Effective Enterprise Leadership: Counsel for enterprise leaders from enterprise leaders — CHAPTER 6
Unify Through Culture
Many topics in this book deserve their own book. Enterprise culture might need its own library.
The first section on enterprise leadership essentials, “Know your role,” introduced the distinction between surface culture — observable behaviors — and deep culture — unobserved ideas, beliefs, feelings, and attitudes. The iceberg image that is often used to convey that distinction portrays the submerged portion as having much greater mass than the portion above the surface. Experienced enterprise leaders know that defining and reinforcing the intended behaviors of the organization is only the beginning of cultural change. Moving the unseen bulk of the iceberg takes more levers and sustained effort. “Changing the culture here is going to be a long, arcing turn,” one contributor related.
Strong culture leaders are deliberate. While they may appear to be doing what comes naturally, most follow a specific playbook to influence the culture of their organizations. These leaders:
- define the culture they want;
- communicate, embed, and reinforce the mission and values that comprise their intended culture;
- monitor and intervene to reinforce the right behaviors and correct the wrong ones; and
- don’t confuse culture with compliance when it comes to protecting the enterprise and its stakeholders.
Strong culture leaders are persistent. They understand that changing ideas, beliefs, feelings, and attitudes — the deep culture of the enterprise — requires maintaining the comprehensive approach over time.
Insights from Enterprise Leaders
A positive and productive enterprise culture attracts, motivates, and retains stakeholders; enables compelling results for stakeholders; and enables resilience and adaptation.
Unify through culture
A positive and productive enterprise culture attracts, motivates, and retains stakeholders; enables compelling results for stakeholders; and enables resilience and adaptation.
Neel Doshi and Lindsay McGregor summarize a well-functioning culture as “one that consistently produces the results that you want.” This simple statement is deliberately loaded. How does a culture produce results? For whom are the results intended? What would make a culture produce results consistently versus unreliably?
The answers lie in the elements of the culture itself. Enterprise cultures produce results by reinforcing higher-level objectives and specifying the means through which they should be pursued. The results of culture affect every stakeholder: shareholders, customers, employees, business partners, and communities. It has consistent impact when it is widely and deeply understood, woven into the fabric of the enterprise, and reinforced from the top. Culture is the glue that brings all the stakeholders of the enterprise together through common purpose and shared principles.
Peer counsel
“You cannot have a great company without a great culture — period.”
“The best measure of the CEO’s effectiveness is their ability to manage change and affect culture.”
“In the end, the organization with the best culture always wins.”
Unify through culture -
define the culture you want
“We put 25 people — a cross-section of the organization — in a room for two days with the charge of answering one question: ‘What would make this a great firm?’ At the end of the exercise, their ideas were divided, almost equally, into what we aimed to do and how we expected our people to behave.”
No matter the process they use to distill it, effective leaders define the elements of intended culture to prescribe what the enterprise does and how it does it. They specify the beliefs, ideas, and attitudes that align with those behaviors.
Insights from Enterprise Leaders
Effective leaders define the elements of culture; they leave nothing to chance.
They make culture an explicit part of their ongoing dialogue with all stakeholders.
They define the mission — what the enterprise does — to produce the results stakeholders expect.
They define the values — how the enterprise does things — based on shared principles and the nature of the institution they want to lead.
Effective leaders create unifying purpose and reserves of goodwill that enable enterprises to overcome upsets and move forward through headwinds.
Define the culture you want
Effective leaders define the elements of culture; they leave nothing to chance.
2018 marks the 75th anniversary of Johnson & Johnson’s Credo, one of the earliest statements of company culture. It was ahead of its time on many dimensions, not the least of which was an appreciation that shareholders, consumers, employees, and the community were all stakeholders in the business. The Credo has evolved over the years. Refinements and adaptations to the times have reinforced it as a “gold standard” for defining enterprise culture.
Your enterprise may have no declared definition of culture, one that can be improved or updated, or a gold standard like J&J. The culture, as practiced, may also differ from its stated mission or declared principles. Whether re-affirming a masterpiece, building on a solid foundation, or starting from scratch, defining the culture you intend for the enterprise is central to your leadership obligation.
Peer counsel
“When you come in from the outside and need to change the culture, decide the elements of the culture to celebrate and protect as well as the ones to change.”
“Our firm charter had all the elements of a good culture. We just needed an explicit interpretation rather than a ‘comfortable’ one.”
