Organizational Culture: Choosing Service Over Self-Interest

Posted May 3, 2010 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

To be engaged today, people need to feel a sense of passion, personal vision, and to express their unique talents. But this is only half of what full authentic expression – the heart of a culture – is about. This week, in a committee meeting of a local non-profit group, I was reminded that a commitment to contribution – choosing service over self-interest – is the other component to authentic expression. It’s like the wings of a bird. Without both passion and service, your culture simply isn’t going to fly. It’s the law of giving. The universe operates through dynamic exchange. Culture is ultimately about energy, and authentic expression inspires us while giving keeps the flow of energy moving. In our willingness to give, we keep the abundance of the universe circulating in our lives, and the energy of a culture alive.

You don’t have to go to Africa to be of service. There are plenty of opportunities to practice giving right in our own communities. Here are three ways:

1. Wherever you go, bring a gift. The gift may be a compliment, a smile, a word of encouragement, appreciation, caring, kindness, gratitude, a generous spirit, or even some patience and grace. As you circulate what you have been given, you keep the energy of your culture alive, because cultural energy is simply universal energy.

2. Practice receiving all the gifts that life has to offer. Recognize, and look for all the ways that people you work and live with are conspiring to help you. Take time to experience the beauty of a sunset, a spring flower, the sound of birds singing, a child in love with life, the wisdom of an elder, or the attempt of a colleague to bring excellence to a project. There are gifts all around us every day, if we just s-l-o-w d-o-w-n long enough to notice. And what you notice, you focus on, and what you focus on grows. Try it.

3. Be a giver, not a taker. There appears to be two kinds of people in the world: those who help, and those who hinder; those who give and those who take; those who lift, and those who lean; those who contribute, and those who consume. Which kind of person will you decide to be? Make a commitment to look, each day, for opportunities to support others, to contribute in some way to making the world around you a better place by your presence, to choose service over self-interest.

Categories: Leadership and Culture, Organizational Culture
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Creating A Remarkable Culture: Learning To Lead Without A Title

Posted April 25, 2010 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

Do you work in a culture that you would call “remarkable?” Are you depending on someone else to make it remarkable, or do you take ownership to create a remarkable culture in the area where you work and can influence?The title of this blog is the title of some of my most recent presentations and workshops. Here are some of the key messages I have been giving to organizations these days:

Building resilient, vibrant organizational cultures is about building leadership capacity at every level and in every position. I define leadership as the capacity of human beings to shape and create a new future by inspiring and engaging others. Leadership is what transforms mediocrity into greatness.

You don’t get promoted to leadership. Leadership is about presence, not position. It’s not a title; it’s a decision. Every person in your organization is a potential leader.

Growing and developing the leadership talent of every single person throughout your organization is your greatest competitive advantage in a turbulent economy.

Learning to lead without a title is the responsibility of every employee.

I love what Dr. Martin Luther King said about personal leadership:

“If a person is called to be a street sweeper, they should sweep streets as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare poetry. They should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did their job well.’”

Even if you have a title, you have to learn to lead without one. One of my clients is very wise. Before he promotes someone into a leadership position, he assesses their leadership capacity by inviting them to work in a nonprofit organization (of their choice) for six months, to see how well they influence with no positional power. “If you can’t lead volunteers, you’ll never be able to lead with a title,” he proposes. Not a bad philosophy.

How do you help people in your organization – with or without positional power – develop their leadership capacity? I’d love to get your thoughts on this.

Categories: Leadership and Culture, Organizational Culture
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Protecting Your Talent – The New Challenge For Organizations

Posted April 19, 2010 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

As the economy turns, how do you protect your talent asset? After eighteen months of layoffs, wage freezes, and increased workloads, employees are feeling tired and disheartened, ready to jump ship for better opportunities. According to a recent survey by Right Management Inc, six in ten employees intend to pursue new job opportunities somewhere else in 2010, and another 21 percent say “maybe” and are already networking toward it.

This is a time you have to be conscious of and commit to re-earning trust. Even your engaged workers are aware of opportunities elsewhere, and your best employees are mobile. People are always attracted by career development opportunities, attaining work/life balance, or working for a creative culture. If leadership doesn’t provide these things, then workers will seek them elsewhere. Although there is a sense of entitlement with these demands, the good news is that this pressure can push our organizations to be better places to work.

