Engagement Flows From Personal Values

Posted May 15, 2011 By David Irvine

Over the years, my colleagues and I have spent considerable energy and time helping leaders create an aligned culture by clarifying their organizational values. We lead off-site retreats, creating corporate value statements and developing processes for getting those values into the hearts of their employees. But this is not what inspires commitment and engagement.

It’s personal values that matter most when it comes to employee engagement. People don’t put their hearts into anything until they believe in it. Clarity of personal values is the force that makes the difference in an individual’s level of commitment to an organization. Think about your own experience. When, in your career, were you most engaged? Was it when you were clear about the values of the organization you worked for, or when you were clear about your own personal values?

If you are committed to engage people with their hearts, clarifying organizational values is a waste of time unless you get to what matters to them as a person.

In retreats and workshops, I now focus more on helping leaders clarify their employee’s personal values than on clarifying organizational values. While both are important, you have to get to people’s personal values if you want to get to what engages them. Commitment is a matter of alignment between personal and organizational values. You have to get to both sides of the equation.

What’s your experience with getting employees engaged?

David Irvine, Speaker and Author

Categories: Leadership and Culture
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Breathe New Life Into Your Organization

Posted May 11, 2011 By David Irvine

This beautiful little blog from a public service team leader, a participant in one of my workshops, inspired me so much that I thought I’d pass it along.

“Breathing New Life Into The Public Service: It Starts With You. That’s the title of the conference I recently attended. Best-selling author, David Irvine was the speaker for the day. He speaks about leadership, accountability and well, life. He inspires me and challenges me almost as powerfully as my faith. I heart David Irvine.

Now, about breathing new life into the Public Service and about how it starts with me. Sigh. I was thinking about passing on what I learned from the conference about organizational culture and how it’s up to me to make it a great one. I could also talk about accountability and how it’s about people being able to count on me. Or about leadership and how I can’t be promoted to be a leader, I have to earn it.

There’s so much I learned that day and I’m so pumped about it that I want to just blog about it all.

In my eight pages of notes from the session about culture, leadership, accountability and authenticity, there is one thing that I have learned. It’s so simple and so seemingly easy that you might fall off your chair when I tell you. Either that or tilt your head and go, “Really?” Yes. Really. So here it is. Friends, I’ve simply learned to PAUSE.

In the everyday challenges of work and life, I have learned to pause.

On my way to work, someone cuts me off. Pause.

Someone complains my ear off about something they don’t plan to change. Pause.

I get back my 360 degree feedback. Pause.

I present something I’m passionate about and someone rolls their eyes. Pause.

Pause. Pause. Pause!

It’s fascinating what we can do within an itty-bitty pause.

Within that pause I can choose to put on the full rage and let it ruin my whole day or shrug it off and let it go.

Within that pause I can choose to participate in a boy bashing, work bashing, boss bashing session or exercise my right to excuse myself from a potentially toxic conversation that helps no one.

Within that pause I can choose to find out who gave me a 3.5 (out of 5) score on leadership abilities and hurt them very badly or humble myself and accept the fact that I’m not perfect and I have oh so many “areas of improvement”.

Within that pause I can choose to let that eye-rolling dude break me down or use him as a stepping stone to break through my insecurities.

Within that pause I can choose to complain or do what I can to help fix the system.

That little pause breathes new life into my reactions. And when I breathe new life into my reactions, I breathe new life into my work… and breathe new life into my team… new life into my department… and yes, breathe new life into the Public Service.”

David Irvine, Speaker and Author

Categories: Leadership and Culture
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The Saskatchewan Roughrider’s Culture: Just What Do You Make Of This Thing Called “Rider Nation?”

Posted April 2, 2011 By David Irvine

Every time I talk about organizational culture to companies in Canada, I make reference to the amazing culture that has emerged in the province of Saskatchewan, the culture that surrounds the Saskatchewan Roughrider football team. You can’t go to very many cities in Canada and not see some piece of Saskatchewan Roughrider merchandise. The Saskatchewan Roughriders have infiltrated Canada’s consumer market with their logo branded on just about anything you can think of. Some statistics suggest that the Roughriders sell as much merchandise as all the other CFL teams combined! And then there are the fans. At any CFL game on any given day, half of the stands are green!

