Ep. 310: Culture Is Not Wallpaper - It Is the Foundation

Tom Bradshaw: It's happening again. Welcome to Work Cookie, a, uh, CBOT podcast as we broadcast around the world. Get bite sized morsels and tidbits from our industrial organizational psychologists, other experts, and the latest research on the workplace to boost your organization's effectiveness. Sign up now@cbok.com that's s e b o c.com to engage with our community, gain a sense of belonging, access our other media and get rapid advice. Our experts@cbok.com welcome.

Jeremy Lookabal: I'm Dr. Jeremy Lookabal, Industrial organizational psychology consultant and workplace communication and negotiation coach. Also we have Tom Bradshaw with us, a voice and speech coach and a damn good actor too.

Megan: He is the official voice and speech coach for the industrial organizational psychology community.

Tom Bradshaw: Well, hello and welcome to Work Cookie. Our weekly gathering of FOs, HRs, recruiters and an actor or two as we try to make the world of uh, work a little bit better. And, and we're going to start off, Megan, you're going to be with us for a while over a few weeks and we're going to focus today on. Culture is not wallpaper, it is the foundation. And I am so glad you're here because often we talk about culture as, jeez, it's one of those things that organizations talk about. They seldom do any work on. And especially when the economy is becoming more difficult than it is now, culture just seems to disappear. Um, um, it's something that we're told, yeah, uh, it's not that important. But it really is vitally important, is it not?

Megan: Absolutely, absolutely. And I want to break down this term a little bit culture as wallpaper, because I think it's a newer one, it's one that I came up with. I hope maybe it's out there somewhere else. Uh, but I was thinking of the metaphor of uh, if you want to redo or renovate a room in your home and, or if you want to kind of change some things around in the house or rebuild a house. And often, uh, what we do in our corporate culture is we renovate the house, we change some things around and then we slap culture on the end as a nice have as well. But the problem is when you look at the data, when you look at the statistics and we'll go, go through that in today's session, um, culture is infrastructure. It's not wallpaper, it is the foundation that holds up that house. And so what happens, and this is why 70 to 88% of all transformations fail to. This is why in MIT's most recent study, 95% of all technology Transformations fail to realize the promised benefits is because we are looking at culture as, ah, an afterthought, if at all. When really, if we look at it as the infrastructure, as that, uh, base, as uh, brick by brick building the house. Once that infrastructure is set, we can then renovate the master bathroom, rent, redo our kitchen. We can take on all kinds of different shifts and a variety of change without that infrastructure really being, being broken. So today what I want to talk about is this idea of, uh, culture is the container that carries everything else that we're trying to do. And I know that in previous more recent podcasts we've talked a lot about AI. Uh, I think that everyone, everywhere is talking about AI. It is ubiquitous. Um, and so with that, I want to take kind of a break from AI and talk about culture, because from what I've seen, AI is simply the next thing. But culture has always been there and often, uh, hasn't always been dealt with in the proper way. And so AI is simply shining a light on what has been broken for a very long time. And now, as we know, it is imperative that we look at culture as, uh, something that is not only going to support AI adoption, but it's also going to support the forward momentum of a company's success, Success for, for years and years to come. So with that, uh, I have a question I posed in the chat. I'm going to ask it as well, but I want to take a moment after I ask the question to get into a little bit of a narrative and then I want to take a break and kind of get that question answered. So my question is, why do we think that with all of the data and all of the supporting information that tells us that culture is an imperative, why do we think that companies still continue to chase the new shiny tool or bot, uh, continuing to view culture as wolf? So while we marinate on that, I want to start with a scene. So picture, conference room, or these days a grid of tile videos, such as, such as Us. Someone is sharing a slide with a bold new initiative. It has a cool name and you have your company logo. Maybe it's a consulting firm. So they have their logo and their colors. The presenter is energized, throwing out loads of acronyms. The language is all forward, motion, transformation, alignment, a path forward. And around the room, heads are nodding, maybe even a few people are taking notes. Someone says, this is exactly what we need. And the meeting ends perhaps a few minutes early. And everyone quietly takes it as a good sign. However, in that room and in almost in every version of that room, there is at least one person sitting quietly. Apart from the energy, not hostile, not even skeptical. But someone who has been through this with this company before, has sat in many similar meetings to this one before, knows that there are many more to come throughout the rest of the year, and also quietly knows that this isn't going to work either. And I'm guessing that some of you, if not all of you, have been in that room. And I want to start with a question that we dropped in the chat because it's really important that we think about how we are approaching culture and how we're thinking about how we do things here. So with that, I'll take a pause. I already see some hands up.

Tom Bradshaw: Great start, Natasha, let's go to you.

