Culture’s Influence on Performance—Greater Appreciation Abounds

It was John Bogle, the founder and former chairman of Vanguard, that noted that ‘the most important things in life are often the most difficult to measure’.

How true—especially things like trust. In the work world, culture is another ‘thing’ that is really important but is often difficult to quantify. Culture (which some have characterized as how we think and act) is not only a vague notion for some but one that Is next to impossible to put on a balance sheet. Rest assured though that culture (which is inseparably linked to trust) effects the balance sheet and other facets of organizational performance.

This weekend two articles ran on the East Bay Times (a San Francisco Bay Area paper) editorial page (Sunday edition) that highlighted the dysfunction of two public-sector cultures that have had a significant impact in terms of degrading public trust. In my experience, it’s rare for two investigative reporters (on the same day, on the same editorial page) cite culture as the major culprit of discord in their stories. I was harkened by the two investigative reporters, acting independently, that were speaking forcefully about the pervasive nature of culture. For ‘culture deniers’ (whom I run into somewhat regularly, are prone not to give the influence of culture it’s due) these types of articles help put a ‘real-world’ context to the impact of culture. In other words, the two articles give a hard edge (albeit with imperfect measurement) to a supposedly soft subject.

The first public-sector culture under the microscope in Sunday’s article was Caltrans (California’s transportation department) for their contribution in the new eastern span of the San Francisco Bay Bridge. Daniel Borenstein, the article’s author, refers to Caltrans culture as unprofessional—with senior leaders routinely using heavy-handed intimidation, secrecy, and denial as means to the meet the leaders ends. As the article points out, the costs for the eastern span skyrocketed from $1.4 to $6.4 billion. The project suffered significant construction delays and is now is under scrutiny for safety concerns. Not all of these issues have ‘culture’ as the sole cause, but certainly culture is considered a significant contribution. For the complete story see:
Daniel Borenstein Gov. Brown Must Fix Caltrans Culture

The second culture under scrutiny is the Veterans Association (VA). In the VA’s case, it is believed that the silence and secrecy embedded in the culture led to patient deaths. How sad. As author Kate Scannell’s article points out, the VA culture has other troubling issues as well. See:
Dr. Kate Scannell: VA scandal shows we must speak up about the deadly silences in health care

Both of these examples illustrate the very real consequences of a dysfunctional culture. In both instances, trust is on life support. Plus, key performance targets have failed miserably. In the case of the VA, people died. Edgar Schein, an early pioneer in the field of organizational development, may have put it best: ‘culture is to the organization what character is to the individual.’ Both of these examples have been well chronicled in articles beyond the two highlighted here. It’s clear that both these organization’s cultures were by-products of their leadership—in this case inadequate leadership.

Schein also wrote ‘there is a possibility that the only thing of real importance that leaders do is create and manage culture’. Given the era in which Schein made that statement, it was difficult to justify that point-of-view. Today it’s much easier, especially given these two examples.

Status Quo—The Key Differentiator Between Managers and Leaders

A new hire arrives on the scene full of enthusiasm and wonder.  During the course of their business-unit orientation, the newbie’s coach spends the majority of their time helping them prepare for success.  The gist of what the coach communicates is, “this is what we do and how we do it.”   Without realizing it, the coach has described the business unit’s status quo—‘the way things are’.  For the ‘new kid on the block’, this information proves invaluable.

Recognizing and understanding the status quo is important. Departments have them, job classifications have them, individuals have them.  Naturally, the  enterprise has them. The status quo is the condition that is produced when processes, policies, procedures, and cultural norms are all amalgamated. The status quo is ultimately a reflection of the level (and depth) of thinking within the organization.

While understanding the status quo is initially helpful for the newbie, it can be death for the veteran and the greater organization of which they are a part.

***The status quo will ultimately prove to have minimal impact for a mature  operating company wishing to strip significant expenses from its cost structure.

***The status quo will ultimately prove the undoing for the technician who hasn’t significantly upgraded their skills in five years.

***The status quo (and the complacency that goes with it) will ultimately prove the downfall for an organization desiring to be ‘the best of the best’.

Today’s market leaders think differently—they abhor aspects of the status quo that hold them back. That’s why:

In general, managers make the status quo more efficient, while leaders create a new status quo. While efficiencies are desirable, they’ll ultimately prove insufficient for those desiring market leadership.

A new status quo is a big deal—whether it’s for an individual, a department or an enterprise.  The scale doesn’t matter, impact does.  What will it be for you?       

Frances Hesselbein–Special Person, Special Professional, Special Leader

I considered myself fortunate to have Frances Hesselbein as a contributor to The Power of Professionalism.  She’s a remarkable woman. The legendary Peter Drucker once called Frances the most effective executive he had ever met. I better understood what Drucker meant when I interviewed Frances in her New York office in April 2008.  Recently Fortune ran an article on Frances–ninety six years young and still going strong. I thought you’d appreciate reading it.

