E102 – A Practical Guide to organisational Culture (W/ Galen Emanuele)

now on to this episode.

Hello. This is James and this is Jane, and here we are again with another episode of a world of a world of work podcast. What are we speaking about today? Jen,

well, today we have a jam packed episode talking all about culture with our friend from across the water. Galen Emanuele,

exciting. Well, let's get into it. We've got a great conversation lined up. We explore many different aspects of culture, and I think it should be quite fun. Okay, so here we are in the main body of conversation, and today in this podcast, we're going to be speaking to Galen Emanuele, and we're going to be speaking about organizational cultures before we get into that. Though, Galen, would you be able to introduce yourself to the audience and say a bit about yourself and your background and what you're working on? Yeah,

absolutely. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here, by the way, too. Just this is such a pleasant experience. So a little bit about me. I My kind of business background and how I got into this work. I guess. What I do now is I work with teams and organizations, either speaking at conferences or working with like leadership teams or all staff doing, you know, skills training around communication, emotional intelligence, etc, and then also working with teams to establish really clearly intentional, clear, like clearly defined, sort of intentional culture inside organizations. So that's a lot of the work that I do now. My background is I'd always had, like a sales and marketing kind of leadership background, been curious and love that space. And then I also have done improv for a very long time. So at one point in my life, I started taking improv, like, Whose Line Is It Anyway? Kind of stuff. I just was interested in that I've always been into, like, theater, and I like, day one, first class I started. I was hooked. I was like, This is amazing. So I did that for many, many years. And the way that I got into doing this work was, I'm also just an entrepreneur in my blood and bones. So at one point, I became the marketing and sales director for the improv theater I was performing and teaching at. And I just know I'd been teaching improv for years, and I also speak business, and I just recognize there's a lot of crossover here in terms of the skills and principles of improv and how that impacts how people communicate and show up with one another. And so I started putting on classes and developing curriculum, working with teams around how they can use those kind of skills and and it was just pretty wildly successful right away, of, you know, just, you know, improv is not what people think it is. It's really about saying yes and listening and being present, making other people look good, embracing change. A lot of stuff that I saw was really valuable in teams and organizations and how human beings impact one another. So I started doing that work, and then I fell in love with it. After a couple years, I was working with Microsoft and bigger companies, and I was like, I this is I'm home here too. I love it. And yeah. And so I I just sort of launched my own company about six or seven years ago, and and that sort of escalated into, you know, then speaking at conferences and working with teams, and sort of transitioning and organically growing into working with teams around kind of culture. So now I still do a lot of skill training and development, but then really focused on, like, how do organizations create culture? So a little bit of a back. I don't want to talk too much about myself, but that's, oh yeah, we got, that's a snapshot. Yeah,

that's really cool. And it's such an interesting sort of combination bringing together the improv side and the organizational side and those human communication skills. And I think we'll, we'll get into that in a little bit as we go into some of the questions. I guess, before we we get too far in, could we just start with, I guess, a basic question, we'd like to start with some sort of rudimentary things at the beginning. What? At the beginning, we're speaking about culture. So what do you really think culture is? I mean, how would you define an organizational culture?

Yep, and I like this, this juicy topic is something of like, I have to be this always puts a quarter in me to just like, go off. So culture really, because I think that, you know, it's this kind of elusive, complex topic, and I know that you know it with guests that you have, and it's culture is such a hot topic gets talked a lot about discussed, and culture really, truly, when I when I look at it, is that culture is really behaviors. Culture is how people behave together and and so, you know, when we talk about, like, what is culture, it's either inside a group of people that are working together as a team or coming together for some reason is just how they behave. And that is either something that is undefined and unspoken, like just an unspoken, sort of, like set of ground rules and guidelines that, like, people behave within, or. So when it's done, right, it is a clearly defined sort of code of conduct, right, that that dictates and and affects the way that people show up and impact each other, right? It's sort of a, you know, a very clearly defined set of ground rules, Code of Conduct that's focused on behaviors. Because when I think about culture in this context of organizations and teams, it's, you know, we say, what is culture, and how do you define culture? And a lot of times, you know what, what I find interesting, and I think what is unique, and what I love most about this work is that, for the most part, the way people talk about culture is they say, Oh, well, you know, there's no secret sauce to culture. It's just, it's one relationship at a time. And you got Richard Branson saying quotes like that, and people being like, oh my that's the most profound thing I've ever heard. And I'm like, that's not true. I just it's so false to me. If we talk the same way about culture that we talked about sales or marketing or operations or anything else that was like that we made a strategic priority inside an organization, you'd think that that person was crazy and didn't know what they were talking about. If he said, Oh, there's no secret sauce to sales, you just, you know, it's one handshake at a time. You'd be like, okay, cool, but there is a lot of deep psychology and tactical knowledge when it comes to sales and negotiating and right and isolating objections and like closing deals. Like, there's a lot there. And I think that culture stays as this very kind of, like, elusive, complex idea. Then people say, oh, there's no real way to define culture. And I'm like, that's not true. There is a way to define culture if we focus, if we focus on the idea that culture is just a set of behaviors. Yeah, so, yeah, what is culture? I think it's, it's that. It's, you know, it's how people show up together, how they impact each other, and sort of what people hold themselves accountable, what we as a group say. This is who we are, this is how we are together, and this is what we hold ourselves and each other accountable

to. And do you think like if we think about cultures and organizations and we're in our workplace and we've got a culture, how does that culture kind of affect us? How does a culture affect, say, my performance in the workplace, or how does it affect my experience of being in work and how I feel and what I get out of that workplace and what I give to that workplace?

