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What if Culture was the Strategy – a conversation with Rob Lion
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Rob Lionis the founder of Black River Performance Management and a Professor of Human Resource Development at Idaho State University.
Rob is dedicated to helping organisations build cultures that foster employee well-being whilst supporting the achievement of organisational objectives.
In this episode of the Abeceder podcast The Independent Minds, Rob Lion and host Michael Millward discuss what if the culture was the strategy.
They start by acknowledging that every organisation regardless of the leaders attempts to manage culture has a culture.
Rob identifies the different drivers of culture, and the consequences of leaders not proactively managing culture.
Michael and Rob discuss the different elements of culture, from how language is used to the behaviour of leaders and how they contribute to the development of culture.
They reflect on the role culture plays in the successful completion of strategies.
Their discussion covers the pros and cons of changing how we refer to groups of employees.
The Independent Minds is made on Zencastr, because as the all-in-one podcasting platform, Zencastr really does make creating content so easy.
If you would like to try podcasting using Zencastr visit zencastr.com/pricing and use our offer code ABECEDER.
Travel
Rob Lion is based in Idaho, USA. With discounted membership of the Ultimate Travel Club, you can travel to Idaho or anywhere else at trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, and so many more travel related purchases.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'The Independent Minds'
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencastr. Hello and welcome to the Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abysseedah and people who think outside the box about how work works, with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
00:00:23
Speaker
I'm your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abusida.
Culture as a Strategy with Dr. Rob Leon
00:00:28
Speaker
Today, Dr. Rob Leon from Black River Performance Management is going to help me answer the question, what if culture was the strategy?
00:00:39
Speaker
As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, The Independent Minds is made on Zencastr. Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform that makes every stage of the podcast production process, including editing and distribution, to all the platforms so easy.
00:00:58
Speaker
If you would like to try podcasting using zencastr visit Zencaster, visit zencaster.com forward slash pricing and use my offer code, Abysida. All the details are in the description.
Aligning Culture with Organizational Goals
00:01:11
Speaker
Now that I have told you how wonderful Zencaster is for making podcasts, we should make one. One that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to.
00:01:23
Speaker
Very importantly, on the Independent Minds, we don't tell you what to think, but we do hope to make you think. Today, my guest, Independent Mind, is Dr. Rob Leon.
00:01:35
Speaker
Rob has more than 20 years' experience in human resource development and organisational behaviour. He fosters workplace cultures that align with organisational goals and employee wellbeing.
00:01:49
Speaker
Rob is based in Idaho in the United States. Not somewhere that I have ever been, but if I ever do go to Idaho, I will make my travel arrangements at the Ultimate Travel Club, because that is where I get trade prices on trains, flights, hotels, and all sorts of other travel-related purchases.
00:02:09
Speaker
You can do the same by using the link in the description, which includes a subscription discount. Now that I've paid the rent, it is time to make an episode of The Independent Minds.
Evolution of Workplace Culture
00:02:22
Speaker
Hello, Rob. Hello, and I'm so happy that we're circling back to get together. We did have our first conversation several months ago, didn't we? We talked about all sorts of different things.
00:02:34
Speaker
And it has taken a little while to just select the one thing that is poignant for today and into the future, I think. Yes. him What if culture was the strategy?
00:02:47
Speaker
Before we get into that, could you please just give us a little bit of background of about who you are and what you do now? Absolutely. i split my time right now between ah professorship at Idaho State University and supporting our consultancy Black River Performance Management where the the beautiful thing is is that I play in the same space in both organizations. However, how we play is different, right? So higher education, focusing on graduate and undergraduate education, lots of theory models, frameworks, research and scholarship.
00:03:24
Speaker
And then in the Black River space, all of our partners are in industry themselves. doing their best. Sometimes they just need a little nudge or upskill.
00:03:36
Speaker
And that's how we work with them is to help them accomplish what it is they want to accomplish. I really believe that we can target performance goals and performance objectives and not at the sacrifice of employee well-being. There's a way that we can do this together.
00:03:51
Speaker
And when we do it together, everyone wins. A win-win situation. Yeah. Yes, very much so. I think we're getting much more towards workplaces that are much more community-orientated. The workplace is a community.
00:04:09
Speaker
We don't have teams as much as we are moving towards
Defining Culture for Psychological Safety
00:04:14
Speaker
forging communities i love amongst our workforce. We've been spending a lot of time talking about that term, actually, both in terms of your...
