FOCUS ON CULTURE COMPETENCY; CXO FRUSTRATION ONLY MAKES THE CULTURE WORSE.

A highly respected CXO of a successful multi-national, multi-billion dollar organization held a "come-to-Jesus" meeting with the newly hired CHRO/People & Culture Officer. After two years of doing and talking a lot about shifting company culture to be more innovative, agile, collaborative and digitally blablabla, with little-to-no tangible movement in that direction (confirmed by survey data)...the frustrated CXO said the following, about his VPs and Directors:

“Look, I want generals. I don't want soldiers waiting for me to tell them what to do. I want courageous people who will try new things, charge up the hill on their own and figure this @#it out. They should know what to do by now. They’re either soft, lazy, they don’t care or they don’t get it. They must have their head in the sand. People around here need to know that we (execs) are serious about this transformation. Maybe we should fire some of the cowardly people to make the rest of them move faster.” 

The CXO next to him added:

"Let's figure out who those bottom 15% are from the survey - the ones with all of the complaints - and just get rid of them. Problem solved."

True story.

There are plenty of executive responses and conversations just like it, happening across many industries (it's not just at companies in the news, like Boeing.) Not blame, drama, frustration - nor positivity and optimism can mask the overall culture incompetence we are hearing about every day.

The response "let's fire the bottom 15%" was a reflection of the current culture. Everyone is frustrated. Nobody feels proud of this kind of ineffective response and our shared inability to stop the unnecessary suffering. The Aggressive/Defensive culture norms were at play, keeping Passive/Defensive norms entrenched and ruining the possibility of growing the Constructive culture norms every organization wants when faced with the need to adapt quickly. Culture is a reflection of the current leadership and past leadership. This tendency for victimhood and blame is contagious and will only further stifle improvement efforts and make it even harder to get the results you want. (In this specific case, even the new Chief People Officer was self-diagnosed as being sucked into the drama and fighting back the learned helplessness of the system.)

One CXO asked..."So if we fire the people who are the most vocal - the ones that are trying to tell us that we have a lot to learn about creating a 'speak up' culture/a culture that's really good at listening, learning and adapting quickly.... what impact is that going to have?

As the executive team became more aware of their own reactivity they realized how their autopilot reactions were contributing to the very thing they were complaining about. They got it quickly and even felt a little embarrassed. We "celebrated the noticing" - because if you don't notice the counterproductive reactivity, you can't choose to respond any differently.

Celebrate the noticing.

Many executive teams approach transformation/culture change with 1) the wrong mindset, 2) a limited set of tools and 3) only pockets of clarity & alignment at the executive level, let alone the next level out (closer to the customer). They may be busy doing lots of "culture" activities, conducting surveys, conducting town halls/events, setting up task forces, etc. But very few invest in the real work of Transformation.

The number of BIG brands, multi-billion dollar companies and business units that are addressing their own culture challenges just as incompetently, is astonishing. Many are pacifying/misleading employees with optimistic executive cheerleading and executive sponsorship of self-organized culture task forces + ambassador teams who have no budget and no idea what they are doing. Many grass roots teams are, as a side job, trying to build enough momentum to influence the executives (after the request to fund a culture project got rejected a year ago).

Culture change — the "BIG T" — is a technical competency. Most execs and most HR professionals have never had to learn this competency before to be successful. We are noticing the lack of competency, now more than ever, because we're constantly trying to adapt to internal and external changes - and its not working as effectively as it should. CXOs will continue to be seen as incompetent and/or negligent if they don't understand culture and don't respond effectively to what they find.

CXOs can’t afford to be dabbling and hacking at culture change any more. There’s too much at stake.

The enemies of rapid adaptation and courage seem to be winning in our organizational culture. I often hear that specific kinds of people (e.g., millennials, old-timers) “just don’t get it” and "they"make the culture work difficult. Often we see the misdiagnosis of fixing process and structural problems for what are in fact, relational challenges, org contradictions and un-discussables. Many of us get too caught up in the drama of focusing on where/who to blame for the lack of progress. The analysts/media will blame the brand (for being exactly what they said it was — sleepy, stuck in the past). The board will blame the C-suite. The C-suite/leadership team blames the board, and now they blame you, the CXO (but not to your face). The leadership team blames each other. The leadership team blames HR. The leadership team and HR blame middle management and their inability to “get with the program.” Middle management blames leadership and their unwillingness to listen. The frontline employees blame their direct manager and the corporate ivory tower. 

SUFFERING LEADS TO SYSTEM DAMAGE

It’s not all your fault if you’re not collectively ready for the big "T" right now - but nonetheless it is your responsibility. There is a much more effective/efficient, expert response available to you, when you are ready for it. Until then, the suffering will continue. Prolonged suffering will lead to permanent system damage.

Ready or not, it is your responsibility. You've got more than enough courage. You're more than capable of mastering this. You've got more than enough capacity for change. I think you're ready.

re: Boeing…I read the hundreds of Boeing emails that were released — they were bad. I’ve read thousands of just as bad (or worse) emails/internal survey comments (where employees were begging leadership to treat people like human beings not property). You probably have read these too.

CXO, you got this.

---- Raphael Louis Vitón (Raff) is a global transformation lead, specializing in connecting the dots between cultural intelligence + innovation strategy + L&D with Axialent.com, integral leadership facilitator with Stagen.com, innovation graduate professor @CEDIM design school, former innovation strategy consulting firm owner; corporate strategist/expat and a bilingual, first generation Cuban-American living in the Chicagoland area. He co-wrote the book: "Free the Idea Monkey to Focus on What Matters Most - How the Most Successful People Make Big Ideas Happen"; his articles have been featured online in Bloomberg Businessweek, Wired, Forbes and he has been quoted/mentioned in a variety of books on innovation, performance and change. If you are curious about his work, up for an integral jam session/ treasure hunt or interested in engaging him for an assignment, visit raffviton.com and/or subscribe to his monthly insight email: "We're Always Strengthening Something..."