Financial sector leaders must break out of the bubble to change culture
I wrote a provocative article that was published in The Australian newspaper this week, challenging the common assumption that measuring engagement will help improve your culture. While engagement is a good proxy for motivation, high engagement scores are not an indication that your culture that will deliver exemplary behaviour. It is very possible for a group of people to be engaged, and yet be operating within a culture which is underpinned by values and beliefs that when seen from the outside, are not acceptable. There is no evidence, for example, that employees in Volkswagen or Wells Fargo were not engaged, yet their cultures encouraged patterns of behaviour that destroyed value.
Although I'm shining a spotlight on the financial services industry in this article, I believe the message is universal: When you live within the bubble of a single sector, it becomes very difficult to challenge the beliefs and stories about what behaviour is acceptable and what isn't.
Can an organisation overcome these entrenched, biased perspectives? Yes, I believe it can, but it requires a willingness to question everything that was previously taken as 'normal'. If pursued with an open mind and a sufficient humility, this process will result in breakthrough thinking about your culture and the shared beliefs that underpin it, and allow you to build a new culture. If you do not delve deeply enough in that process, you will find old patterns of behaviour flaring up again, because their root cause has not been tackled.
Walking the Talk supports organisations in facilitating the deep, and at many times uncomfortable, discussions required to tackle this topic. If you think your organisation needs to burst its culture bubble, then we are here to help.
I hope you are able to read the article in full here (requires a subscription to The Australian). If you cannot, contact me, and we can show you some of our more extensive thinking on this topic.
Executive Coach | HR, Performance Management, Personnel Management
6 年Carolyn, my views on engagement surveys are they allow you to measure "happiness" and can be a lever for employment branding and recruitment purposes etc. ?Encouraging feedback and conducting real conversations are what is required. ?What gets in the way of this happening is either fear of consequence or being seen as misaligned. Leaders need to first listen. ?I have had the privilege of working with you previously and have participated in the culture shift you and your team helped us achieve ?- keep up the good work! Helen
Managing Director at Momentis Group
6 年I so agree with you Carolyn.
Developing leadership excellence not just excellent leadership development. Well I used to, then I decided Sisyphus had more chance of success after seeing the sort of leaders the world produces
6 年Hi again Carolyn! Agree with all you say but can’t help thinking that we’ve known for a long time (in broad terms at least) what leaders SHOULD do to affect persistent constructive change but haven’t really addressed the question of why don’t many of them do it, even if they acknowledge they should. Habits, organisational customs and fear have been considered of course but maybe there’s something more or different that’s missing from the dialogue? I have some ideas evolving, albeit heretical ??. If our paths cross again I’ll shout the G&Ts ??. Travel well!
You are so right!!! Thank you for sharing...!!!
Questioning everything that was previously taken as normal in an organization is extremely hard. But as your article explains, leaders of organizations have an obligation, now more than ever to do this. As you have shown us, leaders can build the skills needed to become masterful at this. But it takes first a deep intent and then a bucket load of courage and tenacity to keep at it. Beautifully provocative article Carolyn and bang on the money.