Passion, People & Purpose - the Path for Organizational Cultural Success!

www.molnarconsulting.ca July 11, 2022

I love working with a company to explore and develop their culture and strategy because I am able to facilitate a conversation that helps each leader and employee connect their success to that of their company. It feels like your are mapping out future direction and options and engaging the heart of each person into the common direction. I know the team has the answers for what will get them closer to their ideal and it is my job to help bring that into the discussion.

Invariably I find that it comes down to one of three areas where a misalignment creates all kinds of havoc in results, engagement, culture and overall success. These three areas are passion, people and purpose. All of these areas are built on the foundation of values. It is the values of the individuals as well as the organization that determine what behaviours and outcomes are acceptable and what will need to be adjusted. People can share common values but can demonstrate very different behaviours as a result of their beliefs and background. In this month's blog I want to explore each of these areas and the impacts each has on the outcomes of an organization's success. I also want to invite you to connect with me and explore the impact your values make on your actions by taking part in my free values profile.

1. Passion:

People join an organization because they connect with the values, mission or goals of the organization. They often stay with an organization because they are able to see their role in the success of the organization and their personal values are linked to the organizational values. Having a shared foundation of values and mission grounds the organization and helps people figure out not just what is to be done, but more importantly, how they need to behave in order to be successful. Regardless of whether a business is not for profit, government or private sector, the culture determines how everyone interacts together in the service of customers. Companies who are intentional with their culture and work to provide an environment where people feel a part of the work have been shown to have much stronger financial and business outcomes, less turnover and stronger employee engagement.

Having all employees share in the values, culture and mission of the organization is something that takes the commitment of everyone in the organization. It is not about a leader providing direction and employees blindly following orders. That is an outdated model of leadership. Today's leader needs to be able to communicate and demonstrate the values and they need to be able to hold their employees accountable to do the same. The leader can't be everywhere so for a strong culture to thrive, each individual also needs to be able to live the values and have open and honest conversations with others when they see actions that do not align. Culture is not a leadership tactic. It is a commitment everyone needs to make to ensure the passion people have on their first day builds throughout their career and helps build organizational results.

2. People:

This one has many facets. Let's look at a few of them.

Attitude:

Hire people with the right attitude who fit with the culture you are committed to. Skills can be trained easier than attitude can be changed. Onboard people as much to culture as you do to the technical sides of the business. If they know the equipment but don't treat your customers or their coworkers well, it will create challenges for you down the road. This is especially important in leadership roles as the impact of a strong leader can spread positive results and engage employees in success while a leader who is counter to your culture creates a toxic environment in which people live in fear and results suffer.

Accountability:

Like the cut of a diamond is designed to increase its brilliance, clarity of outcomes are critical to help people shine. It is about setting clear goals and then holding people accountable to get their tasks done and do what they say they will do. There is nothing more frustrating to a team then to see a coworker be allowed to do sub par work. This increases the work of others, reduces trust and builds resentment. It creates rifts between teams, within teams and ultimately will impact customer service.

Accountability takes being clear with outcomes and deadlines and providing training and coaching to ensure people have the skills to succeed. It then moves into how to measure the outcomes and having conversations to check progress and redirect to stay on track. Success may need you to manage one-off challenges, or it may be dealing with talented terrors - those individuals who only see their way of doing things and micromanage others so they don't need to change. They struggle with sharing knowledge or they feel they are the only ones who can do something so everyone suffers because works stops when they get behind. Worse yet - they go in their own direction and don't want to hear what others, including leaders, try to say. They may get the results, but they are independent results and don't consider the impact on others or overall corporate direction.

Whatever the foundation, the results are the same - allowing behaviour to go unchecked impacts the ability of the entire team to get things done. Long term, it creates issues with engagement, connection and potential employee burnout.

Feedback:

Commitment to regularly touching base with employees to gauge progress and check in on how they are doing will help keep them on track. This helps the employee know you care about them personally, in their career growth and in their outcomes and it helps keep you, as a leader engaged in the progress of the goals you have set. Regular feedback keeps outcomes from going too far off track and also allows both parties to share in the success of the outcome.

Appreciation:

Employee engagement is about connection and feedback. Just as important it is about celebrating the wins along the path. This creates trust, connection and builds relationship that helps the goal and the individuals continue to progress forward. Appreciation can be something as simple as a thank you note or comment. The more specific you can be about what was done and how it led to success the longer the appreciation will help build the confidence and engage the employee to keep going. It also helps then understand perspective when they need support in the tough times. People want to succeed and this takes supporting through rough spots and celebrating with them when they excel. People need to know what is good so that they can continue doing what is needed to achieve success. You can never show your employees enough care, support and appreciation.

3. Purpose:

Purpose is about knowing what direction needs to be taken when faced with many choices. It acts like a compass in the woods - keeping you on the path to success and prevent you from going down rabbit holes that will take you off course.

Individual:

This was touched on a bit when I talked about helping link people's job role to the team or organizational success. This is purpose at it's foundational level. It is about using the strengths of a person to help achieve the overall success of the company. Every employee has a role in the success. As leaders it is critical that we appreciate and help our employees realize the integral part that they play in our success.

Team Business Goals:

This is about each team looking at what needs to be done and putting together a realistic plan on how to get achieve it. It is about managing within the capacity of the team and selecting the items that will move things forward in the most effective way. The more individuals are engaged, the stronger the passion and commitment to the outcome will be. Teams can't operate in a vacuum and this is where they need to consider how their goals fit with other stakeholders as well as how their goals connect to the bigger corporate vision.

Strategic Direction:

Companies need to know where they are going in order to know if they have success or not. Having clearly defined direction helps teams and individuals manage their time and prioritize tasks. This allows the organization to better manage the collaboration between teams and schedule activities in a way that efficiently uses time and resources. It also reduces the level of stress people feel as they are able to focus their energy on items that move things forward and don't have to guess and priorities. It creates openings for those projects that may not be planned but are a good addition. It is easier to look at where something new fits if you are able to clearly look at what is important and in flight already. Direction is not created in a vacuum. It is based on assessment of the current business climate, customer needs, as well as the capacity of your team to meet those needs. Having a clear strategic direction gives focus to organizations. It also facilitates the conversations when something is asked that does not fit with direction. It is not a means to become rigid, it is actually a means to have a deliberate conversation about where new things fit in the overall plan. This helps manage expectations and builds trust in the organization, with the board and with customers. It gives an organization a framework on which decide if and where priorities shift when a change is needed as well as a means to report progress towards clear goals.

Vision:

This is about answering for the organization and customers what they are here to do. It is typically overarching but it helps guide the each of the layers beneath it towards determining what is and what is not mission critical for the business. It is easy in business to get caught in saying yes to things that are not core business. This is fine if the organization has capacity to manage core business and take on the new things. When the new things can't be done without disruption to business, that is when it is time to take intentional steps to either decide a change in direction and reduce some other area. This may mean saying "not now" to the new opportunity, or putting together a business case to finance the resources needed to bring the new idea to reality. Having a vision ensures everyone is pulling in the same direction towards common goals from a culture and outcomes perspective.

Passion, People and Purpose - the perfect trifecta for cultural and organizational success!

If you would like to explore your values further and how they impact your behaviours and decisions I invite you to take a free Personal Values Assessment and contact me to see how this can help you be your best self in your work, leadership and personal life. Click the button below to get started. I can be contacted at 403-730-7769 to learn more about culture, strategy and values.

Click for Free Values Assessment

Be well,

Judy