What is Culture and Why Does it Matter?

Earlier this week I was privileged to attend an early morning presentation that focused on a particularly challenging set of events for a large organization, the changes in leadership that took place at the time, and the dynamic environmental circumstances in which this organization faced and overcame its time of crisis.  There were a number of gems of perspective and wisdom that were presented by the guest speaker.  Amongst these were the need to persevere through adversity with optimism and energy, a commitment to celebrate milestones and achievements even in tough times, a need to continuously develop one's own leadership and the leadership skills of your team, and the necessity to balance work with one's whole life.

In and of itself there was more than enough food for thought in the presentation to spark my thinking and reinforce some of my own beliefs.  But for the purpose of my blog entry today, I choose to focus on a question that was posed by an audience member in relation to whether the guest speaker had a recipe for culture change in large organizations.  As the guest speaker themselves identified if they had such a recipe they likely would be retired by now!  So being either bold or foolish I'll take a crack at the question.

First, I believe there is some value in defining what we might mean by the term culture.  Being a creature of our time, I googled the term and came up with the following (amongst a variety of definitions) - "...the total of the inherited ideas, beliefs, values and knowledge which constitute the shared bases of...action.." and "...the total range of activities and ideas of a group of people with shared traditions, which are transmitted and reinforced by members of the group."  I've highlighted what I think are some key elements of the definition and upon which I will touch in this blog. 

The phrase "Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast" is probably familiar to most of us and reflects the very real challenge in moving an organization forward or changing its direction.  As many an executive will attest to, you can have spent countless hours and money on developing a world class strategy, putting together and delivering a slick internal marketing strategy, and engaging all manner of expertise and external resources and yet find that after a year (or less) that you have made no progress on your lofty goals - and may actually have taken your organization a step or two backward.  The culture of the organization - it's inherited ideas, beliefs, values and knowledge - became an effective barrier or block to your strategy. 

So instead of developing the glitzy strategy, or restructuring the organization, or implementing new processes or systems, why don't executives focus on organizational culture?  My perspective is that it often appears easier to tackle structure and process than it is culture.  One can implement structural and process changes in a far shorter time frame than cultural change.  Quick or easy, however, doesn't equate to effective.  Such initiatives can certainly disrupt the organization and give the appearance of action especially to those looking at the organization from an external perspective (e.g., shareholders, community leaders).  Cultural changes take a much longer period of time to realize and take more intense and sustained effort.  Unfortunately, our leaders (and too often a variety of stakeholders) don't have the patience for these types of efforts.  We all want instant solutions and instant results.

The term "inherited" implies to me something that is built or created over a long period of time.  And it will take just as long to mould, alter or modify something as it took to create.  Moreover, it's critical to understand that, for the most part, this set of shared ideas, beliefs and values have worked for the organization or key stakeholder segments.  It doesn't mean life has been easy or great, but that the culture has worked at some level for people and has done so for some extended period of time.  So change will not come easy or without effort. 

One of the first key steps in changing culture will be defining the characteristics of the new culture and why it is important to shift to this new set of beliefs, behaviours and practices.  If the leader doesn't have a clear idea about where and why they want to take the organization it will be impossible to overcome resistance from the current culture. 

Just as important as defining the new desired culture will be the concrete actions that a leader and the organization as a whole must take to reinforce and support the shift.  This includes such steps as recruiting, hiring, retaining, rewarding and promoting individuals who will by their behaviours and actions develop and reinforce the tenets of the new culture.  People build culture.  Focus on cultivating the right people.  Make a long-term commitment to them.  They become your stones thrown into the water, with ripples emanating out from them and influencing the behaviour of others.

Communicate, communicate, communicate.  Along with that becomes the importance of leadership visibility and reinforcement, by word AND action, of the key organizational values.  As a leader you are being watched all the time and people will rapidly determine whether you hold the values of the new culture sincerely or merely as another fad of the moment.  Your energy is going to be critical to success.

Make sure that all processes and systems of the organization are aligned and supportive of the culture you are trying to create.  If you are marketing yourself as an organization that prides itself on innovation but have an incentive system that rewards everyone at the same level regardless of performance than creativity is not likely to be sustained.  If you are touting yourself as an organization that fosters empowerment and employee participation but have a human resource system that tolerates old-style management practices you will quickly short-circuit your efforts.

