Culture

All along the way from Anchorage to the ‘Burled Arch’ of Nome there are checkpoints and veterinarian staff to help the Musher take care of His / Her team but the honest truth is that care of the dogs takes place more so between the checkpoints and on the trail then at the designated stops.

Leaders have to monitor the health of each individual member AND the health of the team as a cohesive unit. At times, individual behaviors are addressed and at time Leaders have to dive into the team dynamics to correct the pack’s behavior. All done under the watchful and purposeful eye of the Musher and viewed from the vantage point of the musher’s position in the sled.

When it comes to purposeful culture, purposeful ‘beliefs and behaviors’ and turning around cultural challenges here are some thoughts:

Create the ‘Cultural Burled Arch’

Being able to recognize where your team is off the trail starts with knowing where the trail is and what it looks like – the more specific the better.

Know where you are now / Listen to the Metaphors

When you’re out on the trail and you want to “get a feel” of the surroundings, sometimes you have to still yourself and just listen. Listen to how people feel, listen as they reveal their ‘beliefs’, and listen for telling metaphors. If your team is saying things like, “we’re the runts of the litter” or “we’re the cast offs from other teams” or “our department gets thrown all the scraps.” These are telling metaphors that reveal the departmental or personal ‘sub-culture’. At other times, you may need some external help (call them business veterinarians) to partner with you and diagnose the issues in the team.

Engage key ‘Swing Dogs’

Bring ‘Swing Dogs’ (see May 19 post) in on the front end, gain their involvement/buy-in, and then let them be the influencers that they are.

Trail Map, Checkpoints, and Training Runs

Once you know where you are, where you want to go, and have the influencers on board – start running the ‘Training Runs’. The second part of the definition of ‘Culture’ is: development and improvement through education or training. If we want the team to ‘Behave’ a different way – we’re going to need them to think (Believe) a different way. This starts with creating new and more desirable metaphors, introducing the new mindset and then working through a consistent process to get them to accept, adopt, and own it. (Digest, assimilate, energize, run!)

Leverage Technology

Leveraging the ‘Swing Dogs’ is powerful, leveraging technology and the Swing Dogs – incredible. Create a social network, a company blog, leverage Twitter, consistently reinforce the message – create a tight knit ‘Pack’ of true believers wanting change, develop and communicate with them via these technologies and then leverage all of it to create the groundswell or ‘avalanche’ of change.

Dogs don’t know what they did wrong yesterday!

As Leaders we must be vigilant about our culture and when changes are needed or confrontation over beliefs or behaviors needs to occur – they need to occur as close to the behavior as possible – this is not a once a year employee review type thing. (I’ll write more on this tomorrow)

Keep on, Keeping on.

Cultural change can take place quickly or it can take decades depending on the size of the organization and a number of other factors. Know the real picture of what your up against – but don’t allow the size of the ‘Race’ to discourage you. Take it one step, one checkpoint at a time and realize you are on the road to a better culture.

Remember: It’s not the size of the Dog in the Fight, It’s the size of the Fight in the Dog! (Mark Twain)

Sled Dogs will run with or without you! This is, exactly, why Rule #1 of mushing is, “Never Let Go of the Sled!”

The culture of an organization is the same way. Whether by Default or by Design – it will continue right on down the trail. As the musher – It’s Your Sled and Your Team. The choice we have as leaders is to either ‘Own’ the culture or ‘Abandon’ the culture and like the middle of the Iditarod race – there’s not a lot in between.

The culture of an organization, again, comes down to Integrating each player into an effective team and adapting, effectively, to the trail conditions (external environment) in order to survive. Over time as the team finds solutions to problems and experience ‘daily running’, they build up patterns of basic assumptions about how to operate and how to relate. These ‘Patterns’ or ‘Beliefs’ are then transmitted to each new team member as they are brought into the team. The ‘Patterns’ are created and recreated until they become engrained ‘Behaviors’ with deep seeded ties to the ‘History’ of the Team. The question is not if this will occur – the question is will it occur by Design, on purpose? And since they become deep seeded, I suggest taking hold of the Sled Handle and becoming purposeful.