“There was nothing about the former culture we sought to preserve.”
“Our old culture was change-resistant and self-satisfied. We are now change-realistic and performance-oriented.”
Define the culture you want — create internal and external dialogue
Effective leaders make culture an explicit part of their ongoing dialogue with all stakeholders.
The second chapter of Marvin Bower’s 1966 book, The Will to Manage, describes the “company philosophy” traits he found common to successful corporations. Within his own firm, Bower engaged partners, trainees, and alumni with equal fervor on McKinsey’s culture. He made it the centerpiece of conversations with clients and solicited their views on whether and how the firm lived up to its intended philosophy.
Effective enterprise leaders make the details of their intended culture a two-way conversation with customers, employees, and the Board — at a minimum. They have a clear point of view on what they are trying to create and are eager to hear stakeholders’ experiences. Their engagement brings culture to life.
Peer counsel
“We had a strong culture of financial performance, but we did not have client centricity and a client service ethic in our culture — at all.”
“Some CEOs aren’t on the floor, connecting, getting involved — their culture is whatever happens to form. You can’t lead that way.”
“The appreciation of your responsibility to shareholders brings you back to your purpose. Your shareholders must sense your purpose.”
“We set out with one simple mission — to earn the respect of all our stakeholders. Everything else flowed from that.”
“Our cultural change extended to our business partners; we now work in much closer collaboration with others [in the value chain].”
Define the culture you want — make your mission clear
Effective leaders define the mission — what the enterprise does — to produce the results stakeholders expect.
“To create a better everyday life for the many people”
IKEA vision statement
The what portion of culture may be referred to as mission, vision, or purpose. It looks beyond products and services to the impact of the enterprise on its customers and other stakeholders.
Effective leaders define the what of their enterprise’s culture to be both tangible and aspirational. They dig for the root of their business’ relevance to its stakeholders and try to capture its most profound expression. Like IKEA’s statement, the best missions aim high without being ethereal or disconnected from the actual value delivered by the enterprise.
Peer counsel
“We established that every interaction, with every client, every time, had to be excellent. Every error we make affects someone’s life.”
“Our mission is intended to speak to our people. There are lots of different sources of personal value — innovation, customer service, community — people embrace what they find motivating personally.”
“By using client examples to illustrate our mission, we make it real and purpose-driven, not just words.”
“When we crystallized our mission, it forced a change in strategy and operating model. We finally made our actions match our words.”
Define the culture you want — be specific on behaviors
Effective leaders define the values — how the enterprise does things — based on shared principles and the nature of the institution they want to lead.
One could argue that the Ten Commandments are the first — and one of the clearest — statements of values. In every interpretation, they prescribe how for followers. They specify behaviors, both affirming (thou shalt) and rejecting (thou shalt not), that are unambiguous and readily observable.
Enterprise leaders should be as clear on the commandments of their culture. Expectations for internal and external engagement and professional conduct must be easily understood and readily observable. Stakeholders should have no trouble determining whether members are upholding the enterprise’s values. While a leader may wish to express values in positive terms (in nearly every translation, seven of the Ten Commandments begin with “thou shalt not”), they should aspire to values that are worthy of being carved into stone.
Peer counsel
“Our values permeate our company; they are the absolute root of our culture. They are internal, not external. They don’t appear in our advertisements — they are not a slogan; they are essential to us.”
“We reinforce the intended culture of ‘confident humility’ in every quarterly all-hands meeting.”
“The ‘community’ within the organization — who is part of it and how they treat each other — is a huge driver of work satisfaction.”
“You can’t preach a culture of inclusion and have a management team and Board that are not inclusive.”
Define the culture you want — build cultural equity
Effective leaders create unifying purpose and reserves of goodwill that enable enterprises to overcome upsets and move forward through headwinds.
Sir Ernest Shackleton and the crew of the Endurance experienced every worst-case scenario on their quest to cross Antarctica in 1915. While we do not know the culture shared by the men on that ill-fated voyage, we do know that it kept them unified, adaptable, and productive enough to survive what could only be called unsurvivable circumstances.
Leaders experience worst-case outcomes that threaten the existence of their enterprises. BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Exxon-Valdez catastrophe, Union Carbide’s Bhopal accident, and Merck’s Vioxx side effects would have destroyed lesser companies. Whether facing existential challenges or lesser disruptions, enterprise leaders must build reserves of cultural equity to keep their people unified, adaptable and productive enough to weather the storm.