As leaders you also have to ensure that your own personal words and actions are aligned with the corporate culture you say you are trying to build.  If you set yourself apart from what you are expecting of your staff - do as I say, not as I do - you will have compromised your leadership credibility.  You won't be able to retain your best leaders or get the kind of change you were expecting or hoping for.  In addition, you have to have patience for this effort, you have to be in it for the long haul.  Culture happens through long-term, consistent behaviour and effort.  The best and most successful organizations build from within and stay true to their core. 

Rome wasn't built in a day. Neither is the culture of your organization created or changed in a fiscal year.  And building a new temple to the gods won't keep the barbarians away from the front gates.  Only strong and vibrant citizens/staff working from the same page will ensure long-term success.
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Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC
TEC Canada Chair/Executive Coach/Senior Consultant
hadubiak@wmc.ca

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

What is Executive Coaching anyway?

Executive Coaching is increasingly being used by a variety of organizations and individuals in a range of sectors.  As I have recently discovered, however, there are many who don't really understand what executive coaching is, where and how it can be applied, and how to get the greatest benefit from its use - both from an individual and organizational perspective.

As a management consultant, executive coaching is one of my key service offerings.  Throughout my health care administration career, I've had the opportunity to be a coach for a number of individuals in my workplace and through my involvement with my professional associations.  I've also had the benefit of having my own executive coach.  Invariably, at the outset of any coaching process, a key theme emerges even though it might be framed in a number of ways - "What is Executive Coaching?"  Most people who are about to be coached don't really understand what they are getting themselves into, how to prepare, or what to expect. 

The challenge with putting a solid definition to executive coaching primarily relates to the reality that there are simply a multitude of circumstances in which it can be applied.  A CEO is going to have very different coaching requirements than a newly minted supervisor.  Ultimately, however, regardless of circumstance I believe that coaching really is about helping an individual develop personal insights, channel effort and energy into growth and opportunity, and develop and support acquisition and application of new knowledge and skill. 

Each coaching situation is unique - as unique as the individual being coached.  This is a critical point.  As the individual pursuing a coaching engagement you are in charge of - or should be in charge of - selecting your coach.  There has to be a fit between who you are, what you are looking for and what your prospective coach can deliver.  Above all there must be the ability to establish a relationship with your coach.  To be as effective as possible you must be able to develop a great deal of trust and confidence in your coach's ability, be comfortable sharing your challenges with them, and be prepared to receive tough feedback from them when necessary.  It should be a very engaging partnership focused on YOU!

So in deciding to use the services of an Executive Coach there is some work for you to do up front.  Be clear about why you - or your organization - wish to engage the services of an executive coach.  Is it to develop your skills in your current role?  Is it to prepare you for future roles in the organization?  Once you settle on the base goal of the engagement next be ready to undertake some form of self-assessment.  Ideally this takes the form of a 360 assessment from a wide variety of your stakeholders - supervisor, subordinates, peers, external contacts - anybody that can help you evaluate your skills and abilities.  It's that assessment and the discussion around its results that forms the basis for developing your personal action plan and ongoing engagement with your coach.  At this point, your coach continues to work with you, provides you constructive feedback, helps you identify options and tactics to develop your skill sets, helps you to question your assumptions, and otherwise works with you to meet your goals. 

You can start to appreciate how critical the selection of a coach is when you consider the nature of the work they will be doing with you as described above.  In addition, this is a relationship that should continue for a period of months if not longer.  Your personal change and development is not achieved after one or two meetings.  So take the same care in selecting your executive coach as you would in making one of your most critical hiring decisions.  You must have trust and confidence in your coach's ability to support and challenge you.  You have to believe that they can help you generate options and solutions to your current and future challenges.  One final note on selecting a coach - I strongly believe that a coach should come from outside of your organization.  This provides greater assurance of objectivity and confidentiality to your personal journey and development.  You may be able to find a mentor within your organization, but you should engage a coach from outside. 

I've focused exclusively on the benefits of executive coaching for the individual.  But organizations often are the ones initiating and supporting the coaching engagement.  To get the maximum results out of this effort, it is clear to me that coaching needs to be intimately tied to overall organizational and human resource strategy.  Otherwise its a nice thing to do but doesn't necessarily leverage all the potential of the coaching resource to the benefit of the organization.  Other human resource initiatives, programs and resources should be tied in with executive coaching so that efforts can be mutually supporting.

