Creating a High Performance Culture

by Mike Figliuolo

Welcome

by Mike Figliuolo

Welcome text

Have you ever seen one of those companies that deliver amazing results all the time? Do you have friends who say they love going to work and thoroughly enjoy the people they work with? Have you ever wanted to build an organization like that? But you don't know how. I'm Mike Figliuolo, managing director at thoughtLEADERS, and I would like to help you build a high performance culture. In my years of working with some of the best companies out there, I've learned what differentiates the truly great ones. In this course, I'll cover setting direction for your organization, communicating the culture, organizing your team to support the culture, managing performance, and living the culture every day. I'll share actionable tips and stories that'll bring this topic to life. These techniques should give you a good sense of what it takes to build a high performance culture of your own. I'm excited to share these perspectives and stories with you. I hope they inspire you to create a culture you're proud of. Let's dive in.

 Chapter 1 
 Building a High Performance Culture 

Components of High-performing cultures

by Mike Figliuolo

Components of High Performing Cultures text

A high performing culture is one where people drive performance because of the right behaviors. They've embedded these behaviors in their everyday life. People in high performing cultures require less supervision. They're empowered to achieve goals that are consistent with the organization's direction. As a leader, you need to understand how to build a high performing culture and your responsibilities for making it happen. I found that there are six components to building a high performing culture. First, you have to define the culture. What is a high performance? What are the desired behaviors? How will you know when you've achieved a high performing culture? Second, set direction. What's the vision for the organization? What's the organization's purpose? You have to be able to articulate this to the team. Third is communicating the culture. What are the communication vehicles and techniques you're going to use to reinforce culture ever day? You'll have to organize your team to support the culture. How will you build your teams? What processes are you going to create for recruiting and talent development? You'll have to manage performance. What are the goals of the organization? How are you going to measure people's performance? How do you create the right behavioral incentives? Last you're going to have to live the culture every day. How are you going to capture culture moments and provide feedback to people to reinforce desired behaviors and to get rid of behaviors that are counter to the culture you're trying to build? As a leader, creating this high performing culture is something that you can achieve. You just have to make sure that you take the right steps to get your organization there.

Creating the Virtuous Circle

by Mike Figliuolo

Creating the Virtuous Circle text

Leaders who create a strong culture of outstanding performance will find that performance strengthens their culture. By strengthening the culture, the likelihood of better results and performance increases. This is known as a virtuous circle. You need to be careful though, the dynamic works in the opposite direction as well. Bad behavior begets bad performance, which leads to more bad behavior, and ultimately a bad culture. I know one senior executive who always used to ask people, "How much money have you made me today?" That simple question flowed through all the behaviors in the organization. Everyone focused on financials, but it was at the expense of creating a great culture. Let me share an example of how to build a virtuous circle. I worked with one executive who sat the team down and they created team operating principles. These principles dictated how they would work with each other, their standards of behavior, and how they were going to treat their customers. They went through their goal deployment process, and built their balance scorecard. People knew what was expected of them, both in terms of behavior and performance. And that was tied into their goals that they set for the team. As they hit their numbers and drove results, people embodied those principles and strengthened the culture. They stepped up into bigger roles and hit bigger goals. That lead to more success, which in turn, drove better embodiment of the operating principles and the culture they had created. Everyone grew and the team succeeded. As a leader, know what behaviors you want, how they link to results, and how to take advantage of the positive virtuous circles you can build. When you see bad behavior and performance headed in the wrong direction step in immediately before it spirals out of control. It's up to you to determine which direction these circles are going to spin.

Assessing your Current Culture

by Mike Figliuolo

Assessing your Current Culture text

An assessment of your current culture gives you an understanding of the starting point for your journey toward building a high performance culture. This assessment includes evaluating what your current culture stands for, how people behave, and the incentives you have in place to drive behavior. Defining and explaining your culture can be difficult, it's an intangible set of behaviors, it's a general feeling of what it's like to be part of the organization. Identifying when people are or are not behaving in a manner consistent with your culture is an important element of assessing the culture you have. Let's look at what goes into one of these cultural assessments. You need to ask yourself several questions. First, what descriptors best explain your culture? Get answers from senior leaders, managers, and the front line, are the answers they give consistent? If they're not you might have a cultural problem. Is the organization's direction clear? Do people know how that direction is tied to the culture you're trying to build? Are goals and expectations clear? Does culture support reaching those goals? What communication channels exist for discussing and reinforcing culture? Are you using those channels effectively? What processes exist to support and reinforce culture? Are those processes effective? What processes or platforms are you missing to be able to drive culture? What behaviors do people demonstrate that are consistent with the culture, which behaviors are inconsistent? Are incentives for positive behaviors tied to the culture? Are there consequences for negative behaviors? Finally, how well do you live the culture every day? Are those moments reinforced? Once you go through this cultural assessment, you'll have a clearer sense for where you're starting and where the major gaps are that you need to fill to drive a high performance culture.

