Recent Books I've Found Helpful on Org Culture

Here are a few books I’ve read recently that were insightful on organizational culture.

Our Least Important Asset by Peter Cappelli

This thought provoking book creates a compelling argument about how financial accounting is negatively affecting the quality of jobs. (Unfortunately, I do think it would have gotten more press if it hadn’t been published by an academic press.) Cappelli, a professor of management at Wharton, starts the book with an overarching question: Why have jobs gotten so much worse?”

Cappelli argues “these issues are not a result of companies trying to be cost effective. They stem from the logic of financial accounting--the arbiter for determining whether a company is maximizing shareholder value--and its fundamental flaws in dealing with human capital. Financial accounting views employee costs as fixed costs that cannot be reduced and fails to account for the costs of bad employees and poor management. The simple goal of today's executives is to drive down employment costs, even if it raises costs elsewhere.”

Here are a few of my favorite passages. The author shares what happens when we focus too much on one unit of cost (staff) rather than all costs:

“Optimization can be extremely useful, of course, and it is an important concept in improving productivity. A reasonable observer might ask, isn’t that what business is supposed to do, to employ as few people as possible and pay them as little as we can? The answer, of course, is no. What we want to optimize is value per unit of cost. When we optimize by minimizing costs, especially if it is on only one aspect of cost, we are likely raising costs elsewhere and being very inefficient.”

He gives an example of how cutting staff can ultimately COST stores:

“One of the best examples of the suboptimization approach of squeezing visible costs comes from a careful study of productivity and profits in the retail industry done by colleagues at Wharton. They found that stores on average were running staffing so lean that it hurt sales, especially because it meant that there were not enough workers who were keeping track of inventory at “the last mile,” getting stock from the back rooms onto the shelves. If items are not on shelves they cannot be bought, and customers are likely to go elsewhere not only to find that missing item but also whatever else is on their shopping list.”

Because of the way financial accounting works, having a workforce that you have developed is not considered an asset:

“Consider, for example, having a trained and skilled workforce, which a typical observer would see as being a considerable asset, perhaps even a requirement, for success. It is not an asset for the purposes of financial accounting, though….There are no measures in standard accounting to tell us anything about the value of employees because companies do not literally own employees. Good employees often work for their employers far longer than the working life of any capital equipment. A majority of older employees, for example, have been with their employer at least ten years. Yet they have no value on company balance sheets, nor is there information of any kind about them. This is the case even if employees are under contract to remain with their employer. With a capital asset such as new equipment, financial accounting allows us to treat it as follows. First, we can use it to offset liabilities that we may be holding because assets have current value to us. Second, we can depreciate the value of that asset over its useful life so that it can be paid off slowly as it is used. For example, if we buy an expensive machine that we expect to last five years, we can allocate the costs across those five years, basically paying it off as we earn money from it.”

This makes it difficult for companies to show how they are investing in employees, or for investors to see when companies are not investing in employees:

“There is no line item for training in financial accounting. It falls under general and administrative expenses along with items like office equipment. Are you spending a lot on training employees or on coffee? It looks the same to accounting. An inquiring investor will not know and cannot find out without digging into internal accounting, which they do not see.”

Hidden Potential by Adam Grant

Adam Grant’s latest book is, once again, an extremely readable, practical, and generous book. Here are some passages I found helpful related to learning and development.

First, he debunks the age old myth about learning styles, and instead encourages us to embrace learning in modes that make us uncomfortable:

“Today, learning styles are a foundational element of teacher training and student experience. Around the world, 89 percent of teachers believe in matching their instruction to students’ learning styles. Many students have told me they prefer podcasts to books because they’re auditory learners. Did you decide to read this book with your eyes because you identify as a verbal or visual learner? There’s just one small problem with learning styles. They’re a myth. When a team of experts conducted a comprehensive review of several decades of research on learning styles, they found an alarming lack of support for the theory. In controlled experiments with specific lessons and longitudinal studies over the course of a semester, students and adults didn’t do any better on tests when their teachers or study habits aligned with their abilities or their preferences. “There is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning styles assessments into general educational practice,” the researchers conclude. “The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is . . . striking and disturbing.”