Getting Out Of Your Own Way

Mind-set #1 is about having a bias for results. Get results and you’ll be trusted.  Simple.  Naturally,    people say they hold this mind-set…after all, that’s what they feel others expect them to say.  But saying you’re committed and demonstrating it are two different things.  It’s when one’s buttons get pushed, when one’s comfort zone gets invaded that you really find out whether the commitment is real or faux.  Turning up the heat acts as the ultimate stress test…as you’ll soon out if you’re committed to really delivering results or not.

What happens when:

***the entrepreneur with a great new idea seriously questions whether they are the right person to bring the idea to fruition.

***the senior officer in the Fortune 500 realizes she’s about to hire someone smarter and perhaps more capable than she is.

***the managing partner who willingly steps aside to aid the ensuing merger with another firm.

Sometimes getting out of our own way is the very best thing we can do in bringing forth the best possible results.  It may require that we put our ego aside or lose control to a third party.  It may result in being relegated to the shadows, instead of the spotlight.  It may mean taking a short term financial hit.  It may just break our heart.  Know in the end it’s always few who take this less-traveled road.  They may not like it, but they do it anyway.  After all, it’s who they are—namely professionals.

Loose Threads

Resisting the urge to pull on a loose thread can be tough for some of us. Lest you think today’s post is about fabric, it isn’t. Loose threads are interpersonal teases.

They occur in meetings when someone:

  • makes an innocent error on an inconsequential fact
  • pauses for a moment to gather their train-of-thought
  • says something provocative in a well-intended attempt to challenge people’s thinking

What do you do when this occurs? Pull on the thread or leave well-enough alone? Some pull on the thread—interrupting the speaker, asking an inappropriate question, filling a void in the meeting with our own ‘stuff’, or taking the conversation in an unhelpful direction. We tell ourselves we’re being helpful…

…but closer to the truth is we’ve been unable to resist having the last word or getting in our two cents. In other words, it’s about us—often a not-so-veiled attempt to show how smart or important we are.

In meetings this can be death—especially for the inexperienced or ineffective leader/presenter. How many times have we all seen meetings completely unravel because one or more attendees couldn’t resist the urge to pull on a loose thread or two? This is not only frustrating, but expensive too.

Professionals resist the urge to pull on loose threads, largely because they:

  • quickly turn from one into eight (people pile on)
  • knock the leader/speaker off their train-of-thought
  • are a catalyst in derailing a meeting’s momentum
  • are a sign of disrespect

Professionals aspire to master their emotions—especially when it comes to pulling on loose threads.

Lessons From Baseball’s Playoffs

Baseball’s playoffs are upon us. The teams are all exceptionally talented. With rare exception, it’s tough to differentiate one team from another–at least in terms of their respective capabilities. Often the difference between a winning and losing playoff team are a lot of little things….things that some would dismiss as merely ‘intangible’. But those intangibles often make all the difference…they build commitment by infusing energy into the team.

Consider:

  • the hustling outfielder who makes a brilliant highlight-reel catch, saving an important run….this despite risking a head-long crash into the wall.  (consistent with Mind-Sets 1 & 2)
  • the pitcher who methodically mixes up his arsenal of pitches, playing havoc with the hitter’s most precious commodity (his timing) and guaranteeing himself an early shower due to a high pitch count. (consistent with Mind-Sets 1 & 2)
  • the light-hitting journeyman who consistently and methodically works elite pitchers to full counts—frustrating the pitchers, sapping the life out of their arms, and shortening their all-important ‘innings pitched’—all the while putting his own numbers at risk. (consistent with Mind-Sets 1 & 2)

These, admittedly, are little things. But they are the types of things that help win championships. They are emblematic of the Mind-Sets held by the finest professionals among us. And when these mind-sets are predominate within an organization–the organization wins.

Want your organization to win its own championship? The Mind-Sets are often the secret ingredient!

Changing Your Tune

“Cheryl is the best project manager we have—her integrity is beyond reproach.”  “Suzanne is one of the finest people you’d ever want to work with—she’s simply a star.”
“Charlie was my best boss ever—fair-minded, respectful, insightful–he’s the real deal.”

The people expressing their admiration for these people based their views on years of personal experience working with them. But isn’t it funny how we’re prone to change our tune when things don’t quite go our way:

  • You change your tune about Cheryl after she reassigns you to a lower-profile project.
  • You change your tune about Suzanne after she respectfully, but vehemently, disagrees with you in front of the boss on a key strategic issue.
  • You change your tune about Charlie after he doesn’t hire you for a job you desperately sought.

If these people were good before, they should be good after. Your view shouldn’t change just because an isolated situation doesn’t go your way. Changing your tune in such circumstances makes you look petty…makes you look small…puts you fifty yards south of showing up as a professional would.

When Sacrifice Isn’t

A wide receiver throws a great block, springing his running back teammate around the corner for a 15 yard gain. The announcer in the booth (a former wide receiver himself) sings the wide-out’s praises–finally paying him the ultimate compliment by commending him for how he ‘sacrificed himself’.