Defining High Performance

by Mike Figliuolo

Defining High Performance text

To build a high-performance culture, you have to define what high performance is. What does high performance mean? How are you going to measure it? How much of your definition hinges on hard business metrics, like sales, profitability, and growth, versus on qualitative metrics, like morale, engagement, and customer satisfaction? The way you define and measure performance will dictate the practices you put in place to achieve it. If you define performance by hard business metrics, you'll get behaviors focused on driving those metrics. That won't always get you the outcome you want in terms of building a high-performance culture. The focus ends up being on driving the number. And that can come at the expense of building a great culture. If it's defined by behaviors and soft metrics, like engagement, retention, morale, and customer satisfaction, then you get those behaviors. And the hard metrics like sales and profits should follow. Let's look at a couple of examples of defining high performance. In one organization I know, high performance was defined as sales and customer retention. These were two hard metrics focused on business results The sales reps and branch managers focused on those metrics, and they didn't invest time in training and development. They didn't invest in anything that took time away from sales and customer retention. The culture they built was one of a grinding machine. Good associates were worn out. They were pushed so hard to hit those sales numbers that it wasn't fun anymore. They left the organization. The people who stayed ended up being negative influences on the culture of the company. It cratered morale. This was not a high performance culture. In another organization I've worked with, they defined their goals as culture, quality, patient satisfaction, and financial results. That was their balanced scorecard for measuring performance. Now look. Three of those are people-driven measures. They tie directly to culture. This organization views the financials as an outcome of those other three measures. This organization invests heavily in leadership development, training, and coaching high performers. They see development as key to performance, because that development builds and reinforces their culture. Their performance reviews and rewards are based on this four-quadrant performance. They've ended up building a strong culture of people doing the right things for the right reasons. The big result is, this company is consistently ranked as one of the top 100 places to work. How you define high performance will drive behaviors. So be mindful of the metrics you put in place, because the behaviors are going to follow.

 Chapter 2 
Setting Direction for a High-Performance Culture

Creating a compelling Vision and Mission

by Mike Figliuolo

Creating a compelling Vision and Mission text

The organization's vision and mission set direction. They have a direct effect on the type of culture you're going to have. The vision and mission need to be exciting; they should be compelling, they should give a team an understanding of the types of behaviors required to live out that mission and achieve the vision. The more meaningful the vision and mission are, the more they can be used to build and strengthen your culture. Check out my course on strategic planning fundamentals for guidance on how to create a compelling vision and mission statement. One organization I've worked with is a healthcare provider. They have a great mission and vision. Their mission is to improve the health of those we serve. Their vision is to be a place where people want to work, where physicians want to practice and, most importantly, where patients want to go when they need healthcare services. Those are pretty compelling. Note that that vision and mission are about people, they're about behaviors; nowhere in there do they mention financials or market share or their position in the industry. Their vision and mission guide day-to-day behaviors. They drive decision making and get people to do things that are consistent with what they aspire to be. Take a look at your vision and mission. Are they compelling? Are they exciting? Do they drive the right behaviors when you're not there to tell the team how you want them to behave? If not, spend some time re-crafting that vision and mission so it lets people know the type of culture you're trying to build.

Linking Culture to Purpose

by Mike Figliuolo

Linking Culture to Purpose text

One critical thing you need to do is link your purpose to your culture. Your mission is your purpose, it explains why the organization exists and how it contributes to the world. The culture you build is an enabler of accomplishing your mission. High performance cultures stand for something, the vision and mission represent an ideal or a goal that people can get behind. Sometimes it's defined by your position relative to competitors, or financial performance, those are okay but they don't drive culture. Powerful visions and missions describe what you do for customers. They can even be about the organization's contribution to society. Leaders need to explain how the culture they're building is linked to the mission they're trying to accomplish. They need to define this calling for the organization. Let's look at an example of how a vision and a mission tie to a culture you're trying to build. For my firm, we're a leadership development and training firm, our mission is to advance the art of business leadership through hands-on training and coaching led by dynamic business people. Our vision is to be a global firm of uniquely skilled executives who teach managers around the world how to be great leaders. My shorthand for our vision is I'm trying to build the McKenzie of training. McKenzie is a global management consulting firm, they're very well thought of in their industry and I was fortunate enough to work there for a while. I'd like to build the same thing but instead of it being management consulting, I want to do it for leadership development. Now there are implications for every word and every phrase in our vision and mission that tell the team how they should behave. Let's break this down. Our mission is to advance, that means generate new ideas and new perspectives. The art of business leadership, we have to embrace that different leaders have different approaches, it's not formulaic, it's an art form. We have a leadership focus to our work in terms of the content we generate and who we work with. We're hands-on, we build things that are practical and teachable versus just talking about theory. Our instructors are dynamic, I want high energy, I want them to be unique, I want them to bring their personality to the classroom. We're global, we seek out global clients, we build global perspectives, we understand and respect different cultures. Our team will be uniquely skilled, I want to celebrate our differences and know that diversity makes us stronger. And lastly, the reason we do all of this is teaching managers how to be great leaders. It helps us focus on specific types of content and skill building that we'll deliver for our clients. It talks to who we serve and how we help them. So looking at all those elements of our vision and mission, you can hopefully see how it ties back to my desire to build this McKenzie of training. This global firm that's seen as one of the leaders in the space. Take some time and take your vision and mission, break it down, look at every single element of those two items, understand how each item in that vision and mission link to the culture you're trying to build. If the link is clear, that's great, you'll want to emphasize that with the team. If you can't find the linkage, maybe it's time to reword your vision and mission statement.

