The Culture Nerds - A Leadership Podcast
Want to constantly grow as a leader and shape a great culture in your workplace? This is the podcast for you.
Of course, if you’re a yoghurt fan who typed in ‘culture’ and ended up here …(sorry, nerdy workplace culture joke). If you’re a serious person who believes serious topics must be covered in a serious way, we may not be the petri dish for you either.
But, if you want lived executive experience and decades working with corporate clients, government agencies & NFPs, all topped off by the hilarious hosts (at least we think so!), welcome - we're glad you could join us!
We nerd out on leadership and workplace culture – which is why we’re good at them. We tackle the topics you need to develop as a leader and to transform the workplace culture you have into the workplace culture you want. And we have fun doing it.
Hard hitting topics. Easy listening.
The Culture Nerds - A Leadership Podcast
🗨️ Authentic Conversations: If you don't measure workplace culture, how can you improve it?
Text us your thoughts or questions
Most people want to work in the best workplace culture possible. Assuming that you don't already have a perfect culture (spoiler alert: you don't) that means change.
The problem many organisations have is that they make knee jerk changes based on what they THINK will be effective. Wouldn't it be better to do things that you KNOW would be effective? That's why you should measure your workplace culture (and it doesn't have to cost you much - or even anything).
By the way, if you're thinking - we already measure our culture with an engagement survey - bad news. You aren't measuring your culture which is why some of the things you thought would help, don't.
Listen in for the full story!
Looking to use our free culture measurement tool?
This questionnaire will give you an insight into how aligned your organisation is.
If you answer the questions honestly, it will provide a strong measure of your organisation's culture - and allow us to identify specific areas you could work on.
After completing this questionnaire, you'll receive an overview of how Authentic your workplace culture is and the main challenges you face based on your responses.
You can access the tool here - Is your Organisation Authentic? - The Real Learning Experience
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Want some insight into your workplace culture? Take our free online Culture Survey here
Visit our website The Real Learning Experience
Thanks to our producer, Josh at Deadset Podcasting
Before we get into today's episode, we want to acknowledge the privilege of living and working on Aboriginal land and we pay our respects to the elders, past, present and emerging. Hello listeners, we are the Culture Nerds, our leadership podcast. My name is Kiralee and with me I have my co-host, simon. Welcome, simon.
Speaker 2:Thank you, kiralee, excited to be here for another episode. I mean I don't know. It was called Sunny Lonseston today. It was it's. It's got to be a stretch. She said it was cold. Well, if I look out the window right now it's sunny, but in about 30 seconds I think it's going to be cloudy. It's been magnificent here and just had a rough hour or so, but excited to be up here working with an organisation on their culture. So very topical, this podcast.
Speaker 1:It is, and we were actually going to record a different podcast topic today. But after some discussions that we've had like some discussions that you've been having over the past couple of days, but also some discussions that we've had lots of discussions with clients and potential clients and some enquiries around a specific topic since the start of this year so we thought if this is topical at the moment for our clients and our potential clients and the enquiries we've got coming in, then it has to be something that's topical for our listeners and other people out there and potential listeners that might join us at a later time and be listening to the back catalogue.
Speaker 2:And our clients are special, I know, but they're not completely unique, and so if this is a hot topic for them, it's a hot topic for many of the listeners that will tune into this podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this time of year and the start of any year for anyone that may not be listening to this upon release time, we often receive a lot of calls from clients and when we just have general discussions with leaders and people that work in organisations and it doesn't necessarily have to be people ringing us up about work, it's just general discussions that we might have with people People are talking about the direction that they'd like to take their organisation in and the way we put it is the levers that they want to pull for this year in order to improve or continue to close that gap between the workplace culture they have and the workplace culture that they want to pull.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it almost seems, kira Lee, that in time, with a bit more time for reflection and almost the full stop on one year and the start of another, it almost seems that their goggles get cleared and they can see with clarity that they're not quite where they want to be. Yeah, it's probably the moment where they're most in tune with that, before they get buried by the everyday, you know, got to do, got to perform, got to deliver of, you know, normal workplace, yeah. So it's a special moment where organisations have that opportunity to be a little bit introspective and do something with what they see.