Yeah, great. And I think that you know this is, we all know what great culture kind of feels like. We all know what toxic culture feels like. If we have a workplace that we go to, or we're part of any group where people gossip about each other, there's a lot of like us versus them, or people are, you know, don't ask for feedback, or they're not receptive to feedback, or they're resistant or reluctant around change, like those are sort of symptoms of of culture. And so how that affects you, to answer your question, is you show up and behave in whatever culture that you are in, right? So I guess, I guess, to get more specific about that, let's say that you are coming to work for a company and day one and hiring and onboarding, and, like, even during the interview process, they're like, hey, something about this organization is that we ask for feedback. We're very focused on learning and continual development and having strong, healthy relationships between people. So you know, as you're a leader, every two months, we're going to sit down and have, like, a quick conversation. I'm going to, you know, through these kind of simple questions, I'm going to, I'm going to be asking you for feedback about how I'm doing as a leader, and give you feedback about, like, what are you doing great and what are your biggest areas of opportunity to improve, and like, and also like with your co workers. So once you know, once every couple months or three months, you're going to, you know, with the people that you work with the most, and sit down and have quick conversations. That's part of what we do here, is like, we we value healthy relationships and great communication, right, avoiding, like, unnecessary conflict, to be able to talk things out. And so, you know you're going to receive, you know, part of your training and development will be, you know, like, this is how we do feedback and training you on, like, how to have challenging conversations. Let's say you got hired for a company and they said all those things in the process. Yeah, you would naturally be impacted by that. You would learn that feedback is normal. You'd feel comfortable giving feedback to your boss, who is asking for it, right? You, you would show up inside that culture and that set of behaviors with those expectations, and you would adhere to that, and that would become normal for you. So that's a very kind of micro piece of culture. And so how does that affect you? It's like, well, if it's not defined, then, then culture just kind of blows in the wind, right? And most organizations, when they don't clearly define culture and say, This is how we are together as a team in behaviors, then you just, you get a mishmash. And most organizations just hope to get culture Right, right? It's something we just, oh, well, you know, we go as far as saying, Well, we have this mission statement, and here's a list of values that are obvious. And every you know, like leadership, executive team, spends a two day off, treat an off site retreat, spending two days to come out of a room having said, respect, integrity, teamwork, excellence and trust, right? And I can save you a lot of time. That's what you're going to come out with. If you go to figure out what your corporate values are, those don't impact the way people show up at work. Respect doesn't mean the same thing to 20 or 400 or 5000 different people. And when we don't unpack those values into behaviors and say, This is what respect looks like in practice on the ground, it doesn't impact people's behavior. So your question is, how does that. But how to, you know, How does culture affect me? If it's not clearly defined, then you show up in however you're socialized. So if people gossip a lot, then, like, maybe you'd participate in that. But if you walk into an organization, you know, from day one, hey, we don't bad mouth other people here. Yeah, the words that you use to speak about other people are positive. If you have a problem with someone else, you go right to that person and you solve it with them. That's that's how we behave here. And maybe one day you go to, like, say something bad about Jane to somebody else, and they're like, hold on, time out. Just want to stop you. Like, you probably need to have that conversation with Jane. Let's say then you would behave in accordance with those ground rules and that code of conduct. That's culture. That's how culture is done, right? And that's how it impacts people. And so most organizations don't go that far with it. So yeah, you can really impact people's performance and their behavior when culture is defined. But most organizations, I think they just don't know how to define it, because they have a list of values, and they're like, Well, what's your if you ask business leaders, like 100 business leaders, what's your culture? How do you do culture? None of them will give will give you a very clear, succinct answer. They say, all kinds of stuff and all the products we make. And it's like, it's very hard to find people in the space. And I don't say that from a place of arrogance. I think that just collectively in the business world, we've it's just, it's such a, such an elusive, complex topic, and we've sort of landed and and collectively agreed that, like, ah, yeah, there's no way to define it. There's no way to measure it. And I'm like, that is absolutely not true. If you said that about sales, if you said that about marketing, people would be like, you don't

know what you're talking about. Yeah. And so, so I got a question, like, I mean, we've talked about a range of different things in there, when, when we're talking about a culture for an organization, is there just a generic good culture, or do organizations need their own culture? I mean, what's the best way to work out what the right culture is for you?

I think that that, that's a great question. I think that there's, you know, things that we definitely as human beings and like, what makes a productive team, and I think, I think there are universal things that that we can all agree are positive, right? Like, dealing with conflict in a productive way is positive, as opposed to, like, gossip or bad mouthing or silos between departments. There's things that we understand. Or when you look at a toxic culture or a toxic leader, you'll be like, Oh, well, they're not ever receptive to feedback or right, or they retaliate against people. Or, you know, there's, there's specific behaviors that we can kind of use universally agree, like, these things are bad, and we don't want people to show up like this. These things are good, and we do want people to show up like this. So, you know, is there universally good or bad? I think yes, just by our, like, human nature and intuition and like, you know, I think most people are kind and they want to have a good experience and feel included. But in terms of, like, an organization culture, what's good or bad? I think that that's really kind of up to the company. But when you're defining a culture as an organization, right as a leadership team, as an entity, to say, what is our culture here? I think it's unique. I think it's important that companies use unique language. And maybe the company that we have is a very innovative kind of tech company, and we want people to feel creative, and we want them to, you know, like, that's a huge focus of our, of our organization, as opposed to, you know, like a manufacturing or Amazon, where, like, Oh, you're gonna work 80 hours a week. And like, I think that companies have to define this is who we are here together. So what's good or bad? I think, you know, universally, when it comes to human behavior, we understand things that are good or things that are negative behaviors, and what lifts people up and feels good or feels bad. But for an organization to define their own culture, I think it's unique to them. I think we have to say, what do we value right as a founder of this company, as a leadership team, how do we want people to show up here, and then we define the culture that says, if, if we get basically, and I kind of frame this up, and I work with teams, is if you were going to create an employee in a machine, and you could program everything about that employee that you wanted to. What would you program into that person? What would you say? This is how they show up, right? That they're open and receptive to feedback, right? That they don't see feedback as a threat. They see it as an opportunity. And so they they seek it out, and they don't, they don't take it personally. They, you know, they're invested in their own growth. Like that's one sort of behavior or mindset. And so when you define a culture, you say, how do we want all of our employees to show up? Like, what are the mindsets? What are the behaviors that we want people to exhibit here, that they don't bad mouth each other? And it's not just about how they impact other people on the team, it's also how they approach the work. So you know, if it's really important for us, if we're a law firm, and people pay great attention to detail right then, like that's something that we kind of build in. And so as you define your culture, I think it's what matters to your organization, what matters to your leadership team, in terms of how do people approach their jobs and their function, and how do people impact other people on

the team? That's really interesting. And I think all too often when we talk about culture, people talk in that very sort of reductive way about good and bad cultures, rather than different and varied cultures. But it also kind of prompts question for me, which I think I don't know I'd be interested in your views on it there, by your definition, cultures are like there are different rather than just good or bad. So. So therefore, there may well be cultures that don't necessarily suit all the employees in your organization, particularly if they've gone through a sort of change, or they're trying to better and sort of make more acute their culture. So how, what's, what's your view on how people can sort of navigate being in a culture that maybe is still healthy and good but doesn't suit them per se. Like, how could they navigate at that as individuals? To say, this culture is,

I would imagine, like, if you're working in an organization, and they're a great organization, but as they go through sort of more clarity around their own culture, you realize it's not quite the right fit for you, or it doesn't. It's not naturally the right fit for you, but you still love the organization. Is there? Is there, is there a way that people can, can navigate that? Do you think?