Peer counsel
“Culture creates the ability for rapid strategic adjustment; we can turn the ‘supertanker’ if everyone values alignment across the teams.”
“[One year], I paid zero bonuses due to our poor performance and our cultural assessment scores improved — it was a good signal that we were making real progress on creating the culture we needed.”
“The spiritual equity we get from our clients is our greatest reward; stories [about the people we help] are why we do this.”
Unify through culture -
communicate, embed, and reinforce
When you are in a foreign country for the first time, the elements of culture pervade your experience. The sounds of music and language, the smells of local cuisine, architecture, clothing — all combine to convey the “feel” of the place. While more subtle, the elements of culture are similarly pervasive. The words and phrases people use, the rhythms of their work day, the manner in which they interact all convey the culture. Leaders affecting change must influence the organization from multiple angles to convey the feel of the intended culture.
Insights from Enterprise Leaders
Effective leaders invest in their culture with purpose, discipline, rigor, and persistence.
Effective leaders own and drive the internal and external narratives regarding the mission and values of their enterprise.
Effective leaders ensure that recruiting messages, for every level, emphasize cultural expectations alongside career opportunities.
Effective leaders embed the culture by hiring people who embody the values they want in their enterprise.
Effective leaders celebrate and reinforce the behaviors that exemplify their intended culture.
Communicate, embed, and reinforce
Effective leaders invest in their culture with purpose, discipline, rigor, and persistence.
A self-help guru drew a picture with three words — be, think, do — and connected them with a circle. He explained that, in order to adopt different behaviors, one first needed to think differently — to change “how you conceive of reality.” A plant manager in the audience leaned close to his seatmate and whispered, “I like to start with changing what people actually do and let them figure out how to think differently to get it done.”
Changing the beliefs, feelings, ideas, and attitudes that make up deep culture in the organization is a tall order. Like the plant manager in the story, experienced leaders start with what can be observed — the “do” in the loop — and seize opportunities to influence what cannot be observed — the “think” — to eventually embed the new culture — the “be” — in the organization. Effective leaders expect a long, steady investment of effort before the be-think-do loop becomes self-reinforcing.
Peer counsel
“You can’t overestimate how deep the roots of the old culture run.”
“Great communication can build enthusiasm for culture change but that is not the same as behavior change. When you are moving to a performance culture, everyone will say they love the disco but not everyone will get out on the floor.”
“In order to communicate our culture, I needed to live what I believed. I wanted to set the example.”
“For the CEO and top team, ‘stick-to-it-iveness’ and resilience are a big part of making cultural change happen.”
Communicate, embed, and reinforce — own the narratives
Effective leaders own and drive the internal and external narratives regarding the mission and values of their enterprise.
Nielsen, the market research firm, reported in 2018 that Americans spend more than 11 hours per day watching, reading, listening to, or interacting with media. At the time, that figure was rising by 13 minutes per quarter.
For the enterprise leader, the world’s addiction to media is a double-edged sword. Their intended cultural message faces a tsunami of competition for share of mind. At the same time, they have more ways to reach internal and external audiences, with greater frequency and lower cost, than ever before. Special events and connections, especially face-to-face and one-on-one exchanges, stand out from the media undercurrent. Effective leaders know they can’t turn off the noise, but they can rise above it.
Peer counsel
“I communicate our mission, our focus on continuous improvement, and our drive for innovation every chance that I get.”
“We videotaped our people talking about our aspirations and purpose to use in our internal communications.”
“We sit down with every employee and have a candid conversation about our values. We are open about how we make our choices.”
“The narrative around your culture needs to be relevant to the fields from which you want to recruit.”
“When I see clients, which I do all the time, I go with the team that covers the client and ‘preach the gospel’ of our strategy and culture.”
Communicate, embed, and reinforce — attract the “right” candidates
Effective leaders ensure that recruiting messages, for every level, emphasize cultural expectations alongside career opportunities.
In the online recruiting realm, developers serving both recruiters and candidates have created algorithms for the right words and phrases to entice one another toward employment. Consultants that offer to package firms and candidates to increase the hit rate on counterparty algorithms are popping up around the corporate ecosystem. Machines recommending phrases to attract machines on the basis of assessments developed by machines — what could possibly go wrong?