Speaker 1:So the topic that we've had the upsurge of interest in is measuring culture and what this looks like. So what we thought is we'd record today's podcast and Simon is our measuring culture guru, aka nerd at the Aurelion experience, because he is our culture consultant. He's got an accreditation with Human Synergy Sticks, which is the tool that we will speak about during this episode, but it is one of the two tools, yeah, but it is what I guess you just completely nerd off on, don't you Simon? You love it when someone comes to us and says we would like to measure our culture. It's almost like you just ruin your element, aren't you?
Speaker 2:I'm like that Labrador that's just excited to be letting the side pumping on the furniture, misbehaving Try not to wheel the carpet anymore.
Speaker 1:Not at all inappropriate at all. I feel Labrador.
Speaker 2:And look, I've been called many four letter words. Guru is absolutely not one of them, but nerd absolutely is.
Speaker 1:Oh, you know, I will say that, when it comes to measuring clients culture and using this tool and the application, this tool, and taking what is pages and pages of data and making it in a language for clients to understand, you are the guru when it comes to this. I'll go on record as saying that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and listeners.
Speaker 1:This doesn't happen to me.
Speaker 1:So what we thought would be the easiest way for these two, I guess flow today will be I'm just going to really pick your brain about some of the questions that we get asked and some of the ways that I think we can take our lessons on a bit of a journey of what is measuring culture. So there's three questions that we sometimes and we often we always get asked these three questions, but most of the time they all rolling to one question, and then we have to break it down with the people we're talking to, and that is can you measure culture, how do you measure culture and why do you measure culture? So I'll just ask those questions to you, simon, and you can break that down.
Speaker 2:Okay. So with my short attention span, I'm going to have a crack at the first one and I'll remind you of two and three, and it would just cut you off and let you know.
Speaker 2:Oh, that sort of stuff. Yeah, it's like giving my son instructions or one of my sons they're all formed in the same category. If I give him three instructions, if I said, go and get something from your room, clean your teeth and something else, I'd walk into his room 15 minutes later and he'd be sitting on the floor looking around, thinking I know I'm here for something. So I'm just going to answer the first question.
Speaker 1:Yes, can you measure. Can you measure culture? I'm going to kick you on track.
Speaker 2:That's an absolute. The answer is absolutely yes, and look, I think it's. There'd be a really deep and fascinating philosophical debate if you happen to be a culture nerd about whether you're measuring culture or whether you're measuring the signals of culture, but I absolutely believe you can, and because for most of our listeners they don't care. They don't care about that philosophical debate, they just want to know is it possible for me to get a reasonably accurate snapshot of culture? And I think there are two ways to do it, two broad ways to do it, and one is through really data driven instruments that provide a bunch of information, and I'm going to come back to that and talk a bit more about that, because obviously there's an expense involved for clients there, and I don't want it to be for and for our listeners. I don't want that to be the only thing we put in front of them, because there are ways to measure culture that aren't necessarily expensive and don't necessarily have a cost associated with them, and that's through a more observational, subjective process, so you can actually look at a range of things that will help you get a picture of the culture Hand on heart. Can a manager do that as accurately, as effectively as a data driven process. No, they can't, because they don't have the experience, they don't have the context of culture, the background in culture. A lot of them don't. A lot of them, this is something that happens off the side of their desk and because those observational and subjective processes don't tend to be as holistic, as all encompassing. But it's still possible to do it. And, in fact, in one of my nerdy moments I came up with the concept of authentic, because we are process around identifying what the culture is, what you'd like it to be, and why there's a gap we call authenticity, and I came up with the concept of authentic, which is like a quality checklist that we use when we go into clients, and it is an observational, subjective one that doesn't rely upon having to work with data, and it's important that there's any other options there. Clients can also use an option like that themselves. They can come up with something themselves that they say what am I going to observe? That tells me about the culture and often a lot of what we observe.
