Solution Saturday: Culture in Two Words
Dear Dan,
Can you address the key indicators of a culture of excellence and steps to establishing that culture for a school?
Sincerely,
Culture Builder
Dear Culture Builder,
Thanks for asking such a great question. My response applies to profit, not-for-profit, and education. I’ll begin by simplifying culture down to two words, beliefs and behaviors.
Culture begins with beliefs and finds expression in behaviors.
When it comes to a culture of excellence two questions apply. What do you believe about excellence? What behaviors reflect your beliefs about excellence?
Beliefs:
Excellence is:
- Curiosity about better. Excellence is the pursuit of better. Any organization that isn’t getting better is getting worse.
- Intolerance for “good enough”. When it comes to culture, you may aim high, but, in the end, you get what you tolerate.
- Passion for exemplary leadership. Lousy leaders spend too much time imposing demands on others and making exemptions for themselves. Expect much more from your leaders than anyone else.
- Commitment to build strong relationships. Isolation is the enemy of excellence.
- Devotion to feedback, honor, and celebration.
- Dedication to transparency and candor. Secrets distract and weaken organizations.
- Faithfulness to forgive. Excellence is reaching high. People who reach high fall short. How you respond to failure in the pursuit of excellence determines the extent of your reach. If you always succeed, you aren’t reaching high enough.
The first aspect of culture is belief. The second is behavior.
Behaviors:
- Everyone champions “better” by asking, “How could we be better?”
- Mediocre performance is identified and discussed. Leaders ask, “What are your aspirations?”
- Leaders have:
- Development plans.
- Transparency with their development journey.
- Open conversations concerning their weaknesses and failures. Excellence is never petty.
- Respect and honor for each other’s strengths. Jealousy ends excellence.
- Progress is celebrated. Meetings include time to discuss wins. Leaders ask, “What’s working?”
- Teammates can explain the aspirations of their colleagues.
- Leaders invite – they don’t wait – feedback concerning their performance. When they receive feedback they say, “Thank you.” Excellence requires responsibility. Excuses and blame validate mediocrity.
- Responsible failure is met with:
- What did you learn?
- How can you make things right? (If anything.)
- What will you do differently next time?
- How can I/we help?
- Thank you for reaching high.
I suggest you clarify your beliefs and identify specific behaviors that express your beliefs. A few simple, memorable behaviors are better than a long list that no one remembers or practices.
Public pursuit:
Leadership’s public pursuit of personal excellence is the first step toward organizational excellence. Leaders block excellence when they allow mediocrity in themselves.
Thank you for your question.
Dan
P.S. You may want to explore connections between responsibility and accountability.
What ideas do you have for Culture Builder?
*I relax my 300 word limit on Solution Saturday.
Like the responsible failure approach, Dan — well done!
Thanks Mark. Have a great weekend.
Love ‘if you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse’. No one gets out of bed and says “heck yes, today’s gonna be average!” The choices we make influence the day’s outcome. Thanks Dan!
Thanks Guy. Ha! It’s pretty hard to work up much enthusiasm for average.
Absolutely great post – and a road map for improvement – could use as both a diagnostic and for goals. Agree with Mark love responsible failure -and you truly do get what you tolerate.
Thanks Victoria. I hadn’t thought a diagnostic. Great idea.
I think the most important thing is to develop your own answers to beliefs and behaviors.
Dan what I would add to your answer is an old but true concept:
Culture and Leadership are the Flip sides of each other, like the two sides of a coin.
Leaders can help form and transform the Culture but they also try to destroy it and can be destroyed by it as well.
Culture can form and chose Leaders but it can also reject them.
When you study some one time, very successful firms like GM or HP you see examples of how strong these two factors are and why they need to be in sync or the entire organization is at risk.
Brad
Brad James, author The Business Zoo
Thanks Brad. I’m glad you added your insights. You remind me of the power of culture. It’s definitely one of the most important factors when choosing a position.
Thanks again.
Dan, Years ago the company I worked for had the motto ” We build the best, better”! This has stuck with me for 41 years and quite honestly if you value Leadership and working together or alone that simple motto works, simple and effective. It becomes a belief and a behavior that exemplifies what we do. I have used these values and they work.
Thanks Tim. I love a well turned phrase. I think I’ll remember that one. Glad you added your insights. Cheers
Dan, What is nice they are still on business and have diversified to survive! Cheers
Hi everyone,
Sorry, but jumping to a tangential point…
Did anyone read this month’s issue of HBR on culture? After reading it, I have started to wonder if the culture has become more mechanized by the systems and processes we have put into place. If so, as leaders did we trade in our cultural care responsibilities for efficient process decisions? In this post, are the elements listed the goal and achieved through excellence in leadership or the outcropping of effective reward systems and processes?
A friend of mine came to the opinion that it was a circular argument. Leadership takes all forms, and good processes are just another sign of proper care of the corporate culture. Would love to hear some others thoughts.
Wow, what a phenomenal post!!! So many of the points caused me to make a personal note to Consider further. In the ‘Beliefs’ list, items # 1, 2, 4, and 7 deserve further consideration – as do #3 and 5 in the ‘Behaviors’ list!
But the one I’m so excited about is #7 on the ‘Behaviors’ list [Responsible failure is met with:
What did you learn? How can you make things right? (If anything.) What will you do differently next time? How can I/we help? Thank you for reaching high.] We must always see failure as an opportunity to learn – to seek to make things better the next time, carefully determining we know what the ‘right’ target is. Equally importantly, whether it was one individual’s or a team’s failure, it is important that leadership facilitate a team effort to address the failure, learn from it, refine approaches, and work on the original situation. And recall / acknowledge the addressing of meaningful (and therefore risky) situations.
Whether in schools per the question or anywhere, a supportive and enthalpic culture must be the reality. Thank you for this Saturday Solution – one I personally believe should be reviewed broadly by schools and all organizations.