Natasha: Yeah, um, so as we started off today's conversation, um, the one question that came to me and um, before I answer your question is I think that when we think about culture not being, um, a wallpaper, what comes to mind for me is the question that are we, do we have a common understanding of what culture is? Um, um. Because I kind of for myself, I have come to the real realization that too often organizations view cultures as a set, culture as a set of activities, things that we do versus it being considered as an ideology, meaning the things that we believe in, the things that make us who we are, um, the things that influence the decisions that we make. Um, and so going back to a comment that Tom made early on during today's intro where he says, you know, culture is now becoming a nice to do or something that we think about as an afterthought in this economy. But if we truly have culture, it shouldn't be an afterthought because the culture is in, in essence the things that make us who we are. Um, who we are because those decisions then will derive out of that culture. So we're looking at the economy in terms of us saying, hey, we are a family friendly organization. We believe in transparency, we believe in responsibility, in being responsible to, to our internal and external stakeholder holders. But then, here we go. Some, um, 10,000 plus employees wake up on a beautiful Monday morning at 6am M. Only to find out that I am no longer an employee of this family friendly, of this people first, of this transparency. We value transparency organization. And just like that, my role was cut in a very cowardly way. And so right there that action speaks to the culture of an organization. And so your actions demonstrate that your culture truly is not that of transparency or people first or uh, what have you. And so I think that when we talk about culture where more so we are misinterpret, misinterpretating m or also I guess conflating, you know, the culture as it relates to diversity, culture as it relates to engagement and you know, the activities that we do to keep people happy versus the culture being. And because we believe in this, these are the standards upon which we build and expand our business and decisions are made out of.

Tom Bradshaw: Thank you very much for that. Um, yeah, I wish this was simple and it's not. Um, Linda Ann, let's go to you

Linda Ann: for me, and I think this is especially important now because we have, we have so many companies that aren't in the same room together anymore, right? So that all the things that companies used to think were culture, those superficial things like we all go to happy hour together, we all sit down and eat lunch together, we all do whatever it is. And um, that previously were pieces that people would describe as their culture aren't really available anymore. And so for me, when you look at what is it that's the foundation of a culture, it comes back to the values of the organization and how are they defining who they are as an organization in that, that piece, you know, and one of the things that are very, is very transferable over space and time is a culture of excellence, a culture of customer service, a culture of whatever. But the, the problem is in the meeting that Megan was describing is it's not that particular initiative isn't based on anything that the organization relies on or, or, or makes decisions on. And for me, when I talk to companies about and, and leaders about value systems, what is the, what are the values? And that's not the list of 10, um, what are the values and how are you, what is the decision making process based on? And that's your value system. And I often say, you know, how do meet people, uh, from the top leadership, whoever defines those three to five elements that your company really is what you prefer to reflect, how are they using them when you're not in the room? That's how the organization makes decisions. If you have a solid values foundation, you know how to make decisions and what is a good decision for your organization and what is superfluous, et cetera. And so I think that really when you talk about what is it that is the uh, foundation of a culture, it has to start with the value system.

Tom Bradshaw: Do, do we have an issue though? Because the question for you and Natasha, before companies sit down, they spend a lot of time creating These things like their value statements and go, this is our culture. And they think they've done the hard work. That's not the hard work. The hard work is actually living what it is that you're. That those value statements say, so are we. Are we doing good at creating value statements but bad at actually living those value statements? I mean, is that what you're seeing?

Megan: Uh, abs.

Linda Ann: Absolutely. And one of the things is, you know, that's why you can't have 10, right? Because you can only figure out. You can only go, oh, wait a minute. We. Quality is our. Is our thing, right? So it does this decision forward our process to providing a quality service or product. Or does it not? And that's your dichotomy, right? And moving them. But that's the key responsibility of leadership, is to constantly. It's a constant. It's just like teaching your puppy. It's that constant thing of, okay, let's come back. Is this reflecting quality for our clients? Does it provide them the level of service we're looking for? And always, every decision, everything that you come back to is based on that. And then everything flows in a different way.