“The way you like to learn is what makes you comfortable, but it isn’t necessarily how you learn best. Sometimes you even learn better in the mode that makes you the most uncomfortable, because you have to work harder at it. This is the first form of courage: being brave enough to embrace discomfort and throw your learning style out the window.”

Grant also shares a helpful way of thinking about procrastination:

“Many people associate procrastination with laziness. But psychologists find that procrastination is not a time management problem—it’s an emotion management problem. When you procrastinate, you’re not avoiding effort. You’re avoiding the unpleasant feelings that the activity stirs up. Sooner or later, though, you realize that you’re also avoiding getting where you want to go.”

The 6 Types of Working Genius by Patrick Lencioni

I will read anything Patrick Lencioni writes, and his newest book is a great tool for teams. The “working genius” model gives teams a “simple and practical framework for tapping into one another’s natural gifts, which increases productivity and reduces unnecessary judgment.” Here are the six types:

“The Genius of Wonder involves the ability to ponder and speculate and question the state of things, asking the questions that provoke answers and action. People with this genius are naturally inclined to do these things. They find it easy to lose themselves in observing the world around them and wondering whether things shouldn’t be different or whether there is untapped potential that should be tapped.

The Genius of Invention is all about coming up with new ideas and solutions. People with this genius are drawn toward origination, creativity, and ingenuity in the truest sense of those words, even with little direction and context. Though every type is a genius, these are the people who are most often referred to as “geniuses” because many of their ideas seem to come out of thin air.

The Genius of Discernment is related to instinct, intuition, and uncanny judgment. People with this genius have a natural ability to assess an idea or situation, even without a lot of data or expertise. Using pattern recognition and gut feel, they are able to provide valuable advice and feedback.

The Genius of Galvanizing is about rallying, motivating, and provoking people to take action around an idea or an initiative. People with this genius are naturally inclined to inspire and enlist others to get involved in an endeavor. They don’t mind persuading people.

The Genius of Enablement involves providing people with support and assistance in the way that it is needed. People with this genius are adept at responding to the needs of others without conditions or restrictions. They are naturally inclined to help others accomplish their goals and often can anticipate what people might need before they even ask.

The Genius of Tenacity is about the satisfaction of pushing things across the finish line to completion. People with this genius are not only capable of, but naturally inclined to, finish projects and ensure that they are completed according to specification. They gain energy by pushing through obstacles and seeing impact.”

Any successful team needs all six types of genius. Here’s what happens when you lack each one:

“Lack of Wonder can lead to a team failing to take time to step back and ponder what is going on around them. Cultural issues, market opportunities, and looming problems might get overlooked in the pursuit of more pressing issues.

Lack of Invention on a team presents obvious problems. In many cases, teams start to feel a bit crazy because they know their old ways of doing things aren’t working, but they find themselves stuck trying the same approaches again and again to no avail.

Lack of Discernment is a big problem on teams, but it’s often hard to notice. That’s because Discernment isn’t easy to observe or identify, or, for that matter, to prove. But that doesn’t make it any less real. When a team lacks this genius, it finds itself over-relying on data and models to make decisions that are best made using simple judgment. They often find themselves puzzled as they look back on bad decisions and wonder how they could have whiffed so badly.

Lack of Galvanizing on a team is relatively easy to identify as it is one of the more observable geniuses. When no one is rallying the troops or provoking action, even great ideas don’t come to fruition, and the team’s potential remains untapped. In these situations, you’ll hear people say, “We have so many great ideas, but no one around here seems excited by them.”

Lack of Enablement on a team is an obvious problem, but it can get overlooked because people too often fail to see Enablement as a genius at all. But when a team lacks it, there is a sense of frustration that no one is pitching in to help, and that no one is adequately responding to the pleas of the galvanizer. Enablement can be seen as the glue on a team, brought about by people who get joy and energy from answering the call to help.

Lack of Tenacity on a team is another obvious problem because programs and projects and things in general don’t get finished without it. Many start-ups are filled with people with the Geniuses of Wonder, Invention, Discernment, and Galvanizing, but without someone with the Genius of Tenacity, no one jumps over hurdles and pushes through obstacles during the critical later stages of work. Every successful team, at every level, needs people who simply enjoy seeing things completed.”

