“Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you've got.” – Peter Drucker Spot on: Drucker is spot on when he compares company cultures to those of countries. Leaders don’t often think of their organization as even having a culture, much less comparing it to country cultures, but that is exactly the case. I think about culture as the unwritten rules of a group and whether that group is a country, a company, a family or geographical region, its members don’t think too much about those unwritten rules and don’t even realize when they are operating by them. Those rules could be related to everything from communication norms, decision making, expectations of leadership or even seemingly mundane things like when and how they take breaks. Missed the mark: Drucker missed the mark by recommending leaders should not even try to change their company culture. Many times that is exactly what is needed and it is the leader’s responsibility to create those changes. Cultures are fluid—created and maintained by the individuals within it—and can certainly be changed. An effective leader will recognize the aspects of her company culture that need to be changed and follow up with the difficult work of changing them. Cultures of apathy, low productivity, ineffective communication….change them!
In a recent article, Luke Visconti (aka “The White Guy") argues that “CEO commitment is essential to diversity-management programs.” As my kids would say, “No duh,” that’s pretty obvious. But I would add another reason that Visconti didn’t mention. That is that CEOs must be committed because successful diversity initiatives are actually successful change initiatives. The organizational culture must shift to be more inclusive and adaptive to difference. Without this shift, you don’t have a successful diversity initiative; you just have a bunch of diversity programs stacked up in an organization with no results.
Visconti also argues that if you don’t have this CEO commitment, don’t bother. Here’s where I disagree. I’ve seen effective diversity councils and capable, savvy directors of diversity make a difference. They can initiate programs and create change in pockets throughout the organization even without full commitment from the CEO. Is it whole-scale change? No. But it does make a difference. Another factor to keep in mind is that good leaders listen to feedback, suggestions and certainly, groundswell movements. With skillful maneuvering, diversity councils and directors can influence CEOs and create buy-in. Remember too, that CEOs, particularly in some industries, turn over quite frequently. Worst case scenario, is that successful individual programs can plant the seed today for tomorrow’s CEO to grow.
Over the last few decades our workplace has drastically changed: diversity abounds, technology rules, M&A’s are the norm and change happens every few minutes! This new environment calls for superhero leaders with a more robust set of competencies. We believe that two crucial sets of competencies that are a must-have for effective leaders today are Cultural Competencies and Emotional Intelligence Competencies. Want proof? Here’s some good research to back up our claim:
- An analysis of more than 300 top-level executives from fifteen global companies showed that six competencies distinguished the stars from the average. Two of those were intercultural competencies, the remaining were emotional competencies (Spencer, L. M., Jr., 1997)
- Research by the Center for Creative Leadership has found that the primary causes of derailment in executives involve deficits in three primary emotional intelligence and diversity competencies: difficulty in handling change, not being able to work well in a diverse team, and poor interpersonal relations.
- According to a study conducted by the Southwest Institute, 37% of previously successful leaders fail within the first year of being given a role leading a global, intercultural team.
So how do you build these competencies? Start by checking out our website and the tools we use.
I feel like a proud parent as I talk about our new name or unveil our brand to clients and partners. I’m so excited about how they both reflect who we are and the work we do.
I’ve seen Sentient through its infancy, adolescence and young adulthood. At times during that growth we weren’t clear about our identity and sometimes even took on a persona as a company because it’s what “everyone else was doing.” Now, as a mature adult we are not only clear about our identity, we can also stand comfortably in it. Over the summer it took long weeks of brainstorm, evaluation and discussion, but we know that deepSEE feels right. This name is what we do. We help companies go beneath the surface in order to understand situations at a deeper level and create long-term, systemic change. The look and feel of deepSEE is who we are. We're bold, we're fresh, and not willing to settle for the status quo.
As a proud parent, I look forward to seeing the ways our work shows up in the world and how it influences the world tomorrow. There's a lot of work to do, and we're ready for it.