Man, there's so many, there's so many factors in that question that I you know, it's hard to say. Here's one answer that's absolutely true, because I think that is also depends on you, like when you say it's not necessarily a good fit, is it draining the life out of you to go to that job every day because it's so different than what, than what you need? And I think that, you know, that sort of, that auditing yourself and that self awareness of, what do I need? Is this a good fit for me? How does this feel? You know, do I enjoy coming to work, or does it strain my batteries? And I think that that conversation, there's so many factors, and every individual person is different, so I don't know that I have a unique answer to that. To say, like, universally, here's the answer to that question. But I think that the more clear that companies are about what their culture is, and the more consistent that they are about that, the easier it is for people to say, This is what the culture is here that does or doesn't align with me personally. And I think that you know that also speaks to us as individuals. Saying, what company do I want to work for? What are the values that I write? What do I bring to the table? What do I want it to feel like to feel like to work in a workplace? And I think that that gets into the idea of also, like, retention and attracting talent, which is a huge, a huge, huge factor right with organizations, and like, that's another benefit that's giant when it comes to defining culture, is that in even in the interview process, is when you know who you are and how you are, you can pitch, you can sell your organization to prospective candidates like, it's such a it's such a selling point. If you have a very clearly articulated, defined culture, and in the way that it's consistent, it's you're committed to it, right? You do culture, right? When you're interviewing someone, you can be like, This is our culture. This is exactly how people show up here. And every single person in this organization is held accountable to this you will not have to work with anybody in this organization that works, that is that will show up out of alignment with sort of, like, these ground rules and these behaviors for ourselves. So it's a huge selling point. You know, when organizations do have a defined culture, because that same candidate is going to go interview with five or six or 10 other companies and be like, what's your culture like? And they're going to say, well, trust and integrity and respect, and, you know, they're not going to have a great answer. So it does give you a huge advantage when you're attracting talent, to say, this is our culture, and this is not just, you know, it's not just a list of behaviors that we think is neat, but this is how we integrate that. This is how we're consistent about that, and this is our we prioritize employee experience. We care about our people. They're like, you know, they're number one for us. And this is how we do that. This is how we prioritize your experience in your life cycle. As an employee here, it's going to feel like this, so that I sort of maybe took, like, a left turn with your question in terms of, how do you navigate that? But I think, I think it's important for individuals to to know who they are and what they want and what you know where they want to be, and organizations to know who they are and how they want to be, because that allows you to say this place is a good fit for me, as opposed to, you know, I think out there in the universe, there's many, many undefined cultures where, even inside the same organization, you you could work for a team, and it could be absolute hell for you, because the leader is terrible. The way people treat each other is very toxic, and it could be terrible. You could be terrible. You can move to another department inside the organization, and it could be heaven because of your co workers, your direct supervisor. So, you know, it's, it's, it's different. But I think people being clear and consistent about who they are, what they want, I think, is valuable.

Well, you haven't got a topic that's, I guess, the reason, the exactly, the reason I asked that question is because I think not enough people a go into the job market asking those questions. And I also think there's lots of people who join great organizations, but that just don't aren't the right fit for them. And so for me, I think there's a really powerful, honest conversation that can go on if an organization understands their culture, because they can say, hey, this is who we are, and maybe you're great and the best at your job, but you need to understand who we are, and we need to understand who you are, and we need to figure out if this is a good match. Because, you know, just because you can't have a relationship with someone doesn't mean they're not a good person. And it's the same with an organization, I think. And so a lot, I love that idea of really getting to grips in the sort of talent process with that you mentioned at the beginning or early on about this idea of it being let's go with hogwash that you can't understand what your current culture is like, right? And I hear this too, oh, you can't really put your finger on it. How can organizations who maybe think, okay, I really want to get to grips with understanding what our current culture is. We're a pretty good organization, but I want our. To stand it more. How can leaders get a better understanding of their current culture? Do you think,

yeah, that's a that's a great question. And I think it my answer might be sort of like, I think what would be useful is for me to talk about like, this is how I think organizations do culture really well. Like to step by step. If you want to create culture inside your organization, that is very intentional. I'd like to maybe talk about that, because I think as a reflection of, like, how can I evaluate my culture? I think it's like, do we have these things in place? Is this how we do culture to understand and yeah, so, because I have some other thoughts, but I think that might be like, to lay that kind of foundation and then sort of build from there. So here's, if you're like, okay, great, yeah, okay, we have a pretty good culture. Or, you know, we have this workplace, and it's not terrible or totally exceptional, but we just, we have a group of people that work together, and we want to really define culture. This is how it's it's done, sort of this model. And I think that my approach to this, that I talk about with teams, is sort of these, these three components of establishing and designing culture that's very intentional, which is like, is clarity, commitment and consistency, right? Those 3c of like, you know, and just to unpack each one of those quickly, is clarity, meaning like, what are the ground rules? What are the behaviors, if we have a list of values like trust and integrity and respect. What do those look like in practice on the ground? So moving past mission statements and list of values to say, okay, great, we hear we don't see feedback as a threat. We see it as an opportunity, and we actively seek it out, and we don't take it personally, right? Or we don't bad mouth or gossip about other people. If we have a problem with someone, we go right to the source. Or when we have conflict with somebody else, you know, we we really seek to hear that other person out and understand where they're coming from and find mutually beneficial resolutions, right? You you create these ground rules that say this is how we show up and impact other people on the team and approach our jobs. So you have to get clear about what other ground rules, what is the code of conduct that you are saying, This is what we hold each other and ourselves accountable to. So once you have that in place, then it's also the commitment level. And I think this is a challenging place for a lot of organizations. But the truth about culture, if you're really going to truly define a culture, is that, if it doesn't apply to 100% every single person in the organization, no matter what their role is or how long they've been there. The CEO a frontline worker that's been there for three days. If it doesn't apply to every single person, 100% across the board, it's meaningless. It doesn't mean anything unless it applies to every single person. Because if certain employees, because of their senior title, or because they've been there long enough, or whatever, are exempt from having to act in alignment with your culture, then it's it's not a real thing. It's right. Employees will see it for what it really, truly is, which is just an internal marketing device to keep employees in line. But it doesn't apply to certain people. And when employees even sniff that, they're like, this is garbage. It's not real. It's not true. We don't mean it. And so that commitment level has to be 100% and to say that, like, right? And define, how do we hold each other accountable to this? And I think when we talk about accountability, that's another one that I wanted to tap on really quick here that is related to this. Is a lot of times we think about, how do we hold each other accountable? How do we hold people accountable to this? And a lot of times we think of accountability as being very punitive, in terms of, if you don't do these things, you're gonna lose your job, or you're gonna get in trouble like this. Is you need to show up like this, or you'll get fired. You you'll get fired. And certainly that there's an element that's true if we're saying we're committed to these behaviors, and this is how people need to show up. But I think it's really important to think about accountability as commitment. We are 100% committed to this, which means that we will not allow people to show up out of alignment with these behaviors, because this is who we are and when we're 100% committed. And we define, as a executive leadership team, it has to be at the top right to say we are committed to design a percent like when we say that like, you know, and we define, how do we hold each other accountable to this? How do we measure our success here? And the third piece is consistency. So it's clarity, commitment, consistency. And consistency is the real work to be done. This is kind of what I call feeding the fish is like, how do you implement and integrate and reinforce that culture and that code of conduct into every single thing that you do? How do you integrate that into hiring and onboarding, into feedback and coaching, into training and development, right into promotions and reward programs? How do you make it so that this isn't a poster we put on the wall and forget about how do you integrate this into everything you do, and so as a perfect example of that is feedback and coaching. Let's say inside our culture and that we define our code of conduct and we say, Cool, well, we handle conflict in a really productive manner, right, where we hear each other out and we were in control of our like emotional behavior. Well, let's say that's how you define that code of conduct your people not might, might not, probably don't have the skills and capacity to actually do that. They might right, because most people have never received non violent communication training or conflict resolution training. So that will, that culture will inform some of your training and development. To say, Look, we want our people to handle conflict Well, or to to give and receive feedback well, so we need to provide. Provide them training so that they can actually do that. So that's how you integrate culture and and then when I'm giving like performance evaluations for running my employees, when I have a very clearly, again, defined culture, I can look at anybody in my organization and say, yes, they do or don't do this behavior. So if part of our culture say, hey, we don't bad mouth other people, we don't start drama, we don't gossip like our words are positive towards other people. We, you know, we use our words to lift each other up and step in to help. We just, we don't bad mouth people. We go right to the source. If I have an employee who is doing behavior like that, right, who exhibits that kind of behavior, it's very easy to have that conversation to correct that behavior. When I say, hey, from day one, the second you were hired, you understood this is this is part of how we are here, and this behavior doesn't fly. So how do we get you to where you need to be, so that level of consistency, where we're integrating into training and development, performance evaluation, hiring and onboarding, this code of conduct, so that it's that's real, like this is how you really, actually design and create and live a culture so very, very quick. But that's how it's done, that's there is a way to do it. And every time I hear someone say, oh, there's no way to define culture. There's no way. I'm like, that's absolutely not true. There is a way to do it. And this is, these are, that's the kind of, like, high level vision of how it's done. And so your question, if I could also pause and take a breath for two seconds, because I you guys, I'm so excited about this topic, and I know that I never shut up.

