons for people's actions. Those actions may have been formed duringanother time and place. By looking for clues, the savvy sleuth can uncover a set of shared values or a belief system that can helpresolve a problem.

So why should you be an armchair culture sleuth? To become more successful at recognizing and solving problems in the workplace, incommunity organizations or in your own family.

The best culture sleuths are curious. They keep their antennae tuned, continuously digging deeper for data that can be linked together todetect the underlying causes for a problem. By uncovering clues and developing leads, they learn why issues are not always easily solved.

Imagine yourself as an investigative reporter - such as Carl Bernstein or Bob W oodward who uncovered the W atergate scandal, a writer forThe Smoking Gun website or a CSI detective.

Does this kind of problem-solving sound intriguing to you?

If so, here are four steps to get you started in how to be a culture sleuth.

y O bserve what is put up on the wall (pictures, plaques, web-pages)y Investigate what an organization or community measures (annual reports)y D ig deeper into stories about founders, leaders - their response to crisis and success (news articles & history timelines)y Link the clues together (create a shared culture map)

More:For example, let's look into the 'lack of confidence problem' facing many banks today. The culture sleuth observes the pictures and captions on a local bank's website. They project images of reliability and saving for

the future .

Investigating further, she reads the bank's recent annual report and notes a recurring strategic focus on higher margin, higher risk products .

The culture sleuth digs deeper and reads about increasing annual bonuses paid to the bank's executives in recent years - while reviewing the bank's history timeline, she finds the past focus was on stable andconservative dividends paid to stockholders.

After linking the clues, the culture map is revealing. It appears to chart a shift in the bank's underlying values from stability and reliability to high-risk and high gain .

This culture sleuthing work reveals a poss ible underlying reason for the confidence problem facing banks today. And most likely guides the sleuth as to where to put her next IRA savings deposit!

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In your journey of becoming a culture sleuth, it is important to realize how much national background influences beliefs - the source of culture. In this short e-book, the focus is onhow b eing Am eri ca n in flu en ces cultu re .

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H arnessing the H ustler

Lesson Learned... " winning at all costs " requires ground rules to play by.

It is always fun to write about how the American persona manifests itself in the corporate cultures of many companies.

One of the clear themes in historian W alter A. McDougalls book Freedom Just Around the Corner - A New American H istory, 1585-1828 is that we are a country and a people with a penchant for hustling - in both the positive and negative senses. H e talksabout:

...how hustlers are folks who are known for getting things done, but also cut corners and cheat and above all are always in ahurry fleeing into the future.

You can sense that hustler persona emerge in companies today, especially those with win-at-all-costs cultures. W hen asked what ittakes to be successful in these companies, the following behaviors are often noted by employees:

y M ust create opportunities and exploit themy M ust be aggressive, compete and take calculated risksy M ust do whatever it takes to get the deal done

H arnessing the hustler instincts of the American persona is what good leaders should be about providing ground rules, incentivesand consequences to structure the competition.

This is not an easy job and usually very much a juggling act on the part of leadership. Their work is to set and maintain theorganizational mission front and center at all times - without sacrificing the willingness of individuals to take personal risks andcreate opportunities for the future.

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Culture Connection Between Bullying in the Schoolsand the W orkplace

Lesson Learned... rugged individualism needs to be aligned with institutional mission

Recently, I was asked to bring my knowledge about shaping workplace culture to a symposium for educators on Stopping Youth Bullying.

I started the workshop with the question: W hat are the underlying reasons why American teachers, families and children have a hard timeaddressing bullying? The answers were varied, but a consistent response was: Some people think bullying helps kids toughen up forthe real world, so a little bit is OK

These responses reminded me of feedback from folks within organizations as to why harassment of employeesa form of bullyingistolerated within the workplace:

y H azing of newcomers is just expected in the workplacey Just keep your mouth shut and look the other way around aggressive managers or you could become their target

The questions then become: does bullying and harassment go with or against the grain of U.S. national beliefs? Is it primarily about theneed for some to seek attention, power and control through humiliation, as postulated by the W orkplace Bullying Institute ? Is theresomething within our national DNA that allows children and adults to gather around and cheer the bully on or just ignore it?

It became clear after much discussion that bullying may go with the grain of our traditional American frontier roots: our belief in theimportance of rugged individualism . W e admire people who stand up for themselves and show initiative and stamina. This rugged individualism can lead to creativity and innovation--a core component of U.S. success. In the workplace, that translates into valuingpeople who are self-starters .

