Leadership leads Organisation Culture - guest blog from Chris Edmonds

Over the last few weeks I have had the privilege of reading a pre-release of Chris Edmonds' new book The Culture Engine: A Framework for Driving Results, Inspiring Your Employees and Transofrming Your Workplace

I was a founding partner of an amazing management consulting firm, called Mitchell Madison Group, which started life in 1994. In 6 short years we grew MMG to a firm with 750 consultants in 16 offices across the world. Our main competitor, McKinsey & Company (where I worked for 6 years) had taken 50 years to grow to that size. What separated MMG out from the other firms I had worked in (Price Waterhouse, Deloitte, McKinsey and AT Kearney) was an amazing organisation culture. It was a culture that introduced talented young people and allowed them to grow really fast. It was also a culture where the leaders spent a large slice of their time with clients and with the teams - that is why our young people grew so fast and why our clients chose to grow our firm. 

As I read through Chris Edmonds' book, I was struck about how much we had done right. We created A Culture Engine that was unique and compelling and attractive to clients and staff. Many of my partners lived to a personal model that underpinned that Culture Engine. MMG was sold in 1999 and sadly disappeared in the aftermath of that sale and the 2000 dot com crash.  MY guess is we could have had a very different outcome had we followed Chris Edmonds prescriptions a little more specifically, rather than the implicit way we had done.  We had a vision of what we wanted to achieve. However, we never had a formalised organisation consitution. We did build into our evaluation systems all of the elements needed for a personal constitution as a continuum of skills (and culture) so that any member of the firm knew how to grow all the way through a career. Not all our partners had their own personal constitution crystallised. 

Chris has penned this guest blog about the very subject of job, career or calling

Job, Career, or Calling?

How do you view your work? Is it drudgery? Is it somewhat benign, somewhat engaging, or possibly even inspiring?

Most employees see work as a job, a means of funding life’s necessities. Some employees see work as a career, a profession they can contribute to for years. A very few see work as a calling, an avenue for meaningful contributions in service to others.

Jobs are a dime a dozen. People change jobs all the time. When one isn’t particularly engaged at work, there isn’t much lost when moving from one job to another.

A career brings a deeper level of commitment and engagement. A career requires long-term involvement, learning and progressing in skills over time. It’s a profession that requires investment of time, talent, and sacrifice.

Over the course of one’s career, one might work at a number of different companies that provide avenues for professional growth and development.

A calling is the deepest level of commitment and engagement. A calling is a purpose-driven, meaningful pursuit to improve the quality of life of others. It’s a service-oriented, heart-aligned, inspiring avenue. It may take years to discover your calling. Once you find it, time flies. Engaging in your calling recharges you and inspires you to your very core.

Some employees never find a calling in their workplace. They may find their calling outside of work – or they may never find their true calling, at all.

What causes employees to see work as a job, a career, or a calling? Leaders have a tremendous influence on employee’s perceptions of their work. Specifically, the leader’s plans, decisions, and actions, day in and day out, can make employees see their work as one of those three “levels” of inspiration.

Do leaders pay attention to their powerful influence on employee perceptions? Not really. Most leaders spend every waking moment on their product or service – developing them, marketing them, getting them into customers’ hands. Leaders put more thought into their products and services than into crafting a safe, inspiring team culture for employees.

Yet culture drives everything that happens in their organizations.

How can leaders ensure their work environment treats team members with respect and dignity, that inspires great performance, deep engagement, and WOW’ed customers?

Leaders do so through the creation of an organizational constitution. An organizational constitution is a formal document that outlines the business’ purpose, values and behaviors, strategies, and goals.

Once these expectations are mapped out, leaders must model, coach, and reinforce them. Leaders must invest as much time and energy in team values and citizenship as they do in managing results. By doing so, they create workplace inspiration – not workplace fear and anxiety.

If team members are consistently treated with dignity and respect by bosses and peers, they actively engage in the success of the business. They apply discretionary energy. They have fun. They love serving customers.

Employees who act like that, who are engaged like that, feel called to their work.

Workplace inspiration doesn't happen casually. It takes intentional effort on leaders’ parts, every day. 