Natasha: Hopefully, if I can add to that real quickly. And I do agree with, um, Linda and, And I guess it goes back to, you know, what I mentioned earlier about and Linda and talked about is how that culture transfers or is a flow down into all we do, meaning that, yes, organizations will have to have. Will have to make difficult decisions. Um, and we're seeing that happening every single day nowadays. And just because you are a cult, you have a culture of people first or a culture of transparency or. Or a, uh, culture of excellence, and all of that good stuff does not mean that you don't make the difficult decisions that you have to make. You still make them, but it is the how you make them. And do they align with who you say you are and the things that you value? And oftentimes you can say, I am this. But ultimately, what you value and who you truly are you is communicated through the things that you. Through the actions that. And decisions that you make and how you go about carrying them out or communicating. And so I don't hear what you say. I hear what you do. I hear what I see you do. And so when we think back to the culture piece, can we always look back in every decision that we make, difficult or jolly, and say, and this aligns with the culture of that we have? And my. Maybe it might not be a 10, but it might be a three, a culture of excellence, a Culture of transparency, a culture, whatever that pillar is, does that carry through? Can any employee stand up and say, I might not like the decision that was made. However, I accept and respect that this organization through and through lived up to its standard, its cultural standards of X, Y and Z. And so I think that it's not only important that we truly understand and define what, and have a working agreement of what culture means to an organization or define what culture is versus assuming the superficial stuff, um, that Linda mentioned earlier, but two, understanding if that culture is known and can be identified and is experienced by the employees that we have, um, that are, you know, subjected to said culture. And in the end of the day, at the end of the day, when we have outputs or decisions that are made, can they all be tied right back to those cultural values, regardless of what the strategy was, regardless of whether it was a good or bad decision?

Tom Bradshaw: Thank you very much for that. Um, and Megan, I know you got lots more for us. So Lee and Rich, let's go to you quickly, and then we'll go back to Megan. Lee, you're up.

Jeremy Lookabal: Okay, thanks, Tom. You know, I think the biggest problem is that in general, there's a fundamental misunderstanding of what culture is. You know, people talk about it as platitudes. You know, I mean, you know, we as a group tend to understand it because it's. It's kind of what we do. But, you know, just in general, people talk about our culture is, you know, whatever. And typically it's not, you know, and, you know, a lot of these things, you know, they bring in a consultant and they put values on the wall and they put out mission statements and all this kind of stuff. And a lot of it is contrary to reality. In general, you know, a culture, uh, your culture is the foundation. You know, every organization has a culture. It is the foundation that your organization is built upon. And every organization has one. And it will be there. It's not optional. And it will either be accidental, it's just going to happen, or it will be intentional. You know, when you create your organization, when you found it, when you create your startup, you're going to do one of two things. Typically, you're going to. You're either going to sit down and think about, what do I want to build? What am I doing here? Am I just making wickets? Am I just going to be a billionaire? Am I just thinking big? Or am I making a difference? Am I doing it for a reason? Do I have. Am I not just doing a thing, but I'm doing a cause? I'm doing it. You know, I have a reason that I want to do this. I'm not just making wickets, but I'm making wickets to make a difference, you know, and I have something there. So now I'm building, I'm building culture, you know, and I'm. And I'm bringing in people who buy into that, you know, who, who have the same. Because, because culture ultimately is what differentiates one culture from another, one organization from another organization. You can have two organizations that basically make almost identical wickets, but they're. But so what makes them different? Their, their culture? Why do I fit in or A and not in or B? Because I identify with the culture there and that's. And each of us, we can go into an organization and we can figure out if we, you know, vibe with their culture. You know, what is it that, you know, I mean, if you're there, I'm, um, there for the paycheck. That's it. I don't care about you. I'm not going to happy hour. You know, most of us, as we go through, as we have the world of work has changed. That has become more and more important. The culture has become more and more important. You know, if all you did was show up to work, you go to the assembly line, you do your thing, you don't care, you go home. You know, Industrial revolution, that was the thing. As we have gone through this has become more important. We are now more tight end. We are now more involved. We're in a global economy.

Linda Ann: We're.

Jeremy Lookabal: We're tied into social things. We care about what our organizations that we are spending so much time with care about. Culture is important. And, and this comes down to some change management too. Okay, so our culture is crap. What do we do about it? Well, change is hard. We know that. So we bring all these people. You know what Megan described? We bring all these people in the room, we talk big, these. We have a flashy PowerPoint, we have all these great slogans and then nothing happens. Why? Well, now because we have to tie in change management because change is hard. We're stuck in inertia. We need energy to move a body that's in rest and get it into motion. We actually have to do all the things that involved in change management. We gotta have champion, we gotta have buy in. We gotta all the little steps that go into change management. And we typically don't. We bring everybody together. We go, ooh, rah, uh, we hand out some swag, we shake some pom poms, we all go back to our desk and nothing changed. So because didn't do the hard work, we paid some high priced consultant to come in and tell us some wonderful things that made us feel good about ourselves. And then, you know, I, uh, was talking to someone recently that, that he was having a moral struggle about going into organizations and he does all this work and they pay him this money and he gives them this thing and they basically circle file it because, and he was talking to another consultant, he goes, how do you do it? You know, you come in and you give them these things and they, and then they don't do anything. And the guy, and the guy basically he goes, they pay us to consult. What they do with it's on them. And that's kind of the thing. And that kind of hurts, but that's the truth. And a lot of companies, they do that. They bring someone like the people in this room in, they pay you to consult them, to give them great ideas and then they go, that's great. And they show you the door. And unfortunately too many organizations are like that. And if you're an organization listening to this, take the brave step to implement. There are brilliant people out there who have brilliant ideas who can take you the next step and make you, uh, wildly successful beyond your wildest dream. But you have to take the hard step to implement. And it is hard. And it, it's, there's blood, sweat and tears, but it's worth it. It is totally worth it. But change management is difficult and it must be managed. So get the cool, the bells and whistle consultant and bring in a change management person too. And in uh, which I'm sitting there looking at Rich, who's a change management guy sitting next to me in the, in the zoom window here, who could tell me cool stuff. Uh, and with that I'm going to shut up and hand it back to Tom.