More:No one wants to get rid of the self-starter instinct in the American culture. But left in its traditional pure form , it appears to influence a passive acceptance of the practice of bullying wh ich can

lead to violence, depression and decreased productivity among youths and adults. There is a need for leaders to balance and align this cultural driver with the organizational mission. Forschools, that means 'creating a safe place to learn.'

As a country, we are not alone in the wilderness anymore; we live and work in a complex, inter-related global marketplace. Shifting our national belief in a pure form of rugged individualism asrepresented in the cultures of many American-based institutions will not be easy, but its important for our countrys long-term success.

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Just Say No to Shrimp?

Lesson Learned ...thinking differently is the first step toward acting differently

My family likes to eat shrimp all year. But I recently read an article in the Atlanta Journal & Constitution (7/10/08) about TheH idden Cost of Shrimp, and I am ready to feed my family shrimp far less often.

The article explains that both farm-raised and wild caught shrimp can spread disease and contribute to the destruction of theecosystem. The reporter, Meredith Ford, recommends we eat less shrimp, saving them for special occasions. She outlines theircost to the planet as being greater than their cost per pound in the store.

This article provides an example of one kind of push people need to change how they act -- thinking about things differently is the first step toward acting differently .

In the U.S., people don't think that less is more . It is at odds with Americans' traditional belief of having unlimited natural resources.

For example, utility companies in the 1950s promoted the use of electric appliances to sell more electricity and car companies throughadvertising and easy credit created the demand for multi-car families.

Americans are starting to question the national belief in unlimited natural resources. Utility companies are offering energy saving tips,rebates, and car companies are moving toward more fuel efficient vehicles. And there are articles like the one I read in my localnewspaper about encouraging consumption of locally sourced shrimp, in season.

It made me think differently and pushed me to act differently.

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Another culture clue to seek is for differences in perspective by length of service within anorganization or by age. G ener at io ns h av e al w ay s coll ided within communities and within organizations. It is important to know what issues are causing the disconnect andif these generational differences are influencing the strength of a culture to respond tochange.

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These folks are not willing to pay their dues

Lesson Learned ...be careful when valuing tenure over expertise and training

During a recent Saturday night dinner discussion, a friend started talking about his work and how the young folks just did not want topay their dues. H is voice started getting louder and he said that they need to put their time in and not expect to be landing the big jobs right away.

My response was. It sounds like you value tenure over training and expertise.

No, he said, I just think this younger generation is pushy.

H is wife smiled and gave his arm a light tap. H e looked at me and said, W hat do you mean?

You may want to think about what is really needed to achieve results in a job: years of experience, expertise or both. You can thenmake your decision about who to put on a project team based on what is required to do the job rather than on your personalpreferences. Its important to communicate job requirements when talking to the younger folks in your company to let them know what to aspire for."

H e replied, H ey that sounds like work!

W e all laughed, and I said, Yes, that is what we old-timers need to be doing--managing people as part of our job.

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My First Experience with a D addy Knows Best Culture

Lesson Learned... generational differences influence the strength of company cultures

Twenty years ago, I had my first experience as a consultant in a company with a strong D addy Knows Best culture. It wasuncomfortable. In hindsight, it reinforces for me the power generational differences have on employees' engagement in their job.

D addy Knows Best workplaces are a form of a top-down culture where employees are primarily told what to do by managers withoutinput. There is a family feel about the work environment where employees are taken care of; job security usually guaranteed; and,in return, employees are expected to be loyal

As a consultant, I was presenting the results of a culture assessment to the top management team of this Fortune 100 company. W e were at the point of recommending next steps, when the CEOs assistant came in and whispered in the CEOs ear.

The CEO politely excused himself. No one said anything; we all just waited. Ten minutes, thirty minutes, forty-five minutes. It wasuncomfortable for everyone - and clear through body language, waiting for the CEO to return to the meeting was expected behavior. I started to worry about how anything got done in this company.

Finally, the door opened and the CEO came back into the room. W e took up where we left off.

My experience in the board room that day reinforced my choice to remain in a small entrepreneurial workplace. The perks of a D addy Knows Best culture where loyalty = security were not for me. And in my work as a consultant, I learned to look first for cracks inthe strength of a company's culture by checking for differences in perceptions by age .

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In times of rapid change, cultures of organizations are vulnerable. Look for culture cluesregarding ability to a d apt o r die .

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Leaders Admitting to Their Mistakes

Lesson Learned...a ctions are more important than words in times of turmoil

Admitting to a mistake is never easy. But as a leader, it is both an important capability and an action that needs to be donethoughtfully in times of crisis.

In late October 2008, when I read in the papers about former Federal Reserve Chairman Allan Greenspan admitting to a fundamentalflaw in his thinking about the self-correcting power of free markets, I sat up and took notice.