What is it about this phenomenon called “Rider Nation?” I’m going to give you my perspective (as an uniformed outsider from Alberta and Calgary Stampeder fan). These reflections were inspired by a conversation yesterday with my good friends and colleagues, Bernie Novokowsky and Murray Hiebert.

There is, first and foremost, resonance between the values of the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the values of their customers: Saskatchewan Roughrider fans. Saskatchewan, like their football team, has always taken pride in being different. Historically, they have been underdogs to the rest of the country who perceived them as the “poor cousin.” In Saskatchewan they value hard work and producing results by working together. Football players who come to Saskatchewan have historically been told, “this is not a place where you’ll get paid well, and this is not a place where you will shine as a superstar. This is a place where we work as a team and where we will take good care of you.” They have, up until now, replaced financial benefits with pride, especially in being the underdogs – hardworking men committed to putting the team before their own ego, and who are known for their strength of character rather than their personal achievements on the field. There is pride in a team with owners who value community over greed and their own self-interest.

The Saskatchewan Roughriders are an integral part of the fabric of an agricultural province with a “next year” attitude of hope amidst adversity, the genesis of greatness. The Roughriders reside in a province where historically, one looked out for their neighbor, picked up hitchhikers, and sacrificed self-interest for the sake of the community. During years of only two or three wins in the season, there was pride in being the underdogs and pride in believing that in football, like in the droughts and other adversities of farming, “next year” was going to be different. And the fans kept coming because they wouldn’t dare miss a game in case it was one of the rare wins! A “hundred years of pride!”

In the 2009 Grey Cup, when the 13th man on the field destroyed their Grey Cup victory party, it was likely the best thing that ever happened to the team – and their fans. It rallied their energy, reignited their pride, and instilled hope that “next year” it will be different. Months later, Roughrider fans were still talking about that play with the same passion and fury that was felt on that dreadful Sunday evening. This team means something to Saskatchewan because it’s more than football. It’s life as people from Saskatchewan know it.

How do you explain this kind of magic? This Roughrider culture was not designed or strategized by a marketing or organizational development department. It emerged out of a group of leaders – from every level – who were true to their values. It’s an inspiring story, to say the least. It shows us that while culture can be defined, shaped, and nurtured, it is not a machine that can be built with business process improvement or procedures. Culture is a living, breathing entity with many variables beyond our control.

The real challenge that now faces this “Rider Nation” is how the team and their fans will handle success. What happens to a team who has built its reputation and character on the pride of being an underdog when they have a winning record? What happens if the underdogs become a dynasty? What happens when there is enough money to pay players to come to Saskatchewan? What happens when there is an expectation from fans that the team doesn’t just “show up” and “put their heart in the game” but actually wins? And what happens to the fans of a team that has a consistent winning record? Like the citizens of a country that goes from “hard times” to extraordinary “good times,” how do you not breed entitlement, greed, and self-indulgence? How do you keep from turning the exuberance into stupidity? Within the answer to these questions lies the true test of the character of a team, the character of a “Rider Nation,” and the character of all who are students of life.

Categories: Leadership and Culture
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Jumping Out Of Bed: Creating An Inspired Workplace

Posted March 29, 2011 By David Irvine

“Going to work is a chore. It’s just a job. A necessary evil. A prison sentence. Doing time. Collecting a paycheque. I hate it.” How often have you heard someone talk about his or her work in these terms? Perhaps you have spoken this way yourself on occasion. Perhaps you speak this way more often than you’d like.

While we all may feel this way at times, what if most of your life was spent hardly waiting to get to the office? What if your workplace inspired you rather than depleted you? What if you jumped out of bed to get to work because you were so excited about getting there?

My passion is to make this world a better place to work. Work is so vitally important to our well-being, and life is far too short to spend these  hours in misery. We will all spend thousands of hours at work so why not have a great workplace culture?

So whose responsibility is it to make your workplace great? It is my notion that organizational culture starts with you, not your boss or your boss’s boss. While bosses set the tone, create the environment, and establish the culture, you are the one who actually creates the culture. Every employee is responsible for the culture within and around them. You make the difference.

And just how can you create a great culture in your workplace?