Speaker 2:The key question, the key question when you see something in the culture and you see something in the workplace, the key question that will help you understand the culture is what drives that? So if I'm seeing high absenteeism, what drives that? If I'm seeing people really willing to provide a whole bunch of extra discretionary effort, what drives that? What is it about the culture that drives that? So, yes, you can measure it that way. You can also do it in the heavily data driven way, and I guess I've sort of blended the answer to can you measure culture, and how do you measure culture here into one. Why do I love data driven approaches? Because if you use tools and there are a number out there there's a number of really rubbish ones out there, by the way, but there are a number out there that have got high integrity, high credibility, high validity If you use a tool like that, the amount of information you can get is staggering, and so I do love that aspect.
Speaker 1:And there's no way to really hide with the data that comes through. Is there? It's data that really shows some areas where the gaps are?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I guess the One of the key differences in a data-driven approach versus a subjective, observational approach is that there is room for arguments and so people can potentially hide behind. Well, I think that's just an opinion, yeah, and the people that Maybe most resistant and potentially that could include one or two people on an executive team To the changes that need to happen, can Use that as a way to avoid.
Speaker 1:They can, they can dismiss what's been seen as just an opinion and so, to Close this part off, what, why do we measure culture?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's the you've already started to touch on that Because when we measure it, we're not just doing things because we think we should. We're not changing that policy, we're not introducing this program or not Having teams undergo this training, we're not making this different decision because we think we should. We're doing it in a really strategic way. So two of my passions around workplace culture one I love this phrase it's simple, even if it's not easy, and what I mean by that is we over Complicate life, and people like you and I have got a vested interest in complicating it, because then people have to pay as a bucket load of money to come in and uncomplicate it. So I'm I'm gonna do that bit for free.
Speaker 2:Workplace culture is not complicated, but it's not easy, and and the distinction is so critical when something's complicated, we don't know what to do. When it's simple, we know what to do when it's easy, sorry, when it's hard, it might not be complicated, but it's still difficult to do, and I'll buy 100% accept that this, that that Moving culture can be difficult and is difficult, but it shouldn't be complex as well. And so one of the things I like to do is simplify that process of Of making it more transparent. You know, really it comes down to we know what we want, we know what we've got and we're going to assess why there's a difference. And it shouldn't be more complex than that. It shouldn't be staggering around the in the dark trying different things and and Not really sure what's working on, what's not, but copying a lot of resistance because People don't know why you're doing things. So that's number one, number one. Number two is I absolutely and these it's closely related I Absolutely adamantly believe that culture change should be strategic. So we should do it in a really planned, really considered way that identifies the biggest things that are preventing is having the culture we want to have and then addresses those.
Speaker 2:Because what we often see in organizations is they'll do Band-Aid measures because they want the workplace to be better. So they'll do these Band-Aid measures and they often pick one or two simple things, things that look easy to do I will get a bit of a budget, we'll call a contractor and get them to come in and do this training, or we'll deal with this, or we'll do that, or we'll change this and they look for these simple things to do because they want to tick the box and say we've done the culture thing. I think that's a major error because, a it wastes whatever resources they've got, but B it creates cynicism. We've done all this stuff and none of it works Well, none of it worked because it wasn't strategic and it wasn't directed at dealing with the real issues.
Speaker 2:So when I work with a client, one of my favorite bits of it and you've already talked about it and I am going to talk about a data-driven approach for a minute the last client I worked with on this had a 380 page report and I don't expect them to read that. They never will. Which CEO has got time to read that and which executive members got time to read that? That's what I do, and so I read it and I love it. I love what I can find out by reading it. But then and this is the bit that I really nerd out on is coming up with some sort of action plan out of that. Here are the things, and you used the word before levers. Here are the levers you can pull to make the culture better, to close the gap between what you've got and what you want.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite parts of that process is also, before you do that part of it is, you describe to the client what the culture's like. So you get this data report and, without having been inside the organization, you've got this report and you say, yeah, I like coming to work here, but some days I like this, and occasionally you can experience this and I love it when we're sitting there with clients and they all look at you and they go. That's exactly what happens. How did you do that? It is because the data does not lie. The data gives us such an indication of what it is like to come to work in that organization and what the experience is that people have when they come into the organization. And that's probably one of my favorite parts of doing this is because the clients just sit there and look at you and go. That's exactly what it's like.