Tying Strategy to Culture

by Mike Figliuolo

Tying Strategy to Culture text

The organization's strategy is a set of initiatives and actions that you'll take to achieve your vision. Those actions and that overall strategy have to support the high-performance culture you're trying to build. Choosing initiatives that are consistent with that culture or that reinforce the culture you already have help people get excited about the work they do. They know why they're particular project is a great idea, both from a business results standpoint as well as how it benefits the culture you're building. As the leader, you need to show the linkages between the projects they're working on and the culture you're building. This can be as explicit as having a culture strategic filter for selecting initiatives. What this means is, you're going to have criteria for selecting a project and deciding whether it's on strategy or off strategy. This culture strategic filter has you ask the question, "Is this project consistent "with the culture we're trying to build?" If it is, people understand the linkage. If it's not, you should probably not do that project. I know of a couple of organizations that have made culture shifts. And they've aligned their strategy with the culture they were building. One organization made the shift to being more customer-centric. The initiatives they included were a new Voice of the Customer survey platform. That costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. They reorganized their customer service team. They made investments in call center software so their associates could better serve their customers. They also invested a lot in associate training to drive customer-centricity. Another organization I've worked with was trying to also make the shift toward customer-centricity. This was a credit card company. They actually changed their collections processes in order to better serve their customers. They invested in call center training. They invested in new software platforms that enabled their associates to treat their customers better. They made massive IT changes in support of this new culture. Take a look at your strategic plan. What initiatives are you pursuing? How do they tie to culture? Do your teams understand those linkages between the initiative and the culture you're trying to build? If not, explain the link. If the initiative isn't consistent with the culture you're trying to build, you probably need to stop pursuing that initiative. The more closely you can tie your strategy to building a high-performance culture, the more excited your associates will be about pursuing the initiatives and the faster you're going to build the culture that you're interested in having.

 Chapter 3 
Communicating the Culture

Choosing your Communication Vehicles

by Mike Figliuolo

Choosing your Communication Vehicles text

Culture needs constant reinforcement, because it's nothing more than the sum of your daily actions. You'll need to communicate the culture through different channels with different content. This requires a Content Management Strategy. This isn't something you just farm out to corporate communications. Senior leadership needs to be an integral content source. They have to speak with an authentic voice. Vehicles like Town halls, Blogs, Newsletters, Conference calls, and Emails, require deliberate management to ensure you're delivering the right content through the right channel. One organization has regular town halls with their senior leaders. Those senior leaders show up every single quarter and talk about the culture of the organization. They make frequent internal website updates. They have an email newsletter that goes out to all associates. And once a quarter, they have a President's Plate award ceremony, where people receive an award, but part of that award is directly linked to the culture they're trying to build. Another organization runs a road show every year. Senior leaders go out and visit every single one of their locations. This organization has a Circle of Excellence award, much like the President's Plate. They hold town halls with senior leaders, and those senior leaders share perspectives on strategy as well as culture. They send out email newsletters with senior leader commentary on a regular basis. Another organization I work with has their quarterly earnings calls, and in those calls there's a lot of commentary on their culture. I remember the first time I was introduced to their calls. I was there teaching a class, and in the middle of class, somebody put their hand up and said "Mike, we have to take a break, "it's time for the earnings call." And I thought wow their financials are pretty important. But that's not what they were talking about. Everybody sat around and listened to their CEO talk about the things that were most important about the culture they were trying to build. What's your communication strategy? What content are you going to put out there? What channels are you going to use? Creating this communication plan is going to be a huge tool for you to be able to use to get your ideas transformed into daily culture that everyone is aware of.