1. Be authentic. Engagement comes from being who you are. Bringing your values, your aspirations, your passion, and your unique talents to work lights a fire inside you. Work is a tool to create and express what matters most. When you have a purpose for coming to work and clear values with a commitment to serve others through your role at work,your energy will soar.

2. Build trust. Trust is the foundation of every relationship. Without trust, work will be a miserable place. And trust starts with you. Start by identifying your “Significant Seven,” the top people or groups of people you depend on or who depend on you, and make trust your number one priority with them.

3. Be accountable. Accountability is the ability to be counted on. Being dependable with others starts with being dependable to yourself. Do you keep commitments to yourself? Do you see yourself as a person who is accountable?

What is your way of ensuring that  you jump out of bed in the morning to get to work? How do you create an inspiring workplace for yourself and others you work with?

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Where Did Accountability Go Off The Rails?

Posted March 18, 2011 By David Irvine

Somewhere down the line, something horrible happened to accountability. In the words of David Weinberger (a research fellow at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society), it has become,  “accountabalism,” the “practice of eating sacrificial victims in an attempt to magically ward off evil.”

This week I worked with a sophisticated, seasoned group of senior leaders in the federal public service. Due to the regulating of the expense account process, they were not allowed to budget for a lunch for their group, but instead had to bill it to their separate room accounts and claim for it individually. Under the guise of “accountability” their judgment and trust has been relegated to a set of bureaucratic rules and regulations.

Such an emphasis on accountability is an understandable response to some terrible scandals in the private and public sectors. But the notion has grown to an extreme, suggesting that there is a right and a wrong answer to every question, and eliminating the possibility of good intention. Accountabalism bureaucratizes accountability, takes away individual choice, and drives out human judgment. Accountability – the ability to be counted on – the foundation of labor and life – has been relegated to an organizational buzzword at best, and, at worst, a hammer to control and punish people. While claiming to increase individual responsibility, accountabilism actually drives out trust. For example, when a sign-off is required for every step in the work-flow, a process is broken down to its smallest parts and the vision of the whole and the ability to see the big picture is lost. It sets up finger-pointing and blame when something goes wrong. And something will inevitably go wrong. No system works perfectly. But it doesn’t mean that the system is broken and needs fixing with more rules. If one employee cheats on an expense claim, there’s no need to distrust everyone and set up a whole new time-consuming, inefficient reporting process.

What’s needed is the return of a common sense approach to accountability that builds trust, ownership, and a renewed commitment to the greater good. Not more extremism of accountability or “accountabilism.”

 

Categories: Leadership and Culture
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Transform Yourself From An “Employee” To A CEO

Posted February 27, 2011 By David Irvine
When a good friend was offered a position as CEO, he wrote me with this question: “If you were taking over an organization as the new CEO, what would be the first 10 questions you would want answers to?
Here’s the questions that came to my mind. What would your questions be?
1. What is your mission?
2. What are your values?
3. What is your process for getting the value statements off the wall and into people’s hearts?
4. Who are the real influencers – the “unofficial leaders” in this organization? Why are they the influencers? What do I need to do to build trust with them?
5. How is the level of trust in this organization? Where are the pockets of high trust? Where are the pockets of low trust? How do you know?
6. How authentic is this culture? How do you know?
7. How accountable is this culture? How do you know?
8. How engaged are the front line employees? How do you know if they are engaged?
9. What do we need to do to get them engaged?
10. What are people’s biggest frustrations (that aren’t being talked about openly)? How will we find out and what will we do about them?

To succeed in today’s economy  you have to think of yourself as a freelance contractor – the CEO of your own business within the business you are working in. You have to transform yourself, in the words of Tom Peters, “from an ‘employee’ into a brand that shouts distinction, commitment, and passion.” This means you have to be savvy, informed, continually learning and growing, and take ownership of your career, the organization where you work, and your life. You have to know how to sell yourself, be committed to serve others, and most importantly, do work that matters. Given this assumption, the questions I passed along to my friend might be appropriate for anyone to ask the CEO of their organization.

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Obuntubotho – The Essence of Being Human – And of Being A Great Leader

Posted February 19, 2011 By David Irvine

When Bishop Desmond Tutu introduced Nelson Mandela at his inauguration as the new president of South Africa, he described him as being a man who had Obuntubotho. “Obuntubotho,” he said, “is the essence of being human. You know when it is there and when it is absent. It speaks about humanness, gentleness, putting yourself out on behalf of others, being vulnerable. It embraces compassion and toughness. It recognizes that my humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”

Obuntubotho is not only the essence of being human. It’s the essence of great leadership, because the essence of great leadership is being human.