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Natasha: All right.

Tom Bradshaw: And I'll hand it right to Rich.

Speaker F: I was just going to say that uh, I know we're up on time here so I'll try to be real quick. Uh, to go back to the original question. Why do we think that all the data we have to support the prior drive culture and organizations still chase shiny new bots uh, and few cultures Wallpaper part of it. Uh, if I can build on Linda Ann's concept of values and, and shines as before. The values before the espoused values. And from those values are the artifacts, the behaviors, not words, signs that we have of the culture before. All of that is the assumptions. And Harvard Business Review has several different articles about the current assumptions in today's environment which is that there's a lot of turnaround, restructuring and cost cutting that's happening. Right. So from a, from a particularly utilitarian business standpoint, if the assumption is such that we are turning this around in the, you know, really the shark tank style of, of uh thought that we have right now, so many businesses are, are setting themselves up for sale or they already belong to um, private equity. Right. Or they're getting themselves ready for private equity. If the underlying assumption is strictly utilitarian cross, you know, uh, cost cutting and all that culture is. The culture is going utilitarian and there's that, that is, that is a, that's a tough place to be. But it is the way that, that a lot of that works. And so the, the, the view of culture being wallpaper a great place to work and that type of stuff becomes the, the you know it does become wallpaper because it becomes just the window dressing to make it look like this is good for sale and you can turn this around pretty quickly for a profit. You know, um, I'm not saying that's all that's, that's the way it is entirely, but there is a, there is a, a uh, lot of this out there that's going on. Yeah.

Tom Bradshaw: I think we'll all agree with that. Uh, thank you very much for that, Linda Ann and ct. I'll come back in a second, but, Megan, I want to bring it back to you. Uh, wow. It's a good thing you're going to be with us for a month.

Megan: I know. I love that. This is great. So this is only going to engage more conversation, which wonderful. Uh, there's a statistic that everyone in this room is familiar that 70 to 88% of all transformations fail. Um, and McKinsey has been tracking versions of this number for years. It has been remarkably stable, which, if you think about it, is strange because every year organizations get better tools, better consultants, more sophisticated change methodologies. However, that failure rate does not move. And back, uh, to my MIT stat. Uh, 95% of all AI rollouts have failed thus far. So if you search for why this happens, you'll get these five common answers. Poor communication, lack of leadership, insufficient resources, unclear vision, and resistance to change. None of these answers are wrong. However, we are still looking at symptoms. We've gotten extremely good at diagnosing these symptoms, and we build entire industries around treating them while the underlying condition goes unaddressed year after year. Uh, and now I'm going to say something quite controversial. So when we think of change management, change management is necessary. However, unfortunately, you often get change management practitioners that have a really sexy. You know, they're certified in Prozai, or they know McKinsey 7s model, and they come in and they follow the framework, but they're not able to flex outside of the framework. So what we get is this really clean framework built around one specific change. And we presume that we have effectively rolled out change, if we created a really nice communication cascade or a really pretty stakeholder impact assessment, um, or if we've created our burning platform, which to this day, I don't even know what that actually means. And so we follow this change management lingo and language and check the box, but really what we're doing is we're handcuffing ourselves to a process. And what we need to do is look at culture holistically again. The foundation, not the wallpaper. It's not about affecting one change. It's about changing the entire culture so that your people are often ready for any change that is to come. So the core argument underneath everything that we're going to talk about today, this month is that most transformation work, I believe, starts probably halfway through where the transformation should have begun. You know, three phases before that. Um, so it starts with new routines, new processes, new structures, new Ways of working. However, new routines and processes built on top of unprocessed psychology don't fail because the routines are bad. They fail because nothing was done to prepare the human beings that are meant to execute and live these people. So with that, I want to talk about something that comes up a lot. Really interesting, Just a couple of points, and then I'll pose another question. I want to talk about resistance, because in almost every change framework, we think of, uh, resistance as an obstacle, something we have to overcome or manage. We have entire toolkits built to reduce resistance. And I want to offer a different lens on, um, resistance. I don't believe resistance is an enemy. And culture change and organization. It is our teacher, and it is a data point. So resistance, to me, is one of the most honest forms of data that an organization will ever produce. And it almost always tells you that there is something more going on beneath the surface. So I want to make this concrete and give an example. Let's think of an employee. We'll call him Daniel. I don't think there's any Daniels in this call, so I think we can. We can call in Daniel. Um, Daniel is a composite of a, uh, pattern that I have seen many times in many organizations. So early in his time with his company, Daniel raised his hand and he posed a thoughtful question in a planning meeting. He wasn't complaining. He wasn't pushing back against the way things were being done. But it was a question that posed what some might call a little bit of resistance to the plan. And the weeks that followed, Daniel noticed that, uh, there were a few conversations that he was no longer included in, that his question had quietly been reframed as, uh, him not being on board that Daniel was proving to be a bit difficult. So Daniel didn't actually stop being thoughtful after this. He stopped being thoughtful out loud in this particular organization. So six months later, from the outside, Daniel looks like someone who has gone quiet, who does the bare minimum, who seems checked out. And the story that everyone tells about Daniel is that he has become disengaged. He had so much promise. But the more accurate story is that the organization taught him in one specific moment that his honesty had a cost. He had made a perfectly rational decision in response to this period. And after my 20 years inside of organizations and doing culture transformation work, I recognized Daniel because I, at different points, have been Daniel, and I have met, uh, many Daniels throughout my experience. I don't think that this is a personal failing, and I don't think that I'm unusual or Daniel's unusual for having responded this way. It is a remarkably rational response to an organization that is unsupportive, um, of different opinions, different thoughts and challenging something because it might not actually work and somebody sees something differently than the other people in the room. And so I think that this connects to research that all of you know so well. The concept of psychological safety and the belief that someone can speak up and ask a question, admit of failing without being punished. And here's what I find most striking about the research that Amy Edmondson mostly has done, um, on psychological safety is that, ah, it's not a cultural nice to have. It's actually one of the most consistent predictors of team performance that organizational research has produced. So my question to all of you is what do you think? Or why do you think that it is a common practice to blame an employee rather than seeking to understand where resistance is coming from?