So your question is, if I have a culture, how do I define, how do I say, how great is my culture or not? There's, you know, when we don't have a very clearly defined culture, or we have, you know, culture that is that needs, that has areas of opportunity to improve. There's usually symptoms of that. We either have high turnover, we have low, you know, low scores on feedback customer, you know, satisfaction surveys from employees. We have silos between departments, communication issues. You know, there's, you can always sort of like point to the symptoms of not having a clearly defined culture like this, right? And so, you know, if you're an organization wants to look at. So if you just heard all of that, and you're like, I want to define my culture. How do I it's like, if you don't have those things in place, then what you'll see is a mishmash. If we don't have that kind of, like, universally defined culture, then what we do is we leave it in the hands of individuals to establish culture. So Right? Because when people talk about, well, oh, trust and respect and integrity, that's not scalable, because middle level management throughout your whole organization, if you've got 15 locations across the world, like the culture of any individual team is going to just 100% solely be based on the skill and capacity of that individual leader in that position. And so that's why you inside teams and organizations, you can have incredibly toxic culture in this department or in this team, and really wonderful culture in another team or department, because it just relies on the capacity of individual people. So if you have a great leader, somebody who's very charismatic and highly emotionally intelligent, right, who people that can influence people and work with diverse working styles and personality styles and people love them, you'll have a great culture there, but it relies on that individual person, and so if that person leaves the company and somebody else steps into that role, it can completely topple what you've built. And like, that's something you see a lot in organizations where the CEO or some high level people step out or leave, or they retire, and a new person comes in, and the entire place, right, just goes to pot. Because the culture was sort of like stood on the capacity of this one person. And that's the other thing. It's a really valuable piece of establishing a culture as an organization is that it does not rely on the capacity of any one person. We say very clearly, this is who we are. This is how we operate together. This is the code of conduct that's expected here. This is how we're commitment level to it. This is how we're consistent about it. Anybody could leave or come into the organization, and it would not completely change the culture, and individuals impact the culture, for sure, right? Your personality type, like your individualness, is is important. And I think that's sort of, I don't want to, like, get totally off topic of where we were going, but that's the other conversation about diversity, because pushback that I get on this conversation is also like, well, you don't want to create group think. You don't want to hire people that all just think the same and act the same way. And I'm like, 100% yes, and this, this way of approaching culture does not, is not a problematic way to reinforce biases that we have, because what we say is, inside this culture, these are the this, these this, these ground rules that we've clearly defined, they transcend individual personalities, and so we it, it actually sort of highlights diversity right where we recognize inside our culture, we need diverse backgrounds, skill sets, genders like we need the diversity that we have inside our teams. It gives us our strength, but the way that, the way that we define our Code of Conduct transcends socio economic background, personality type, communication style, right? You could be a very introverted, analytical kind of person, right? But in our culture, when we actively seek out feedback and we don't take feedback personally, we see it as an opportunity to grow. It doesn't matter who you are. I. In terms of, like, your individual personality. That's true, and that's how we show up here. So I think it does honor diversity. It does say you're unique, whoever you are as a person, like you are welcome here. You belong here. And part of part of that culture work, as we define our code of conduct, is like, is around diversity. It's like diverse opinions. And how do we, you know, when we're innovating or creating, you know, being creative, like we're open and receptive to other people's perspective and ideas, like we honor diversity. You can say that's our Code of Conduct. That's how we show up. Here is that you have a dissenting views and opinions are welcome, like, in a productive kind way. We want you to dissent. We want you to disagree with leaders and everyone else so that we can find the best solutions. But we do that in a really respectful, positive way, right? And deal with, deal with opposition, in a, you know, in a productive, positive way. So again, you can define those things I got, I got a little trailed off there into like, the diversity and individualism, but I think, I think that's an important part of the conversation too, because diversity, inclusion, right? Those things are so important, and this is this way, this approach of doing culture, does not diminish that. It doesn't say, hey, we want to hire people that look like us, that sound like us, that talk like us. Nope, you come in as your unique self, but in terms of how you show up and impact other people on the team and approach your work, these are the ground rules of that. So yeah, and your question was, how do you, you know, how do you define, how do you measure and evaluate your own culture? And I think it's, do you have those things in place, you know, in terms of feedback and coaching and performance evaluations? Are they based on people showing up in alignment with your culture and that, you know, it's, it's, do you have these things in place? Because when you do, it's very intentional, and you can see it. You can you just, you know, organizations that I've worked with that have, like, huge successes around completely transforming their culture in a span of one year or two years, where the conversations are completely different. It's like, this is how people show up. This is what they understand and like, it's just it. It's transformational, brilliant.

Now I've got, like, I've scribbled down about a billion questions, but I'm conscious that we I have to share equally with Jane, so I'm gonna ask you one, and then so I'm really interested just going back. And it's cropped up throughout the conversation so far around, like this idea of culture only, not only, but effectively being back behaviors, and you've mentioned Code of Conduct a few times. And this idea, and what I'm really interested in, is, how do you get from a place with an organization where they understand what they want their culture to be, and it's probably, you know, it's not in a bad place. We're not talking about toxic cultures here for the moment, just, you know, but they want to get clearer. They want to get that transparency that you talk about, and how do you translate that into actual behaviors? Because I think there's a really important message and what you said quite early on, which is, and I've seen it done a lot in organizations where people do want to improve their cultures and get transparency, but they've not necessarily, and they've been good at calling out the wrong behaviors that don't match the culture, but not necessarily been good at explaining what those desirable behaviors are that you talked about. So you did a great example earlier about, you know, if someone's sort of talking behind their back, and how you would address that. So how can an organization, or how would you work with them, or do you work with an organization to translate those cultural sort of vagaries around things like respect, and translate them into real, concrete behaviors that they can share into a code of conduct.

