Who owns culture?

I was reading an article on the BBC website yesterday about the Maasai people in Africa.  It reported how the Maasai are organising themselves and hope to prevent companies using the Maasai brand without their permission.

In it Isaac, a Maasia leader, elder and chair of a new organisation, the Maasai Intellectual Property Initiative (MIPI), is quotd as saying: “I think people need to understand the culture of the others and respect it.  You should not use it to your own benefit, leaving the community – or the owner of the culture – without anything.”

The problem is that until now there hasn’t been a unified Maasai body to approach to seek permission to seek permission to use the brand, though the inititative seeks to change that.  And MIPI hopes that selling the rights to use the Maasai brand might earn the Maasai people millions of pounds of income each year.

In this instance MIPI is seeking to establish ownership of the brand and the culture which is associated with it on behalf of the Maasai people.  But in business, who ‘owns’ culture?

It’s clear that responsibility and accountability for culture rests with the board and senior management team of any organisation.  Failure to recognise that has cost some business leaders dearly in recent years.  Bob Diamond lost his job because of it.  So did Rebekah Brooks.  And Sir David Nicholson still might lose his.  Some have argued that they understood their responsibility for it but that their knowledge of it wasn’t sufficient, that they didn’t understand it with sufficient clarity, a clarity that enabled them to act to manage the risks inherent in it and which, when they came to fruition, couldn’t be mitigated.  Others claim that they understood their responsibility but didn’t want to accept accountability.  In truth, there may be an element of all of those, but I think all indicate very strongly a need for large organisations to have a unit responsible for monitoring culture and being the conscience for it within the business.  Reporting in to a member of the executive, it also needs to have a degree of independence so that it doesn’t become part of, and subject to, the culture of the business.  If it lacks that independence it loses impartiality and as a result, value.

But responsibility is different from ownership.  Culture is about groups rather than individuals.  As Hofstede said: “Culture is the collective programming of the mind distinguishing the members of one group or category of people from others”.  Consequently ownership cannot lie with an individual, instead it rests with the group who constitute it.  They may not recognise it, or want to accept it, but they own it nevertheless.

The distinction is an important one for leaders to understand.  They must accept their responsibility for culture and that they are accountable for it whilst also accepting that ownership lies elsewhere – with the group as a whole.  This understanding is key to the process of changing culture.  Accepting responsibility means mitigating the risks (and maximising opportunities) of the current culture and failure to do so may see them held accountable for the consequences.

But they must also accept that the actions they take to adapt and evolve culture will very rarely produce the immediate and intended result.  It’s not like shifting the track and changing the direction – as a signal operator might do with a train.  There is no lever to pull to produce a guaranteed response.  A leader must instead take actions that affect the environment in which the group works so that it collectively engages and moves.  The leaders role is to create the conditions in which those who own it make it happen.

A bakers dozen of the most common (and damaging) mistakes organisations make with employee engagement activity

During my time as an employee, and more recently as a consultant I've worked with numerous organisations to help them improve their levels of employee engagement. Through these many experiences I've studied what's working well - and not so well, and many organisations are making the same mistakes. Across organisations, industry sectors and national boundaries, variations on a number of common problems come up time and time again.

Here's my baker's dozen of the key issues I've found:

1. Failure to identify and agree the business case at senior levels.
Some business leaders pursue engagement because "it's the right thing to do." That might work in the short term but when business pressures increase or worse still, when the prime sponsor of the work moves on, commitment to it often dissipates. It's important to have a robust business case, with clear business benefits so that it's grounded in sound business logic rather than ethereal generalisations. The view that some leaders still have that employee engagement is 'pink and fluffy' is caused by poor articulation of the hard business benefits.
Learning No 1 - Always identify the business case and secure senior level agreement to it.

2. Inadequate articulation of the purpose of engagement i.e. What should employees engage   with?
An extension of point 1 above, every organisation should be clear about what they want employees to engage with. Employee Engagement shouldn't be about creating 'happy' employees. It should instead be about creating engagement with the purpose of the organisation and generating commitment to help achieve it's business objectives. This implies of course that the organisation must have a clear strategy and that senior people can articulate and explain these to others.
Learning No 2 - Clearly articulate the purpose of engagement in your organisation i.e. "What we mean by engagement is..."