Huh?  Last time I checked football was a team sport.  Suggesting that the wide receiver (a ‘skill’ player) was ‘sacrificing himself’ by performing a skill with less prestige (blocking)…or by suggesting that he did it begrudgingly (because he dislikes it)…or by suggesting it’s especially admirable because it’s out of his comfort zone is myopic. It’s a team sport. People are expected to do what’s required to achieve the desired result. He’s not sacrificing himself, he’s attempting to help his team win!

I’ve noticed that managers are sometimes like the announcer…they think that when one of their ‘skill players’ performs a ‘lesser skill’ (something ‘beneath them’) they consider the ‘skill player’ to be making a sacrifice. Regretfully, these managers haven’t caught the vision of mind-set #2 – being a part of something bigger than yourself.

Consider:

  • the busy rainmaker at the law firm who takes their precious time and shares their considerable influence to open an important door for a colleague.
  • the mechanical foreman who takes 20 minutes out their day to provide encouragement and technical advice to a second-year apprentice who has run into a particularly vexing problem.
  • the theme park GM who– one day a month–works ‘the front lines’.
  • the Marketing VP who willingly gives up 5% of their departmental budget to R&D as a result of an unexpected new research breakthrough.

Neither the rainmaker, the foreman, the GM, nor the VP, consider themselves to be ‘sacrificing’. They, like the wide-receiver, realize they’re a part of something bigger than themselves. They’re a part of a team – they do what is required for the team to succeed.

People on winning teams constantly do things that may be out of the norm or that stretches them but they are rarely seen as a ‘sacrifice’. It’s just not how they see things.

Should I Say What I Know?

That’s a question that some of us constantly ask ourselves.

Most of us wouldn’t:

  • tell our friends how the new blockbuster movie ends.
  • speak up in a meeting on an arcane point if we believed doing so would derail the meeting.
  • share an innocent, but little-known, fact about a colleague that, when revealed, might be used against them.

Sometimes knowing when (and when not) to speak up is a matter of judgment. In other instances, it’s a matter of character. Either way, the fact that we’re asking ourselves the question as to whether to speak up or not is evidence that we should tread carefully.

I once had a manager who always ran in the right circles.  He hung out with the ‘big dogs’—the ‘A’ list crowd. He was always “in the know”.  And he couldn’t wait to demonstrate that he was “in the know”.  Initially, it was just awkward…the information he’d tell me about.  I initially suspected he was revealing information he shouldn’t.  After awhile it was obvious that was exactly what he was doing. It seemed he just couldn’t help himself—revealing confidences that is.

It’s really tempting to be ‘in the know’….tempting to say what we know. In most business cultures,  the more information we possess, the greater our standing in the eyes of others. For some being ‘in the know’ is a (self) validation of one’s own self-importance.  Being ‘in the know’ can be intoxicating, because with knowledge comes a form of power–perceived or otherwise.

It also means that someone has taken us into their confidence…they’ve extended trust. That’s the trouble…my manager was violating confidences.  He had broken the trust that had been extended to him.

When this happens it’s typical:

  • for people to share only the information that’s absolutely essential with the offender (especially if that person is higher up in the food chain than we are).
  • that the offender develops a reputation for having ‘loose lips’ …which translates to a blemish on their character – eventually undermining their own effectiveness.
  • for the offender to lose the respect of others – the polar opposite of the enhanced ‘standing’ they may have originally hoped for.

So when you’re tempted to say what you know…remember, discretion is the better part of valor.

This Place Is A Joke

One of the helpful by-products of people reading The Power of Professionalism is raising their hopes and expectations for their own organization in becoming more professional. They raise the bar, I don’t. But when things fall short, don’t be surprised when people express disappointment—or worse.

Case in point: the title of this blog comes from the subject line of an e-mail someone recently sent me. Here’s a partial list of some of things people have shared with me — experiences that they not only find unprofessional, but truly disturbing.

A.   A supervisor asked one of their employees to upload the supervisor’s resume to a competitor’s website for potential employment purposes.

B.    A busy-body assistant spills the beans on someone’s salary—which is higher than most other employees. Worse yet, the employee was new to the organization. So right out of the gate the new employee is ostracized– creating animosity across the entire organization.

C.   The organization’s value of meritocracy is compromised when a vice president promotes his best friend—someone whose performance (let alone capabilities) were hardly worthy of promotion. The promotion is viewed as a blatant act of cronyism on the part of the vice president.

You, no doubt, have your own examples. Let’s face it, no organization is perfect. Yet most people (top performers especially) expect their organization to strive in adhering to professional ideals.

It isn’t criminal for people NOT to take pride in their organization. But feeling your organization is a joke is sad…really sad. Each of the individuals who shared their experiences with me was (at some level) was thinking of leaving. These are precisely the types of people that organizations can least afford to lose. And even if they don’t leave, their disgust leaves a wake of cynicism in its place.

It’s a price that few organizations can afford….no joke!

Next week, the other side of the story…