How are smart employers going to inspire workers to stay and be engaged?

By being in touch with employees. Here are a few ways to establish and rebuild trust.

1.       Pay attention to your top performers – those that you want to keep – and don’t take them for granted:

  • Provide meaningful work. Restate the organization’s vision and how the contribution of these leaders – regardless of their position – is connected to the overall organizational goals.
  • Seek their input on how they feel about their job, management, and the organization itself.
  • Find out what they need to move from being worried to being completely engaged. Listen carefully to their ideas for making this a better place.
  • Support them to determine their future goals and highest aspirations, what matters most to them, and provide action plans to help them reach those goals.
  • Help them take on responsibilities that are aligned with their talents and passion.
  • Recognize your key people. Make it a point to let them know how much they are valued and how much value they bring.

2.     Be transparent:

  • Share corporate and financial information at monthly meetings.
  • Have “up close and personal” sessions, giving staff company news and updates, and allow time to field questions on any topic, from the organization’s growth to their vacation plans.
  • Let people know where you stand and why decisions are being made and enlist their input.
  • Get your key employees involved in critical decisions and discussions wherever possible. Help them feel they are a part of something and are needed to succeed.

3.     Ramp up your commitment to mentoring, and ensure that people are getting the support they need to succeed, grow, and develop pride.

  • Expose your best employees to senior leadership through opportunities for mentoring.
  • Consider job rotations to give employees experience in other areas.
  • Allow high-potential workers to handle special projects or work on high-potential accounts. Support your best people to take risks.

4.     Reconsider rewards. If your company was forced to implement pay cuts or a wage freeze that you can’t afford to reinstate, find other ways to compensate staff: days off, flexible working hours, or even product discounts. Get to know what motivates individuals, and do what you can to show your commitment to them.

Remember that your best people are the ones that can always get a job anywhere, but if they trust you to have their best interests at heart, they will be committed to the organization. More than anything, people want to belong and contribute to something that is lasting. The payoff is that as you see signs of life in the economy, you will see signs of life in your employees. It is inspiring to have people wanting to step up rather than step out.

Categories: Leadership and Culture, Organizational Culture
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The Art of Building A Strong Culture

Posted April 4, 2010 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

Learning to build a culture is an art, and you can master building a culture if you are willing to invest the time and energy. The practice of any art, whether it’s music, carpentry, or athletics, requires four practices: First is discipline. To become good at something, you must undertake it in a disciplined way. Anything you do only if “you’re in the mood,” may be a nice hobby, but you’ll never become a master at it.

The second practice is concentration. Paradoxically, what you need to concentrate on to build a culture – which is about connection to others – is self-reflection: connection with yourself. If you want a better culture where you live or work start by developing a mediation practice or a practice of mindfulness. Make it a daily discipline  to go inside and listen to your needs, desires, and values. Make time for a spiritual discipline to pray, or create a community of people around you to share your life with, or  simply take time to think and reflect. Make any one of these practices a concentrated discipline, and you will see a significant change in your culture in a matter of weeks.

The third practice is patience. Anyone who has ever tried to master an art knows that patience is necessary to achieve anything. Patience is difficult in a society that demands instant gratification and speed, but without patience and perseverance, mastery remains illusive. To build a culture we must be patient with ourselves and with others. There is no prescription or quick fix to a better culture. An apprentice in carpentry must learn to be patient while learning to plane wood. A piano student begins by practicing scales. The apprentice in the art of culture learns by being still and listening to the voice inside and then learning to overcome self-centeredness, realizing that building a better culture begins with building a better you.

A fourth practice is that you must make it a priority in your life. When you make culture – the environment and key relationships in your life – a priority and then create concentrated practices around connecting with yourself and others while maintaining patience, you won’t just have a better culture, a better environment to live and work in. You’ll have a better life.

What practices do you incorporate into your life and how does these practices impact the environments where you live and work?

