The wrong corporate values kill businesses, and how to not kill yours

The past few years have been tumultuous, to say the least — a global pandemic, political uprisings, the great resignation, and now the great stay.

Influenced by our current events (and research), the next generation of leaders are gearing up to perform logically and with high emotional acumen.

Want to know one of my biggest frustrations?

People who are stellar at their jobs but unintentionally self-destruct because they haven’t figured out how to navigate challenges with emotional clarity and competence.

After all, traditional and antiquated business cultures have been fear-based, relying on teams to “just suck it up and do it”.

Eventually, that fails. Why?

As I always like to say: you take yourself everywhere you go.

You take your mind everywhere you go.

The human mind relies on psychological safety, the feeling and belief that you can share your thoughts, opinions, and ideas freely without fear of being degraded or shamed.

When you kill someone’s psychological safety, you also kill that person’s ability to perform.

• On a tight budget and need to watch every dollar? We need psychological safety.
• Want high-performing and motivated teams? We need psychological safety.
• Want to reduce attrition for the same ol’ issues? We need psychological safety.

If you think psychological safety doesn’t belong in business, I urge you to look deeper.

Brene Brown’s book “Date to Lead” gives a great case study.

Old Navy was faltering when then-CEO Stefan Larrson took charge and led the organization through a cultural transformation. Old Navy was once run siloed, based on politics, hierarchy, and fear. Larrson ran it with vulnerability, trust, openness, and collaboration — all of which prove fundamental to psychological safety.

As a result, Old Navy delivered growth and added $1 billion in sales within a few years.

Let’s use the overarching cultural values Old Navy dumped and adopted as inspiration.

Don’t do:

• Surround yourself with ‘yes men/women’ to people-please
• Have ‘personality bias’ against those who don’t communicate, act, or think just like you
• Build cliques or personal relationships that challenge your ability to act objectively
• Endorse hustle-culture competition ie: “I was working until 2:00 am!” (don’t worry, we’ll know)

Do:

• Create space for your team to speak up and challenge you. They are doing this to serve your best interest.
• Strategically leverage others’ strengths where you fall short
• Practice having vulnerable, honest, and secure conversations
• I’ll leave you with what a wise founder recently told me: “There is no need to look at competition from a scarcity mindset. There are enough pieces of the pie to go around”.

How are you creating psychological safety for your team this week?