Yep, it's a fantastic question, and that's the heart of this work, is, how do we right once we've defined what that those ground rules and that code of conduct, is, how do we make that real? And the way you do it is when that's clearly defined. And I'll just give you maybe a couple examples from my team individually, because I think this is, you know, I have a small team. There's only four of us total. But when I'm hiring somebody, I so we have our shift. Yes, is the name of my company. We have the shift. Yes, DNA code. It is our Code of Conduct. It's five tenants around like this is how people show up, the fact that it's like, Be Exceptional, lighten up, own your shit. Ever Forward. And blood type grid. Those are the five kind of tenants, and each of those tenants has a sort of paragraph underneath it of what does that look like in practice, right? So like, for example, when there's conflict, we seek to fully understand each other by listening and asking questions to uncover the heart of the matter, right? Collaboratively find mutually beneficial resolutions. That's an example of in behavior. So for my organization, if I'm hiring somebody, I'm having them understand that that is our they read through. This is the DNA code. This is what your performance evaluations are based on this and these behaviors. So it's you have to have the conversations as a leadership team to put programs and systems into effect, right? It's a tactical, tangible approach. It's not this loosey goosey. We just say we want to do these things, but the way that you actually integrate that into impact people's behavior is, you have to say, this is how we integrate this into hiring and onboarding. So for me, I people read the culture code, and I let them know any feedback I give to you as a leader is going to be based on, are you behaving in alignment with these, with these behaviors, right with our our DNA code here. Here, and it addresses how they impact other people on the team and the way they approach their work, right? Great attention to detail that we're like, never apathetic, that we take ownership of the like, the caliber of work that we are in charge of is high caliber, right? That it's exceptional. We take ownership for that. We don't make excuses like we own if things go wrong, we own that. We make them right. We take ownership of that so that, you know, in hiring onboarding, that's how I do it. As I say, you'll be you'll be evaluated on this. This is how everybody on the team shows up. And then when it comes to performance evaluations, I look through the shift DS, DNA code, and I evaluate my employees based on, are they showing up in alignment with these values. So when I have feedback conversations or coaching conversations with my employees, it's these are your areas of opportunity, right? And it's specific things inside that culture code that I can say this is an area of opportunity for you, and point to specifically so it's integrated into training and development, right? Same thing, it's like, well, we have, if we you know, and it's, I have sort of a unique situation, because my employees are always exposed to kind of training and development, because all the content that I put out is around, like, how to NaVi, around like, how to navigate conflict productively and how to give feedback effectively. So it's, you know, they're they have an over exposure to personal development and professional development, but as an organization, you say, great. We want our people to be great at feedback. Provide training for them in how to give and receive feedback. Create a model that everybody uses like to make that consistent. So you have to provide training. You have to, like, reinforce this code of conduct. That's how you make it real. And there is no Oh, snap your fingers. And like, tomorrow we have the culture that we want you as a leadership team. And this, this is what I do with organizations, is we have to walk through the conversation of, first of all, defining that code of conduct, and secondly, just to saying, what systems and programs and processes do we put in place that have to do with training and development, coaching and feedback, right hiring and onboarding, rewards programs and recognition programs that reinforce all of these things and so like, maybe that's we come together once a month. So here's something that I do with my team. We come together and we have a monthly jam. We call it the first Tuesday of every month. We come together. We spend a couple hours together, we give each other kudos, and we talk about things are going on in the organization, but we start that meeting by everybody reading through the shift Yes, DNA code. And every single person shares what they think that they're crushing right now, what they think they're doing really, really well at, and their own personal area of opportunity inside that culture. Code of like, this is something I'm having a challenge with right now, or I know that this is a struggle for me, et cetera, right? Which might be just lighten up, or whatever it is, but that's another way we reinforce it. All of my employees can tell you what the tenants are inside the shift is CNA code. It's so reinforced. It's how we behave together, and it's not just something we talk about one time. So your question is, how do organizations translate those behaviors into actually impacting the way people show up every single day, and that it's all the ways that you integrate it into systems and processes. How do you evaluate how do you measure it? And you have to answer that question as a leadership team, right? As the team who has the authority to put those processes in place, to put those systems in place, and that's part of the process that that I walk teams through. It's not just defining that code of conduct, but it's like, what are all the ways that we're going to integrate this into, into the employee experience, and how, right? How we hold each other accountable? But what does that look like? Right? So it's all of this is getting past huge, broad concepts and tactically saying, this is exactly what that looks like. This is exactly how we're going to integrate this into coaching and feedback and performance evaluations, etc, so that that's, that's how,

yeah, I've got, I mean, as Jane said earlier, I've written down a load of questions as well, and I'm not going to tackle them all, because we could be here forever and ever, but I've got a couple things, a couple things that pop up. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna, actually, I'm gonna jump in with two questions at once and see what happens. Question number one is based on personal experience. When I've been working on programs related to culture change in fairly large organizations, I believe I've seen what I would define as leadership cheating, which is where a particularly senior person pretends to embody a set of cultures, presents that way in a public forum, presents that way upwards, but in reality, does not behave that way behind closed doors, within the domains of their own fiefdom of their team. What do we do about that is Question one, and then Question two is going to be to do with the fact that, again, particularly in larger organizations, there's a sense sometimes of autonomy, and it might feel like there's a need for slightly variant cultures across the different functional areas of a team. What's your view on the need for that diversity of culture within a larger organization? And how should one, or could one, if it were the right thing to do, allow that flexibility across a larger organization, while keeping that core DNA there?