Telling Stories

by Mike Figliuolo

Telling Stories text

Imagine you're late paying your credit card and you get that collections call and after that call you are happy to talk to that person. Happy to have somebody calling about a debt you're late paying. That's exactly what happened on one of my teams. We were trying to build a culture that was more customer centric. And this person called in because we had sent them a collections letter and they said, "I was told to call you. "I understand I'm late on my bill." Now my associate was new, and they didn't really know how to handle this situation. They thought, I can either be pretty aggressive and try and get this money back, or I can spend some time trying to figure out what this person's problem is and how I can help them. The associate did know that we were trying to build a culture that was going to be more customer centric. They spent some extra time on the phone really understanding this individual's problems. It turned out they were on a fixed income. They were having trouble deciding whether to pay the credit card bill or if they were going to take care of some automobile expenses that month. My associate was able to look at that and understand this person wants to pay, they've been a great customer in the past, and they're having a difficult time right now. They knew they should behave in a manner that builds the customer relationship. They spent some extra time, came up with a solution, and they helped this customer out. Eventually we got paid back. Not as much as if we had been aggressive, however that customer stuck around and they told our story. They told other people that we were a great company to work with. Stories are engaging. They pull you in. They're a great vehicle for conveying your culture. That little story I just shared tied to the culture we were trying to build. Instead of using empty platitudes or cliched sayings or throwing around a bunch of buzz words, communicate your culture with a story. Find and share stories that exemplify the culture you're building. Stories are engaging. They're memorable. And they're easy to share. Use examples of everyday actions and share those stories across the organization so people know what the culture looks like. Good stories have a hook to pull you in, they set context for the story, they highlight a challenge or a problem or an opportunity, then they explain the conflict and how it was resolved. Most importantly, the story then goes on to explain the lesson of the story and the actions you want the listener to take based on that lesson. To learn more about how to tell great stories, watch Paul Smith's course on storytelling. For you, identify your culture and elements that would benefit from having a story to explain it. Search your organization and get those stories. Take the time to document them. Put the stories in a repository that's available to everyone. Start sharing those stories through communication channels like blogs, town halls, videos, and newsletters. Even better, have senior leaders tell those stories. Encourage other people to share their own. By taking your culture and turning it into story it's going to be easier to disseminate those stories across the organization and help people understand exactly the behaviors you expect to build a high-performance culture.

Making Culture a Conversation

by Mike Figliuolo

Making Culture a Conversation text

Culture needs to be a conversation. Actively engaging people in culture conversations is a great way to make culture come alive. You can share ways to strengthen it. You can share stories about culture in action. Most importantly discuss how culture drives decisions and actions in everyday work. These conversations shouldn't be forced as culture sessions. Instead, they should be natural questions, like, how are our values impacting the choices we make? Make this part of a broader performance conversation. There are ways you can make this happen naturally. When making decisions, tell people how culture should drive the choice you make. When communicating decisions, explain how culture impacted the choice you made. During town halls or Q&A sessions, use culture to frame how you talk about strategy, initiatives, and performance. Highlight how choices consistent with culture resulted in financial and operational performance. When talking with your associates don't ask about projects and results, ask how well you're living the culture, and what changes need to be made in what areas that are inconsistent with culture. Make and communicate those changes. I know one leader who had two team members who were arguing with one another. Each team member went to this leader separately and asked him to resolve the conflict. He said, "That's not going to work." He pulled them both in a room and he said "Look, I know you two are arguing. I could resolve this, I don't think that's the right answer. What I would like to remind you of, is our values and our culture. And in our culture relationships matter, and we value open and honest feedback. That's the culture that we live and try to build. So given that, I think the two of you need to go off and have a conversation, and resolve your issue in a manner that's going to keep your relationship intact. Heck, I hope it improves your relationship." The associates realized he's right and they went off and they spoke about it and they resolved their issue. And in that moment, that leader, strengthened the culture of that organization, if only a little bit, and he helped his team members understand how culture shows up in day-to-day interactions. How are you going to make your culture a conversation? What opportunities do you have to reinforce culture with your associates everyday.

 Chapter 4 
Organizing to Succeed

Building your Teams

by Mike Figliuolo

Building your Teams text

If culture is the sum of our daily actions, then people and teams are the true drivers of culture. The people you choose to be leaders, the individuals you promote, the way you organize teams, and who you decide to hire all send strong messages about your culture. Ensure cultural fit is an evaluation criteria for selecting leaders or employees. Make cultural fit part of your design considerations for organizing a team. At one consulting firm who's culture is very strong, they focus on being a meritocracy. People were valued about all else. Selection to lead teams and become a partner at the firm were based in large part upon people leadership and cultural fit for their behaviors. One candidate to become a partner used to beat their teams up. He would overwork them, not show appreciation for their work and in some cases be disrespectful to team members. During the partner evaluation process, 360 evaluations were conducted. This person received very strong negative feedback about their behaviors. They weren't promoted that cycle. He was given a clear development plan to behave in a more culturally appropriate manner. He did change his behaviors and eventually got promoted to partner. Let's look at tying culture to organizing your teams. There are several techniques for building teams that will support your culture. First, leadership role selection. When selecting someone for a leadership role, assess their prior efforts and how they've strengthened or weakened culture. Have the strength to pass over someone who gets results at the expense of the culture you're trying to build. For promotion selection, make culture a promotion selection criteria. When you promote someone, ensure you discuss their cultural contributions very clearly in the promotion announcement. When you do so, people will see that culture is clearly a consideration for promotion and hopefully they'll modify their behaviors accordingly. During the hiring process when you have a consensus meeting to discuss the candidate, have an explicit conversation about a candidate's cultural fit. If there's strong reservations over that fit, pass on hiring that candidate no matter how strong their track record is elsewhere because if you hire them, you may be adding a bad actor into your cultural mix. When you structure teams, consider team mix as it relates to culture. Mix cultural champions or exemplars with young team members or with problem team members. Having those strong performers living and working alongside the people who don't know the culture yet or the people who aren't living up to the culture can accelerate the behavior change you're looking for. When I was at the military academy, roommate assignments weren't random. Every single semester we got a new roommate and there were many situations where the academy said we're going to take this high performer and have them room with somebody who needs a little cultural tuning up. The notion was that the low performer could learn from the high performer on a daily basis, and a lot of times that was a successful approach. As you look at building and organizing your teams, make sure you have culture as one of the major evaluation criteria for who you promote, who you hire, and who you have working with one another.

