at 27 years

Tag: communication

  • Changing Company Culture: Quick vs. Long-Term Transformation

    The other day, I found myself in an interesting discussion about how to change a company’s culture. A friend of mine was exploring going to a different company than where she was. According to the board of directors, the company she was looking at had significant cultural issues. She didn’t know any specifics about the culture, but it didn’t stop us from having the discussion.

    I believe culture grows from the people and their behaviors over time. It can not be mandated to be a certain way; it is organic in its development and changes slowly over time without radical changes to those living in that culture.

    There are two ways to change a culture, one quick and the other over time, with a lot of investment. The fastest way is to replace the people or at least a few. This is not my preferred method, but it could be necessary if the culture is highly toxic. My friend had access to an employee survey of the company, and at first blush, it showed that the supervisors were well-liked by the employees, and there was a fracture in the trust relationship between management and them. As we discussed what that meant for that culture, we both realized this could be good or bad. If the supervisors lacked clarity on the direction that leadership was headed, aligning the groups would be a matter.

    On the other hand, which I suspect is happening, the supervisors are problematic and are causing the culture issues. Knowing the company’s workforce and visiting with a couple of employees, I believe the supervisors are undermining leadership to be well-liked by their employees. The quick solution would be to put a “head on a pike,” a targeted removal of a few supervisors.

    Now, I look to play the long game, changing culture over time. This is done by modeling the expected culture through showing up, communicating, and quietly checking people who are “misbehaving.” Culture will drift if there isn’t a strong understanding of what is expected and where the organization is going. Leaders who hold the leadership title need to be present with the employees and always be engaged. The leaders who don’t have a title, those who are looked up to by others, also need to be involved in leadership so that they, too, understand the organization’s direction.

    Whether the effort to change culture through changing the people or by modeling a different culture, it takes time.

    By the way, my friend did go to the other company. She is up to the task of transforming her new company’s culture to one that is aligned with the mission. It will take a couple of years for it to be done, but it will be; she is that type of leader.

  • Emotions of Conflict

    So over the past couple of weeks there has been conflict. To be honest there is always some form of conflict. Whether it is in the office between coworkers, conflict in the family, or conflict on the football field this weekend at the Super Bowl. 

    The conflict from this past week in the office is the inspiration of this post. I hate conflict at the office and it isn’t foreign to anyone. Before I dive into the current conflict, I would like to share that I am use to working with high performing teams and always there seems to be a bit of atigation. One of the teams I worked with had a team member that lived in a tragic state of conflict not just with their coworkers, but with the customers, family and even within themselves.

    When it came to the conflict with customers, it wasn’t overt. The challenge they had was that their politically leanings didn’t match the majority of the customers and quite frankly the team member’s physical appearance. You see the person was able to blend in with the customers because they looked just like them. They all wore the same type of clothes, the outward appearance that one has from a life of working outside for a living. The challenge for this person was the customers they worked with typically had a very conservative out look and while they had a more liberial outlook. The team member was able to keep the illusion of blending in with the customers intact, but it created pressure for that person. Whether I knew it at the time or not, we would go away from the office once a month or so and find a place where we could just talk. I created a space for this person to unload all that conflict they were dealing with. I have always allowed others to have their own opinion and it never has been important for me to have people around me align to my way of thinking and for me to align to theirs. We would talk for a couple of hours about how the world was and where it was going. I would just listen and allow the conversation to flow. It was important.

    Now back to the recent conflict. Today I continue to be surrounded by some of the most talented people I have known. One has been helping with another company recently and found themselves in a different leadership enviroment that created conflict for that person. Much like my liberial in a conservative body, this person knew how to blend into the enviroment, but the conflict was building pressure. Utlimately, we removed the person from the other company; it was a luxury we had. Even though the person was no longer in that enviroment, there was built up pressure. That pressure came out a week or so later when there was a touch of conflict from within our organization. Being challenged by another, caused the other to react internally in a manner more than normal. The magic of this person is that while inside the head, there was screaming, it never came out. It wasn’t important for the moment. That person knew it that their reaction was coming from something else. That emotionally response in the mind and body was more than what should have been for that moment of conflict. They knew enough to allow that moment to pass and allow time to process. Ultimately we discussed the situation and found that pressure from working at the other company was still sitting heavy. It was never unloaded and started to affect reactions to other conflicts. It was “kicking the dog”.

    Leaders that pay attention to how they show up are strong leaders. There are times we might show up in ways that we never have and during those times as we reflect, we might want to check in whether or not the emotions we are having might be from conflict from another time and place.

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