As you start to ‘Design’ your team’s Culture, here are some thoughts. Start with the basics of:

• Who we are.
• What we do.
• How we do.
• How we interact. With ourselves. With others
• How we measure success

This can start the process of development:

Who we are.

This is our organizational DNA and desired future DNA: Stories from the Trail (Organizational or departmental history), Values (stated and unstated) – our ‘Unique Team Genetic Code’ and the source for our Organizational Pride

What we do.

This is our offerings, our product, our ‘niche’ and can be similar to the production side of the Vision / Mission Statement. (ie, we make quality products for a fair price for the Widget industry)

How we do.

The How is important to Race Performance. Without clarity around ‘How’ the race is to be run then our people are left to make assumptions. This can be what my friend, Jeremie Kubicek, calls our ‘Secret Sauce’. It, also, sets the boundaries and the ‘Race Rules’ and acceptable and unacceptable performance methodologies. This area contains very specific, ‘Roles, Methods, Metrics’ and can be so innovative that it creates ‘Competitive Space’ allowing us to run on a clean trail, in clean air.

How we Interact.

Every team needs a ‘code of conduct’. Rules for interaction and communication both inside the team and to our customers, vendors, investors, public, etc. The components of how the dogs are treated are under constant scrutiny from Animal Rights activists and speaking from my experience, the musher’s deeply care for their dogs. In addition, they have rules for those that work with their dogs. But just as important are how the dogs will treat each other, other teams within our kennel, race officials, veterinarians, etc. Key pieces here Teamwork, communication, and employee relations!

How we measure success

This is so key to effective performance and to the ‘beliefs and behaviors’ of the group. Consistent communication around what we measure, how we measure, and constant reports from the trail relating to our performance and if we are ‘winning’ – whatever that means to us.

Like I said yesterday – we could easily spend a year or more on the topic – but we have more trail of our own to run today and so do you!

Run with purpose and ON purpose!

All teams and all sleds have a ‘feel’ both operationally and relationally. Getting the feel of the sled is part of what we started talking about last week when we talked about learning your existing team and trying to stay ‘right-side-up’ as you launch with your new team. Let’s keep on a similar trail this week I want and talk about the feel of your team and tying that to the culture of your Sled (organization).

Why?

In order to get the right results from our team, we need the team to ‘Do’ the right things. Not a complete guarantee of success, but it’s the right trail to ‘Nome’. ‘Do’ is action or performance, both of which speak to ‘Behaviors’. From the previous posts, you’ll know that one of my Leadership Mantras is that ‘Beliefs drive behaviors’.

So what our teams are believing is directly affecting how they behave – how they operate both operationally and how they relate to each other, our customers, and our vendors. All of which can directly flow to ‘bottom line’.

If we want the right outcome – we need to be intentional about the right actions. Again, if we want the right actions / performance then we need to be intentional about the beliefs in the team. All of this is wrapped up in the term ‘Culture’.

Several definitions for Culture, the main one that applies here relates to ‘Behaviors and Beliefs’ of a group. In Iditarod Leadership, we talk about the discovery, understanding, changing and development of cultures for the purposes of running a better race.

Much like training dogs to run the race – Business cultures are developed through daily habits and reinforcement of those habits – either through failure to confront bad habits and beliefs or through positive affirmations of the right things. They are engrained in every aspect of our organization’s ‘sleds’ and the teams within each; how they relate to other teams and, ultimately, they harden and form into invisible but very powerful rules of operating and relating.

Have you taken the time to back up and consider these?

A second component of the definition of ‘Culture’ is: development and improvement through education or training.

I love the second component because it implies that you can develop your organization’s ‘Culture’ – that you don’t have to accept that the way it is – is the way it will always be. You have the power to change your sled’s culture – your teams operational and relational practices.

Sled dogs want to run, they love to run, and they want to please their Musher.

I believe the same is true for most employees. They want to do the right things and in their minds they ARE doing the right things. If they knew a better way – then why wouldn’t they do that?

In order for us to ‘Succeed on Purpose’ I want to encourage you to take a good look at this area. We’ll break this into sections and see if we give you some ideas on how you can move your team down the ‘Positive Culture’ trail by week’s end.

Points to consider: What are our unwritten rules? What are the behaviors that are hindering our success? Why does my team believe that? How can I help them ‘see’ at a different level or understanding?