Tom Bradshaw: Because we all think we're still in kindergarten and that's the way we deal with things. Uh, I've got no idea. That's why we're going to go to Linda Ann. Linda Ann, you're up.

Linda Ann: Well, Tom, your comment is pretty spot on actually because one of the things that I wanted to say was that two things. One, often leadership has not been properly trained on how to do this nor have they seen a good example of how it's done. And so they're just going by their fear, by the self preservation and by what they think is important to whomever. Right. The powers that be. But again in that there's no guiding light, there's no foundational, um, anchor. And so the other piece to that I think is leadership underestimates their employees. Grossly underestimates their employees. And if you look at, and I have been Daniel and I've been that person who was doing something and I went, oh, this is the problem, this is the roadblock here. This is what we need to fix. Told people that. Then they called in that hundred thousand dollar consultant and that's exactly what they told me. Like, well, why wasn't it good enough when I said it right? And so that's a problem. You need to listen to your employees because they know what the, where the roadblocks are, what the problems are, all those kinds of things. And one of the um, keys that I wanted, points that I wanted to make is when you have that anchor, right? And as, especially as a company scales, if you're working with a company that has aspirations, maybe they're not in the cost cutting phase at this point. But they have aspirations to scale. As things shift with that scaling, right, things fall by the wayside and you have to constantly bring them back to home and refocus. And that's a constant process. And so when you do that, I mean, I've sat there with um, leaders and, and they said, yeah, well quality is going down a little bit because of X, Y and Z. I'm like, so what are you doing about that? Refocus. Re, re. Communicate what's important and how you're making those decisions. But again, and that's part of the culture, you know, and it becomes ingrained. But it's, it's a, it's a kind of a, you know, a conditioning process of how do we do this here? But you have to talk to those employees and value um, what the employees see, hear and feel in the, in the way you're doing. That one book that's, that's a good tool is Culture Renovation by Kevin Oakes. And that's an 18 point step process. Whether you go through every step or not, it gives an organization a way of thinking about how do we get this culture to where we think we want it to be and what are the steps we need to take. Because it's not just having three meetings.

Tom Bradshaw: Thank you very much for that. Natasha, uh, will come to you in a second. Ct, let's go to you.

Lee: Hey folks, can you hear me okay?

Tom Bradshaw: Yeah.