3. Confusing employee satisfaction (and the factors influencing it) with engagement.
Employee satisfaction does not equal engagement. It is very likely that engagement cannot occur without satisfaction and it's often necessary to address the issues preventing satisfaction at the outset of an employee engagement programme. But it's important to remember that the factors causing satisfaction are hygiene factors rather than those which cause deeper commitment to the organisation and motivation to help it succeed.
Learning No 3 - Understand both satisfaction and engagement and the relationship between each state.

4. Making HR responsible for engagement.                
Whilst it may be sensible for HR to 'own' engagement activity it cannot be responsible for engagement across the organisation. Ownership has to be within the organisation and across all areas of it. It starts with leaders, whose role in engaging their people is critical, so a good start point is to ensure that leaders accept and feel responsible. Rational and emotional elements are important. As an aside, it's interesting to consider whether leaders feel responsible for their area only or for the organisation as a whole. Typically engagement progresses as leaders sense of cross functional responsibility increases.
Learning No 4 - Ensure ownership lies with and across the organisation.

5. Viewing it as something that ‘management’ does to everyone else in the organisation.
Traditional organisations were, and many still are, characterised by a culture driven by parent / child behaviours. Management believe their role is to tell and direct people who work for them and they in turn do as they’re told (and no more) and usually look for the ‘ catch’ in whatever it is that they’re told. Those behaviours just won’t produce engagement. Instead everyone must feel valued and able to contribute fully. These are pre-requisites to feeling involved.
Learning No 5 – Ensure everyone is involved and feels able to contribute.

6. Making it all about a survey and / or about the score of the survey.
In some organisations it’s all about doing a staff survey, and then maybe, taking a few actions based on the scores. For others the only important thing is the score. An example of this, illustrating a very narrow and introspective view is that some organisations are happy providing their score is higher than an external benchmark. And if it’s not, then they change the benchmark! I read a comment somewhere last week that suggested that this is like being sick but pretending it’s ok because others are even sicker!
Learning No 6 – Make the survey nothing more than an assessment at a particular moment in time. Instead make it about the relationship between employee and their work and everything that contributes to or impacts it.

7. Assuming you can improve engagement directly.
People are complicated. When groups of people come together the organisational cultures that emerge can be even more complicated and difficult to understand, and change. It’s not like shifting the track and changing the direction – as a signal operator might do with a train. There’s rarely a direct link between cause and effect so there’s no lever to pull which will produce a guaranteed response. Instead it’s about taking actions which affect the environment in which people work so that the conditions are more conducive to engagement. You can’t make them engaged, but you can create conditions in which they are more likely to choose to be engaged.
Learning No 7 – Seek to change the conditions and environment in which people work, and the meaning people attach to their work such that people are more likely to choose to engage.

8. Adopting a ‘one-size fits all’ approach.

It’s worth reiterating the above. People are complicated. And we’re all different. So it just doesn’t make sense to expect everyone in an organisation to respond in the same way to actions intended to improve engagement. A better idea is to be flexible and provide a framework within which people with diverse thoughts, ideas, beliefs and so on can choose to engage.

Learning No 8 – Allow for diverse thoughts, ideas and beliefs by providing a framework within which more people are likely to engage.

9. Failing to take a planned and coordinated approach.
Engagement doesn’t just happen. It requires a series of actions which create (as previously stated) an environment in which people are more likely to choose to engage with and commit to the achievement of the organisations purpose and objectives. Nothing corrodes engagement like inconsistency and over promising and under delivering. To prevent both, actions need to be carefully aligned and rigorously delivered.
Learning No 9 – Produce a roadmap, a schedule of activity designed to achieve your engagement objectives and then rigorously deliver it.

10. Not realising that it requires behavioural change (as well as changes to policies, benefits, conditions etc) and supporting people to change.
The reason engagement is so valuable is that it produces changes in behaviour that are helpful to the organisation and produce improved performance as a result. But before these changes can occur, prior changes in behaviour need to create the right environment in which it can emerge. Organisations should be clear on what behaviours are needed and then support people to make those changes. This is why some of the most successful engagement programmes are inextricably linked to the espoused values and behaviours of the organisation – they’re clear on what behaviours are important and do all they can to embed them.
Learning No 10 – Identify the desired behaviours and support people to ‘live’ them.