What I like about this framework, is that in addition to the typologies, the framework shares how the typologies tend to fall within the phases of a work project (ideation, activation, and implementation):

“The first stage of work, Ideation, is comprised of both Wonder and Invention. This is the part of work associated with identifying needs and proposing solutions. Innovation is most often connected with this stage. Even before Invention can take place, someone must ask the big question or identify a need. This is the first critical step in any kind of work, and provides the context for Invention.

The second stage of work, Activation, is comprised of Discernment and Galvanizing. This part of work is about evaluating the merits of the ideas or solutions proposed during Ideation, and then rallying people around the ideas or solutions that are worthy of action. Most organizations aren’t even aware that this stage exists (which I’ll address below), which leaves them to jump from the first stage, Ideation, to the third and final one . . .

The third and final stage of work, Implementation, is comprised of Enablement and Tenacity, and is all about getting things done. Whether it is answering the call to action or pushing that action through to the final stages of completion, these genius types are the ones who ensure that great ideas, the ones that have been discerned and galvanized, actually come to fruition.”

Recent Books I've Found Helpful on Org Culture

Here are a few books I’ve read recently that were insightful on organizational culture.

Working Backwards by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr

The authors of this book are former executives at Amazon, and they share the inner workings of how the company grew so successfully. A big piece of their success came from codifying leadership principles early on. Here is how they did that:

“In 2004, human resources head Mike George and his colleague Robin Andrulevich made an observation: the company had grown like a weed, adding many leaders who were inexperienced and in need of some formal management and leadership training. So Mike asked Robin to create a leadership-training program. Robin asserted that doing so would first require clearly and succinctly codifying what leadership meant at Amazon. Such an exercise would certainly delay the rollout of the program, but, after much discussion, everyone agreed it would be a worthy undertaking. In the 2015 shareholder letter, Jeff wrote, “You can write down your corporate culture, but when you do so, you’re discovering it, uncovering it—not creating it.” This was the assumption on which Robin had been operating when she set about to codify the Leadership Principles. She interviewed people throughout Amazon who were effective leaders and who embodied the essence of this burgeoning company. What she thought would be a two-month project took nine months to complete. But by the time she was finished, her effort had gone a long way toward identifying many of the elements that would make the company what it is today. This initial set of Leadership Principles was basically an articulation and synthesis of the ethos of the people Robin interviewed.”

I believe that the best principles and values are extremely specific for each organization. Having “trust” as a principle or value is not helpful because it is so vague. Amazon’s leadership principles are specific, and therefore, help people make day-to-day decisions based on them.

“Thanks to Robin, who did a superb job collecting these powerful principles, they were expressed in an actionable and distinctly Amazonian way. For example, the Insist on the Highest Standards leadership principle is described like this: “Leaders have relentlessly high standards—many people may think these standards are unreasonably high.” The words “relentlessly” and “unreasonably high” are distinctly Jeff-ian and therefore Amazonian ways of thinking and speaking. Another important Amazonian phrase often appears alongside the Amazon Leadership Principles and key tenets: “Unless you know better ones.” This reminds people to always seek to improve the status quo.”

The author's argue that the best way to write leadership principles is to do it internally as a company, rather than outsourcing it.

“Define a set of leadership principles. These must be developed with participation from many contributors. Don’t assign the task to a single group or outsource it to a consultant or service provider. Do it yourselves. Hash out the details. Revisit the principles from time to time and revise if and as necessary. Then, as with the aspects of the culture, bring the principles into every process, from hiring to product development. Depict your flywheel. What are the drivers of growth for your company?”

Another great nugget from the book shares how important mechanisms are: “Good intentions don’t work. Mechanisms do.”