I love both. I love both of those questions. I'm just like chomping at the bit here. Okay, so leadership cheating, which I love, that term that you just used. So the this is again, exactly part of this exact same conversation, something that organizations don't do well. So if we as a leadership team say, how do we hold each other accountable to this? How are people in this organization hell? Accountable to this code of conduct. The way that you can prevent that from ever existing in terms of a leader or a senior leader cheating is that, like you would in the process of defining how you hold people accountable to this, you'd say, well, people are held accountable to this through feedback. So every leader should be getting feedback from their team, and if the organization is not collecting feedback about the about a leader. They'll never know that, and they'll keep promoting this toxic person throughout the organization, because so many organizations promote based on seniority and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but never by asking all that rubbish. You have to ask a team what they think of their leader. I will die on the Hill that there are no shitty leaders in the world that have a team that love them, and there are no great leaders in the world that have a team that hates them. If you're not grabbing if you're not gathering feedback from a team about their leader, and using that as a huge basis of promoting people you are, it's a huge mistake, huge mistake. I have a friend who is currently going through this exact thing, and I hear this, you know, a million times over in the work that I do, her leader, you know, she, she works in higher education. Her leader is absolutely toxic. She bad mouths people, she's retaliatory. She's She is so toxic. And she's a team about 14 people. They all hate her, and they've and one person had complained to HR, nothing happened as a result. So they're all terrified of her. They're terrified to speak out or talk to HR about her, and so they've thought about banding together to write a letter as the 14 of them to sign to be like, This person is absolutely miserable to work for. Like, people are looking for jobs, and like, on a regular basis with her, she's about to be promoted in the organization. And so my friend is excited because she will not have to work for this person anymore as she moves up into the organization. That is not a unique story. Both of you, you know this is commonplace and organizations, and I am like, Why the hell isn't that organization asking for feedback from their team on a regular basis? Not once a year, like I'm saying, every three months, a pulse survey. What is this leader doing great? What is the biggest area of opportunity to improve? Like, what would a tenant look like from them? Any other comments you want to share with us and like, make it anonymous if you don't have you know, and maybe great, great, fantastic cultures where trust is like abundant people can have those kind of surveys, and it can. It doesn't have to be anonymous, but whatever it takes for you as an organization and leadership team to gather feedback that is honest, and sometimes that means it's anonymous. Fine. Whatever it takes that you can get honest feedback. You have to get it, because if the organization knew how toxic that person would be, and that was how they chose to promote people, they would never promote them. They would they would fire them, if that was my if I found out, like some of those conversations, but everyone in that department is terrified of this woman, or to tell on her right, because they know they'll be retaliated against because the HR department, like and like that, that is 100% symptom of toxic culture. Your question was, how do you avoid leaders that are cheating when you define a culture and you also define how do how are we consistent with this? What is our commitment level and like what is our consistency level? You put those systems into place every three or four months, like every employee gets to give feedback about their direct supervisor. That's how you can make sure that doesn't happen. Because if that that toxic leader that you're mentioning, their team, knows about it. Every person they interact with, they know that this is behind closed doors. This is how this leader really shows up. And when you have a culture that says we give honest feedback. Like feedback is part of what we do. This is a culture of feedback. You can be honest. We prove as a leadership team, we want to hear your honest feedback, because we are in service of your experience as an employee and our own individual growth. Like you will suss those things out and like that. So the answer to that is, how do we hold each other accountable to it? And it's that. It's you have to put that system in place. It's feedback systems. It's processes that allow you to make sure that everybody is like, acting in accordance with your culture. So great question, highly appropriate and like, that's what leaders, that's what organizations have to do. But it has to start at the top. It has to start at the top, the very, very top executive team, all the leader, all the way down the organization, we have to say we are committed to this, and this is how we hold each other accountable to this cool that's amazing.

And I know you're going to jump on to autonomy, but I just want to for our listeners, offer one thing that I've got from experience around that very specific topic, which is, when you're asking for feedback, ask your employees how confident they are about giving feedback without concern about retaliation. Because significantly on some of the organizations I've worked with, they've been like, yeah, yeah, all the results are great. And then you see the answer to that question, and it's like, well, you can't trust anything you're getting, because none of them are confident that they get it. So I just wanted to shout that out, because it's a really useful tool,

amen. Amen, yes. Because if people are afraid to give honest feedback, you'll never get honest feedback from them, right? If they are afraid, like, my my leader will see this or, like, if you don't understand the HR won't filter those comments, then someone's gonna be like, my manager is gonna see this comment. Even though it's anonymous, they're gonna know that I wrote it because I'm talking about something that specifically happened to me. Or there's only four. People in this department, you're not going to have any question as to who said that. You have you have to be so clear as that safe, and you have to look for safe, honest feedback. And you have to, like, prove to employees that like this is safe. We want to hear this stuff. That's how you suss out those toxic leaders and get rid of them in your organization. But Jane, 100% accurate, you have to be like, do you feel confident sharing honest feedback with us? Or do you think you know like you have to ask those questions? Those questions and and when you make that known, right? When that's again, that's part of your culture, and you let people know from day one, you give feedback about anyone in this organization, a of all, it's safe. You will not be retaliated against. This is what it looks like, right? It Like It's again, it has to be fully integrated. It can't just apply to this person and not this person. But I love that you said that, because it's true. Good. Okay, James, should I answer? I know I talk so much, but I love this stuff. I love it. I love it. Okay, crack on with the autonomy team.

Okay, autonomy team business, that's a great question. So and this comes up with organizations that I work with where it's like, okay, cool. We want to do this as a whole organization, right? This umbrella culture for everybody, and define that from the top, that that is everybody. But we have accounting teams, we have sales teams, we have teams have very, very different and varied functions from each other. And don't we want to kind of have a different culture within that? And my answer that is yes, I don't think that it fractures a culture if we say a coup, but we're a sales team, and there are certain kind of ground rules of how we show up together that might not be applicable or in context relevant to like an accounting team. And so yes, and I think that like again, and part of the challenge of human beings working in workplaces is that like that that relies on the individual capacity of the leader, the leader of that sales team, or the right, the director of sales, saying, Guys, but here's our culture here, and it's not, it's not instead of this culture, it's in addition to that. This is how we show up as a team, right? And I think that there's no problem with that. So I'll work with an organization that has, you know, 20,000 employees globally, across the the world, which, again, the larger that you are, the harder that is to create something like this that is like universally scalable across the organization, but at least it gives you a shot at it. But for an organization to have, you know, autonomy between departments, I think it's totally healthy. We say that this, this culture, the greater culture of the organization that we understand, that we're held accountable to, that we're committed to, et cetera exist, but also inside our team. This is how we show up together. And I think it's totally fine to sort of have, you know, as long as it's not exclusive, as long as it isn't negative, doesn't create an us versus them mentality. I think it's okay to say cool, but like, this is kind of like our tribe here, and we're not debunking anything that is in our, like, greater overall culture, but I might say, as a leader, hey, as a sales team, we have these types of meetings. This is kind of like what we prioritize. And here are some ground rules that I that I also want on my team. And I think that that happens naturally in every organization that like, for a certain leader, you have a certain set of kind of undefined or spoken behaviors of how people show up and what's expected of them. So that's happening in organizations already, right from one either to the next, what they say, Hey, as my team under me, this is how I give feedback. This is how often we have these conversations. Or this is, you know, these are kind of like my expectations for you as individuals. I think that's totally healthy, and I think that there's no problem with that, as long as we're not saying, okay, cool. But the main culture that this very defined culture like doesn't really apply to us. We're this other kind of team. We're saying yes, that applies to us 100% and here's this additional thing about us that makes us unique, that's the context for us. So I think that, yes, that's totally healthy. I think it happens no matter what, whether it's clearly defined or not. And I don't see a problem with it, as long as it's again, as long as it's above board, as long as it's positive, it's being presented as not these things don't apply to us, but all of those things apply to us, and this also applies to us, because we're unique in our function and as a team. And I think that, again, people want to feel like they belong to something, so I think that's actually a really healthy thing to say our team here, this is how we do these things, as long as it doesn't conflict with our greater culture as an organization. I say go for it, right? Because, again, the more that people feel like they're part of something that is meaningful, that's unique, that, right, that, like that sense of inclusion and belonging, I think, is is healthy, as long as it's not exclusive, right? As long as it doesn't create an us versus them environment or mentality, and it shouldn't, and we should be conscious of that, right? Again, we should be conscious, is this going to create, this feeling that we're this elite team inside this organization, that we're better than anyone else, and be aware of that, like that's not what we're here to create. We're saying this is how we are as a team. This is how we function. So

yeah, one thing, one sort of reflection before I go into some other questions. I worked for a while moving around within large organizations, speaking to different teams about changing their ways of working and processes and all that kind of stuff. And pretty much every team I'd speak to, we'd talk a little bit about some of these larger things, and every team would say, oh, I can see how that would work for all the other teams. But we're a little bit different. We're a little bit special, so it probably won't work exactly right for us. And everybody feels that little little something different, which I just think is an interesting reflection when it comes about culture and like you say, if what both. Feel is part of a whole, but a little bit unique, and that's great. If they feel outside of a whole, then it becomes a little bit more toxic and difficulty. Yes, absolutely, absolutely.