Finally, I believe excellent Executive Coaching takes into account not only work objectives but also places work life within the context of the individuals total life.  We all have a broader range of experiences and realities than the time we spend at work.  I believe that in order to be as successful as possible - by our own personal definition - we must balance all aspects of our lives in accordance with our own personal vision and values.  You bring your whole self to work and you take your whole self home at night.  I believe your coach needs to understand the entirety of YOU in order to most effectively support your growth and development as a leader.  Make it so!
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Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC
TEC Canada Chair/Executive Coach/Senior Consultant
hadubiak@wmc.ca

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

Performance Management - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Thanks for bearing with me as I've tried to cover off a lot of territory on performance management.  I started this series of blogs by touching on the dread and anxiety too many of us - leader and follower alike - feel when we approach what has been the traditional annual performance appraisal meeting.  I hope that over the past several weeks you have taken away at least a few nuggets of information and thoughts that you can incorporate into a more functional process for you and your followers.  Not the least of these pieces of advice is don't have a performance appraisal be the one and only time that you have a discussion around performance!

Just as important, be sure to ask yourself what the fundamental purpose of the performance management process is for you and your organization.  If in fact, you have a desire to have a once annual meeting that engenders fear, dread, anxiety, and other negative consequences for its own sake then you are doing well!  As we probably already know too well, that annual event often can culminate in a process of argument and counterargument, diminished morale, and lower engagement.  Probably doesn't do much for your psyche as a leader either.   However, if the true goal of the performance management process is to improve employee and organizational performance than the process should be geared towards that end - mutually established goals, continuous feedback, 360 degree feedback, and decisions/support on how performance can be improved.

This is where we start to really address the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.  If you have adopted all of the steps leading up to the formal performance appraisal you are now left to deliver the formal written results of a performance management process and commit to next steps.  Even in the best circumstances no one - in my opinion - rates a perfect 10 on their performance.  I believe there is always room for improvement and new challenges.  So as the Leader of the Good, the next step is to truly be prepared to to discuss with the follower where there are further (real) opportunities for improvement AND be even more prepared to discuss other developmental challenges these high performers can take on.  In regards to the latter, this might mean further developing their skills and abilities to move up in the organization.  This might include opportunities to lead broader initiatives for the organization that are beyond their day-to-day roles.  It might also include financial commitments to ongoing education relevant to their current or future positions in the organization.  For these Good people, there is real risk that if all you say is "Good work, keep it up!" you wil actually diminish their effort in the future or lose them entirely to opportunities outside the organization.  If these individuals are true high performers and motivated by the challenge they will likely seek it out in ways you didn't intend.

Just as critical is being prepared to address the Bad performance.  Again, the results of the performance management process at this stage should come as no surprise to the individual receiving the appraisal.  Ideally, you would have been working with them well before this formal meeting.  At most, this meeting should again attempt to formalize the results on improvement achieved to date and what else remains to be done.  Depending on the significance of the performance issues, the targets for improvement and timeline for achievement might have a particularly hard edge or short time frame attached to them.  Regardless, at this point you have to have crystal clear clarity about what is expected in the next number of weeks or months relating to performance.  There should be no need for guessing on the part of the employee as to what they should be working on - and what kind of support they can expect from you to improve performance. 

Finally, we have the Ugly.  Performance in this circumstance has been so poor that there really remains no option other than termination or redeployment to another part of the organization.  Again, it would be my sincere hope that this reality would not come as a bolt from the blue to the affected employee.  This would either speak to incredibly poor performance management on the part of the individual leader or a complete disconnect from reality on the part of the employee.  I have seen both occur in my career.  I'm not intending to speak to any aspect of termination processes and procedures in this blog, but suffice it so say that the ways and means by which the organization handles the situation will say as much about it as it does about the departing/redeployed employee.

Both Bad and Ugly performance must be dealt with expeditiously and appropriately.  It's relatively easy to evaluate and reward Good performance.  Most of us, however, are not nearly as adept and comfortable in dealing with less than stellar performance.  Yet the rest of our management team and employees - and research - would tell you that there are major impacts on the organization if poor performance is not addressed including lower productivity, conflict, and disengagement of all of those around and impacted by the poor performer.  This situation is only worsened if the performance appraisal results are tied to the organization's compensation and bonus systems - if poor performance and good performance are not sufficiently differentiated in this regard inevitably many start to gravitate towards the lowest common denominator of expectation and reward.  It is not a recipe for organizational success.

Performance Management.  It takes energy and effort.  The results and rewards are worth it though.  As a leader you owe it to all your staff and your organization to do it well.  It's one of the most important things you do as a leader, particularly if you are committed to developing the human potential you are responsible for.
______________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC
TEC Canada Chair/Executive Coach/Senior Consultant
hadubiak@wmc.ca

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.