“There’s a saying often heard at Amazon: “Good intentions don’t work. Mechanisms do.” No company can rely on good intentions like “We must try harder!” or “Next time remember to…” to improve a process, solve a problem, or fix a mistake. That’s because people already had good intentions when the problems cropped up in the first place. Amazon realized early on that if you don’t change the underlying condition that created a problem, you should expect the problem to recur. Over the course of many years, Amazon has put in place mechanisms to ensure that the Leadership Principles translate into action. Three foundational mechanisms are: the annual planning process; the S-Team goals process (the S-Team consists of the senior vice presidents and direct reports to Jeff Bezos); and Amazon’s compensation plan, which aligns incentives with what’s best for customers and the company over the long term.”

Remote Work Revolution by Tsedal Neeley

Tsedal Neeley is a professor at Harvard Business School who has been studying remote and global work. Her new book about remote work couldn’t be more timely. One practice she recommends all remote and hybrid organizations do is called a team launch.

“Team launches (and periodic relaunch sessions) drive performance throughout the team’s journey. Relaunches are critical to keep remote teams cohesive, but even more so when teams transition to remote work, and especially by necessity as with COVID-19. Leaders need to be proactive about more, not less, periodic relaunches. The typical length for a launch is an hour or an hour and a half, and that time can be spread across two sessions. Every member needs to be present for an open discussion to share opinions and contribute perspectives on the best ways to work together as a team. When working remotely, launches should be video meetings where people can be as connected as digital technology allows.

[Here are] the four essential elements of teamwork that each member must agree on:

Shared goals that make plain and clear the aims that the team is pursuing.

Shared understanding about each member’s roles, functions, and constraints.

Shared understanding of available resources ranging from budgets to information.

Shared norms that map out how teammates will collaborate effectively.

Notice that each of these four domains begins with the same word: shared. That’s because the fundamental goal of a launch session is alignment.

Relaunches are periodic appraisals of how the group is faring with the four key areas. I often joke that a relaunch is like a couple’s date night because in both instances you revisit what’s important and may check in on the present, past, and future to figure out what’s working and what might need adjustments. As a general rule, teams should revisit their standing via a relaunch at least once per quarter. When people work remotely, I have found that relaunching every six to eight weeks to orient or reorient based on evolving dynamics is more important. During these occasions, virtual working groups and leaders acknowledge how each member is doing, figure out how to address concerns, and ultimately get everyone on the same track to achieve team goals. In other words, relaunches are never a one-and-done event. Because work conditions are often dynamic, hitting the reset button once won’t be enough.”

Neeley also shares a framework for how to think about different types of trust and what is needed for remote teams.

Two basic terms that help us think about how to choose from the nuanced palette of trust available when working together are cognitive trust and emotional trust.

Cognitive trust is grounded in the belief that your coworkers are reliable and dependable. Teams motivated by cognitive-based trust use their heads to consider their colleagues’ qualification to do the task at hand; trust is usually formed over time, and confirmed (or disproven) over numerous experiences and interactions. For example, when you learn that a colleague has gained significant experience from a previous job or has graduated from an institution you respect, you begin to form cognitive trust. As you work on a project together, your cognitive trust will rise or fall depending on how consistently your colleague has behaved to demonstrate reliability over time.

By comparison, emotional trust is grounded in coworkers’ care and concern for one another. Relationships built on emotional trust rely on positive feeling and emotional bonds, and they crop up most easily when team members share common values and mind-sets. If you consciously mentor a colleague or a group takes up a collection to give a coworker a gift, for example, that’s driven by emotional trust.

Relationships based on emotional trust are akin to friendships and involve the heart. They do not require more time to achieve, but they are more difficult to form among remote teams. Passable trust is more dependent on cognitive trust, whereas swift trust is more dependent on both emotional and cognitive trust.

Passable trust is necessary but not sufficient for most remote teams. It’s useful and frequently used for communicating outside of teams and across organizations—it’s the fuel that keeps organizations working—but because it doesn’t become more intense or involve emotion it’s not the special ingredient that makes a team, but especially a remote team, really gel.

Connect by David Bradford and Carole Robin

This book is written by the creators of the “Touchy-Feely” course at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. This is the most popular course, and alumni say it is a life changing experience. I couldn’t wait to read it, and found it helpful, although a big part of the experience is learning with a cohort of fellow students. Here are a few passages I highlighted:

“Exceptional relationships can be developed. They have six hallmarks:

You can be more fully yourself, and so can the other person.

