How To Revive A Culture

At a global leadership summit I attended years ago, Bill Hybels shared some of his “hard fought leadership lessons,” and they’ve had a big impact on my own leadership. I want to recap one of these lessons here: How do you turn around a culture?

Bill shared the process he and his team used to transform the culture of their organization. He challenged the 200,000 leaders participating in the summit to do the following…

Assess The Current Reality – You may not be shocked by this advice. However, many leaders believe they are capable of doing their own evaluation. Bill believes using a third-party to help with the process will come much closer to revealing the true state of the culture.

Own The Findings – Leaders cannot hide from the truth, nor attempt to explain it away. Neither can you just celebrate the bright spots and ignore the gaps. And you can’t delegate this project to Human Resources. Senior leaders are responsible for the culture in an organization. If the culture needs to change, it is the job of senior leaders to make the necessary changes.

Train People Managers – You cannot change a culture without highly skilled people managers. The research is crystal clear on this – people join organizations, they leave their manager. Bill’s advice: People managers must lead and love well. And they must be trained to do so.

Increase Candor In Performance Reviews – Let’s face it, too many performance reviews are useless. The culprit is often lack of candor. To combat this, Bill’s team added a ‘Stop – Start – Continue’ segment to every review. He believes, and I agree, that the best performance feedback is always specific. I loved the quote Bill shared from Jack Welch:

“The kindest form of management is the truth.”

Resolve Relational Conflict – Bill actually presented this with more octane – I believe he said his team was “ruthlessly committed” to this issue. He challenged us all with the suggestion to reframe conflict. Most of us see conflict as a threat to relationships. He challenged us to use conflict as an opportunity to strengthen relationships.

How’s the culture of your organization? Do you REALLY know? Maybe you need to take the first step Bill suggested and take a look. If the results are outstanding, congratulations! You and your team have reason to celebrate. However, if the assessment identifies any gaps, you’ve got work to do.

Enjoy the journey!