Executive's Digest: Courageous Cultures

From executives complaining that their teams don’t contribute ideas to employees throwing up their hands because their input isn’t sought--company culture is the culprit. Courageous Cultures provides a road map to build a high-performance, high-engagement culture around sharing ideas, solving problems, and rewarding contributions from all levels.

In Courageous Cultures, authors Karin Hurt & David Dye argue that in today’s fast-paced world a courageous culture is the ultimate competitive advantage. The authors explain that this means building teams of Microinnovators, Problem solvers, and Customer advocates working together. The book provides the reader with a roadmap to build high-performance, high-engagement cultures around sharing ideas, solving problems, and rewarding contributions from all levels.

Success depends on understanding what you are doing right and what mistakes you are making. But often, you might never hear what is working well and what is broken. There are several missed opportunities when people decide to stay quiet and not share their ideas, perhaps because they fear to be seen as stupid or because their idea might not be well received. People are often discouraged for saying the wrong thing, but also this feeling appears when an idea is shared and not acknowledged at all. Sadly, most leaders think they are creating an environment where employees speak up and are surprised to find out employees are holding back.

A courageous culture is a place where ‘people like us’ speak up, share ideas, solve problems. The default is to contribute, where silence is not safety and effort is everything. Courageous cultures go beyond employee engagement and participation, it's about people feeling energized. 

Examples of businesses with such culture is Trader Joe’s, a grocery store with the highest revenue per square foot and crowds of brand advocates, where continual improvement is fundamental and everyone does what it takes to serve the customer right.

1. People don’t think leadership wants their ideas
2. No one asks
3. They lack confidence to share
4. They lack the skills to share effectively 
5. People don’t think anything will happen so they don’t bother

1. Show a bit of vulnerability: build trust by admitting when you’re wrong or don't have all the answers
2. Manage performance: provide consistent performance feedback and address issues directly.
3. Advocate for your team: if you cant influence others, your team will wonder why they need you.
4. Experiment: Show a willingness to try new ideas or approaches.
5. Make timely decisions: have the courage to make decisions and stick to them
6. Share Credit: primary reason people are reluctant to share ideas is because they wont get the credit they deserve. Always credit the team when it’s deserved.

Three of the most toxic behaviors in the workplace are shaming, blaming and intimidation. These have no place in a Courageous Culture. Don’t let anyone that displays this kind of behavior to undermine your strategy.

Pay attention to the stories you tell yourself, the stories your teams tell themselves and consciously tap into the stories that reinforce your values, culture and commitments.

Everyone in the organization has a shared understanding of what success looks like. This contributes three critical elements to a Courageous Culture: safety, confidence, and direction. This helps people speak up because they know what success looks like, whats required of them and how they can contribute.

How you and leaders at every level respond to ideas and feedback will build your employees or crush them. Receive ideas and react in ways that respect the other person, build momentum, improve your employees’ strategic thinking and generate more useful ideas.

Commit to finding the core idea within best practices and help your teams to localize best practices for their unique circumstances. Clarify core values and principles, support their leadership teams to review and try out new ideas that align with those principles.

 Excite your team to action and prevent the slow decline of the culture you have all worked so hard to build.

• Know-  Clearly articulate what success looks like and the fundamental behaviors that make it happen. 
• Flow- Translate vision into behaviors and ensure all employees understand what and why they are doing it.
• Show - Measure and inspect outcomes and behaviors at every level of the business. Endure that managers are enforcing behaviors through celebration and accountability, and employees are doing what they have committed to do.