Both of you are willing to be vulnerable.

You trust that self-disclosures will not be used against you.

You can be honest with each other.

You deal with conflict productively.

Both of you are committed to each other’s growth and development.

The last three hallmarks have to do with feedback and conflict. Challenging someone can actually be a powerful way of supporting them, and yet few people feel confident they can do it well. Someone with whom you have an exceptional relationship calls you on behaviors that really bother them, and when they do, you know it’s a chance for learning, not something against which you have to put up your guard. They know that in helping you understand the impact of your behavior, they are showing commitment to your relationship and helping you grow. Fights happen, even in the best of relationships (as you’ll see, the two of us are proof of that!). But a fear of conflict can lead you to bury irritants that, if raised and successfully dealt with, could actually deepen the relationship. Conflicts left unspoken can still cause harm. In an exceptional relationship, it’s easier to raise and resolve issues so that they don’t lurk and result in long-term damage. You see such challenges as opportunities to learn, which decreases the chance that these same difficulties will appear again.”

One of the most famous concepts that I had heard about before reading the book was “going over the net.” Here is the explanation:

“When someone else’s feedback is an attribution of your inner reality, it’s tough not to feel defensive. The first reaction is to rebut: “No, I’m not.” A second tendency is to counterattack: “The reason that I do that is because you do X.” This is a normal response when we feel attacked, misunderstood, or placed in a one-down position. But defensiveness can lead to escalation and prevent both parties from learning. Accept you are feeling defensive, but don’t act on it. Instead, use the feedback model to push the other person back to their side of the court.

Although conceptually simple, it’s not always easy to do. One of the most interesting and remarkable things that happens at the Stanford business school is the way in which the model of the net becomes more and more commonplace in everyday conversations as more of the students take Interpersonal Dynamics. We are also heartened about the extent to which it stays with alums for decades. “Over the net” has become a culturally defining term.

A great example of the utility of these concepts involved a young woman we knew who had learned about the net model from an older friend. Her high school tennis coach was very irritated with her and said, “Your problem is you’re not committed.” She calmly responded to him, “Can you tell me more about what you mean? I’ve never missed a practice or a game, and I happily play anywhere in the lineup you place me. That’s what commitment means to me. But obviously I’m doing something that makes you think I’m not committed. What is it?”

The coach then raised his voice slightly and said, “You show up to practice without your uniform!” To which she responded, “Oh….Okay, I’m glad I asked! I would have never known that was how you defined commitment. If you’d told me I was disorganized and forgetful, I’d have been the first person to agree. I get it now. I’ll be back tomorrow for practice…with my uniform.” Their relationship changed significantly once she learned the source of his irritation and was able to respond to it.

Remember, sometimes feedback comes in very ugly wrapping—but that doesn’t mean there’s not a gift inside. Since by yourself you can only know two of the three realities, receiving feedback is essential to being more effective. You need to know the third—the impact of your behavior. As we often say, “It takes two to know one.”

The authors discuss how often a barrier to speaking up is the fear of someone above you not wanting to hear what you have to say. However, that is often not the case.

“In spite of organizational constraints, our experience is that most managers and employees want more open and direct conversations than they often have.

In the programs we conduct for executives, we have found it fascinating that when we ask, “How open can you be with your boss?” the responses are most often, “Oh, I have to be very careful,” “I need to watch my words if I disagree,” and “It’s best to make bosses think the new ideas are theirs.” These answers are irrespective of the participants’ level of management.

Then we ask a follow-up question: “If your direct reports disagree with one of your ideas, what do you want them to do?” The responses are again similar across all levels of management. Except this time the answer is, “I want them to be direct, to lay it out, not to beat around the bush. I want to know the truth.” We then observe, “Isn’t that interesting? All the people in this program are secure and centered, but all have bosses who are fragile and insecure. Clearly, we need to get your managers, not you, to these programs!”

As we noted above… you can be direct and straightforward. You can help your boss see that you are on their side and your intent is to be their ally. You are likely not only to gain more respect but also to end up with stronger and more functional relationships. With that as a basis, it is possible that many work relationships can grow to be exceptional.”