This was not just an expression of regret about a day-to-day action. It was an acknowledgement of a flaw in one of his ownfundamental beliefs that impacted his decisions in guiding the U.S. economy!

Notice in the following statement made by Mr. Greenspan before the H ouse Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that heincludes a personal reference and an emotional response to his mistake:Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders equity, myself included, are in a

state of shocked disbelief

H e did not go into elaborate detail at the Congressional hearing, but he took responsibility for his mistake and later in the hearing,

briefly noting an idea for corrective action.

In the world of organizational culture, how current and past leaders respond to mistakes has profound implications. In cultures whereadaptability and innovation are engrained, leaders regularly model learning from mistakes by doing it themselves and rewardingothers who do the same.

MoreIt is a natural part of how they lead to encourage creativity, making it safe for people to commit to stretch goals and hold themselves accountable for achieving them.

The lesson for leaders is that their capability to openly acknowledge a mistake is a powerful tool. It allows for people within an organization to move quickly from blame to action.

Its not easy to lead. No matter how you feel about Allan Greenspans policies, his action in a time of turmoil is worth pondering.

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H ealthcare Reform and Organizational Culture

Lesson Learned... in times of change, alignment between leader and employee values is a critical ingredient for success

The past 20 years have been a wild ride for doctors, patients, hospitals, insurance companies and legislators. W e have all experiencedthe pain and the little triumphs of trying to fix our healthcare system in an ad hoc, change-as-we-go manner .

The conversation is even turning to what role organizational culture will play in our change efforts.

The Annals of Internal M

edicine recently published research connecting healthcare working conditions with quality of patient care.The results are not conclusive, but Medpage Today , an on-line resource site for physicians starts their analysis with this synopsis: Adverse working conditions for primary care doctors, including time pressures and an unfavorable organizational culture,

may lead to stress, burnout and ultimately to lower quality patient care, a new study found.

The aspect of organizational culture that seemed to have the strongest connection to patient care had to do with the alignment of values between physicians and leaders: the higher the alignment, the higher the quality of care.

MoreIt would be interesting to know exactly what shared values are important between leaders and physicians within healthcare organizations, but we surmise from

recent news articles that they include::

y Emphasis on preventive medicine or medical treatment y Believing healthcare is a social mission or a for-profit businessy Being patient-, doctor- or insurance- centeredy Focusing on quantity or quality of patient contactsy Use of technology as a tool

The challenge of fixing our U.S. healthcare system is far from over. But as in any change management effort, clarifying common goals is an important first step.

The next step is for leaders to work on defining and aligning core values . These core values will guide strategies and allow for more unified action among the myriadof stakeholders within healthcare organizations.

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Is 'Bigger- Better' for Banks from an OrganizationalCulture Perspective?

Lesson Learned... bigness leads to arrogance and to the fall of empires

One of the big business topics in October 2009 was how to address banks considered 'too big to fail.' According to Allan Greenspan, formerChairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve - If theyre too big to fail, theyre too big.

I do not have an easy answer to what is a complex regulatory decision, but I do have some knowledge from an organizational cultureperspective about how the bigger is better belief plays out in organizations.

This belief may start with founders and/or leaders focusing on measuring their companys success through growth in market share, revenuesor customers. If this approach proves successful, they may find that bigness brings benefits, such as domination of their industry orelimination of competitors.

As a result, the company may play an industry leadership role, setting their own rules and driving government oversight and regulations.Maintaining a reputation and images of strength, bigness and power are all-important.

The classic downside of the cultural belief in bigness is a corresponding sense of organizational arrogance and inflexibility that leads to theperspective that 'we know what is best for our customers, regulators and the industry.'

The death knell for most organizations with a bigger is better cultural belief is similar to many kinds of empires: somebody smarter, fasteror stronger comes along and pulls them down.

MoreConsequently, using this cultural perspective as a guide, lets think about the question of what to do with banks that are considered 'too big to fail.' From the empire

perspective, Im not sure I want our financial centers that provide credit and a flow of money for all kinds of p rivate, public and not-for-profit entities around the worldto be on paths to eventual failure.

It looks to me that Allan Greenspan maybe right: If theyre too big to fail, theyre too big.

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Being a culture sleuth can make you an optimist. Many organizations survive difficult times by identifying timeless beliefs, such as wh at s g oo d fo r t he commu ni ty is g oo d fo r b u siness .

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W al-Mart's Corporate Culture and EnvironmentalSustainability

Lesson Learned... once goals set, execution cultures are capable of making change happen

My recent focus has been on identifying companies who I see as culturally capable of moving through hard economic times - to becomeleaders in re-fashioning our global society. My last post identified Coca Cola with its sustainable packaging efforts .