00:04:24
Speaker
like local community, but also what it means for organizations as well as what it means for grassroots efforts. And, and I really agree with you there that community,
00:04:37
Speaker
It has its own ecosystem to it and that we need to take care of it in order for it to flourish. and And that's really where we try to spend time with partners, with employees, with students, with our friends, our community members, that there's a certain element of integration that exists in that community, much more beyond the team element.
00:05:02
Speaker
Yes, it takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village or community to develop an employee, a member of that community to their full potential.
00:05:14
Speaker
Yes. I know most people who know what we mean by strategy. It's almost like this is the plan to achieve our objective. But what do we mean when we say culture? To just make something really clear, that we're going to have culture, whether it's by design or default.
00:05:30
Speaker
So there's going to be some sort of culture forming in any group, family, team, community, right? So we just accept that it's going to exist. The question is really, what is that culture made up of?
00:05:45
Speaker
And I believe it's made up of different things that relate to goals, expectations, aspirations, and values. And those are just a couple things on the surface. And that those pieces influence how we move forward.
00:06:01
Speaker
And when we don't take time to craft some of those pieces out, because I'm really an advocate for language and the importance of getting on the same page as we use language in our organizations, as we talk about stuff so that we're moving together forward, that the language we use, the symbols we have, the practices we've identified, the pillars that we aspire for, those can be spoken, they can be unspoken, they can be written and they can be unwritten.
00:06:35
Speaker
But what I've found are the organizations, the teams, the groups that spend time to have conversations about those items have greater alignment across the group so that they have more clarity in how that group is moving forward together.
00:06:52
Speaker
And and the my worry about the unspoken cultural development piece, and I see this all the time, is that when When people believe that culture work is not important, it's occurring anyways, but it could be very haphazard.
00:07:08
Speaker
There could be some unwritten norms that are dangerous. In fact, I have no data to support this, but I have a strong belief that organizations that lack attention to those culture pieces really struggle with lower levels of psychological safety. And like I said, I have no evidence to support that.
00:07:29
Speaker
But when I see that culture is is ignored or downplayed and you talk to those teams at that exist within that culture, they share those things that they're wrestling with, they're struggling with.
00:07:44
Speaker
and And psychological safety is frequently at the top of that list. I agree with you that if you don't know what the culture of an organization is, what your team is, then you don't know how to behave within that group.
00:08:00
Speaker
If there is no formality to the development of the culture, no one has said, this is the type of organization that I want to create. You don't know where you're moving towards. And that means that you don't have psychological safety because you have no certainty about anything.
00:08:20
Speaker
You do not know how, if you go to your manager, your team leader, with some bad news, how they're going to react. You don't know how you are going to be treated as the messenger.
00:08:30
Speaker
That creates a ah level of uncertainty if you don't sort of think to yourself, what culture do we want to have in this organization? How are we going to do the day-to-day running of the organization so that it supports the creation of that type of culture?
Culture's Impact on HR Practices
00:08:48
Speaker
I agree. and And let's add a level of complexity to this, right? Because how we just spoke about it is it very linear, how we might talk about it in a classroom, right? But you know what it's like to be in the field, on the ground.
00:09:02
Speaker
And as we're talking about this with, say, a group of 10, 15, 40 people in front of us, the organization's still moving through processes. and And some of the processes include screening and selecting and placing new employees in the system.
00:09:18
Speaker
So I think where people take that a little bit too oversimplified view of culture is that they forget. They think about it in terms of what's this culture conversation we're having in this room right now.
00:09:29
Speaker
and And all the pieces that are coming out of this room right now are influencing our ability to maybe attract talent, retain talent, onboard talent, exit talent, all these different other aspects of what's going on simultaneously in the organization. And and to me, it's this other piece.
00:09:49
Speaker
it's It's not that it's more important. It's equally important because once we figure out our culture pieces, It's going to build a level of resiliency. I like to talk about like the grease in the gears, right? So you bring any new person into a team.
00:10:04
Speaker
There's a level of conflict and not that it's a purposeful conflict. It's like, hey, we're new. We need to get to know each other. We need to learn more about your strengths and past experiences as they relate to what we do here.
00:10:17
Speaker
So it's almost like a dance. And what the cultural piece does is it helps them to better understand the pieces to pay attention to that are important. There are cues in many instances as we go through this onboarding process of what it's like to work here.
00:10:32
Speaker
What are some of the spoken rules? What are some of the unspoken rules? Who are the players in the room? Who are the players in the organization? And so I think it's extremely important that we don't oversimplify the concept. I know we have to do it to start, right? To start that conversation.