Categories: Cultural Transformation, Leadership and Culture, Organizational Culture
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Employee Engagement Surveys: The Newspaper Is Not The Whole Story

Posted March 7, 2010 By David Irvine and has 2 comments.

I’m not against employee engagements surveys. I’m just not in favor or our over-reliance on them for an accurate picture of what’s really going in a culture. Reading your employee engagement surveys is like reading a newspaper or watching the news. It’s interesting, but it’s not the whole picture. It’s a small spectrum of what’s happening. You get a sense of what’s going on, but you always have to go further if you want an accurate picture. There are very reputable organizations, like Hewitt Associates for example, that help provide a rigorous outside perspective of  your culture. Here are some suggestions for getting a more accurate, complete temperature reading of your culture:

1. Don’t rely on surveys alone to do the job. You also have to get out of your office, wander around, and be in touch with people. Ask people how they’re doing. Ask people what they need. And then listen to what they’re saying. If you use the excuse that “people aren’t honest with you when you do that,” that’s a good indication you haven’t been out of your office enough to build trust. Tom Peters had it right three decades ago when he wrote “In Search of Excellence.” Leaders need to be out of their office about 50% of the time or they just aren’t leading.

2. Shorten your surveys. People are getting surveyed out. I’ve seen employees answer low because they are angry about having to do so many surveys! Dr. Theresa M. Welbourne (www.eepulse.com) is designing employee engagement and 360 Feedback surveys that take three minutes to complete. I believe that you can get pretty much all the information you need in about three minutes. Dr. Welborne might just be on to something.

3. You don’t have to survey everyone to get an accurate picture. Television ratings are not determined by calling every single person watching TV. Pick a good cross section of people to survey and give people a break. Switch it up so you aren’t surveying the same people every time you hand out a survey.

4. Never ask a question about something you don’t know how to fix and/or you aren’t prepared to fix. Every survey question implies a promise that  you are going to take action based on the answers you get. And if you break that promise, things will get ugly. I like Mark Murphy’s (Leadership IQ) experiment as an example of how this works. Tonight at home, make some popcorn. Then ask your spouse if they want some and when they say “yes” just ignore them. Now multiply that by a few thousand and you’ll see what we’re talking about.

What’s your experience with employee engagement surveys? I’m open for learning.

Categories: Leadership and Culture, Organizational Culture
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Organizational Culture and The Shadow

Posted February 19, 2010 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

Not long ago I was hired by a church to help them with their culture. On the surface, the environment was lovely. People were very friendly and polite. Everyone talked about the sense of “family” that was highlighted on their value statements that hung in the sanctuary. Parishioners made a point, when I first met them, of talking to me about the strong “spirit” that they felt in the place.

But no one could put their finger on why attendance was dropping. As I hung around and started to really know people, a different conversation emerged. People started to open up about how the pastor was unapproachable, it was feeling like a hierarchy and losing it’s openness, the very reason most people originally came to this particular congregation. The toughest part was that there was no place to surface these concerns honestly because everyone felt that everyone else thought the culture was fine, which resulted in a fear of being honest. No one wanted to rock the boat. Genuineness was being replaced by politeness, and was turning into dishonesty, which was blocking the needed energy to sustain a great culture.

There are always at least two kinds of cultures existing in an organization: 1) the Visible Culture (e.g. the artifacts, espoused values, formal hierarchy, lines of authority) and 2) the Real Culture (e.g. the actual experience of working there, the stuff that goes on in the hallways and coffee conversations, the rumor mill, the informal procedures for getting things done).

Within the real culture lies the “shadow,” the hidden aspect where the culture’s creativity, wisdom, and interconnection are waiting to emerge. It is, after all, where a good deal of the real work — the work that means something — happens. While the visible culture is often focused on procedures, policies, job descriptions, and routines, the shadow system has few rules or constraints. Any good leader knows that to have lasting impact on the organization, you have to listen to the shadow. You have to make time to get down to the cafeteria or the places where people take their breaks and talk about what matters most. You have to listen to the hidden network. If you try to battle against the shadow by attempting to “overcome resistance” without respecting the shadow or pretending that it’s not there, it will eventually go underground and sabotage any opportunity for growth.

