Identifying and Building the Five Elements of a Healthy Work Culture: #3
By Craig Ross and Steven Vannoy
Third in a five-part monthly series from the upcoming book, "Leadership Gold" by Steven Vannoy and Craig Ross. (Last month's featured article)
Unlocking Full, Free Two-Way Information Flow
Healthy work cultures don't happen by accident. Cultures are built upon two variables: the emotional strength of its members, and the quality of interaction those members have with one another. Wellness Leaders, leaders who build healthy cultures (Wellness Cultures), don't subscribe to the theory that "the traditional work ethic is dead," or that "you just can't find good help anymore." Rather, Wellness Leaders proactively build individuals and processes, rather than waste their time attempting to fix people and problems after the fact.
The Big 5 of the New Leader's Job, a tool included in the Pathways to Leadership® program, allows leaders to take apart and examine the elements of their culture so that they can effectively focus and enrich the cause variables - those variables that have profound effects on productivity, job satisfaction, and the bottom line. Once the essential elements of a healthy culture are identified, effective leaders place their focus on building them.
For example, the Wellness Leader, when confronted with a problem, doesn't expend the majority of his energy trying to fix the problem for the employee (or worse yet, fix the employee); doesn't waste time trying to determine who is to blame; nor does he invest resources in creating a new policy or procedure (one of the leading causes of waste) that will 'force' individuals to do it correctly.
Instead, the Wellness Leader immediately begins to think upstream. He knows that what he's been confronted with is the result, or effect, of something that was not completely built or established earlier. Attempting to fix the result, or effect variable, is pointless, wastes resources, and in most cases, perpetuates and exacerbates the problem. Instead, the Wellness Leader relies on his blueprint, The Big 5 of the New Leader's Job.
Elements of The Big 5 of the New Leader's Job
- Building the Individual (See article #1.)
As leaders develop the first element of the Big 5 of the New Leader's Job - recognizing and building individual team members - immediate implications are in store for the culture as a whole. When individuals are less defensive, more open to change, more accountable and are better decision makers, everyone benefits.
- Becoming a Wellness Culture - A Solutions Focused Approach (See article #2.)
A greater focus is placed on what's working vs. what's not working, strengths vs. weaknesses, and what can be learned vs. who is to blame. This sort of forward-focus allows teams to engage in an issue (formerly known as a crisis), resolve it, learn from it, and thus use it as a pillar for future growth and success. This creates a solution-focused culture as opposed to perpetuating a fix-it culture.
In this article we add the third element:
Unlocking Full, Free, Two-way Information Flow
When we ask business leaders and marriage therapists what's the number one problem with ineffective relationships, the answer is almost always "poor communication." Because good business is built upon relationships, and relationships are established and sustained by communication, Wellness Leaders make communication a priority.
Every one of us has experienced attempting to do a job without full information. It's an ingredient for poorer quality, an erosion of trust, lower job satisfaction and dismal results. The Wellness Leader doesn't engage in the game of telling the troops, "C'mon, we've got to communicate," or imploring that teams trust one another. She knows that communication is a skill that must be learned. Furthermore, she knows that the only way one of her team members can learn a skill is when they are prepared to learn, have had their ideas included, and their motivations have been tapped. To accomplish this, the Wellness Leader has been building the first two elements of the Big 5 of the New Leader's Job: building Individuals, and taking a Solution-Focused Approach.
Next, the leader hits all points of effective communication:
A) Wellness Leaders walk the talk. In order for someone to have an audience, they must prove themselves worthy. Think of the leaders you have been willing to follow; undoubtedly, they all have one thing in common: they were able to do the very thing they were asking you to do.
B) Wellness Leaders are able to state what's important to them and why it's important. We often ask participants in the Pathways to Leadership process what percentage of time employees are asked (or told) to do something and they have no idea why it's important. Participants overwhelmingly state this is the case over 50% of the time.
C) Wellness Leaders know that communication is two-way, which means as many perspectives and ideas as possible are mined. You'll never hear a Wellness Leader complain, "How many times do I have to tell them before they get it?" Instead, they take responsibility for knowing that the employee 'gets it' long before the task is attempted.
D) Wellness Leaders utilize the most powerful leadership tool on the planet: they listen. Rather than simply focusing on the results printed on a spreadsheet (you can't lead numbers!), they're leading the people who create the results. Therefore, the effective leader realizes it's not as important what s/he thinks compared to what those being led think; it's those being led who will complete the task. And the only way to discover what others think is to listen.
E) Wellness Leaders know that communication is never complete until the loop has been closed. All of us have experienced frustration when we're not provided with feedback after the job is complete. The Wellness Leader consistently informs others what they've done well, and when necessary, what they can do better next time.
How effective is the Big 5 of the New Leader's Job? As related in the first two segments of this feature article, (see Resources), Heska Corporation, an animal health company, began its work with Pathways to Leadership, Inc. in the middle of 2002. Prior to this time, they were on the precipice of a dark chasm that separated them from their objectives; large lay-offs were the order of the day. Lack of faith in leadership was rampant. Communication was often forced and painful. And experiencing a profitable quarter was an unrecognized dream.
CEO Bob Grieve knew there had to be another way. "If we were going to turn this around, it had to start with our people. But we needed something we could get our arms around in order to build the culture we wanted." The Pathways to Leadership program, and the tools that it includes, provided them with the means. In one year the company has seen
- a greater culture of self-discipline,
- a focus on blame and problems shift to a greater focus on learning and solutions,
- interdepartmental communication reach all-time highs,
- objectives being met with greater efficiency,
- and a stronger, healthier team identity.
Not surprisingly, Heska has exceeded their financial goals the last four quarters. While the causes for this are multivariate, Mark Cicotello, VP of HR, knows the improving health of their culture has a lot to do with their success. "The Pathways to Leadership process has become the very fabric of how we do business."
Next month, Part 4: Developing Clear, Achievable, Stretch Objectives.
(c) 2003 Pathways to Leadership, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