00:10:51
Speaker
But I think sometimes when we talk to people about it, we do oversimplify it, that they don't realize necessarily, especially if they're a late adopter or non-adopter, that just how broad this this concept of culture is in terms of what's happening in that organization throughout the course of the day.
00:11:11
Speaker
It's not just what it's like to work here. It's also what it feels like yeah to work here. yeah It's that emotional connection.
00:11:22
Speaker
If you have some sort of definition to the culture of the organization, I believe that you get more buy-in from people. They know what they're buying into.
00:11:34
Speaker
And also people can find it easier to buy out of, yeah to deselect themselves from a culture. But once you're into a culture that fits with your own values, you are more aligned with it, more engaged with it.
00:11:51
Speaker
And when you're engaged with something, you're more productive, which then means the organization is
Culture as Organizational Signposts
00:11:56
Speaker
more profitable. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I think about it in terms of the journeys we've traveled on the road before we had cell phones.
00:12:04
Speaker
We had to rely on street signs for speed limits, for villages, for communities, for cities, for the metro, for all these other things.
00:12:16
Speaker
And that's what I think a new person is looking for Because they can't just look at their phone and say, how do I navigate the space in culture X, right? Or organization Z. I can't use X anymore, right? Clearly because someone else has taken that.
00:12:32
Speaker
Culture Z. And we just don't have that instant um instant feedback on culture in organizations specific to that organization.
00:12:43
Speaker
But he raised a really interesting point there in that culture is the signposts that enable people to understand the organization. Yeah, absolutely.
00:12:54
Speaker
And once they can understand the organization, they can understand their role within it. And I don't just mean the process role. I mean, how they fit into the community of the organization.
00:13:10
Speaker
Where are they in the hi in the social hierarchy, for example. Exactly. And as well as the architect the be hierarchical hierarchy, that the organizational one.
00:13:20
Speaker
And once you get that understanding of an organization, I suspect the the psychological safety isn is increased. Yeah, we have a little bit more awareness. Yeah, it's it's that starting point of the getting into employee well-being.
00:13:38
Speaker
And so much of this, we've not talked about anything really to do with what managers or business leaders would do to create a culture. We've since said, it's going to happen whether you like it or not.
00:13:54
Speaker
It can happen with some sort of structure because you have a vision of the culture you want to create, or it'll be like um Lord of the Flies. Yes. Without any structure, the it's amazingly easy. As they say, you know the devil makes work for idle hands. If you don't put the structure in the what will take over is the devil's work, really, isn't it? You will get all of the negativity without any of the positivity because for some reason in human nature, it's easier to find and the negative than it is to find the positive.
00:14:33
Speaker
Yeah. And I think in all species, humans included, we seek, going back to those road markers or signs, we seek cues to determine if we're progressing in the right direction or not. Is this safe? Is this unsafe?
00:14:49
Speaker
Is this healthy? Is this unhappy? Should I be worried right now? and And that's part of helping illuminate this to help people kind of rest their mind so that they feel like they belong or at least start that belonging process.
Consequences of Unmanaged Culture
00:15:02
Speaker
I am thinking back over my career and the different organizations that I have worked in, thinking about how in some of them, Finding the strategy for the culture.
00:15:16
Speaker
Well, you couldn't, it was non-existent. And remembering it to how the people who could have created the good culture were too busy doing their jobs, too isolated in their own activities. Yeah.
00:15:32
Speaker
to actually do anything. And the people who created the culture were those ones who weren't putting their all into their job, who were looking for the ways out of being productive.
00:15:46
Speaker
And that then created a culture which made it very difficult for people who wanted to do a good job to do a good job. because it was it's not cool it's we don't do that here you know um well my first job i was told you've not got enough on your desk michael and i'm saying um what you mean said it doesn't matter how busy you are or not busy you just got to look busy i haven't come here to look busy thank you very much But, you know, as somebody straight into ah into employment who's been told that.
00:16:22
Speaker
Yeah. And thinking like, I'm not going to listen to this. But and you looked around all the other people's desks stacked full of papers because people wanted to look busy.
00:16:33
Speaker
If you allow people to create their own culture without any leadership, you are going to end up with a negative, unproductive culture that your best people will want to leave.
00:16:46
Speaker
yeah Yeah, we're seeing ah ah newer, like a rebrand of that opinion right now, aren't we? With this concept of return to work. And I trust that you're doing stuff at home and you're working and you're effective, but I just, I need you at the office so that i can see you and I know that you're working right. And this equation that butts in seed equals productivity.