11. Not planning holistically so that all elements of the employee experience are aligned to create the conditions in which engagement can emerge.
As hinted at in point 9 above, the actions taken to create an environment in which people choose to be engaged must be intentionally designed and carefully aligned. Inconsistency and contradiction should be prevented at all costs. The positive impact of one action can easily be reversed by the unintentional inconsistency of another.
Learning No 11 – Take a holistic approach, intentionally design and align everything that contributes to engagement.

12. Expecting immediate results and changing approach when there isn’t an immediate improvement or, worse still, giving up on the programme altogether.
Improvements in satisfaction can happen quite quickly as issues impacting it are resolved. As described in point 3 above, satisfaction is more about hygiene factors and as issues are addressed satisfaction can change almost instantly. But engagement is a deeper construct. It takes time to develop numerous contributory factors that need to come together and be experienced over a more prolonged period. So look for changes in satisfaction first, expect slow initial progress with engagement but know that if you are doing the rights things progress will accelerate.
Learning No 11 – Consider engagement as a long term commitment.

13. Closing down the programme (or project) when it’s ‘done’.
Organisations are complex systems. Change in one part of the system can produce unexpected consequences in another. As change is constantly occurring and impacting the organisation, challenges to the development (or maintenance) of employee engagement are also occurring all the time. And this means that constant attention is essential.
Learning No 13 – Embed engagement in and through everything the organisation does, permanently.

Employee Engagement may have been around for more than 20 years but it's clear that organisations are still struggling to meaningfully engage their people. Learning from the mistakes made in other organisations may be a good place to start if you're planning your engagement programme or seeking to re-energise it in 2013. Engagement is complex, but it needn't be difficult!

LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/timhadfield
Twitter: @accordengageTelephone: 0044 07906650019

Learnings from the Lance Armstrong and Jimmy Saville scandals.

On the face of it the media stories about Lance Armstrong and Jimmy Saville are not related. They occurred on different sides of the Atlantic Ocean, involve people in completely different spheres of life and the actions of the two men being reported in the media are quite different. Incidentally, and for the avoidance of doubt, I am neither supporting or accusing either of the two men. I am not knowledgeable enough about the specifics to be able to do so. My observations are purely about the circumstances surrounding the events now being reported.

But there are a number of similarities in the stories:

• The actions of the two men, as being reported, appear to have been driven by an imbalance between self-interest and what's in the interest of others and / the wider community in which they operated
• Both men were considered to be extremely powerful in their community
• The wrong-doings that are being reported stayed out of the public domain for years
• And the people (according to the media) who tried to draw attention to what they considered to be wrong failed. The evidence suggests that the degree of disbelief and / or challenge they encountered was so strong that they didn't feel able to continue with their accusation

I believe that combination of circumstances means that there are lessons to be learned for organisations.

Namely that where the culture of an organisation doesn't prevent self-interest and "what's best for me", and where a few individuals become very powerful, the likelihood of the culture suppressing challenge, let alone whistleblowing reduces substantially.

It also illustrates the value of really understanding the underlying culture at work in any organisation. What are its strengths and weaknesses and what are the risks that emerge as a result?

I wonder whether these stories would have emerged years ago if these inherent risks had been understood and managed?

LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/timhadfield
Twitter: @accordengage
Telephone: 0044 07906650019

What has no place in your organisation?

I listened to a radio programme earlier this week about the proposed ban on bullfighting in Mexico City.  It's apparently a big and very contentious issue as it has been popular throughout the country since the conquistadors introduced it more than 500 years ago and for many people is part of Mexican culture.  Although Spain is still recognised as the home of bullfighting, Mexico City has the largest bullring in the world and the sport (I know some argue it isn't a sport) is a popular pastime in the country as well as being a source of employment for thousands.

But in recent times its popularity has been waning and a growing number of Mexicans now actively oppose it, regarding it as both barbaric and an unwelcome reminder of Spanish colonialism.  And legislators in will soon vote on whether to ban it in the city.

In the programme one objector said that "it should have no place in modern day Mexico."