Effective leaders know that the most important recruiting message won’t be derived or interpreted by algorithms. Leaders challenge their teams to convey the essence of their intended culture and allow candidates to self-select. They hard-wire the assessment process to explore candidates’ behaviors, practices, and beliefs. Experienced leaders know that references and due diligence are crucial — what candidates do is far more important than what they say, especially during an interview. They know that the “right” candidate for their enterprise is always the best candidate for the job.
Peer counsel
“We became known as the best place to work but the hardest place to get a job. We viewed the interview process as an investment.”
“If you can pull together a team based on your vision, not the promise of money, you have the makings of a strong team.”
“Our industry isn’t ‘sexy’, but we are compelling with the right candidates when we talk about our mission and culture, face-to-face.”
“Recruiting aligns your culture beyond performance.”
Communicate, embed, and reinforce — hire for values
Effective leaders embed the culture by hiring people who embody the values they want in their enterprise.
In 2002, The War for Talent prescribed a comprehensive approach to talent management that emphasized fundamentals over recruiting hype. Ten years later, Chasing Stars asserted that luring top performers away from competitors is an uncertain strategy and can be a value-destroying practice.
Staffing an organization with talented people is critical to success — as long as the talent is there for the right reasons. The definition of “great talent” must include intrinsic abilities, development potential, and values that align to the intended culture of the organization. Exceptional hires elevate performance at every level and help move, or reinforce, the culture through example.
Peer counsel
“You must hire people who embody the culture you want; their very presence must help you move the culture.”
“Talent attracts like talent. That statement is true on both the exceptional and unexceptional end of the spectrum.”
“I swapped out all but one of the leaders of my top team; we had to create cultural change, with external credibility, immediately.”
“I will take risks on fit-for-job hires to get fit-for-culture hires.”
“Injecting the right talent in senior roles is the best way to shift the culture of the business.”
Communicate, embed, and reinforce — make positive reinforcement personal
Effective leaders celebrate and reinforce the behaviors that exemplify their intended culture.
“The way positive reinforcement is carried out
is more important than the amount.”
B. F. Skinner
Ask anyone who has strong feelings of loyalty and dedication to their firm and you will hear stories about personal recognition. Some may be about celebrating results, but the more memorable incidences will involve recognition for doing the right things for the right reasons.
Effective leaders know that positive reinforcement is a powerful tool for affecting the culture of their enterprise. They actively seek opportunities to recognize, celebrate, and reward employees who embrace their intended culture and what it requires. While interventions with negative consequences can create necessary shocks to the system, effective leaders know that reinforcement is the foundation on which culture must be built.
Peer counsel
“Top performers want a combination of financial rewards with social rewards and recognition.”
“Recognize people doing the right things in the moment.”
“Early in my career, I got a handwritten note from the CEO about doing the right thing. I kept it for years, like a treasure.”
“People want to be recognized, respected, and appreciated. Maybe now more than ever.”
Unify through culture -
monitor and intervene
Enterprise leaders know that, in a large organization, individual behaviors can — and will — run astray. Some employees exploit organizational values in pursuit of their own gains. Others may simply act without thinking or revert to cultural norms from earlier eras or other organizations. Whatever the motivation, leaders should expect behaviors that fall outside the bounds of their intended culture.
Effective leaders devise means to monitor behavior and intervene — either themselves or through delegation — to correct off-target behaviors. Failure to do so either muddies the interpretation of what is acceptable or sends the message that the stated culture is just a collection of words — neither of which can be allowed.
Insights from Enterprise Leaders
Effective leaders manage adherence to values with the same rigor applied to managing performance.
Effective leaders use simple, sensible assessments to appraise the state of their culture and its progress over time.
Effective leaders learn from the outliers, not the averages, of stakeholders’ experiences.
Effective leaders follow assessments with communication and tangible actions.
When confronted with star performers who fail to meet cultural expectations, effective leaders resolve the issue swiftly and with integrity.
Monitor and intervene
Effective leaders manage adherence to values with the same rigor applied to managing performance.
Imagine an enterprise with a clear mission and track record of success. Add these stated corporate values: communication, respect, integrity, and excellence. Govern it with a Board that includes four corporate CEOs, a former business school Dean, a former university President, and the Director of Regulatory Studies at a prominent institution. What would you have? Enron in the year 2000.