Okay, so I'm going to follow up. I think I've got basically two last questions, and I'm going to check them out together so they're both related to, I guess, pieces of advice for leaders. So something that's that strikes me is fairly clear from what you say and correct me if I'm wrong, is that for this, you know, for the power of culture to really be released in an organization, you need that sponsorship from the top so, or you need your leadership team to believe that culture is a priority. And we want this to be the way that we work, and we want to reinforce it, and we want to have the mechanisms that help us make sure that we do and we behave in the ways that we say we will. So my two questions are, one, if you've got a senior leader who doesn't necessarily believe in getting culture right and isn't willing to stand behind and sponsor and make this cultural focus a priority in their team, what would you say to them as a really senior leader at the top of an organization? And then my follow up, just follow up is, if then you have somebody in a smaller team in an organization looking to improve their culture, what maybe one piece of advice would you give them about culture,

good? Okay, so I want to clarify your first question to make sure I'm answering it correctly. Are you saying the person who is like the head of the organization or someone in the senior No, let's

say the chief executive, if so, if a chief executive, I believe, needs to sponsor this to make it really effective, and they're not necessarily of that mindset. If they're not going to make culture a priority, what would you say to them to explain why culture should be a priority for them?

Great. Here's what I would say, and something that I've got so many thoughts around that. But, you know, a lot of times, culture has also received the label of being a buzzword, of being this sort of like Fauci kind of ping pong tables in the break room kind of thing. And and I have never come across an organization or team that talks about culture the way that I do, and approaches culture this way, in this very tactical, comprehensive way. And so yes, it makes sense that culture has received this tag of being a buzzword because most organizations don't know how to define it at all, and it just turns into this like mishmash of undefinedness. Undefinedness is now a word. So what I would say to them is this just defined it. I think the work of focusing on culture, the purpose of that, the goal of working on that, is not the outcome that your desire is not to just be able to have a good culture. Who cares? Who cares? What you call it? The purpose of this work is not to say, Oh, we have a great culture. It doesn't really matter. Culture is a delivery system, right? And let me put this in context for you. You own a car. Most people own a car. The purpose and goal and reason for owning a car is not to own a car. Who cares that you have a car? It's a piece of metal. The reason that you own a car is so that you can get in it and drive anywhere that you want to go. A car is a delivery system like the actual car, right? Is that the purpose of owning a car is not to just have a car. It's so that you can drive anywhere that you want to go. The reason for focusing on culture is not to say that you have a great culture or sort of like tout this. Who cares? What you call it? Culture is a delivery system. It's a delivery system for highly accountable, high performing teams of people that are engaged, right? That are commitment, that are committed to, like a certain code of conduct, right? It is, is the delivery system to high retention to be able to attract fantastic talent, right? And keep people because they love their jobs, because they're consistent and they understand the culture they live in, and everybody's held accountable to that, to these very positive, like, fantastic like, ground rules of how we show up and impact other people. You're not going to create things inside your culture that are like, if you don't like someone, you don't like someone, you can be mean to them, like, obviously, if you're going to create a culture of, how do you want people to show up? It's going to be positive. It's going to be like, really intentional positive behaviors. So the reason that you need to get on board and focus on culture is because it will make you and save you a ton of money. Because if you don't have these things in place, then what you have is the symptoms of toxic culture, which is low morale, people that hate their leaders because their leaders are toxic, and so they dread coming to work every day and they don't perform well in their jobs. Or they're looking for other jobs. How productive are the employees that you have? They're looking for other jobs. They're not and if you're not focusing on culture, I promise you you have them, especially if you're toxic, especially if your culture is toxic. And I can tell you, if you have a leader, a leader or CEO at the very top of the organization that thinks culture is garbage, I promise you that that culture is toxic, because if they were intentionally understood, the value of people like these are the people on your front line executing your business plan. And like, how do you treat them like a priority and focus right to treat culture and employee experience like a strategic priority. The same way that you elevate and prioritize sales, marketing, operations and everything else you want to have success with in business, if your people are not high on that list and a strategic priority for you, I promise you, you already have kind of a garbage culture and and like you have to focus on these things, otherwise you get high turnover, which costs you a lot of money. Right? Uh, retention is a huge deal, and attracting top candidates. Do you want fantastic people to work for your company? If you do, then the one way to sell your company to them is in the interview process to say, this is our culture, this is how we prioritize employee experience, and this is what it's going to feel like to work here. And I promise you, it's amazing, because every single person shows up like this, and it's fantastic, right? Like you will, you will attract better people to your organization, you'll have better retention. So you know, if you have bad leaders and bad managers and poor performing people, your highest performers will leave because they're not motivated by that. They don't want to be surrounded by people who don't pull their weight. Like there are so many factors of things that are costing you 10s or hundreds or millions of dollars because you are not focused on culture, in retention, poor performance, low engagement, right? You know you guys. You guys know if anyone's listening to this podcast, they understand Gallup survey, 1/3 of people are disengaged. This is why. This is why, because we allow toxic, poor behavior, we don't fire bad apples. We keep them around because it's uncomfortable to fire them, or they've been here for 20 years. I don't care if you have a clearly defined culture. You said, This is what stands here, and any behavior that happens outside of alignment, this gets immediately addressed, and we either coach you into greatness or you're out the door, because there's only one way to be here, and it's that that is to act in alignment with these values. Those organizations outperform companies that do not focus on culture, because their employees are engaged, the great employees they have stay at the company instead of leaving like I just it's in this year, in this day and age, if you have to convince a CEO that culture matters, they do not belong in that position. They do not belong at the head of a company. If you don't under is, like, it would be like them saying marketing doesn't matter. What's our marketing budget? $500 because that's garbage. Like, right? Like that. That mentality in business is ridiculous. But when we talk about culture, somehow there are lots and lots of leaders and senior teams out there like, oh, culture doesn't matter. I grant them the fact that that's because they've also probably never heard culture talked about like this or approached in this manner, because it's earned its reputation as a buzzword, because most people are just kind of fumbling around in the dark around it and doing some version of values, et cetera. So what I would say to them is, like, you are, you are preventing this organization from becoming exceptional by not focusing on culture and understanding it. And like, I hope that you retire soon, or that you get replaced, or that you come on board. And I don't mean that in a like, shame on you for not doing this. I just like, if it's truly, like, I'm invested in your success, and you're a CEO, and you're like, I don't know that culture is the right thing for me. I'm telling you, like, compel you to focus on this, because every symptom that you have of the you know your leaders, the high paid leaders and managers inside your organization, are spending 80% of their time putting out fires and putting out personality conflicts and drama and gossip and dealing with poor behaviors of poor employees, because you don't have these things in place and and what seems like too large of a of a topic to wrap your arms around, is, how can you create behaviors that everybody adheres to, that are consistent and that that right, that people are committed to 100% there is a way to do that, and by doing that, you will increase every single outcome that you're chasing In business is accomplished by having high performing, productive teams, right? High retention, creative, innovative teams, where people feel like they're included, right? You have diversity of thought and opinion. People feel free to share their like, right? We ask for feedback from employees about leaders, all of those things. Those organizations excel in business because their people feel like, valued, loved. They love their jobs, they love their organization. They believe that, like, I just got some feedback from an organization I had worked with doing this work around culture, and it was just like a pulse survey to be like, how are we doing on this kind of thing? And it was like to and their comment as an individual contributor was to see my leadership, incorporating these ideas and using this language. It's like, I feel like we don't just have the successful organization, that this company actually has a soul. And like, that's powerful man. And like, it's like, how do you put into words those feelings for people? But like, that's the kind of thing that makes somebody stay at their job and care about their job and try harder. So if you are the head of a company or executive leadership team, whatever, and it's like, you you have to focus on these things, and it's okay that you haven't until now. But no matter what you have in your organization, it is fixable. It's correctable. You can change it, you can turn it around, right? If you do this work, if you go through this process a year from now, you have the culture that you design, right? If you integrate it and implement it and, like, get clear about it, I promise you, and the difference between the organization that you have now and what you have a year from now, or, you know, however much time is night and day. So, yeah, I know I started by fiercely being like, I hope you quit and get fired. That was, that was mean. But I really, truly feel like it's, it's way past time. It's like, saying, Does emotional intelligence matter? It's like, Are you kidding me? Like, do you live in 1975 Yes, 100% yes. Culture matters. And like, as a leadership team, as organization, this is how you get people to do the thing you want them to do, which is perform well in their jobs, to be engaged, to work well with other people, right to like, to feel valued, and to try harder, discretionary effort. People can try as hard in their job as they want to and like that's up to them. You can't demand that of people. You can only inspire it in people, and this is how you inspire that kind of work. And. Ethic and people. So that's my answer to that. Sorry, wrong, but yeah.