Building your Process

by Mike Figliuolo

Building your Process text

Building processes to incorporate culture is a powerful way to systematize how the organization should behave. These processes include recruiting, hiring, onboarding, performance reviews and giving awards. Include culture as a recruiting evaluation criteria. Make culture a module of your onboarding process. Have culture be an evaluation criteria, in your performance reviews. Finally, have culture be a category, or at least a consideration, for receiving and award. In terms of recruiting and hiring, one organization I worked with recruited leaders specifically from places that had a similar or even a desirable, culture. It was part of their recruiting strategy. They would go out and identify competitive organizations, understand their culture and target people within those organizations, to recruit them into their own. The thought was, "If we get people who behave "in a manner that we already know "is culturally consistent with what we're trying to build, "they're going to be better hires." As far as onboarding, this same organization had senior leaders show up during the onboarding process. And it wasn't just a good morning hello, these leaders had a significant part of that agenda. They would talk about culture, they talked about how culture showed up in daily actions. They held a Q and A session, where new hires could ask them what the behavioral expectations were. For performance reviews, that organization looked at your results, in terms of the what, and how you got those results. Your performance evaluation was based 50% on the what and 50% on the how. Even if you got great results, but you behaved in a manner that was counter to the culture, you didn't get a good rating. The only way to get a great rating was to deliver results in a manner that was consistent with that high performing culture. The way this organization did awards was culture was part of the award criteria. When a manager filled out an award form, for a member of their team, they had to explain how that individual's performance related to and reinforced the culture they were building. When the announcements about those awards went out to the broader organization, through newsletters and blogs and the company website, cultural attributes were highlighted, so people new this person behaved this way, they delivered these results, and here's the reward that they got for it. As you're looking at your processes, in terms of recruiting, onboarding, performance management and awards, ask yourself how can you change those processes to reinforce the culture you're trying to build.

 Chapter 5 
Managing Performance

Setting Goals and Measuring Results

by Mike Figliuolo

Setting Goals and Measuring Results text

When you build a high performing culture, you have to manage performance overall for the entire organization. This means setting goals and measuring results. Culture is one element of high performance, the other is delivering results. Tie goals to the strategy and communicate those goals broadly throughout the organization. Let the team know how you will measure their performance and communicate the results of that performance, both good and bad. For more on goal setting, check out my course on How to Set Team and Employee Goals. If culture contributed to your organization reaching a goal, make that linkage explicit. Let people know when you communicate results that culture was a big part of that overall result. Balanced scorecards can be an effective way to tie culture to results and ensure results don't drown out culture. One organization I work with has a balanced scorecard that scorecard includes: culture, quality, patient satisfaction and finance. This is obviously a healthcare organization. Leaders who hit their financials but miss on the other quadrants of culture, quality, or patient satisfaction are seen as having failed. Similarly, if they meet the other quadrants, but don't deliver the financials, they failed as well. The links between the quadrants are seen as opportunities to improve the overall metrics. For example, doing better on quality, improves patient satisfaction, which hopefully improves financial results. This client has a focus on a balance between results and culture. Take some time to look at your goals and the way you are measuring them. Is there an appropriate balance between culture and results? If not, think through how you can change the goals and metrics to drive both the culture and the results that you are looking for.

Rewarding Good Behaviors

by Mike Figliuolo

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People do what they have an incentive to do. Rewards both large and small will reinforce behaviors that are consistent with the culture you're trying to build. They'll also reinforce the performance you're trying to drive. If you want your team to embrace your culture, you need to illustrate how the culture is tied to and drives performance. Those links need to be made both at the organizational performance level as well as on individual performance. When your people understand their behavior's consistency with the culture drives incentives, you're more likely to get the behaviors you want. Some techniques I've learned over the years for rewarding these desired behaviors include things like highlighting desired behaviors in performance reviews. When you give somebody their review, don't just tell them, hey, you hit the number, tell them, you hit the number in a way that was collaborative and we value collaboration across the team. That result matters. You can use spot bonus and recognition programs to highlight this type of performance. Things like a president's plate or circle of excellence type of program where people across the organization are highlighted for their contributions go a long way in driving incentives. You can launch an associate of the week, of the month, of the year type of program. Point out people who are doing great work, and explain what's great about their work as you communicate it across the organization. Some organizations put in place peer recognition programs. I saw one where the little slip that people could fill out, said, I caught you doing something right. And then there's a blank where people could say what their associate or colleague had done well. You can use shout-outs at town halls and point out people who have done a great job. Just be careful, make sure that person is comfortable being called out in that big venue. Sometimes, something as simple as a thank you note can reward behavior and serve as a bigger incentive than you ever imagined. I led a team at one point where I used to leave thank you notes. When somebody would do a great job, I'd just write it down, leave it on their chair in the morning and walk away, and that was that. I didn't think much of it. One day, I left one for an associate I had worked with for a long time. He came over to my desk as soon as he got into the office. He said, "I finally got one." I said, "What are you talking about?" He said, "I finally got my thank you note." I said, "Yeah, you did a great job on the project." He said, "You don't understand, do you? "You don't understand what this means, do you? I said, "Not really." He then took me around the floor and showed me around all his colleagues' desks, where people had tacked up my thank you notes above their desks. He said, "This is a big deal. "When we get one of these, we tell one another. "They mean something, we keep them up "in our cubes, in our offices, "because it feels good. "This means a lot more than you thought." I was pretty surprised by the impact. A small thank you note can be a big incentive. When you go out to reward good behaviors, make sure people know what the behavior is, why it's great, how it's tied to their results, and deliver that reward in a manner that's going to drive the behaviors you want to tie them to your overall culture.