Lee: Okay. Yeah. So, um, if anyone's had close, ah, proximity to power in the organization and sees how it works behind closed doors, they'll tell you that there's typically a group of a small group, uh, that's concealed and protected within organizations and they exert a lot of influence on the company. Right. So a lot of decisions that are made, they make them. Um, but only a few people ever see the mechanics of why those decisions were made. Most employees don't see that. So a lot of times if you want to change the organization or change the culture, it has to be in a way that appeals to this small group of people. And they're, they're, they're, they're hard to find. Sometimes you have to seek them out. So if you're working on projects that are large or, you know, um, scale across the organization, you have to understand what their needs are, what their values are and it has to be approved by them. So I would say that a lot of times when we're seeing things outside those closed doors is that we don't have all the information. They're making decisions a lot of times when I've presented to C Suite folks, what I've noticed more than anything is the higher you go up. These are very smart people, very sharp people. They don't get to the level that they get to without being shocked. These are people you can talk to about a topic that they're unfamiliar with, but after a few moments they completely understand the foundation of those topics.

Jeremy Lookabal: Right?

Lee: So when you're seeing things happening around you as a regular employee, that's culture, right, which you see and experience every day. But there's also culture that happens behind closed doors that no one ever sees. And it's those things that people don't always get because you're not seeing from the lens of a senior executive whose job it is to make sure that outward facing appearance of the company presents a certain kind of way the different stakeholders that they have to, to, um, take care of not just employees inside the company, but future customers, current customers, board of directors and things like that. A lot of times their needs or their priorities aren't the same as everyone else's. So there's inconsistencies. So if anything, it's important to be observant and apply some careful analysis in your surroundings that seeks to unravel and expose inconsistencies or hidden assumptions that aren't always explicitly stated to see whether the culture is living up to what is perceived to be by people. But behind closed doors, it was never intended to be that. So, um, that's just me sharing my as best as I can because I can't share everything. But behind closed doors, that's about what I can share publicly.

Tom Bradshaw: Well, let me, let me ask you a question because I'm intrigued now. They, um, see themselves as having a culture. Do they see that other group of employees as having a different culture or even having culture, or do they just see the employees as a tool to support their culture?

Lee: They see the culture of the organization. Right. Because they're to some extent crafting that culture.

Tom Bradshaw: Right.

Lee: If that makes sense. So, um, again, you're looking at the lens of what their priorities are. You know what I mean? So they're responsible for a lot. So for example, I'll give you, I'll give you, I'll give you an example. Let's say, for example, that, um, a tree falls on a house, right? Tree falls on the house. Or better yet, let's say, um, something happens to an employee, since we're talking about employees in the workplace, something happens to an employee in the workplace. And a lot of times companies will Say, okay, we're family, right? We're family, family. So something happens to an employee in the workplace, maybe a workplace accident, for example, when that person's out of work. So you do. Organizations will sort of do an investigation to see who's at fault, and they may learn that, okay, the organization's genuinely at fault for the employee's accident. So when you, when you're at 4 or 4 accident, you want to make sure the person's taken care of, right? So you want to make sure you repair or restore or make the person a whole for what took place, right? Because if you're at fault, then you want to make sure that, you know, you make good on making sure the person's whole again and you repair them and things like that. Typically what happens is the company will say, okay, obviously we're all family. We want to make sure everybody's treated well. But business wise, we want to control and manage our expenses. So who can we blame? Who can we point the finger to? Maybe the person who got injured, got injured by machinery that didn't pass inspection. So let's see, you know, we can figure out whether we can sort of push blame in that direction or, um, let's see whether the person will take less money for a settlement than giving them what they deserve. You know what I mean? So a lot of times what you're seeing is in that situation, then you're negotiating your worth or your dignity, because now you're given a concession even though you're completely at, uh, fault as the organization. So what does that say about family, right? How do we treat family? Are we trying to give family less than they deserve or do we, you know what I mean? So there's an outward facing appearance of we're family, we treat each other well. But behind closed doors, what we're trying to do is figure out how to make the problem go away, if that makes sense, or minimize the damage or how much we have to pay. And families, you don't do that, you do something wrong, you want to make sure the person's okay fully, right? But behind closed doors, you want to manage impressions. You don't want to get out that you have faulty elevators because that will hurt the business, right? So you have to figure out how to manage that. You're not going to be completely honest and, and say, okay, we didn't keep up with the building inspections or we didn't get the best machinery because we were trying to cut costs and it came back to buy us in the behind. Oh, well, you know, we made a mistake. Those things you can't do because as a senior executive, your job description not just was written, but what's implied is that your job is to protect the company. And that comes at a priority. That's your priority first. That's what you're hired for, to protect the company. Everything else sort of falls beneath that. If you tell employees that they won't understand, you know what I mean? Because they don't live the life of a senior executive, you know what I mean? They may question that. So those are things you can't really tell or you have to keep concealed. If you're on a board of directors or you're sort of like a senior executive, you understand that. But employees won't understand that. And part of the reason they won't understand that is because they're not in the role. But also it's what's been told. They've been told that we're family. So now we have to keep up with that appearance. A lot of times there's information that as a leader, and we've all been leaders, right? So we've all been in situations like this where there's information that we have as a leader that other people don't have. Right. But then someone may ask you a question about that information that you have that you can't tell. So now you have to lie to keep the secret. What does that do to trust? Right. So there's that contradiction. You know what I mean? There's this now you know, you're sort of like you're keeping secrets and you're lying to keep the secrets. But that's a, ah, necessity in a lot of leadership roles and you have to make peace with that. You know, it's hold that explicitly, but it's implied that that's what's part of the job and it's rewarded and admired. So I'll stop there. But that's. Hopefully that answers your question a little bit.