Wise and authentic leaders will not try to fight the shadow, but rather recognize it for what it is: a natural – and vital – part of the larger system. Leaders that have not faced their own shadow will avoid the darker side of their organization by hiding in their office, suppressing honesty, choosing polite affiliation over genuine alignment, or develop an over-dependence on surveys to assess the temperature of the culture.

But suppressing the shadow or pretending it’s not there is done at your own peril. The shadow will always come out. If it’s not allowed to surface directly, it will contaminate the system in the form of resistance, complaining, sabotaging new initiatives, exiting, disengagement, and apathy.

Alternatively, by acknowledging the shadow and allowing it to surface in open, respectful, responsible conversations, you can contain it without suppressing it and channel it into creative problem solving, genuine engagement, and renewed, focused commitment. The first step to healing is acknowledgement. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

I’d love to hear about your experience with the shadow, and constructive ways you improved your workplace by facing the darker side of your organizational nature.

Categories: Leadership and Culture, Organizational Culture
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Passion, Culture, and Commitment

Posted February 14, 2010 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

Valentine’s Day and the start of the winter Olympics has me thinking about passion. Yes, there is lustful passion, but I’m thinking of the passion that inspires people to bring their whole self to their work. You certainly see passion in an Olympic athlete who has devoted their life to mastering a sport. I learned from my father that it’s a lot easier to be disciplined and accountable if you have a passion. For example, when you are lying in bed debating whether you should get  up to exercise it’s a lot easier if your goal is to be an Olympian. Then you have a reason to be disciplined. You are working for a higher purpose that inspires you.

So, in the work of building an engaged organizational culture, how important is passion? I think it’s very important, but I don’t believe you have to find passion in every task. I’ve met hard working janitors that don’t  find passion in cleaning up other people’s messes and I know stay-at-home parents that don’t find a lot of passion in changing diapers or washing clothes. When I was a competitive distance runner, I was passionate about the sport, but I wasn’t necessarily passionate about every one of my workouts. Sometimes it was just painful and hard work. The same is true about being a CEO. Inspired by the results that my clients experience and the work I do, I am not passionate about every aspect of the “job.”  While some are blessed to experience passion in their work (we call that a vocation), for others, their passion lies away from their work (we call that a fulfilling job). Both are valid.

I think it’s unrealistic and even dangerous to think that you have to be passionate about everything you do in order to feel “authentic” or true to yourself. The expectation that you always have to find passion in every responsibility can lead to narcissism, disenchantment, and self-centered resentment. Anyone that’s been married longer than 2 weeks understands this. The real work of marriage begins when the passion wains. Then you discover the true meaning of character and commitment: extending yourself for the greater good – even when the passion isn’t evident.

So how do you ignite energy and engage people in the midst of drudgery? Two ways: first, by connecting with a higher purpose, a vision that provides a strong enough reason for doing the task, and second, by connecting with talent. Both fuel passion and thus engage people. Passion is important in any relationship but it doesn’t necessarily have to come in the nature of the task. It can come with a strong enough reason to perform the task. Passion comes when you connect a task with the context of your life. For an athlete, passion comes in the dream and satisfaction that the tough, lonely workout is taking you toward the vision. It comes in a marriage when you realize that you are serving a more important goal than immediate self-gratification. It comes in a job when you connect the accomplishment of that job with a purpose that matters to you – at work or at home.

Organizations are the stewards of people’s passion and talent, and leadership is about creating an environment where people are inspired to participate with their full selves. This happens when we find out what matters most to people and then support them to experience their day-t0-day jobs as a tool to make it happen. When you are able to maintain this kind of perspective, you don’t just get committed, loyal employees and a better workplace, you get a meaningful life.

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Gratitude in a Culture of Complaint

Posted February 7, 2010 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

Below is a letter to the editor I submitted to Canada’s Macleans magazine this week in response to an article in the February 8th edition.