His statement made me think.  I wonder how many organisations have leaders who have thought about and communicated for their people what has no place at work - what behaviours and actions are totally unnaceptable?

Many do of course have a set of values which are intended to provide guidance for how people should behave at work.  I often hear leaders in organisations talking about how important theirs are and, providing they're not simply posters on a wall, they provide employees with guidance about what things they should do.  But far fewer provide the same level of guidance about things they should not do. 

And yet in organisations who do, employees often tell me that the clarity about unacceptable behaviours is as useful, if not more so.  The negatives can provide a clarity that's sometimes missing in the positive statements which by their nature are usually examples of the type of desired behaviours.  In contrast the negatives are often more specific and draw out explicit examples of what does indeed have no place in the organisation.

Is it clear what has no place in your organisation?  And if so, would it be clear to everyone?  Thinking about and clearly communicating this is a useful way of steering behaviour providing there are supporting measures and consequences for anyone who ignores the 'rules'.

I wonder if some of the highly publicised scandals in recent years would have happened if the companies involved had communicated what had no place in their business?

LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/timhadfield
Twitter: @accordengage
Telephone: 0044 07906650019

15 words I don't want you to use to describe me when I'm your customer

Words are important.

The words we use reflect our thoughts.  And influence what others think and feel.

And it follows that the words used in organisations reflect their cultural mind-set.  And that culture then influences the behaviour of people who are part of it.

That’s why, when I’m a customer, I’m interested in the words the company uses to describe me.

So here are 15 examples of words I’d rather not be used to describe me:

1.       Caller – a term often used in call centres to describe people telephoning.  When this is the case, the management information will also usually refer to ‘calls received’.

2.       Applicant – term used to describe a person who has applied for a product or service.

3.       Account-holder – a common phrase used in banking and financial services to describe someone who has a product with the organisation.

4.       Insured – term used to describe someone who has an insurance product.

5.       Cover – a term sometimes used in restaurants, reflecting the number of available seats.

6.       Complainant – word used to describe a person who is complaining.

I know these first few aren’t particularly derogatory.  You might even say they’re benign.  The problem is that they de-personalise me, and every other customer.  I’m not a caller, I’m a real person, a customer – and the success of your business ultimately depends on your relationship with me, and other customers.  Don’t forget who I am by using alternative words.  It’s easier to accept losing a call or caller than it is losing a customer. 

But there are others that are more derogatory, and interestingly generally apply to potential customers before they buy;

7.      A Punter – this phrase was originally used to describe customers at the racecourses tracks but has extended in use to mean anyone who could be persuaded to part with their money.

8.      Prospect – someone who is interested in the product or service and needs to be influenced to buy it.

9.      Be-backs - customers in many sectors that after an initial conversation promise to come back and buy but never do.

10.   Cones – refers to passengers on cruise ships.  It apparently references the ‘Saturday Night Live’ TV programme, in which ‘Coneheads’ were people who eat large quantities?

I definitely don’t want to be described like this.  The use of the words is negative and / or assumes that I should be influenced, taken advantage of.

But possibly the worst words are in car sales.  Here’s a few examples:

11.   Stroke – a time-waster who really have no intention of buying.

12.   Bumblebee – a person who can’t decide between several cars.

13.   Roach – someone with bad credit.

14.   Laydown – someone who is willing to pay the advertised price for the care without trying for a discount.  This type of person is also sometimes called a ‘grape’, as in “I stepped on a grape”.

And my final example was illustrated by Greg Smith, Executive Director and Head of Goldman Sachs United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.  He revealed in an open resignation letter his discomfort with how customers are referred to as ‘muppets’ i.e. stupid. 

 

In his letter he said that culture was “always a vital part of Goldman Sach’s success.  It once revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients.”  He went on to describe how it had instead become purely about making money and that culturally this translated to pushing customers to buy products that made most money for the business rather than what was best for them.  Muppets, and other words and phrases, illustrated perfectly how people thought about customers.

What words do people in your business use to describe your customers?  And are they likely to positively influence behaviour so that they deliver an experience to customers that will mean they come back again and again?

LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/timhadfield       
Twitter: @accordengage
Telephone: 0044 07906650019