You are the company — You set the tone
What are you doing to make your organisation a great place to work? Do you lead by example? Whatever your role, you are a leader of sorts, IMHO. You can demonstrate through words and actions how others can and should be, be the change. But you do, eventually, have to be heard!
Of course, this isn’t always easy. Some organisational cultures make it challenging to do this, and yet we see those quiet disruptors, and change agents working away at lower levels, ‘holding it all together’. Were it not for the goodwill and belief of these people, the sheer tenacity to believe in the product, organisation, Force, or Department and that it can (will / should) get better: sometimes they just love the work, the location, or their peers. This is all despite the actual leadership and culture.
These people are sometimes what hold failing organisations together longer, and many times I have seen the leadership dismiss them, ignore them and pass them by when they are screaming (sometimes literally) for change. They can see the challenges, the issues, the solutions.
In these organisations, there are generally high levels of sickness absence, low retention rates and a fair amount of quiet quitting. There’s miscommunication, no communication, or at its worst, infighting between teams.
The exec are often kept out of employee discussions, and are arms-distance leadership without a real clue about what’s really going on. The SLT keep them at bay with bon-mots and what look like reasonable figures — but they are lies. Whilst sickness and retention are at the levels they are, profits are down — generally significantly.
This, is not a great place to work.
I saw this recently when working with a growing organisation who brought me in to help the SLT understand how the people in the organisation felt about working there. Turnover was healthy, profits ‘acceptable’.
I use an ‘Organisational Ethnographic Approach’ — which is a confidential, informal and very personal approach; every person I meet with seen feels heard and seen — which is a huge bonus of this kind of work! It takes time, but the richness of information gathered is invaluable. Having gathered evidence from over 50% of the workforce (usual sample size for a larger organisation would be between 10 & 20%), I analysed data using thematic analysis and a quantitative evaluation method to frame recommendations — I always find that, although it may be the numbers that grab people’s attention, it’s the underpinning lived experience illustrated through quotes and illustrations that make the difference in thinking.
At the time of investigation, the company were turning over approximately 30% of their workforce annually, sickness absence was high, morale was low. On an average year with a staff of 120 people, on an average of 30k pa that means recruitment alone was costing them £1.2m a year off their bottom line.
The striking thing about my findings was the similarity with many of the large organisations I have seen and worked alongside. There was a disconnect between what the leadership beleived and the reality on the ground — “the leadership is out of touch, outdated,”; I heard experiences of misogyny, racism, personal comments made in front of clients (bad enough that they were happening!), someone said, “there’s not a protected characteristic that hasn’t been joked about”. Poor behaviours and bullying by leadership being used as an ‘example’ for others to behave poorly — “this is how it is”. I found no strategy to speak of — certainly nothing that anyone in the organisation could articulate.
They had set the tone.
There was an ineffective ‘calling out’ system, so no-one wanted to put their head above the parapet. There were no stated behavioural values, but the behaviours which were seen and reported included psychological bullying “…it’s not banter, it’s not funny, it’s hurtful.”; people were being rewarded inconsistently; there was evidence of quiet quitting; with shouting and loud disagreements in the open office being the norm.
As a growing organisation, their operating model was not scalable — this is common in developing organisations — but no-one was willing to speak out and propose or make the required changes, even within the SLT. People didn’t feel heard or valued and so were disengaged. Sales and tech didn’t talk to each other and didn’t understand the value the other’s part played in the customer journey.
The people I met were largely passionate about the work they were doing, there were teams (sub-cultures) which got on well between themselves and were supportive of each other. They understood that what they did was valuable to their clients — they did not feel valued or supported by the business. Something needed to change — and as a result of implementing some of the recommendations, their turnover rate is closer to 10%, still not great but improving.
My key recommendation was, and often is —
Set The Tone.
Accepted behaviours and standards must be demonstrated by the leadership. Be seen and heard to support the values you have determined through:
Run collaborative, cross-organisational workshops working on values and setting the cultural tone through behaviours, language and determining positive examples and detailing what is not acceptable.
Run sessions with the board and exec to determine their values and those they want for the organisation, also work with marketing, HR and comms to set the behavioural tone. I have a sheet with a list of values that makes a great start for the conversation, drop me a line & I will send you a copy & talk you through the exercise.
Follow up with middle management on their values, and support them to run team sessions to get everyone in the same place ready for the expansion of the business
Put in place a reporting system to call out behaviours that are no longer tolerated through the appropriate and timely use of disciplinary and dismissal routes for those that need to be called out — and demonstrate acting on this! People may need to be fired for their behaviours if they remain inconsistent with values / culture.
IDEAS!
Here are some other things organisations can do to involve their people in change and get their values, culture, and behaviours in place, for a better place to work.
Set the place
Develop and communicate broadly a strategy for the organisation — make sure it is realistic, flexible, and possible to achieve. It is dependent on the leadership & management across the company to develop and share understanding & defining the role of their part of the business and how each team member contributes to the whole. This builds on, and works alongside, setting the tone.
People should know how their role contributes to the organisation’s success (if you don’t know the story, look up the NASA caretaker), they should be clear on the customer journey and where each department adds their value.
Acknowledge all contributors consistently (not just one ‘favourite department’). This engenders a feeling of belonging — in fairness in this case many of them knew but what their role was, but did not appreciate that of others.
Bring people together — to co-create your future
Develop the culture and processes with your people — they know where the issues are, they are as passionate about the organisation as the leadership, in contributing to relevant change they will make it a better business. Listen to the outputs and act on them, then tell people what you have done and elicit feedback on how well you hit the mark…
Encourage collaborative sessions, with groups from across the workforce, encouraging cross-fertilisation of ideas, from different perspectives. This helps with mutual understanding, of the roles, the challenges each faces, where their perspectives come from, and is more likely to produce an innovative and workable solution to challenges in operations, service, tech, process and policies (& more).
I am a big believer in co-creation and collaboration, again they take time to achieve their results, but given time and good facilitation, what feels like chaos to some contributes an amazing amount to the business, to creativity, and to internal relationships.
I run workshops and learning sessions to draw out and create solutions from those involved. This builds relationships and buy in to the changes, it also means people feel heard and acknowledged and means they are more likely to seek others out later with ideas or speak out when they feel they should for the betterment of the business. This process encourages collaboration and diversity of thought for innovation and continual learning.
Give people a voice — & actually hear it
This is multi-fold.
· Create sessions for mutual understanding across the business (processes / impact of actions on others). Get teams together from different areas to talk through their work (‘a day in the life of’ works really well). This helps understanding of mutual and different challenges, builds relationships and should support more cross-fertilisation of ideas and makes it easier for people to ask the right person for support when they need it.
There should be an understanding of how one action impacts on another part of the business — at the very least to avoid fratricide!
· By establishing a process to hear your suppliers, stakeholders and customers your organisation will have better relationships with all three — crucially –act on what you hear. Take the time to act on your feedback, and let people know what you’ve done.
· Leadership and aspiring leaders will probably need active listening training and practice, plus coaching and personal awareness / reflective practice training.
…. these are just a few ways you can start your movement, to put people first in your organisation and make it a great place to work.
I’d love to hear your stories, case studies, successes, unsuccesses, or just say ‘hello’.