Speaker 2:You've just nailed the key point. Data's just numbers, and I think one of the reasons I love the data-driven approaches and again, if that's not what a client does, if a listener goes out there and says, right, we're going to look at what's happening around our workplace and we're going to ask that question, simon suggested what's triggering that, what's driving that, what's leading to that behavior or that outcome or that metric? If that's all they do, that's fine. But one of the reasons I love the data is it gives me so much information but without another step, it's just numbers and it's boring and it means nothing.
Speaker 2:So I love what you're describing is and I often say to clients now, just forgive me, I like to look at the tea leaves. I really don't not a lot the tea leaves of the 360 page data report.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:But I like to look at the tea leaves and I guess when I say I don't don't get me wrong listeners I'm not doing some mystical thing here and really reading tea leaves. This is my expression that I say to them. I tried to read the tea leaves and what I'm really trying to do is give a personality to the data, because that's the only way. If a team out there 150 people, 500 people, 1,000 people in an organization, they don't want to know it. They want to see some of the data because they want to know what's going on?
Speaker 2:but ultimately they want to go. No, what does this mean to me? What does this feel like to me? So what I'm trying to do is give the data a personality, because that's what they relate to. And you're right, and it's not because I've got any amazing powers of being able to read it. I think I do. I guess I have to be honest and say I think I do interpret it, I've got a feel for it, because I love it. It's like anything that you love that you tend to do it better, but I call it and it's not at my own term. It was something someone taught me. What's the voice of the culture? And I love. If the culture could speak, what would it say? And I love that bit because that's when teams look at it and go, huh, this is real, and then they're really open to the culture change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. It's almost like that's one of the pivotal points of the process, because you'll have people that just buying from the start because they can see the value in the process and they can see where the change can occur. But then you have other people, and this is just because humans are all different. You have other people that go, hmm, don't really get it, how does this work and what kind of data are we going to get, what kind of changes? And then you read the tea leaves, so to speak, and they're like huh, this guy really knows what he's talking about. This data is exactly how it is like to come here every day. So it is yeah, it is strong.
Speaker 2:More than the guy knows what he's talking about. It's the data's actually real, it's actually seeing our culture and therefore they say, huh, so if we follow where that data takes us, we'll get the outcome, because most people want to work in a better culture.
Speaker 2:No matter what the culture is, they still want it to be better, and if it's not good, they absolutely need it to be better. Kierley, before we move on to the next, because I know that you've got some other questions there for me- but I was about to jump to the next one.
Speaker 1:I can see the time.
Speaker 2:I've seen that from many MCs over my life. But an awesome meeting today which is just so related to this that I was working with a client and talking to some of their team and we did this process for them about four months ago and we've got a project plan and they're working through that and I've gone in to help support them on a couple of things. It was such a cool meeting because I was able to go. I went in to see as I was wrapping up for the day, popped my head in to say good-bye to the people and culture manager and the CEO was in there talking with them and they said, oh, I'll leave you to it. And I said no, no, wait for a second and can I just talk to you both? So good that I can actually say to them after four months, you're moving the dial. I can see you're moving the dial. I can hear the conversations that people are having. I can hear their belief that they can make a difference.
Speaker 2:I think one of the things that really come through as I was chatting to some people today is they had bought into the process. Why'd they bought into it? Couple of reasons. One is the data was compelling. That really made sense to them. But there's a whole bunch of other reasons. The organization has been so transparent with them about it. They've just laid it out. They said we want these people to be part of creating a better culture, so we'll give them everything, we'll tell them everything. There's no secrets. And so they've laid everything out and that's created such goodwill and such belief in the process.