Who do you know in your workplace or in your life who has this quality of Obuntubotho? When you stop and pay attention, you know when it’s there, and you know when it is absent. As a leader, how are you consciously developing this quality within yourself?

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Transforming An Organization Into A Community: A Leadership Vision

Posted February 13, 2011 By David Irvine

Leadership is about transforming your culture into a community. A community is a place where work is meaningful, not just menial, where you support people to be genuine contributors, not just “task doers,” where people are honestly valued, rather than used up, where you invite intentional conversations, not just superficial exchanges.

Communities are places where “units” are transformed into “neighborhoods”, where there is a sense of belonging, shared vision, pride, ownership, and a commitment to service; where “command performance” is replaced with a bone deep commitment to courageously seek participation.

Community is where paint-by-number management programs are replaced with a profound, yet simple respect for realness, honesty, and respect for the dignity of everyone, which in turn results in an authentic expression of the human spirit.

Fostering this kind of culture is akin to being a gardener. While results are paramount, culture can’t be legislated, controlled, motivated, or coerced. No plants ever grow better because you demand that they do so or because you threaten them. Plants grow only when they have the right conditions and are given proper care. Creating the space and providing the proper nourishment for plants – and people as well – is a matter of continual consideration and vigilance.

Three questions emerge from this vision for your consideration and reflection.

1.     Who is responsible for creating this kind of culture in your workplace?

2.     Who are the leaders in your organization?

3.     How do you go about transforming the culture of an organization?

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“Hire For Character; Train For Cashiers”

Posted February 7, 2011 By David Irvine

The quote in the title of this blog is from an executive at Nordstrom, an upscale department store chain in the US who understands a vital component to culture: the importance of character. You can’t teach character in a training seminar, because it’s not a skill; it’s the essence of who a person is. As my late father would say, “it can’t be taught, but it can be caught.” We spend a great deal of time, in our work with culture, to hire and develop strong character.

And. speaking of character, the press conference for the retiring Calgary Flame, Craig Conroy grabbed my attention this week. Conroy is one of those guys who’s jersey won’t be raised to the rafters of the Saddledome. There won’t be any heavy hardware in his trophy cabinet and he won’t be counted among the most talented players in the league.

“But” as George Johnson, of the Calgary Herald, writes, “who Craig is, what he stands for, how he conducts himself, his sense of humor, and self-awareness are rare, and essential ingredients to a great organization…”

A class act, that’s what Craig Conroy is. And the Flames are wise to keep a guy like that in the office of their organization. “Hire for character; train for cashiers.”

Who are the people of strong character in your organization? What effect do they have on the culture of your workplace? What effect do they have on people’s lives?

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Organizational Culture and The Power Of Discovering Your Gifts

Posted January 9, 2011 By David Irvine

A video clip of a homeless man begging for money with an amazing voice on YouTube this week went viral and soon gained him national attention and job offers. Within three days, Ted Williams, a 53-year-old former radio announcer who became homeless after battling drugs and alcohol, appeared on morning news programs to talk about job offers with the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team and Kraft Foods and his stunning instant rise from begging on the streets.

Mr. Williams told the Today Show that drivers in Columbus would drive by just to hear his golden voice and upbeat greeting while advertising his “God-given gift of voice” when panhandling. He hopes to become a radio program director and support his children. His response to how we should treat the homeless was, “Don’t judge a book by its cover. Everybody has their own little story.” A good lesson, not just pertaining to the homeless, but for all of us who are preparing for our talents to shine more brightly in the world.

Since reading this amazing story, I have been reflecting on the gifts that everyone of us have. Are we creating workplaces that awaken the unique abilities of people? Are we getting our talents “off the streets” and into the hearts of the community? Are we shining a light on people’s capabilities? This is what a great culture is: it’s a place where employees at every level have a chance to be their best, realize their potential, and be recognized for their contribution – in the service of others. We need to strive for more than “satisfied” employees; we need to cultivate loyal employees. Investing the time and energy to foster this kind of environment is what it takes.

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