W al-Mart is also embarking on the quintessential heroes quest . In this case, its the quest to practice environmental sustainability as anopportunity to improve both the future of its business and the future of the world. Retiring W al-Mart CEO H . Lee Scott Jr. articulatedthis underlying cultural belief well in his last public speech as CEO:

As businesses, we have a responsibility to societyLet me be clear about this point. There is no conflict between delivering value toshareholders and helping solve bigger societal problems. In factthey can build on each other when developed, aligned and executed right.

After reading about W al-Marts efforts, I sense that the company is truly working to 'walk its talk.' It is also using its operational businessmodel to force its suppliers to transform their business practices and products.

I was curious: is there anything in the companys traditional culture that will support its business transformation quest? As a culture sleuth,I turned to W al-Marts history, its leaders speeches and to its published values.

At W al-Mart, they are called Mr. Sams Values after the companys founder, Sam W alton, and they appear to focus strongly on finding waysto bring the highest quality product at the lowest price to the customer. They talk about never being satisfied and the importance of asking: Is this the best I can do?

This is a culture that sets goals and then moves mountains to achieve them. Accordingly, once environmental sustainability goals are set, Isense W al-Mart is a company that will execute to plan and bring all of us along on their heroes quest.

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H ow to Tinker W ith Organizational Culture

Lesson Learned b uild on the values already working within your organization

Economic instability is still with us. And, we keep hearing it is going to take awhile to work ourselves out of this financial crisis of thenew global age . Are there culture best practices that allow some companies to make it through hard economic time more easily than others?

Management guru Peter Drucker , recommended in 1991 that leaders build on their existing culture to spur change. H e gave examplesabout how Japan and Germany re-built their societies after the Second W orld W ar through rewarding new habits based ontraditional national values.

H is advice is still the most reliable and quickest way to redirect an organizational culture.

An important heads-up for leaders before they start tinkering is to first understand the lay-of-the-land: what are the organization'scurrent beliefs and values and what new habits are needed to move forward into the future?

Now comes Drucker's best-kept secret of culture change - Do Not Reinvent the W heel. Instead, seek out individuals or groups within your organization that already exhibit these desired new habits and ask them how they do it. Next shift recognitions, rewards and

consequences in support of the new desired habits.

And finally, the hardest part: leaders need to practice the new habits themselves. They must be willing to make mistakes and tinkersome more, until the formula is found that helps their organization move through the hard economic times and into the future.

Voila - best practices for tinkering with culture in five easy steps!

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MBA Oath and Corporate Culture

Lesson Learned... shared values are key to developing the next generation of business leaders

H ave you heard about the MBA Oath ?

It was put together by a group of graduating H arvard Business School students in May 2009 - part of a growing movement within the business school community to resurrect social, personal and organizational stewardship responsibilities among businessmanagement professionals.

The Oath is a voluntary code of conduct created to bind together business school grads with a set of shared values to guide their day-to-day actions and decisions as future managers and leaders.

The MBA Oath is not as naive as you might think. Some professions, such as medicine, require graduating students to take theH ippocratic Oath which focuses on the social as well as the clinical responsibilities of practicing physicians.

It seems reasonable to establish shared professional values for MBA students as well.

The potential exists to start setting expectations among graduates to think of themselves as managers with ensuing obligations and

benefits. The profession can then use the strength of peer pressure and disciplinary action to enforce organizational stewardshipstandards rather than wait for regulatory or shareholder retaliatory actions.

These professional standards also have the promise of affecting the workplace cultures of the organizations MBA graduates willsomeday lead. And the business world that we all live and work in every day.

MoreThe culture of organizations are most strongly influenced by the personal beliefs and training of their founders and long-term leaders. The behaviors they model and

reward are one of the primary culture-creating mechanisms in corporations.

W hat better place to start than in the classroom and at graduation ceremonies?

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About Author

Terri Kruzan is a workplace culture specialist with more than 20 years of experience integrating culture knowledge into broad-basedorganizational change efforts at more than 100 companies. She believes it is important to take the mystery out of managing cultureand supports managers and leaders in practical how-to skills toapply culture knowledge to their day-to-day tasks. H er blogLeading- W orkplace-Change , features insights and stories of personal and organizational adaptations and won a Finalist Stevies Award for Women in Business for 2008 Blog of the Year. Shereceived her MBA from the Goizueta School of Business at Emory University and her BA from Mt. H olyoke College. She studiedorganizational culture under Dr. Edgar Schein of M.I.T. and Dr.Roosevelt Thomas. She co-authored the book A Guide to Culture Audits .

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