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Three Mobile UK |
Author Archive
Three Mobile UK
SA Water
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SA Water |
Barclays Absa Acquisition
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Barclays Absa Acquisition |
The stages of a Major Change Process
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The stages of a Major Change Process
Mergers and Acquisitions – emotions at work
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Mergers and Acquisitions – emotions at work
Building Cultures for Sustainability
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Building Cultures for Sustainability
Culture: Asset or Liability? The role of a director.
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Culture: Asset or Liability? The role of a director.
The Achievement Culture: Promise’s Promise’s
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The Achievement Culture: Promise’s Promise’s
How a crisis can build your values
Imagine that your organisation had a set of values that included the word “peacefulness”. And imagine a violent attack on the core of your products and your people. How would you respond? And how would your organisation’s response be different from another in the same set of circumstances? At times of crisis you get to test whether your values are embedded or a set of words on a piece of paper. When the temptation is to respond in with a short sighted, self centred, defensive attack, which in the eyes of many would be justified, your choices show your mettle. Norway’s initial response to its tragedy shows a set of deeply embedded values, likely to be made stronger by this event.
But its beliefs about the world will have changed, from perhaps “things like this do not happen in a peaceful country” to “things like this do happen, and how we respond to them will refine how our values play out when tested”. A culture is a pattern of behaviour encouraged over time which is based on a set of values and beliefs about what is important and how the world works. Each organisation, like each country, will respond differently to similar sets of circumstances. And their response will determine future outcomes, future performance or quality of life. Every organisation has choice at moments like these, and those who are putting work into building their culture and their values are presented with an opportunity to respond differently to the way they have in the past.
If you are involved in a values-based culture change, use adverse conditions to test whether you feel able to respond differently from how you would have responded in the past. Any new response is an indication that the culture is changing. At a time when temptation to take a knee-jerk response is greatest, see if you can hold some meetings which ask the question: ”What would our values-led response be to this situation?” And every time the answer makes you proud, communicate this widely to you employees, because it is this pride which will break all employee engagement survey results, and set you apart from your competitors.
News Corp: values here, values everywhere?
My Kindle is full of stories of the demise of the British tabloid News of the World, closed down this week by James Murdoch when the practices used to obtain stories became fully exposed. The business pages talk of whether the imminant purchase of BSkyB by News Corp will now be in jeopardy. At the heart of this decision will be whether News Corp and its key directors are considered to be “fit and proper” to move into a more dominant position inBritish media. Under investigation is who knew what as News of the World journalists and paid private investigators paid police for information and hacked into private mobile phone voicemails, including those of a murdered school girl and the parents of victims of the London tube bombings.
In my experience, events like these are spikes within a background culture where certain standards and behaviours are condoned, encouraged or at least not eliminated. Individuals do not carry on such patterns of behaviour in organisations where leaders take standards of behaviour seriously. People pick up messages about how they are expected to behave through what they see around them. These incidents are part of a core process in media organisations – how information is sourced which allows them to break stories. Top leaders who do not ask questions about this whilst simultaneously putting pressure on their people to deliver more and more, are passively encouraging an “anything goes” environment. The higher the temptation to act unethically or illegally, the more active leaders need to be in setting standards and continually testing to ensure they are met.
The more senior a leader is – including directors who sit on the board – the more vigilant they have to be to explicitly and continuously hold their people to account for behavior as well as results. Without ever having worked at NewsCorp, I would consider that this responsibility lies as much with Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch as it does with the editors and journalists who were close to the action. By appointing and supporting key executives such as Rebekah Brooks, they are saying they are confident in her ability to run the business, and in doing so are revealing their own values hierarchy. These values would also be sure to influence other publications owned by News Corp such as The Times.
It may well be true that key individuals did not have specific knowledge of specific illegal events. But it was their responsibility to set and monitor behavior in a way that they would have known. This is what managing culture is about and it is a part of being a “fit and proper” executive.
As we watch how this series of events unfolds, consider the extent to which certain behaviors are actively or passively encouraged in your organisation. Do those at the very top understand the performance and reputation risks culture creates? Do they how to ensure that the level of pressure to behave to agreed standards is as rigorous as the pressure to deliver short term performance? These is do-able, but it requires awareness and discipline. Recent events at News Corp serve as a reminder of the performance impact of not managing these risks.