Punishing Bad Behaviors

by Mike Figliuolo

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When people behave in a manner inconsistent with a culture, it's critical to correct those behaviors early. Letting bad behavior slide can be corrosive. It undermines your credibility when you say culture's important but you let people behave in a manner that runs counter to that culture. None of us likes to be the bad guy so we shy away from punishment but sometimes it's warranted. Some people need to be moved to new roles, demoted, taken out of leadership roles or even fired. It doesn't happen often, but when it needs to happen, the organization takes notice. Leaving someone in place who needs to be removed because they violate cultural norms is poisonous. Everyone knows the person should face consequences. When they see nothing happen, they conclude you're more interested in results than culture. They'll believe there are no consequences for misbehavior. That can lead to more misbehavior or good people who support the culture are going to leave the organization. If you take swift action when necessary, it sends a strong message and discourages more bad behavior. People know you're serious about culture. Let's look at some examples. In one example of a leader doing what needed to be done to fix a problem, I know a CEO who had a vision of creating a long-term business with tons of value for shareholders. He was willing to accept short-term setbacks in terms of financial performance in order to build a strong and sustainable business. A member of his senior executive team had a bunch of stock options that would vest in the next 12 to 24 months. That meant this individual was in line to get a lot of money in the near term. This individual actually sabotaged several long-term value projects because they'd hurt the near term stock performance which would mean his incentive would be smaller. When the CEO found out, he fired this individual. The CEO went as far as putting out a press release explaining the executive's behavior was inconsistent with the values of creating a long-term organization. In an example of not taking action and punishing bad behavior, I know a business unit head who pushed his team extremely hard. He didn't give them the resources they needed to execute the plan. He played in the gray area on measuring results and making business cases. His team complained to senior management. They told senior management about what was going on with these gray area offenses and that they were being pushed too hard. Senior management did nothing for almost a year. In that time, several high performers left the organization. They were frustrated. Other people on the team adopted bad behaviors that this leader was demonstrating. Eventually the leader was fired but not before he did significant long-term damage. Do you have people who demonstrate bad behaviors? Do you have problems that have been passed on to you instead of being acted upon? What are you waiting for? Decide how and when you're going to take corrective action to protect the culture of your organization.

 Chapter 6 
Living the Culture

Taking Small Actions

by Mike Figliuolo

Taking Small Actions text

If culture is the sum of our daily actions sometimes a small action can create a big result. The regular reinforcement of your culture and values is contagious. These small behaviors strengthen the culture you've worked so hard to build. Your demonstration of these behaviors shows people you're committed to the culture. It'll create stories that are told across the organization. Your small gestures will have a ripple effect. In one example, I was sitting at a conference dinner and the guy next to me worked for PetSmart but his badge didn't say what his role was. I asked him, so what do you do at PetSmart? He laughed. He said that's a great question. Nobody's ever asked me that. I guess I'd say I'm responsible for us living our culture every day. We had a great conversation about culture over the rest of dinner. After dinner I learned he was the chief operating officer at PetSmart. He understood that daily operations are a reflection of the organization's culture. He made sure his team and he lived up to it. Another executive I know of got a call from a upset customer who somehow managed to get his extension. Instead of passing the issue off to someone more junior, he got the answer himself and helped the customer. Some people argued it wasn't a good use of his time. That story went viral across the organization. Everyone knew that this senior executive went out of his way to help a customer. Upon reflection his investment of time and that one customer was very worthwhile in terms of reinforcing the culture. When I was a young consultant, I was an analyst. The most junior person on the team. Part of our culture at the firm was the obligation to descent. What that means is if you had a differing opinion than the other people in the room, you had an obligation to share that perspective. I was in a meeting with some very senior partners and they were discussing an issue at length. One of the partners could tell I didn't agree with the perspective that was being shared, but I wasn't saying anything. I was intimidated. She asked everyone in the room to pause for a moment so I could offer my thoughts. My thoughts sparked some new ideas for others. After the meeting she reminded me that we have an obligation to descent. She said, Mike even though you're the most junior person in the room our culture is one where we expect you to share your ideas. Here's some questions to get you thinking about the small actions you can take every day to reinforce your culture. How are you going to remember to capture these small opportunities? How will you get yourself to pause and see these things not as distractions to getting results, but as vehicles for advancing your culture? What opportunities have you missed and can you still capture them? What small actions can you take every day to reinforce your culture? These small actions become the culture moments you can disseminate across the organization through blogs and newsletters and award ceremonies, through town halls and Q and A sessions to help people understand this is what we're talking about with culture. Show them how that small behavior drives the bigger culture you're trying to build.

