Archive for the ‘Behavior’ Category

A "rainbow of honesty" how to use symbols to change culture

Here is an interview with the CEO of Ford, Alan Mulally, good all the way through, but especially from minutes 12′-16’30″.  He tells a great story of a highly visible moment where he found a way to use the traffic light system to get his people to know that covering up poor performance is a worse sin that the results themselves. You get to hear how quick it can be to change a cultural norm with the right leadership behavior.

Remember that culture is the patterns of behavior that is encouraged over time.  At Ford, the pattern of behavior that had been encouraged was to “look good” and make out that everything was fine.  So everyone presents their own area as doing fine, even though the culture was loosing $17bn.  To build an Achievement culture, transparency is the first step – you cannot improve if you cannot acknowledge where there are problems.

When a leader gets really clear on the behavior he or she is looking for, encouraging this behavior at every opportunity – and discouraging the opposite, sends the message very fast.  Every time unwanted behavior is ignored, the message is received that it is actually OK.  This is what it means to “walk your talk”.

Thank you to our client Christine Boulton, champion of the culture journey in the Water Corporation, Western Australia, for sending me through this link.

What is "walking the talk"

When searching for a name for my book, my editor at Random House told me the name should describe the essence of the book’s content.  Hmmm, a good challenge for someone who has just written 100,000 words on the topic of corporate culture.  What was the essence of leading culture successfully?  Of course, it was to walk your talk.

Culture is built and maintained because people pick up messages about how they need to behave in order to fit into the community of which they are a member.  They adapt their behavior accordingly, and so the perpetuation of culture continues.  (As an adviser who visits the offices of many organizations, my whole luggage packing strategy can a complex operation to combine in one trip a Silicon Valley look, a New York banking look and a factory floor manufacturing look.  Oh, the trials of consulting!)

Companies use their brand advertising to communicate what they stand for.  Leaders want to communicate the culture they expect, and most use road shows, slide packs, videos and meetings to do this.  But it is not what they say that people pick up on, it is what they do.    “What you do speaks so loud”, wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson, “that I cannot hear what you say”.  Whilst communicating intention is an important part of building the brand and the culture, it also turns up the ‘talk’ dial, shining the spotlight even more on the ‘walk’.

How does the ‘walk’ show up?  In three ways:

Direct behaviors. What people observe in meetings, in emails, in one to one conversations.  The ratio between inquiring, listening and presenting.  The way mistakes are handled.  The resolution of conflicts.  Setting tasks and holding to account.  The topics of conversation.  How customers are treated.

Symbols or choices. Decisions made.  Choices which demonstrate the organization’s (and the leader’s hierarchy of value.  How precious time is spent, how resources allocated, who gets the promotion.

Business management systems. Goal setting, planning, reporting, rewarding, developing.  Product design, service processes. How the organization organizes itself and its people to service its customers.

When the ‘walk’ and the ‘talk’ are aligned, the output is trust.  From customers, community and employees.  People follow leaders and brands that walk their talk.  From a brand perspective, this results in high customer loyalty.  Internally, people align their own behavior when they see congruence between walk and talk, and the desired culture is created.

On the other hand, when an organization does not walk its talk, the result is mistrust and cynicism.

It’s a worthy goal, to learn to walk your talk.