Speaker 2:And as soon as people saw little movements, they started to say, well, I better get on board with this, because culture doesn't get changed top down. Culture gets changed when everyone buys in and plays their role. We've got a saying often that people love change. They just don't want to change. So I want it to be better. But you mean, I need to do something as well. And because it's been such a credible and inclusive process, people are going OK, I know, I know I need to make some change myself and I'm willing to do that because I can see this is real, and of course, that then creates more momentum. So it was just so cool to be able to look at two people who have really invested their energies into this. Yeah, and how to say them, you're moving the dial, and it was just that that made my day Again, nerdy. But there you go.
Speaker 1:So we will often in discussions with people when we start talking about measuring culture and you've recently written a blog about this that will link in the show notes but people will often say to us yeah, we measure our culture, we do an engagement survey every year, but a lot of the time what they're finding is they've got this process of the engagement server that they do. That gives them all this information, but it's not giving them an accurate measurement of the culture. For example, your engagement survey might say that your teams are happy, but you're having a high turnover of people, so there's a gap there that they can't seem to connect of why things are happening. Can you talk to our listeners a little bit about why an engagement survey probably isn't the most accurate way of measuring your culture?
Speaker 2:And look, can I start by saying engagement servers are great. No, some engagement servers are great. There's a lot of rubbish out there again, just like culture surveys, culture audits. So there's some, but there are some really, really good ones out there, and if people are working with a good one, then fantastic, as long as you understand what it will measure. So if you want what an engagement survey will tell you, then go ahead and use one. They're fantastic instruments.
Speaker 2:The problem is that people do an engagement survey and believe that it will tell them about their culture, and it absolutely doesn't. So I guess what happens is great culture does lead to high engagement, but the reverse of this is not true. And I want to give a nod here to Schumann's synergistic, because they've got an awesome blog. I read as I was doing some research for the blog I wrote, which will also be a talking blog or a mini podcast available for our listeners. It was a great blog that I read and they were really strong on this point that I can have a highly engaged group of people who come to work, who go hard at everything and who do completely the wrong thing, who work in a way that's not values-based. We've seen sporting teams and I'm not going to mention them again, but largely I've got over it because of a recent retirement. There's a sporting team that I have been very passionate about all my life and who I felt really betrayed by highly engaged but indulged in behaviors that were disgraceful, that were cheating and were absolutely indicative of a very poor culture, of a toxic culture. We see industries where people very engaged, come to work, go hard, etc, etc. But they're not necessarily happy at work because they're being asked to do things that they don't believe in. And the whole financial sector underwent a huge review and some of the players in that sector were classics of this, where people who are highly engaged and sold insurance to dead people, life insurance to dead people. A great culture will create high engagement, but the reverse is absolutely not true. If I've got a great culture, then what will happen is people will be very engaged, but they'll be engaged in getting values-based results, in working together well, in doing the right thing. I think that's one point.
Speaker 2:I also think that engagement surveys tend to measure from an eye perspective. How do I feel about coming to work here? That's not culture. Culture surveys measure from a wee perspective. How do I think about what I actually do. What's the workplace actually like to be in? What's it like from a perspective of both the outcomes I achieve, but also what it's like to work in?