About Chris Edmonds

Chris Edmonds is the founder and CEO of the Purposeful Culture Group, which he launched after a 15-year career leading and managing teams. Since 1995, he has also served as a senior consultant with the Ken Blanchard Companies. Chris has delivered over 100 keynote speeches to audiences as large as 5,000, and guided his clients to consistently boost customer satisfaction and employee engagement by 40+% and profits by 30+%. He is the author or co-author of six books, including “Leading At A Higher Level” with Ken Blanchard. His next book, "The Culture Engine:A Framework for Driving Results, Inspiring Your Employees, and Transforming Your Workplace"  will was published by John Wiley & Sons in September 2014.

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Dealing with a Closed Mind - Guest Blog from John Stoker

My guest blogger, is John Stoker who has just launched his new book Overcoming Fake Talk: How to Hold REAL Conversations That Create Respect, Build Relationships, and Get Results. John is an expert in communications who believes the human capacity to achieve astonishing results depends on the individual’s ability to interact with others

As with other guest blogs I have hosted, I will tell a little more of my story.  I grew up in South Africa and did all my formal education there. South Africans have a reputation for being straight talkers - and I have to admit I am no exception. We are basically taught to say what we think and not to pull any punches. That way you know where you stand and where I am coming from. When I moved to England in the late 1980s, I discovered a very different world. Straight talking was not viewed as a strength and I soon found that there was very little direct talk. There was always a sub text floating around which I was not very clued into - and not very good at grasping so I could act on it. I could have done with Overcoming Fake Talk right then. 

In the book John outlines the elements of REAL Conversations as follows:

• Recognising and suspending your thinking and judgment 

• Expressing yourself without creating resistance in others

• Asking questions to increase your understanding

• Listening and attending to the signals others are sending 

This framework would have helped me enormously as I grew my skills as a communicator and a consultant. The framework basically tells you to subsume your personality into the conversation until you have worked out all the cues and clues being sent by the other person - physically, verbally and emotionally. After all only 7% of communication is verbal, the 93% is below the line and under the radar. The straight talking South African was pretty clueless about all this subtlety and became even more exposed when the gaming about judgement and pigeon holing began. After all I was no more than a country yokel arriving in the big world.

Now for John's blog post - it is all about one of the big challenges in communication

DEALING WITH A CLOSED MIND

Q: My partner is one of the most narrow-minded individuals that I have ever met. If I try to offer a view that runs counter to his view, I get major push-back. He just seems to reject anything that is outside his experience or his way of thinking. How can I help him to listen and consider my ideas and experience?

A: What is difficult about this situation is your partner’s unwillingness to look at situations or issues from a different perspective. We all have mental models or hold assumptions that determine the way we see and interpret the events within our experience. Our mental models are important because they impact how we speak and deal with others. Your partner has the “I need to be right, not wrong” mental model.

 To Be Right, Not Wrong

To some extent, we all want to be right. Being right puts us in a position of power, where we feel great confidence, prestige, and self-assurance that we are “the expert” on something. After all, we are often rewarded for being right when our way of doing things leads to superior results.

Years ago, while teaching a critical thinking class, I had an interesting experience with an individual who was determined to prove to me that he was “right” about something. The interaction occurred because I said, “Even though we all have an interest in ‘being right,’ there are many ways of looking at reality. We really don’t know as much as we’d like to think we know.”

My statement caused a stir among the participants. About half an hour later Jay raised his hand and said, “I know everything about something!”

“You do?” I answered.

 “Yeah,” Jay nodded. “I know everything about writing my name.”

 “Are you sure?” I asked.

 “Absolutely,” Jay said.

 “Do you know how to write your name in Greek?”

 Jay thought for a minute and admitted, “No, I don’t.”

“Well, call me when you can.” I replied.

Another half hour went by and Jay raised his hand again.  “I’ve got it!” He said.

 I asked, “Are you sure?”

With confidence, Jay replied, “Yes. I know everything about writing my name in English.”

“How many times did you write your name in English last year?”

 With a frown, Jay responded, “I don’t know.”