And one last question in in a in a few words, how about that? What would you give as a piece of advice to somebody leading a smaller team in an organization who wants to help improve that culture? What? What's maybe their most powerful tool as a leader of a small team to help improve the culture within their

team? Great question, and I'll answer this kind of in a collective way. I think that another thing that I think about culture is that it is a skill. Culture is a skill set. We don't see it as a skill set, but it is, if you know how to take a team of people and establish a clearly defined code of conduct, right, define your commitment level to it, and like be consistent, and actually create a culture that you can point at and say, This is what it is. If you know how to do that, you are incredibly valuable as a leader, as a human being, like to an organization is a huge skill set for you. So I see culture as a skill. And so, you know, you can learn how to do this. You can learn how to establish culture on your team inside your organization, so that if you have a team of 10 people, let's say, and you're like, we are going to establish what it feels like to be part of this team and how we show up together, even if the rest of the organization is relatively toxic or they don't focus on culture. I can say, with my team, these are the expectations, and get feedback from them, and have them help me create that which is part of the process, is getting buy in from people. But you can create an established culture inside whatever group or team that you have. Knowing how to do that is a skill set that makes you massively value as a leader, as an HR protection, protection practitioner, as a as any kind of leader, right, in a team, to know how to establish culture and design and execute culture makes you incredibly valuable, and it's absolutely possible. So yes, you can do that, and you will change the lives and impact the lives of the seven or 10 or 15 people that you work for. If you say, Guys, this is our culture. This is how we show up together. This is what it looks like. So

great. Happy days. All right, well, I'm gonna leave it there in the instant to time. We're gonna basically wrap up our podcast before we finish up. Though, is there anything that people can do to learn more about you or the work that you do, or to get in touch with you guys? Yeah,

absolutely. So I have, every week I put out a free weekly video. That's my sort of mailing list. It's like one five minute video talking about, it's called culture drop. So my website shifts.com, Galen manuel.com, culture drop is, yeah, it's one five minute video every Tuesday morning talking about culture, leadership, communication, teamwork, just firing people, all, all topics that I just love to talk about. So that's free. My YouTube channel also has, like, all the videos that we put out, we put on there too. So my social media, LinkedIn, Twitter, and there's, I just put on a lot of content totally for free. So that's one way that people can connect with me. I also like this is the work that I do. So speaking at conferences, or working with teams, leadership teams, all staff, doing skills training around conflict or feedback. And then also, like walking teams through this process of establishing design and culture and helping them, like guiding them through that process. So people can reach out to me through my website, shift, yes.com, or get on the manual.com so yeah, I'm also working on a book. It's gonna be on next year, but it's gonna be sort of like this focus around culture and some of these things. So those are ways people can connect. And I love these conversations. So if people wanna reach out on LinkedIn, or follow my content or connect or ask questions, or I love this stuff. So if people are listening to and they're you're an HR person or a leader, and you're like, I want to do this work. I want more help. Like, reach out to me. Come find me through my website, send me an email. Like, let's connect and chat. I really, truly love this topic. So good. I know I talked so much.

Oh no, it shows your passion for it shows it's great. I think it's just time to say thank you. That was a really great conversation, really fun, really energetic, and lots of great insights. So it's a big thank you for me,

yeah, and it's a massive thank you for me. It's always an absolute pleasure when you can see one of the guests is so excited about what they do.

Awesome. Well, thank you both for having me. This has been so lovely. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I love you guys.

Okay, that was our conversation with garland. I think we covered some really good stuff in there. A lot of great content, huge amounts of passion, which is really great to see Jen, did you have any specific takeaways or points that you wanted to reflect on based on what we discussed?

I guess my only thing that I would flag and thought was useful was when he took on the issue that often gets leveled at recruiting for culture around the importance of diversity, and actually the importance of diversity and diverse approaches being part of the attributes of your culture you're looking for. I think that's a really important

point. Yeah, agreed, and I think we covered that in there, which was good, two really quick things for me. One, the importance of senior leadership, buy in and sponsorship. I think that's reinforced through that conversation. And then second, one of the things that we spoke about, that I think is really helpful, is kind of this idea of operationalizing culture, so going from culture at the top through the values that you think are important in your organization, and turning those into behaviors that you can really bring to life for your team, right? That seems like a really important point. And a key message to take away. So I think that kind of gets us to the end of our podcast. So I guess just as we wrap up, you can get in touch with us at the usual places. And until next time, it's goodbye from me, yeah, and it's goodbye from me. Hi.