Tom Bradshaw: There's a sort of. And there's a lot of uh, there's a lot of HBO series which are families, which are. Sound more like they're corporations. Uh, so thank you very much for that. Natasha, let's go to you and then Megan and back to you.

Natasha: Yeah, I truly appreciated, um, you going to C. T. Um, first because CT pretty much described what I was going to say, but I was going to use the terminology of plausible deniability. An organization is always going to take the route that leads to the least amount of liability on their end and which in turn has fractured culture as we know it. Trust and psychological safety. If we go back to the initial point there, um, within an organization. Because oftentimes when we think about employees losing trust or not having a sense of being psychologically safe within an organization, it often comes about because of the many things that people change within an organization. When we talk about change management, you talked about system, structures, process, season so much more. The one thing that we fail to change are the bad actors. Are the people who have been the author of, you know, of creating the hostile work environments or the situations that have caused or ruptured the trust within the organization. Oftentimes organizations do not rid of those leaders of those middle managers as quickly and as responsibly as they should. And in turn, what happens, it is the person who, who raises the finger, who raises the hand and points the finger towards the bad actors that in turn either get managed out of the organization or in seats. In, in CT's example, are the ones who get, um, terminated. And then you go through the whole negotiation of what you're worth or is it even worth fighting the organization on this. And I think, think that oftentimes when organizations taunt the word we want to, this is a safe, this is a psychologically safe environment. We also have to keep in mind that a lot of employees who have been harmed within organizations or who are now silent within the organization are so because they are still working with, reporting into and being being managed by the people who have harmed them, by the people who have ruptured that trust, um, and the people, people who have caused them to be silent. And until organizations are willing to be responsible and to the point of the backroom conversations, it becomes. And if we rid of this leader, does this then open up the floodgate for saying that, okay, we are now taking accountability. We are now acknowledging that there was an issue. It's similar to, you know, the organization telling you we have not, we cannot, we cannot, we have not found or we cannot, we, we cannot conclude that in fact you were harassed. We don't have enough evidence to prove that you were harassed on the job. But we will say there have been some policy violations. And so we have had conversations with your manager. We can't tell you what those conversations are, but the issue has been resolved. Has it really though? But I still now have to report into this manager who also not only changed their behavior, also did not acknowledge or apologize for their behavior because legal done told y' all that if this person now apologizes, then that is an admission of something Wrong. That might open up a whole different legal, you know, can of worms. And so I think that as we continue to think about change management, you cannot have change management without changing the bad actors, without changing the people who have inhibited and silenced your key performers and top performers. Because if you can identify that this person went from meeting and exceeding to now just doing what they got to do to pay their mortgage in this very difficult economy, if you can identify that much, then you can also identify the source of, you know, that change within your employee. And unless you're willing to make the personal changes that come about with it, um, call it something else. But it's not change management. Maybe that's maybe change. Man. Change management is the wall, the wallpaper organizations, uh, truly discuss. Um, because, um, yeah, because ultimately your people are the ones who carry out the change. Not your systems, not your softwares, not your written SOPs. It is the people.

Tom Bradshaw: Thank you very much for that, Megan. Uh, let's go back to you. And you know, not only change management, I sometimes feel like the next time I walk into an organization and they say to me, we're like family here, I'm going to go, no, you're not.

Megan: A very dysfunctional family.

Tom Bradshaw: Yes, sometimes family businesses are not where you want to work.