 “Well, call me when you know,” I said.

 Yet another half hour went by. Being very determined, Jay raised his hand and offered, “I know everything about writing my name in English once.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely!”

 “Do you know how much ink you use when you write your name in English once?

 Feeling a little deflated, Jay said, “I don’t know.”

Everyone chuckled.

Notice that in order to be “right,” Jay literally narrowed the scope of what he said he knew, so he could claim to “know everything about something.” Being right is a wonderful place to be, even if you’re only right in your own mind! The challenge for all of us is to recognize that everyone has something to offer because their thinking, their life experience, and their view of the world is quite simply not our own.

 What Can You Do?

There are a number of steps you might follow to help your partner see the world outside his thinking.

 Recognize Where You Are

You must be aware of when your conversation is going below the line. The “line” represents the choice people have to resort to some form of “fight” or “flight” or to move above the line and engage in what we will call REAL conversation. (Fight and flight are both below the line.) 

When your partner starts to become agitated, express negative or “hot” emotion, or begins to disagree, you know you have to do something different.

·         Ask Questions

Stop thinking about what you would really like to say (or how you would like to tell him off) and turn the spotlight on him. Ask him as many questions as necessary to thoroughly understand his point of view. Here are some questions you might consider:

“What experience leads you to that conclusion?”

“Can you give me an example?”

“Why is that so important to consider?”

“Help me understand how that applies in this situation.”

Ask questions until you feel that you completely understand his view.

The power in asking questions and listening to his answers comes from allowing him to express points of view that are important to him. This is very validating to a person’s ego. When you listen to his answers, it communicates “I care enough about your thinking and experience to try and understand.” However, you must be sincere about hearing what he has to offer. If you patiently and honestly attempt to understand his concerns, you will take the ego—or his need to “be right”—out of the conversation.

·         Ask for Assistance

After asking questions and listening to his responses, ask him to assist by giving consideration to your experience as well. Use an “Attention Check” to begin part of the conversation.

An attention check is a statement of intention followed by a question that solicits his engagement in the conversation. It would sound like this:

“I really appreciate your point of view. I wonder if you would be willing to listen to my experience as we consider what would be best for us to do. Can we do that?”

Notice that this attention check affirmed his point of view and then asked for him to consider your experience.

Don’t worry that he will refuse: because you took the time to ask him questions and sincerely listened to his responses, you have built sufficient respect that he will be more willing to hear you out than if you had tried to push your ideas or opinions first.

·         Be Pervasive, Not Persuasive

Persuading always seems to feel like pleading, convincing, or winning someone over. Being pervasive, on the other hand, is about establishing credibility, exerting appropriate influence, or using facts or data to bolster your ideas and conclusions. Without supporting data, the act of sharing opinions can turn into a war of words and wills that diminishes respect and weakens your relationship. Identify relevant data and use it.

·         Move to Action

Once you have shared your views or experience, then summarize both viewpoints to demonstrate your understanding. Once this is done, you are ready to ask, “What shall we do?” Hopefully, your partner will now be willing to include and consider the point of view he has just heard you express.

In summary…

The first challenge is to help him get past the need to defend his perspective and then be willing to think about data or understanding that may be different from his previous experience. Remember that it is not easy to get outside of our own thinking because—in a very real way—all we know is based on what we know. If we would simply ask ourselves, “What do I not know?” we might be able to start seeing past what we think we know and be more willing to explore other ideas and perspectives.

Good luck!

About John R. Stoker

John R. Stoker has been facilitating and speaking to audiences, helping them to improve their thinking and communicating skills, for over 20 years. He is an expert in communications. He believes that human capacity to achieve astonishing results depends on the individual’s ability to interact with others.

John holds a Master's Degree in Organizational Behavior as well as a J.D. Degree. His landmark book, Overcoming Fake Talk, is both entertaining and engaging, and it presents skills that help readers talk about what matters most.

In the past, John worked as a practicing criminal defense attorney, spent summers as a Grand Canyon white-water guide, and taught on the university level for 13 years. John has been happily married since 1994 and he and his wife Stephanie are the proud parents of five children

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