Culture Cast – The Best Leaders Empower Teams with Autonomy

Personal leadership Podcast Resources

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In Season 3, Episode 4, Lorne and Lynette discuss how the best leaders encourage autonomy, and know when to “stay out of the weeds.” By painting a very clear picture of their expectations, and offering “pop up” coaching along the way, leaders can play a vital role in building confidence and a sense of accomplishment in their employees. 

Please feel free to subscribe to this YouTube channel, follow this podcast on Soundcloud, as well as iTunes, and Lorne and Lynette’s social media platforms for all the latest Culture Cast uploads and announcements.

Lorne Rubis is available @LorneRubis on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook

Lynette Turner is available on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn as well as through her site, LynetteTurner.com.

We look forward to sharing Season 3 of Culture Cast: Conversations on Culture and Leadership with you every Wednesday. 

Why We Must Redefine Safety at Work!

Abundance Accountability Respect

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The problem: The definition of what constitutes safety at work is too narrow, and as a result I believe we have incomplete safety measures in almost all organizations. Making physical safety a priority in any workplace should be the norm, especially when the job is inherently hazardous. We have access to the technology, knowledge, and right management philosophy to keep people physically safe. Fortunately over the last few decades, the highest occupation health and safety standards have become an intentional objective of the best organizations, rather than simply regulatory compliance. Unfortunately, organizations in many developing nations still have a way to go, (you’ve likely seen YouTube videos of people working in horrendous, hazardous, environments). Today, NO modern, global organization has any excuse but to demand the highest physical safety performance in all facilities including, but not limited to its subcontractors. Physical safety is ONE side of the subject, AND now I believe it’s time to add in psychological safety as well!

Story: This past week, I spent time with the CEOs of two first class organizations. Both compete in inherently hazardous industries. The first thing each leader talked about when I asked them how 2018 ended, was their focus on safety, and how proud they were of stellar results. This is great! However when I ask top leaders in just about any organization about their psychological safety status, the typical response is “crickets” and blank stares. My recommendation: It is time for every organization to expand the safety focus to include psychological safety!

Why it’s important? The following quote is from Harvard’s thought leader, author, and top researcher on psychological safety, Amy Edmondson: “In my research over the past 20 years, I’ve shown that a factor I call psychological safety helps explain differences in performance in workplaces that include hospitals, factories, schools, and government agencies. Moreover, psychological safety matters for groups as disparate as those in the C-suite of a financial institution and on the front lines of the intensive care unit… Psychological safety is not immunity from consequences, nor is it a state of high self-regard. In psychologically safe workplaces, people know they might fail, they might receive performance feedback that says they’re not meeting expectations, and they might lose their jobs due to changes in the industry environment or even to a lack of competence in their role. These attributes of the modern workplace are unlikely to disappear anytime soon. But in a psychologically safe workplace, people are not hindered by interpersonal fear. They feel willing and able to take the inherent interpersonal risks of candor. They fear holding back their full participation more than they fear sharing a potentially sensitive, threatening, or wrong idea. The fearless organization is one in which interpersonal fear is minimized so that team and organizational performance can be maximized in a knowledge intensive world. It is not one devoid of anxiety about the future.”

If you find this helpful, here are some things you might do:

  1. Begin to really understand psychological safety, what it is, what it is not, how to assess it, and most importantly be willing do something about it.
  2. Put as much effort into promoting and measuring psychological safety as you do physical safety, and you will positively impact your organization more profoundly than you can imagine. This is a unique opportunity to be a pioneer on this matter!
  3. Read Edmondson’s “The Fearless Organization.” Learn from the best.

Think big, start small and act now!

Lorne Rubis

One Millennial View: I can understand how on a surface level, something like “psychological safety” might sound like a bunch of heebo, mumbo jumbo, and could result in the “crickets and blank stares” mentioned above. However, it doesn’t take a ton of reflection to appreciate the value and benefit of feeling comfortable to fully participate at work, and I’m eager to learn more about this subject as the week goes on.

– Garrett

Blog 670

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis

 

Lead in With Lorne – Psychological Safety and the Epidemic of Silence

Personal leadership Podcast

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We invite you to take a couple minutes to watch/listen to our new podcast, Lead In with Lorne: A Leadership Story to Start Off Your Week.

This week, Lorne introduces the topic of Psychological Safety and the epidemic of silence at work, and in all units of life. Do you truly feel safe and comfortable speaking up about problems and disagreeing? Or do you believe the best way to get ahead is to keep silent? Here is an intro to what psychological safety really is, and what it is not. 

Enjoy it on the YouTube video embedded below, or audio listeners can hear it on SoundCloud now too (iTunes coming in the near future). We hope it enriches your Monday

Kindly subscribe to the YouTube channel and SoundCloud to make sure you start your week with a leadership story. 

Lorne Rubis is available @LorneRubis on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook

The Arsonist and Firefighter at Work

Abundance Accountability Personal leadership Respect

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The Problem: Too many organizations give out customer service awards, and recognize extraordinary effort that shouldn’t be required in the first place. The “over the top” performance and “heroic” effort of the employee becomes legendary, but too few leaders take an honest inventory to ask why the action taken was really necessary to begin with. Sometimes it’s easier to search for people willing to sacrifice themselves to overcome poor systems or processes, rather than institute fundamental work change. I believe this thinking is unfair, irresponsible and certainly NOT PEOPLE FIRST. Sometimes organizations point to customer service awards as an indication of being a “people first company.” Hah! That’s not always the case. 