Experienced leaders know that adherence to values must be managed with the same level of discipline they apply to performance. To be authentic and sustained, culture-based behavior requires measurement, transparency, and occasional intervention with consequences. In turn, the Board must exercise the same diligence with the top team. Whether deliberate, like Enron, or stemming from lack of discipline, toxic weeds can only take root from the top of the enterprise.
Peer counsel
“On issues of performance and culture, I have permission to intervene anywhere and at any time — and so does everyone else.”
“When someone violates our culture, I have an obligation to intervene visibly — the ‘perp walk’ is necessary.”
“We had to change the incentive system to reinforce the intended change in culture; without doing so, it would have been just words.”
“Values only count if you measure them and make a difference.”
“This industry went through a period where its professionalism was corrupted by money. It is not an easy road back.”
Monitor and intervene — keep assessments simple
Effective leaders use simple, sensible assessments to appraise the state of their culture and its progress over time.
“False statements might be arranged according to their degree
under three heads: fibs, lies, and statistics.”
Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke
Dilke’s view eventually found its way into lexicon as “lies, damn lies, and statistics,” a phrase Mark Twain attributed to British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.
Experienced leaders emphasize simplicity and common sense over the pursuit of perfection when choosing the method to assess cultural progress. No ideal survey exists. It is nearly impossible to determine the right threshold to target on any dimension; however, it is relatively easy to observe improvement, or lack of it, over time. Effective leaders drill into the substance of the message and avoid being distracted by the precision of the method.
Peer counsel
“When I travel, I send a note out to all associates every two weeks on what I see and hear around the business. I want to model a culture of listening and transparency. It may be anecdotal, but it resonates.”
“We conduct an annual ‘engagement’ survey and multiple pulse surveys over the year to assess our progress on culture.”
“Having the perfect survey doesn’t mean as much as conducting the survey every year and keeping it similar enough to get a real sense of progress — or lack of it.”
Monitor and intervene — learn from the outliers
Effective leaders learn from the outliers, not the averages, of stakeholders’ experiences.
“Six Sigma” techniques and tools gained widespread notice when Jack Welch made them central to GE’s management approach in 1995. The doctrine asserts that processes can be defined, measured, analyzed, improved, and controlled to reduce the variations that lead to defects. Six Sigma refers to the statistical probability of less than 3.4 defects per one million opportunities (six standard deviations from the mean).
Leaders should heed the lesson of the Six Sigma approach: a process that appears good on average can mask an unacceptable level of incidences where things break down. If your average employee satisfaction is strong but your highest performers leave, something is wrong — no matter what the survey averages tell you. Effective leaders dig into the outlier events. They remediate the individual instances and search for root causes of the weaknesses. While GE’s far-reaching applications of the Six Sigma approach drew criticism, they had it right in principle — identify systemic problems from the outliers, not the averages. The same idea is good counsel for enterprise leaders driving cultural change.
Peer counsel
“Surveys of performance are useful, but ‘moments of truth’ are the real story.”
“When you hold people accountable — individually — for the cultural changes you want, it resonates throughout the organization.”
“Performance doesn’t fail at the average — it fails in the ‘long tail’ of disappointing customer and employee experiences.”
Monitor and intervene — treat the pain with action
Effective leaders follow assessments with communication and tangible actions.
“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body; it calls attention to the development of
an unhealthy state of things. If it is heeded in time, danger may be averted;
if it is suppressed, a fatal distemper may develop.”
Sir Winston Churchill
Effective leaders communicate the results broadly and openly, engage their stakeholders to better understand the findings, and respond with visible actions. The actions that follow cultural assessments determine the worth of the exercise. Every assessment of progress in changing culture will have gains to reinforce and gaps to address. The continuous improvement mantra of “plan — do — check — adjust” (the Shewhart Cycle or the Deming Wheel) is a good guide for taking action. Too many leaders feel apprehensive about sharing cultural bad news with the organization and wind up suppressing the pain. As Churchill suggested, heed the pain. Communicate the feedback and the actions that follow.
Peer counsel
“The internal examples of cultural breakdowns are corrected and then used as examples to illustrate key points during training.”
“How we deal with mistakes and bad behavior defines our commitment to our values.”
“A customer complaint is one of the best forms of feedback on our culture; how we respond is one of the best measures of its strength.”
Monitor and intervene — deal with the “star problem” — quickly
When confronted with star performers who fail to meet cultural expectations, effective leaders resolve the issue swiftly and with integrity.