Megan: No. Well, you never, never. Natasha's says, run, run. Um, okay, so I know that we're getting close to the end and I want to wrap up, kind of tie up some of the great conversations I've been engaged in the chat. I've been listening to what, you know, Lynn and Natasha and folks have been saying and CT and such great dialogue. And I, it, it really, I'm going to go a different route than what I plan to talk about as we, as we wrap up because something interesting struck me and it was, um, based on what you're all saying, my team and I did some work a few months ago, some research on this question that I had, and I'm sure many of you have had the same kind of curiosity, which was, how is it that, uh, you know, I think we all agree that companies that are run like a dysfunctional family, uh, with broken culture, can sustain for a period of time. And these are the companies that have the fast results that are reporting in good numbers to the board, that are getting their metrics up and where they want them for a very short time because they're doing it on, um, the kind of the backs of their people. And as Robert said in the chat, I love this idea of extraction. They're extracting as much as they can, but you can only extract for so long. Um, but then you have companies that are out there that are publicly, you know, pretty tough companies, pretty tough leaders to work for. And you know, during COVID these may have been the companies that said, well you're coming into the office five days old week anyway, we don't care. And they're really, really tough on their employees and they're notorious for this. However, they are sustainable M, they've been around for a very long time. They're not extracting. They are continuing to do well year over year for years and years of time. So what is the difference? Like does culture really matter when it comes to success? So that's the study we did and what we found out was yes, it absolutely does. But here's the difference and I'm going to kind of put it in the the picture of company A and company B. So company A is extracting and they're extracting from reserves that don't refill once they've been extract. Performance is built on burnt out teams. It's not sustainable and there is a shelf life. But then you have company B and they look similar from the outside. They're notoriously tough companies. They have high standards, they have an unrelenting bar for performance. However, the difference we found, same intensity, completely different outcome. Uh, company A is kind of just pulling from their people desperately and not really thinking about culture at all. Company B is, still has an incredibly high standard and unrelenting standards of performance and expectation. However, they are very clear about those standards. So those employees know what's expected of them. Um, there are, you know, they are living, as we talked about earlier, our values. They are living the values. The values are not just words on paper. They are holding each other accountable. Leadership is on board and aligned to the mission and the vision of the organization. They are all marching in the same direction. So when we think about culture and the success of companies, long term, short term, I don't think it's so much about being nice and you know, it's not as we all agree, this fluffy feel good thing. But it is about having these clear expectations, holding people accountable, coaching out the bad actors. Quickly. Natasha, to your earlier point, not letting the bad folks stay around, um, and really being crystal clear on what is expected when they come to work each day. Um, and I think that that's a huge piece of it. So, you know, I'll leave you with this. I know we only have three minutes left. There's so much more we could talk about here, but, uh, you know, we've had robust conversation. We've had robust dialogue. Tom, I don't know if we have time for one or two more comments, but I'd be really curious with all of this. A lot has come up for me. You know, what is the most interesting thing that's come up for you in this conversation today?

Tom Bradshaw: Anybody want to jump in real quick? I think there's been a lot of stuff, but, Linda, let's go to you.

Linda Ann: I think it's the, um, the breadth of what people were communicating about, what contributes to culture. And how do we get. Because there is. There is that anchor that is really the foundation of the culture, and how do we get people to understand what the anchor is and where it is. Right. And bring all those pieces in, because it really is. It's not. Culture is not really a breadth of things.

Megan: Right.

Linda Ann: It comes from one point, and all those things contribute in different ways.

Tom Bradshaw: Thank you very much for that. Um, we are almost out of time, and, oh, there's so many questions running around in my head, but I'll save those for next week. Next, uh, week, we're going to continue the conversation, and we're going to look at the corporate hamster wheel. Why organizations keep running and going nowhere. Uh, Megan, do you want to give us a little bit of a preview on that?

Megan: No, no, I'm m. Kidding. I'm kidding. I will. I will. Uh, corporate hamster wheel. So, I mean, we've heard this term before. It is simply about we keep doing the same things over and over again. So this is kind of going deeper into what we talked about today. Today. I think we did a great job going beyond scratching the surface. Next week, we're going to get a little bit deeper into how can we break away from these kind of really antiquated beliefs that we have that keep us held back and really stuck in. In old ways of doing things that aren't effective anymore.

Tom Bradshaw: Well, it sounds like my question will be answered next week then, so thank you. And thank you, everyone. Megan, you did a great job leading us today. I'm so thrilled you're going to be with us for the rest of the month. Uh, thank you, everyone who contributed today and those of you who joined us. Uh, great to have you here. And if you would like to join us, we go live, uh, Thursdays at 12 noon Eastern. Just go to the CBOK website, get your free ticket, and share your voice here on the Work Cookie podcast. So once again, thank you, Megan. Thank you, everyone. And, Megan, if you want to count us out? Maybe from five down to one? We'll see everyone back here in one week's time.

Megan: Absolutely.

Tom Bradshaw: Thanks for listening to this episode of Work cookie, a, uh, CBOK podcast. Don't forget to sign up@cbok.com that's s e b o c dot com to engage with our community, gain a sense of belonging, access our other media, and get rapid advice from experts. Would it be a bad idea to to make your most challenging workplace problems go away@cbok.com.