Highlighting Culture Moments

by Mike Figliuolo

Highlighting Culture Moments text

While you may have good communication channels and processes, you need to disseminate content through those channels. Be rigorous about identifying and sharing stories. These culture moments and events reinforce both the culture and the result and performance that comes from it. Remember, this is about building a high-performing culture. You need the high-performing part, too. Help people see the linkage between the culture and performance, and to the extent you can encapsulate that in a small story or a culture moment, the easier it will be for people to understand and remember. A steady stream of content your associates find interesting will keep culture and performance top of mind. But you have to commit to the content. The difference between a great blog and a waste of time is that it's consistent, authentic, informative, and entertaining. Sporadic posting, posts filled with jargon and corporate speak and buzzwords, and dry or dated content will be the death of that channel. Keep it real, stay committed to it. It takes a long time to build an audience, regardless of the channel you use. But if you're consistently pushing out great and entertaining content, your associates will see it as a valuable source of information. When highlighting culture moments through these channels, have associates or customers tell their stories. People would much rather hear from a peer or a colleague than some corporate executive. When corporate executives do post, or film video for the website, make it an informal conversation. Have them tell stories people want to hear. Here's a hint: it's not about the executive and how impressive they are, it's about the customer or the associate and the story that they're trying to tell. That executive should bridge from that story to the culture. The more effectively you're able to gather and disseminate these culture moments, the easier it will be for your team to understand what good culture looks like and how that culture is tied to the performance of the organization.

Providing Regular Feedback

by Mike Figliuolo

Providing Regular Feedback text

Providing specific and actionable feedback is a big part of your job as a leader. It's not enough to say, "Oh, you're not living "up to the culture," and consider that giving feedback to people. You need to provide specific, regular feedback on behaviors they're demonstrating. Once they understand the behavior and how that behavior either enhances or detracts from the culture you're trying to build, they can take appropriate action. For more information on how to give good feedback, check out my course on Building High-Performance Teams. When you get ready to deliver feedback, don't wait until the end of your review. It's too late. Offer the feedback in the moment when you witness the behavior. Let's imagine you work for a company that provides services to consumers. You're trying to build a culture where you have long-term customer relationships and very high customer loyalty. You pride yourself on the quality of the service you deliver because that's the link between your service and that loyalty. Imagine as year end approaches, you're under a lot of financial pressure. Senior management is worried about the numbers and they start turning up the heat on the team. There's a revenue shortfall and the team has to meet it. Now you're walking past the conference room and the team is having a team meeting in there and you happen to hear the executive leading the meeting say, "Don't worry about service issues "this month, we're not really worried about it. "You got to hit the revenue numbers. "Just go out and generate revenue. "I don't care about service issues." Now, you can do a couple of things. You can keep on walking or you can take action. When you take action, what I suggest is pulling this executive aside and letting them know how their behavior impacts culture. You might say something like, "Hey, I heard "you talking to the team about the numbers "and I have some concerns about what you're telling them. "What I heard you say is that they shouldn't worry "about service issues this month "and they should only focus on driving revenue. "Did I capture that correctly?" And when they tell you yeah that's what you heard, that's what we've been told is drive revenue. You then need to explain to the person the impact of those words on performance and how that performance will impact culture. You might say something like, "I understand "you want to drive revenue, and it is important, "however, when you tell people, "don't worry about service issues, "that could lead to problems for our customers. "We pride ourselves on quality. "If you're telling your team to just drive revenue "and not worry about quality, that's going to impact "our quality and our loyalty and ultimately our culture. "So what I'd like you to do in the future is tell "your team hey folks, we have a lot of revenue pressure, "I'd like you to go out and hit the numbers, "but make sure you follow up on customer service issues "and maintain our quality. "Can you do that for me?" And the executive will hopefully say yes. In that moment, in that interaction, you identified a behavior that was deficient. You helped the individual understand the negative impacts of that behavior and you gave them a preferred behavior to follow. That preferred behavior should reinforce your customer service culture. So for you, is there feedback you need to deliver? Are there people who need to receive some strong messages? When are you going to provide that feedback? What tools will you put in place to remind yourself to deliver feedback on a regular basis? Will you set up calendar reminders? You could set up one-on-one meetings. Just make sure you're doing it regularly so that you can impact performance as you see it happen. The more effective you get at delivering feedback in a specific and actionable way, the more effectively you're going to drive performance and ultimately strengthen the culture you're trying to build.

