Every quarter, I share helpful summaries and excerpts of the best books, podcasts, and articles I’ve read about organizational culture.
Book: Reboot by Jerry Colonna
Jerry Colonna is a leadership coach with Reboot. He’s known as the CEO-whisperer, and has worked with countless CEOs, executives, and founders in Silicon Valley and beyond. We interviewed Jerry for our book and even in the short interview felt we’d got a mini coaching session with him, given the amount of wisdom he shared. We were thrilled when we found out he was writing a book.
The book is a mix of personal stories, coaching examples, and buddhist teachings on how to deal with life, leadership, and work when not everything goes as planned; when we need to reset our goals and to reconnect with our deepest selves; and how in doing so, we can help others through opening up about our vulnerabilities.
This year I went though a lot of transitions: moving to LA, taking a new job, writing a book. Jerry’s book helped me see the opportunity in these transitions, and how it could help me with the work I do in organizations.
This book is a treasure. It’s one you’ll underline and pass along to friends and colleagues.
Here are a few of my favorite passages:
“I am not what has happened to me,” taught Carl Jung. “I am what I choose to become.” But choosing requires knowing. It requires knowing how what happened to us influences the choices we made and continue to make. Again and again I ask my clients, “How are you complicit in creating the conditions of your lives that you say you don’t want?”
…One of the most profound teachings I’ve ever received came from a simple sutra from the Buddha: we are basically, unalterably good. We are born that way. (And, as evidence, the Buddha pointed to our humanity. Only humans, he taught, can achieve enlightenment and so, simply because we are human, we are essentially good.) But each of us grows, seeking love, safety, and belonging. We seek to love and be loved. We need to feel safe physically, spiritually, and existentially. And we yearn to belong. Learning to lead ourselves is hard because in the pursuit of love, safety, and belonging, we lose sight of our basic goodness and twist ourselves into what we think others want us to be. We move away from the source of our strengths—our core beliefs, the values we hold dear, the hard-earned wisdom of life—and toward an imagined playbook listing the right way to be.
…My co-founder, Ali Schultz, taught me the wisdom of horses. Horses, with their supernatural ability to use their limbic nervous systems to discern truth and congruency, do not base their choice of the leader of their herd on strength or intellectual wisdom. Nor is their choice based on which member might keep the herd safe from a predator wolf. They choose the one who feels the group best and who cares the most. They choose the horse—usually a mare—who is most capable of holding that care in a way that calms the whole group. They’re marked by the attunement to the inner and outer needs of those they have the honor to serve and lead. When leaders allow themselves the grace of being fierce with the reality of their messy broken-open hearts—the truth of life as it is and not as they wish it to be—the individuals in the group are offered the opportunity, as are our loved ones, to let go of their fears of failing or disappointing and focus on the business at hand; the worthiness of the shared task as well as the personal tasks of growing up and into their fullest potential as humans. This being fierce with the reality of what is requires the bravery to ask of oneself three challenging and yet powerfully liberating questions: What am I not saying that needs to be said? What am I saying (in words or deeds) that’s not being heard? What’s being said that I’m not hearing? Dr. Sayres taught me those questions to release me from the grip of my psychosomatic migraines. In doing so, she gave me—and all those with whom I’ve now worked—the gift of prajna.
Article: How Corporate Cultures Differ Around the World
I’ve written before about the fascinating differences in organizational norms and cultures across the world (Erin Meyer’s The Culture Map), so I was excited to see a new study about this topic. In 2017, HBS Prof. Boris Groysberg and Harvard Business Review launched an online assessment to allow HBR readers to explore their own organizations’ cultural profiles. They received over 12,800 responses from across the globe, and then mapped the patterns they saw in different global regions.
The assessment gave us a window into HBR readers’ organizational cultures: the shared, pervasive, enduring, and implicit behaviors and norms that permeate an organization (rather than individual employees’ own culture styles). For each respondent’s organization, we examined the relative rankings of eight distinct culture styles that map onto two dimensions: how people respond to change (flexibility versus stability) and how people interact (independence versus interdependence).
The results are revealing! The first pattern is in regards to how people respond to change:
“We found that organizations in Africa exhibited substantial flexibility. Many organizations in this region were characterized by learning and purpose, indicating an openness toward change through innovation, agility, and an appreciation for diversity. In contrast, many firms in Eastern Europe and the Middle East were characterized by a strong degree of stability. An emphasis on safety was prevalent in these regions, revealing the prioritization of preparedness and business continuity.”
The second pattern was related to how people interact:
“Firms in Western Europe and in North and South America leaned toward a high level of independence; however, this tendency manifested itself in different ways. Western European and North American firms exhibited an especially strong emphasis on results, goal-orientation, and achievement. Relative to other regions, enjoyment ranked highly in South America, reflecting a propensity toward fun, excitement, and a light-hearted work environment. On the other hand, firms in Asia, Australia and New Zealand were more likely to be characterized by interdependence and coordination. In these regions, we found workplaces that embodied caring, and a sense of safety and planning. Particularly in Asia, we found many firms that emphasized order through a cooperative, respectful, and rule-abiding culture.”
Tool: Kickoff Kit: Tools to Help Teams Work Better Together
The number one piece of advice I give to teams and organizations who want to improve how well people work together is to run a facilitated kickoff meeting. This creates the time and space to talk about how you want to work together. It feels like a time suck to do this, but if you don’t do it, you’ll end of losing more time dealing with conflict and unaddressed differences.
Liz and I put together a user manual, which is a great place to start. Have everyone on your team fill it out, and then discuss.
Then when you’re ready to start working together, set aside an hour to run a kickoff.
Here’s a blog post I wrote a few years ago that is a guide to how I run these meetings. But there are so many ways to do this! I recently saw this great guide from the New York Times on how they run their kickoff meetings. (H/t NOBL).