00:17:09
Speaker
I'm sure in some situations it does. Absolutely. But I'm also very much aware that do I want to manage your time or do I want to manage your outputs?
00:17:21
Speaker
Exactly. And what I should be interested in is your outputs. If I can't trust you to produce the outputs, then i shouldn't be employing you, regardless of where it is that you work.
00:17:36
Speaker
But, you know there's that old adage that the work expands to fill the time available. And if I want you in an office or any workplace, you know, between two sets of hours and I give you objectives, then...
00:17:52
Speaker
you will take the time that you are at that office, in that desk, in that workplace to fulfill those objectives. If I want you to work as efficiently and as effectively as possible and produce the same results,
00:18:08
Speaker
I would put you in an environment where you can do that, but then also do the things that you want to do.
Managing Employee Output Over Time
00:18:15
Speaker
What is most important to me? Managing your time, controlling your time, or getting the benefits of you producing something that I wanted you to produce.
00:18:25
Speaker
With my HR professionals hat on, we're geared in a way of working that pays people for time. We don't pay people for performance and we don't pay them for outputs. And maybe if we want to have people working from anywhere other than where we can see them, we need to reward them for their outputs and their performance.
00:18:47
Speaker
and enable them to do the things that they want to do. So yeah, I need to do A, B and C. I will get a B and C done so that then i can be the parent, I can be the carer, I can contribute to my community.
00:19:04
Speaker
What the person does after they've fulfilled my objectives, given me what I need to move the process forward, is immaterial. My way of managing a business, managing a team, a community, a group, call it what you will, should be around what contribution do I need from that person not how am I going to try and control their time.
00:19:28
Speaker
Our way of managing, of creating cultures is not making use of the technology that we have available for communications. We're drifting a slightly, I think, off culture, but then we're not drifting off culture as a strategy.
00:19:43
Speaker
If what we talk about, this is the type of organisation that we want to be. This is how we want to treat people. This is how we want people to contribute to the organisation. Therefore, We have to ask ourselves, does the way in which we manage the organization, manage the people within the organization, or manage the organization and lead the people, create the culture that we need or want to have within the organization?
Culture vs. Traditional Strategy
00:20:08
Speaker
Such great perspective here. I want to take a little bit of a step and throw it consideration as it relates exactly to what you just said. Mm-hmm.
00:20:20
Speaker
We use the term strategic planning or strategy in organizations quite a bit. Yes. But often with a lack of framework, and a lack of understanding of execution and a lack of consensus around does the entire organization need to roll up into that strategic plan or not and and the idea is generally yes like if we're not all contributing to the overarching strategic plan of the organization yes we we have to we have to be a part of that as a solution but what wonder sometimes we get far enough out of that
00:20:59
Speaker
that focal point, that we're service line towards that focal point, that the culture itself, the culture work we do would be more impactful than us spending months determining what our our strategic contribution is, right? So at some level, organizations, the role of various offices and divisions are baked into the strategic initiative. like you exist because we need to accomplish this target.
00:21:33
Speaker
We don't necessarily need to spend this time rolling out our own division strategic plan or strategy to fulfill that because the way we're baked into the system we do it automatically what we need to do shift our conversation but into our quality of how we do that and and that's where i wonder if we couldn't make a shift to say look at the at the grad grand joe's the larger organizational structure level strategy is super important at the lower level
00:22:05
Speaker
It's how are you going to accomplish the strategy, not through your own department or division strategy, but through this focus on culture with your people to accomplish what it takes to get that done.
00:22:18
Speaker
Because too often we spend time, a lot of time, a lot of resources creating these sub strategies that may, by the time we're finished that planning process,
00:22:32
Speaker
e the landscape might have shifted and we need to do something different. And so this is where I bring in this concept of culture over strategy for the right organizational structure or the right divisional structure will future-proof that division, that group, that team, that community to be more responsive to the overarching strategy of the organization.
00:22:56
Speaker
does that Does that make any sense to you Michael? Of course it makes sense to me, Rob. I'm an intelligent chap. yeah yeah am i Do I have good company with me? Yes, it makes a ah lot of sense.
00:23:13
Speaker
And I think that part of the reason why it makes sense is that we need to start thinking about, yeah, the person or the people creating the strategy are thinking about five years from now.
Culture Facilitating Strategy Implementation
00:23:29
Speaker
If you are implementing the strategy that was set five years ago today, your mindset should be focused on what is it I am going to do to fulfill that strategy? What tasks, operations, initiatives that I have to do today to fulfill that strategy?