Texas A&M quarterback, Johnny Manziel, was the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy, Manning Award, and Davey O’Brien Quarterback Award. He was named AP Player of the Year. He won a starting spot in the NFL at the age of 20. As a professional, his conduct on and off the field was distracting, at best. He has since been dropped by the NFL and the Canadian Football League.
Key employees that deliver results but violate intended culture undermine the credibility of the enterprise leader and their agenda. They send a resonating message that the end justifies the means and that, when forced to choose between performance and culture, the leader will blink. If you feel that a star performer is testing your conviction in your intended culture, you can rest assured — they are. Johnny Manziel’s behavior was extreme and visible. Your “star problem” may be less obvious but just as toxic.
Peer counsel
“My experience is mixed — I have been both seduced by superstars to my detriment and suffered from not hiring them.”
“Left to their own devices, the [key employees] would eat each other alive.”
“We have a ‘no ***holes policy’ and have acted on it; however, we aren’t as thorough when the ***hole has a big book of business.”
“People who are smart but destructive are not as useful as a ‘solid B’ who is committed and willing to work.”
“No one individual can ever be allowed to take this institution hostage — including myself.”
Unify through culture -
don’t confuse culture with compliance
The distance between a violation of enterprise values and breaking a law can be great… or small. Experienced leaders often create professional standards that are much more restrictive than the letter of the law to build a buffer between having a behavioral problem and a legal one. This practice only provides insurance if those professional standards are treated with compliance discipline and, given the state of transparency in the world today, surveillance practices.
Insights from Enterprise Leaders
Enterprises with strong and positive cultures have suffered from the actions of individuals who violate their stated values.
Effective leaders employ compliance and management controls to remove confusion about the interpretation of enterprise values and instill confidence in the leader’s will to defend them.
Don’t confuse culture with compliance
Enterprises with strong and positive cultures have suffered from the actions of individuals who violate their stated values.
Arthur Andersen’s eponymous founder created the accounting profession’s first centralized training program. It included an indoctrination to Andersen’s values, first among which was “Integrity and Honesty.” By 2001, Andersen had become the world’s largest professional services firm with ~28,000 employees.
Andersen, auditor for Enron, was convicted in 2002 of obstruction of justice for the actions of one of its partners. When the Supreme Court unanimously reversed Andersen’s conviction in 2005, only 200 employees remained. The firm founded by Arthur Andersen in 1913 was all but gone in less than three years. The Court found that Andersen did not condone or encourage its rogue partner’s behavior and that Andersen had invested to build a culture of integrity. The partners of Andersen lost their firm — and its proud legacy — anyway.
Andersen’s failure is well-known but far from unique. Stories abound of firms that invested to build good cultures and delivered great value to their stakeholders that were damaged, if not destroyed, by the actions of isolated individuals. Many believed that their cultures were the best means of ensuring ethical behavior. Effective leaders don’t mistake cultural aspirations for compliance disciplines.
Peer counsel
“When is culture a strong enough lever to provide control in a geographically diffused organization? Is it ever enough? Do you dare trust it?”
Don’t confuse culture with compliance — reinforce with controls
Effective leaders employ compliance and management controls to remove confusion about the interpretation of enterprise values and instill confidence in the leader’s will to defend them.
Culture is referenced by the United States Federal Sentencing Guidelines and includes expectations for organizations to promote “organizational culture that encourages ethical conduct” and “compliance with the law.” In a March 2018 discussion paper, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority proposes conduct rules to “promote healthy culture” in accordance with regulation.
The relationship between culture and controls runs both directions. Regulators recognize the positive impact that cultures steeped in ethical behavior have on an organization’s ability to ensure compliance. Experienced leaders know that declared cultural aspirations without defined standards, continual measurement and monitoring, and intervention when appropriate, are subject to permissive interpretation and rogue behavior. Some may see management controls and compliance disciplines as antithetical to culture. They are wrong. An enterprise with a culture of integrity should feel no burden from inspection and invite compliance. Those who live their values have nothing to hide.
Peer counsel
“Geographic diffusion leads to serious control issues; it forces a tradeoff of autonomy versus remote control, which is often resisted.”
“Your values get traded off — ours wasn’t a case of loyalty and integrity, it was loyalty over integrity.”
“When control issues become public, you lose control of managing the business. Perceptions start driving the decisions you make.”
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Revisit Chapter 5.
Read Chapter 7 here.