Nancy MacDonald (The War On The Civil Service, Feb 8., 2010) makes an important contribution to the current public service reality in Canada. As an organizational development consultant in the both the public and private arenas, I, too, have witnessed the discouragement that is rampant in the public sector. Yet, in spite of often working under a lack of political and societal support, I have seen mediocrity transformed into greatness at every level of the public service. Make no mistake: the majority of civil servants care. They care about their work, and they care about Canada. I have met many leaders in government who are more than qualified to work in the private sector for a greater financial return, but, driven by public service values, will not waver in their determination to serve the public good. In this culture of complaint, it’s too easy to take for granted the quality of life that the citizens of Canada experience largely because of the quality of our public service. Maybe our problem is that most of us have simply had it too easy. If we care about Canada, we better care about our civil servants. Whether it’s the clerk behind the desk where we pick up our passport, or the RCMP officer who is laying her life on the line so we can sleep at night, or a social service agent tirelessly attending to the needs of neglected children, it would do each of us good to replace entitlement with gratitude. And in the process, we would be doing our part to contribute to a more civil society. Our focus, after all, on “those people,” is a defense against our own responsibility. There is a strong correlation between well-performing democracies and economics and a strong public service. History informs us of this.

Categories: Cultural Transformation, Leadership and Culture, Organizational Culture
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Culture and Leadership – At Every Level

Posted January 31, 2010 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

Last summer I made a clear intention to re-focus my work on organizational culture. It’s amazing what I have been learning since  then. I have been meeting some incredibly wise people who are doing life-changing work in their cultures. Not only am I working with and learning from some amazing executives about how to create aligned, engaged cultures in their companies, I’m also learning from school teachers how they build a culture in a classroom by engaging students. This week I worked with a group of entrepreneurs and we talked about building a culture in their teams by getting clear about everyone’s values, dreams, and goals, and aligning their business with each person’s strengths and talents.

Not only does culture reside within us as individuals, but it is also the hidden force that drives our behavior between us – both inside and outside our organizations. Each of the cultures we are part of – our families, our workplace, our communities, our churches – are part of us and impact us, just as we impact them. In every environment, whether we are aware of it or not, we function as “leaders” in that we not only reinforce and act as a part of the present culture, but actually are creating (consciously or unconsciously) the culture we live in. This interplay of culture creation demonstrates an interdependency between culture and leadership – at every level. It is, therefore, not enough that the CEO and top executive group  be concerned about and manage the “corporate culture.” Leaders at every level of the organization must recognize that they have a role in creating and evolving the subcultures in their parts of the organization. Deciding that you are creating the culture where you live and work – and therefore you are the one to step into healing it – is the ultimate act of accountability.

I’ve been receiving some wonderful emails about people’s experience of building a culture at any and every level. I’ve learned that culture begins to be strengthened when you get away from your computer and go where people are doing the work. Culture is about being in touch, listening, and really tuning in. I’d love to hear what culture means to you and what you do within your sphere of influence to build a culture.

Categories: Organizational Culture
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Authentic Leadership, Haiti, And The Compassionate Heart

Posted January 22, 2010 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

I have been deeply moved these past several days by the Haiti situation. The unfathomable tragedy that this country has faced, combined with the enormous compassion of the world to reach out and help has been a profound experience. Even though there is so little any one of us in our comfortable homes in North America can do to make a difference, we can all allow this experience to open our compassionate hearts and find ways to bring more gratitude and caring to our lives. Taking time to let life touch us isn’t the same as wallowing in front of the television, numbing ourselves with the drama of CNN images. But it is important to make room to be moved, to connect with, and respond to those that matter most in our lives.

If leaders today want to build engaging cultures with loyal employees and customers, they need to deepen their presence in order to reach those they serve (yes, serve). You need to be real. You need to be authentic. One way to do that is to let life touch you. Don’t deny the reality of the entire spectrum of the human experience. If we move too quickly through life, protecting ourselves from the enormous pain and joy of being alive, we will soon find ourselves unprepared to deal with the demands of being the kind of leaders it takes to inspire and reach the human heart. After all, leadership starts from within. Whether its the death of a loved one, or simply allowing a movie to fully bring us to tears, life is a continual teacher, taking us deeper and deeper into our essence.

A question for reflection… How has allowing life to touch you made you a better person and thus more capable of serving with a compassionate and clear heart?

Categories: Leadership and Culture, Organizational Culture
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