00:23:52
Speaker
And then you get into that. Well, if this is my part of that equation, what is the next part? What is the part that came before me? How can I make my work easier by asking that person to do something in a different way?
00:24:06
Speaker
And how can I help that other person do something by making my output more aligned with what they need as their input? Those conversations are not going to happen if the culture of the organization says that in order to talk to that person who is next in line to me in the process, I have to go up before I can go across.
00:24:30
Speaker
yeah Absolutely. Yeah. If I need to talk to someone, part of the culture should say, well, go talk to them. Because as a leader, as a manager, I don't want to be distracted from my my forward thinking because someone wants to talk to someone in another department.
00:24:47
Speaker
right Right. And that comes down to, you know, do I trust this individual to ask the question in the right way? Well, you can ask a question in any way because the culture will will tell you how to ask the question and the culture will tell you how to answer the question as well.
00:25:09
Speaker
If you have a culture which is supportive of of the people in the process and you know you're all working towards that common objective, that common goal, I know i can do a better job. i will earn more money if I help other people to do and another, a good, great job as well.
00:25:27
Speaker
but Part of what you're talking about here is, is this level of awareness for this leader that is not consistent across the board, right? We have have a lot of leaders that, and a lot of people get into leadership roles from a variety of different ways. Promotion, they've earned it.
00:25:48
Speaker
They didn't earn it, but no one else wanted to do it. All sorts of approaches. That's a good one. Yeah, they gave it to that person because no one else was prepared to pick up that poison chalice and take the responsibility for it. Exactly. That, again, is a cultural issue.
00:26:03
Speaker
Then what do we do How do we lead when we're reluctant to lead to begin with? And when we know that most leadership styles are based on past experiences and integration of past experiences, both good and bad, how do we move out of sort of a mindset that's based on untrue, inaccurate beliefs of what managing and leading is?
00:26:33
Speaker
To get to this point, da you put so well that to ask the question, the culture informs how you ask the question, the culture informs how you get the answer, as opposed to, well, we
Culture's Role in Fulfilling Strategy
00:26:45
Speaker
can't even do this because that's not how we do things here, or that's not how systems are run in this very antiquated way or a way that was modeled incorrectly in their past career life that they're integrating into this one.
00:27:02
Speaker
I think you've given us a question to discuss in episode two there, Rob. Yes. You know, episode two will be in the planning now. But for today, i think like if I can just reflect on on yeah what we've been saying is that culture helps to create the strategy and culture helps fulfill the strategy.
00:27:28
Speaker
If you don't to do something to create the right type of culture, and I don't mean activities, know, we're going to do something cultural now. Right. but Your culture comes from behaviour, it comes from the way in which decisions are made, it comes from the way in which you communicate with people, and I mean, we're both talking to them and listening to them as well. But if you don't do something about culture, culture will be created anyway, and you've got to think, okay, what type of culture do I need in order to complete the strategy that we have set for this organisation?
00:28:05
Speaker
And that can just be, how do we talk to one another? How do we talk to our customers? How do we listen? What do we want people to feel as a result of working in this organization?
00:28:16
Speaker
Absolutely. That's wonderful. Yeah, you know, Rob, but I am so grateful that through the glories of the internet, we were able to meet. I've enjoyed our conversations. hi but Yeah, really interesting. Thank you very much.
00:28:32
Speaker
Thank you very much for this opportunity. It's been wonderful. Thank you.
Episode Conclusion and Promos
00:28:38
Speaker
I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abusida. And in this episode of The Independent Minds, I have been having a conversation with Dr. Rob Leon from Black River Performance Management.
00:28:51
Speaker
You can find out more information about Rob at blackriverpm.com and more information about both of us at abusida.co.uk. There is a link in the description.
00:29:04
Speaker
worth remembering that getting organizational culture wrong can have a negative impact on the health of your employees. Knowing the risks early is an important part of maintaining good health.
00:29:16
Speaker
That is why we recommend the annual health test from York Test. York Test provides an assessment of 39 different health markers, including cholesterol, diabetes, various vitamins, liver function, iron deficiencies, inflammation, and a full blood count.
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Speaker
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00:29:48
Speaker
You can access your easy to understand results and guidance to help you make effective lifestyle changes anytime via your secure personal wellness hub. There is a link and a discount code in the description.
00:30:01
Speaker
I'm sure you will have enjoyed this episode of The Independent Minds as much as Rob and I have enjoyed making it. Please give it a like and download it so you can listen anytime, anywhere.
00:30:12
Speaker
To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abusida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think.
00:30:24
Speaker
Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.