 Conclusion 

Overcoming Common Obstacles

by Mike Figliuolo

Overcoming Common Obstacles text

You'll face many common obstacles on your path to building a high performance culture. Legacy culture issues, associates who resist the new culture, and processes or behaviors that don't yet exist are going to slow you down. You need to work through these counter-culture moments and issues if you're looking to change the overall culture of the organization. The more aware you are of what these pitfalls are, the more quickly you're going to be able to overcome them. The four most common pitfalls I see are first the legacy culture. This is the way we've always done things. Well, to get that to change, you have to send a strong message on what the old context was, and why the old culture worked for that context. Also explain to the team here's the new context, and here are the new behaviors we need to demonstrate Here's how those old behaviors don't work in this new context. Set new cultural expectations. Let people know what the behaviors are that are or are not acceptable. And when you see people behaving in a certain way, offer immediate feedback on those behaviors. If it's the right behaviors, make sure it's praise. And if it's the wrong behaviors, let people know why it's wrong, what needs to change, and what the consequences will be if they don't change that behavior. If you have associates who are resistant to the new culture, set clear expectations at the beginning of the year when you're doing performance management. Let people know in their reviews that this is an expectation of performance. Provide that immediate feedback, and sometimes, you're going to need to move those people to new roles, if they continue to resist the new culture. If you're missing processes, assign those tasks to people to build those processes. Make process creation and integration a result on people's annual reviews. Set it as an expectation that they're going to build these new platforms and processes to enable the new culture. Try giving these assignments to people who already exemplify the new culture. They're already passionate about that culture, let them continue to build it. If you have a situation where there are missing behaviors, where people just aren't demonstrating the right skills, provide them the training and coaching they need. Create incentives and encouragement for them to build those new skills and behaviors. I watched one organization go from a bad culture to a good one. When I was in the military, we would get new leaders for organizations on a regular basis. People would rotate in and rotate out all the time. There was one unit where the leader was a micromanager. He also spent a lot of time yelling at his sergeants. He created a culture in his unit where it was expected that the sergeants would be micromanagers too. Those sergeants saw him yelling at them, so they yelled at their privates and the rest of their soldiers. It was a pretty toxic environment. When that leader left and rotated out, a new leader came in. He said, "Look, we're going to change the culture in this unit. "It's no longer acceptable to micromanage people. "It's no longer acceptable to yell at people "to get them to do their job. "We're all grownups, we shouldn't have to behave that way. "It's not a fun environment guys, "we've got to change it." What that leader did was first demonstrate those new behaviors. He didn't micromanage his sergeants. When they came to him asking for very explicit instructions about things, he would just tell them, "You know how to do this, go figure it out." He empowered them. What he found was the sergeants started emulating that behavior with their privates. He didn't yell at people anymore. He didn't yell at the sergeants. When he heard the sergeants yelling at privates and other soldiers, he would pull that individual aside and he'd say, "I just heard you yelling. "We said that's not how we operate anymore. "I'd like you to change the behavior." There was even one sergeant, he moved out of the unit, because this guy just wouldn't adopt the new behaviors. He had too much fun yelling at people. And he said, you know what, you just don't belong here. He was able to change that culture from a bad one to a good one, by focusing on what the desired behaviors are, and correcting the deficient ones. As you're looking to change culture in your organization, clearly identify which obstacles you're facing, and tackle them head on in order to build the high performance culture you want.

Next Steps

by Mike Figliuolo

Next Steps text

If you're serious about building a high-performance culture, you need a plan. You must be deliberate about building the culture. Therefore, that plan has to include things like, first, how you'll assess and define that culture. Get out there and find some folks who can help you with that culture assessment. Spend time building your strategic plan and tying your vision and mission to the culture you're trying to build. Next, plan your communication channels. Figure out what you're going to communicate, what channel you're going to use, and how frequently you'll communicate it. As part of that communication strategy, you'll need to build your library of culture stories. The bigger the library, the more effectively you can communicate culture to the organization. Think through how you'll organize your teams and the work that they do. Who emulates the culture every single day? Maybe they should be the people leading your teams. Integrate culture into your processes. Things like recruiting, hiring, and onboarding should all have very strong cultural elements. Make those linkages explicit so people know this is where culture fits into our onboarding process, where it fits into recruiting or hiring. Finally, set goals and manage performance. Consider using a balanced scorecard where you've got results and you've got culture and you can't score well overall on your review without focusing on both. Once you have your high-performance culture plan, put it in place and live that culture every day. Integrate culture into your daily conversations. When you tell your teams you made a decision, explain why. Help them understand how culture drove the decision. Identify, celebrate, and share culture moments. When you see something great happen, let people know what it was. Provide feedback to people, and take corrective action as needed. When you see that counter-cultural moment happen, it is incredibly powerful to stop what you're doing right there, talk to that person, and let them know how that behavior is no longer acceptable. Finally, reward good behaviors in large and small ways. Give people the big awards, but also spend the time to just write a thank you note. Once your plan is in place and you're starting to live that culture, it's not done. You still need to monitor your cultural health. Conduct the culture assessment at some regular intervals, in the beginning, every three to six months. Build monitoring into regular processes. If you go through an annual strategic planning process, you should take a look at your culture when you're revisiting your strategy. So if you put in place a culture plan and then live it every single day and monitor how well it's going, your chances of building that high-performance culture go up dramatically.