A Story: I remember buying a house and applying for a mortgage in 2009 after the financial meltdown. The mortgage application was an arduous process, full of wasteful work for both the customer and broker. Some of the complications fell under the excuse of risk and compliance. Most of it was bologna. The mortgage broker eventually had to drive three hours to meet us near the Canadian border to pick up signed docs and make the closing deadline. I could imagine at the next quarter’s sales meeting, the boss says, “I’d like to give the customer service award to ____, who drove six-hours, round trip in one day to meet his customers, blah blah blah.” In this specific situation, the broker unwittingly became an arsonist to then become the firefighter. What if the company built a process so great, the broker looked like a hero without any pain to the customer (me) and himself? Rather than celebrating going the “extra mile,” perhaps the strategy should be “we design routes to never have to go the extra mile?” Too often, organizations recognize miraculous efforts and want “more people like that,” rather than never (or rarely) putting people in positions to be unnecessarily heroic in the first place.

If you thought this was helpful, here’s what you might do:

  1. Take an honest look at the “extraordinary effort/service” stories and ask why? Are they really heroic? Or does the storyline repeat itself?
  2. Ask what behavior you’re really rewarding to be PEOPLE FIRST? Do you make the process heroic so that the employee looks like a superhero, or do you search for more self-sacrificing people to overcome a lousy, “people last” work design? Be courageous.

Think Big, Start Small and Act Now! (and really be People First)!

Lorne

One Millennial View: I’ve never known how to really feel about the common phrase, “work smarter, not harder.” To me, it’s always been a gray area. I guess we might assume that this could mean planning to cut corners, or that someone who does make an extraordinary effort is 1. Trying too hard. Or 2. Dumber for trying. And will your preemptively designed “WOW” become the standard, and then appear unimpressive to the customer? I think the answer is, being People First is both “working smarter and harder.” These solutions are clever, and require the hard work of constant adaptation. 

– Garrett

Blog 969

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis

If you want more on this topic, please see this week’s previous blog introducing the People First concept. 

Kindly subscribe to this blog and our podcasts, Lorne Rubis is available @LorneRubis on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook

 

Culture Cast – When Company Values Go Off Course

Personal leadership Podcast

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In Season 3, Episode 3, Lorne and Lynette discuss what you can do when the values in your company aren’t being practiced. We encourage you to have the courage to care enough about those you work with to address a lack of company values with timeliness. Avoiding the subject, or gossiping about it at a water cooler is cruel, not productive.

Please feel free to subscribe to this YouTube channel, follow this podcast on Soundcloud, as well as iTunes, and Lorne and Lynette’s social media platforms for all the latest Culture Cast uploads and announcements.

Lorne Rubis is available @LorneRubis on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook

Lynette Turner is available on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn as well as through her site, LynetteTurner.com.

We look forward to sharing Season 3 of Culture Cast: Conversations on Culture and Leadership with you every Wednesday. 

Are Leaders Blinded by Looking Through the Wrong Lens?

Abundance Accountability Personal leadership Respect

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The Problem: Top leadership may be somewhat blind to the most straightforward path towards providing a much better customer experience, and ultimately better financial results. The solution may be so obvious that it’s difficult to see.

The way business gets done and delivered to customers ends up being hardwired into an organization. People are hired and trained to deliver “the way things get done here.” Even with all the management trends over the last decades (total quality, re-engineering, Six Sigma, Agile, etc), the purpose of process design is mostly driven by finding a better financial outcome or improved customer result. Too often as an afterthought, we ask what people have to do to execute. When work processes are too complex, mindless, sometimes even dangerous, with the desired results disappointing, the view management frequently defaults to is: “We just need better people and production,” or let’s “train them better.” When things aren’t progressing the way management likes, the narrative will eventually evolve to “we need better performance management,” (aka let’s fire and replace). 

The Solution: The overwhelming factor based on my experience and research, in determining whether employees are fully engaged, is their ability to deliver customers and teammates a consistently great experience. When people end their day knowing they have created much value for others, they feel energized and happily return to do it again. On the other hand, if they go home after constantly apologizing, doing work arounds, and even fearing for their safety, to give an unpredictable or consistently poor experience, it is exhausting, demoralizing, and unsustainable. Subsequently, truly excellent leaders are always asking the PEOPLE FIRST question: “What’s it like for an employee to deliver a designed process to others?” If the answer is unacceptable for working people, the delivery process needs to be redesigned, eliminated and/or ultimately replaced by machines. The answer ideally is never oversimplified as “just getting better people” or even worse, “let’s just export the lousy process/jobs to a place where disadvantaged or more desperate people will do just about anything for work.”

This is what “PEOPLE FIRST and CUSTOMER OBSESSED” means when I state it. Knowing that you work somewhere where leaders are on a constant hunt to look at designing better work through the eyes of “PEOPLE FIRST” is THE most important path to happy customers, shareholders, and the people who deliver and define the company brand. Design jobs and processes that make people feel like they have superpowers, and everyone wins!  

If this is helpful, here are some steps you might take:

  1. Identify just one small process people really hate to do. Ask why? Redesign through the lens of PEOPLE FIRST. Be prepared to be carried around the room in celebration when you and the team really fix it.
  2. Identify one enterprise process or system that’s been so seriously broken, it’s been a thorn in the side for people as long as you’ve been around. Ask why no one has ever done anything to really crush it. Then actually do something about it. That will increase employee engagement more than a pay raise.

Think BIG, start small, act now!

Lorne

One Millennial View: In a world where service can be so routinely mediocre, it’s amazing how a little more goes a long way in the PEOPLE FIRST game. There’s likely small things most organizations can do, you just have to name it. 

– Garrett

Blog 968

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis