By Thomas Dodds, Associate Director of Admission for the IE School of Human Sciences and Technology.
The Reality
Our reality, the world in which we work and in which our organisations compete, is now so globalised and technologically advanced that almost everything can be copied: products, marketing strategies and even entire supply chains.
The Opportunity
Two areas that are truly unique to each of our organisations are our people (Talent) and our culture. For better or worse, these are significant factors that impact and define our success, or our potential to succeed. In fact, our only true sources for a future with a sustainable competitive advantage are our people and the way that they interact with each other and our stakeholders. This is to say that our culture, the very tangible behaviours that occur in repetitive patterns across our organisation or ‘the way we do things around here’, is our competitive advantage.
The Challenge
Business leaders are consciously aware of this reality. According to a global survey conducted by Korn Ferry, 72% of business leaders say that culture is extremely important to their organisational performance. However, the exact same survey throws up quite a striking polarity in that only 32% of those leaders believe corporate culture should closely align with corporate strategy. So, we know that culture is extremely important to performance, but it’s not important for it to align with our strategies? That’s a head scratcher! Is there anything else that comes to your mind that is recognised by an organisation’s leadership as extremely important to performance that is not aligned to its corporate strategy? Why would there be? This does not compute.
Why do we have such a polarity? Because, to many leaders, culture is seen or sold as an intangible. It is a rather vague ‘feel good’ sense around the office, where resources are invested in coffee machines, corporate social events, gym memberships, etc. The purpose of such investment is to retain or recruit talented people and to show employees that you care about and value them. This, however, is a simple transactional relationship that is devoid of a clear appreciation of how culture improves competitive advantage. So, we need to step away from the mental shortcut telling us that corporate culture is synonymous with the rather vague ‘feel good’, and instead link it with an idea of ‘do good’.
To make that a possibility we need to map our desired behaviours and link them to desirable outcomes. We need to move from the intangible to the tangible. We need to have increased visibility of behaviours.
It has been done!
Take Ritz Carlton for example, a longstanding household name of the hospitality industry due to that extra, and almost mystical, feeling of being truly seen and taken care of – unparalleled service fed by insights from their database, ‘Mystique’. A specific mind-set for enquiry is instilled in employees, which leads to behaviours of probing guests for small details about themselves at any touchpoint. These may be details that anyone outside of the organisation might consider insignificant, but are registered in Ritz Carlton’s database nonetheless.
Another example is that of DPD Belux, and the work in progress of HR Director Wim Focquet and his HR Team – which he wrote about in the Spring 2019 Issue of Positive & Mindful Leader Magazine – where, from the top down, DPD is looking to alter the very DNA of its organisational culture. To do this requires not only a collective buy-in but also a clear identification of the behaviours they want to be visible every day. Positive progress is being made as a result of the manner in which they have enabled employees to consider it practical to perform wanted behaviours.
The How?
So, how do you go about making the intangible tangible, and ensuring that your culture not only positively impacts organisational culture but also becomes the bedrock of your competitive advantage?
This is a challenging goal, as human beings are inherently complex, which allows for an infinite number of behaviours in producing, supporting or delivering value directly. However, in appreciating that our organisation’s competitive advantage is the result of specific value-adding behaviours that our employees display, we can gain clarity regarding the road map we need to follow to succeed:
Step 1:
Identify your current organisational culture and map the respective organisational behaviours – both constructive and destructive – thereby generating a blueprint of your company’s basic behavioural infrastructure. To achieve this, it is important to engage employees right across the organisation. Doing so will enable you to develop a true appreciation of the behavioural competence of both top management and line managers.
Step 2:
Engage with the senior leadership in order to appreciate the corporate strategy to connect key behaviours with specific value-adding outcomes. The potential change in key behaviours required within the organisation and its culture must be replicated from the ‘top down’ for there to be any sense of authenticity or purpose in this process.
Step 3:
The foundation of any behavioural change is the development of a well-functioning culture of feedback. This means your line managers must regularly give fair and performance-enhancing feedback in their direct reports. This can only be given by describing specific behaviours. The question that moves the dialogue from the ideal thought, a complaint or a wish, must be translated to a performance improvement opportunity in terms of ‘what is the observable behaviour I want to see.’ Managers must be able to name and describe the undesired as well as the desired behaviour for change to really happen. To cement this process, you may consider a performance management system that includes KPIs, not just pertaining to how much value has been created but also how that value has been created.
Step 4:
Key desired behaviours need to move off the page and into daily life. They cannot be or remain abstract and predominantly absent if they are to positively impact culture, organisational performance and ultimately your competitive advantage.
So, build reward and disciplinary systems that address, either extrinsically or intrinsically, motivational factors for people to ‘live’ the new behaviours on a daily basis. Encourage the explicit demonstration of those behaviours, feedback based around those behaviours, connect them to corporate values, organisational rituals and leadership practices. Ensure that you have mechanisms in place to engage with everyone, measure progress, and address problem areas and personnel – all of which will feed into your talent strategy.
The key here is ‘enablement’, meaning things that have to be put in place for employees to consider it practical to perform wanted behaviours (tech., tools, fitting time-schedules, etc.) aside from elements that stimulate intrinsic and extrinsic motivations.
Step 5:
Remember ‘CHANGE TAKES TIME’! Be patient, build a support network, ensure the senior leaders are on board, and lead the change by demonstrating the key behaviours yourself.
Conclusion
This way of approaching something as intangibly perceived as corporate culture sets an interesting precedent towards a more strategic partnership between HR, business leaders and organisations for the workplace of tomorrow. By aligning areas and stakeholders, with previously very different perceptions of value-adding initiatives, through a common language and common behaviours, new doors are undoubtedly opened. This approach paves the way for a more human-centric way of doing business, which, I would argue, is imperative to remaining current – and indeed surviving – in the future marketplace.
At the IE School of Human Sciences and Technology, we take the science of human behaviour very seriously, and together with the power of technology and communication, it runs as a core thread through our Master and Executive Master Programmes. We find ourselves in a new world of business, a world demanding new skills, which has led to a reality of entirely new careers. By mirroring these developments, we are providing a new form of education – an education that trains the next generation of changemakers and leaders to be able to LEAD the change we are faced with instead of just LIVING the change.
About Thomas Dodds
Originally Norwegian-Scottish, Thomas Dodds has worked hands-on with people of numerous nationalities, cultures and backgrounds across the globe. With a background in Consulting, Marketing, Business Development and Human Resources spanning across three continents, he now works on the frontline of development in all the mentioned areas as Associate Director of Admission for the IE School of Human Sciences and Technology in Madrid.
