Battling Entitlement | Part 3

In order to disrupt ourselves, we have to look at things in new ways and innovate. If you want to kill innovation, become entitled.

Recently, we have been talking about Guardrail #4 on the S Curve of Learning?, Battling Entitlement. We have discussed Emotional Entitlement and Intellectual Entitlement.

Today, we are discussing Cultural Entitlement.

Culturally Entitled is the idea that your culture, as a business, nation, or group, is superior to others. While taking pride in a culture is natural and a sense of belonging is an emotional imperative, it becomes problematic when we look out from our neighborhoods, cubical walls, or national borders and look down on other cultures and/or their ideas. Instead of lifting people up, it tears them down. And, for an organization, it can lead to massive blind spots.

For example, there was an energy company based in Houston, Texas that had a very deliberate corporate culture. It was hailed by the business press as “America’s Most Innovative Company” and studied by others as the firm was producing massive profits. Being enamored with its culture made everyone blind to what was actually going on—massive fraud and corruption. When Enron finally collapsed, it was the largest bankruptcy in the history of the United States. Their failure not only brought down the company, it took down Arthur Anderson, one of the major accounting firms in the United States that had certified its very cooked books.

Although their behavior is clearly an outlier, it serves as a warning for us all: don't fall so in love with our corporate culture that it becomes above questioning.

Cultural Entitlement has also been a barrier for marginalized people in the workplace. While it is important to be a good “fit” along corporate values and work ethic, many times when people hire to “fit,” they are looking to bring people on that are like them, or that come from a similar socio-economic background. This approach is limiting and according to the data, leaves the organization at a disadvantage in comparison with their more diverse counterparts. A study by the consultancy McKinsey shows that, Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely” to perform better than industry averages, and 15% more likely when in the top quartile for gender diversity. That is a powerful lever that too many companies are missing out on.

Joeri Hofmans and Timothy A. Judge wrote in the Harvard Business Review that hiring for a cultural fit and diversity are not mutually exclusive. We can and should do both.  

Another challenge of Cultural Entitlement is that it prevents us from seeing and learning from the rich and diverse world that exists outside our own culture. It’s imperative that we seek to understand multiple cultures as business becomes more global, we work with teams from all over the world, and seek to reach audience’s different needs and tastes.

One of the best ways to battle Cultural Entitlement is to transplant yourself into another culture for as long as possible. Taking an assignment in another country will teach you more in a few short months than years of study could ever reveal. Travel can also have a transformative impact (when that’s more possible post-pandemic) when you choose to be an explorer and observer of a new country and culture rather than just a tourist.

The fastest, easiest, and arguably most budget friendly way to expand your environment is to open up your network. Seeking to build professional or personal relationships with people who hold different world views can help sharpen our thinking, expose us to new ideas, and keep us humble.

To battle Cultural Entitlement, always remember that no one point of view, or culture, has all the answers. We are all trying to make our way through the world as best we can. If we can battle our Cultural Entitlement long enough to learn about our fellow human - to truly put ourselves in the shoes of another - we and our world will be better for it.

How can you seek to open up your network? What tools, like LinkedIn, could you use? Is there a way you can work remotely from a new location that will expose you to new ideas or cultures? When you plan your post-pandemic holiday, how can you engage as an explorer and observer and not a tourist?

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Whitney Johnson is the CEO of human capital consultancy WLJ Advisors, an Inc. 5000 2020 fastest-growing private company in America. One of the 50 leading business thinkers in the world as named by Thinkers50, Whitney and her team are experts at helping high-growth organizations develop high-growth individuals. She is an award-winning author, world-class keynote speaker, frequent lecturer for Harvard Business School's Corporate Learning and an executive coach and advisor to CEOs. She is a popular contributor to the Harvard Business Review, has 1.8 million followers on LinkedIn, where she was selected as a Top Voice in 2018, and her course on Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship has been viewed more than 1 million times. In 2017, she was selected from more than 16,000 candidates as a “Top 15 Coach” by Dr. Marshall Goldsmith.