Speaker 2:It's possible to be highly engaged but dissatisfied. It's possibly highly engaged but not working in a very effective way. It's possibly highly engaged and complete with the people around me instead of collaborating with them. If you simply want to know are your people engaged, then an engagement survey is great. If you want to know about your culture, then it's a furfie, it's a facade. Honestly, I think some managers not all managers, but some managers love an engagement survey because it's a quick tech and flick, because they're short, they're sharp, they're done. You can look at 10 questions and the answers to the 10 questions and you can measure them from year to year and try and drive high engagement. What we constantly hear is people are using measures to lift engagement but it's actually not translating to critical results like retention, ability to attract good people, bottom line outcomes, profitability, quality, that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1:We could talk about this all day, couldn't we really? This could be a six-hour-long podcast episode, because we really are passionate when it comes to measuring. Have you got time? I don't, and I don't think our listeners do either. In the interest of keeping this short and sharp, like we have promised. Last question, which I think we'll really wrap this up, is we hear from managers and leaders at times who say to us look, I think our culture is great, and they'll rattle off five or six different reasons why they believe that the culture is great and the culture is strong. But then they'll say but I'm hearing on the grapevine or I'm getting feedback or exit interviews, things like that, that it's not. They'll follow this with how can I be so wrong about this? How can this happen and what can I do about it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's not a matter of them being wrong, it's just a matter of and I think this is really critical it's a matter that their experience of the culture is not necessarily everyone else's experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So perhaps when it comes down to being able to control their own outcomes, when it comes down to having an influence, to feeling included on staff, to being for communication being effective, for having clarity around what's going on there's a million things it stands to reason that their experience of culture is not going to be the same as everyone's. And one of the biggest shocks we see and I've seen this many times in my career is the surprise on senior leaders faces when they see the culture, not just the overall culture for the organization, and they say how can that be true when my experience is so different? And my answer is well, you're just one ingredient in there and there are 50 or 100 or 1,000 other people that have contributed. But when we then also do a breakdown of culture and we look at it by tenure or we look at it by location, so do organizations have a bunch of different cultures? Theoretically? No, they've just got one culture with sub.
Speaker 2:I don't care what the theory says. The reality is that each demographic has their own experience of culture and very often it's quite different. So one division, one location might have a very different experience of culture. What we do find very often is that the further up the food chain you are, the better your experience of culture. Now, it's not universal and the organization that I worked with today that I just mentioned, that's absolutely not the case for them, but for many organizations it can be, but sometimes it's a certain location, a certain division.
Speaker 2:It could come down to the leadership or the nature of the work or a million other factors. So for leaders out there, if you're patting yourself on the back saying we've got a great culture, that's brilliant. I'm really glad you experienced it in such a positive way. But be really honest with yourself, is that everyone else's experience? Because you know what they're not operating and performing based on your experience of the culture. They're operating and performing based on their experience of the culture. So you better hope it's either aligned with yours or be willing to try and shift their perspective to be more like yours.
Speaker 1:Simon, just as you are talking about that and talking about leaders that may be thinking about their culture is really great, but now wondering is this your experience of other people? I was thinking that completing our free authentic meter on our website would be a really good tool for people to be able to do this. Maybe you could talk them through that process that they could use.
Speaker 2:It's on the website and we'll make sure that's in the show notes. But if you go to on our website main page under authenticity are you authentic? Is one of the options under that tab, and the authentic meter is there. Isn't that a cool name? Listeners A bit more nerdiness. But it does measure how authentic your culture is. In other words, how aligned is it with the culture you say you want to create? Get some of your team to do it as well. Now, what I'm happy to do and I open off it to all our listeners if you fill that out and some of your team fill that out, I won't show you their results because that would compromise confidentiality and would also mean they don't answer it in the same authentic way. What I am very happy to do is have an honest debrief with you about potential gaps between what you're seeing and what they're seeing. What a great idea we also have. It also breaks down to seven distinct areas, so we can look at what we've got so far.
Speaker 1:It is really helpful and strategic feedback that you get for a free tool.
Speaker 2:I am really proud to say that we actually give a lot of way in the feedback that we give when you complete it and look, if you're listening to this in the future and it's not free anymore, because it's likely it may not be in the future, because it is such a good tool reach out to us and we'll give you a code so you can access it for free Before we go, Kireli, we've got so much good stuff going on, including I just want to mention another free resource for our listeners is our Plenty in 20 series for 2024, which is now available on demand. So every month, we'll release one and you can, instead of having to turn up for a live event it's 20 minutes long online and we'll let you know when it drops. So every month.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You'll get an email notifying that the new webinar's dropped and you can watch it in your own time, at your own pace.
Speaker 2:And they cover key topics and if you address each of those topics, you'll likely to shift the dial on the culture. I think we need to wrap up because I know you've got a time-time, so we'll say goodbye and listen. See you soon. Until we talk next, stay authentic.
Speaker 1:Come and see the real thing.
Speaker 2:Come and see the real thing. Come and see. Come and see the real thing come and see the real thing.