all right thank you so before I jump
into it I want to talk just a minute
about what I thought was a very
interesting and unique background that I
have
but then you come to a conference like
this and you meet all sorts of much more
interesting people with also very
interesting backgrounds so but yeah I
grew up with a love of math and science
but I also have always loved things like
arts and creative pursuits so when I
went to college I did get a degree a
bachelor's degree in computer science
but it was a Bachelor of Arts in
computer science I went to work in IT
and I started dabbling in some different
types of IT jobs like systems
administration and network
administration and then I found
programming which allowed me to be more
creative also so then you know in the
process of working as a programmer I was
working at a technology company and I
quickly moved into management positions
so first as a manager and then as a
director and I've learned that in
addition to developing code
I really had a love for developing
people so fast forward a number of years
I was working at a company that had
leading edge technology and a really
great culture and I decided to go back
to school for a master's degree and I
remember I was reporting to the CEO of
the company at the time and he said what
is this program and why are you doing
that
so that was the masters in adult
learning and organizational performance
and I said well I don't need to be the
smartest person in the room I'm not
coding anymore there's a lot of other
really smart people here and my role is
to be a better leader and to learn how
to develop people so he never quite got
that but all of that led to my passion
in culture as well so I really wanted to
help people be better and part of that
is providing an environment where they
can really thrive so I've had the
opportunity to get involved in some of
these efforts at Mitchell Omaha which
has a very different culture from the
company that I came from so that's been
exciting
but let me talk about these images for a
minute you see the iceberg up there
because for some companies and I would
have characterized Mutual of Omaha in
this way their culture is like an
iceberg its frozen in time for other
companies it's more like the pond where
it's more organic it's more of an
ecosystem
however in either case culture is really
about what's beneath the surface so
we've been talking about culture it is
it is kind of a big buzzword in the
industry these days so let's just go
over real quickly what do we mean when
we talk about culture or what do I mean
when I'm talking about culture it's the
mindsets in the organization beliefs
it's those behaviors you've heard a lot
of people talk about behaviors its
traditions the values not just of the
organization but individual values those
unwritten rules it's the energy of the
organization or lack of energy in the
organization it's the attitudes
interactions how people interact with
one another
habits norms spirit in other words it's
the way we've always done things it's
the way things get done in an
organization so but don't let those
fluffy words fool you because culture
can overtake strategy all right it can
be very powerful so to illustrate this
on a very simple illustration this
company which direction is it going is
it going to your right or to your left
right you have the strategy pulling it
in one direction the culture can pull it
back so just a very simple way to
illustrate that but the good news is it
doesn't have to be that way a culture
can be systematically shaped it's a
choice every company has a culture you
just have a choice of whether it shakes
you or you shape it and whether it works
with your strategy but it is very
difficult as the previous speaker I
think talked about doing an
enterprise-wide culture change is very
challenging and I've seen this that's
come up a couple times
but Peter Drucker says culture Trump's
strategy every time culture eats
strategy reflect for breakfast and some
experts would say if it's operational
excellence for lunch and everything else
for dinner right Malcolm Gladwell who's
come up as well the author of the
tipping point blogged I have become
convinced that culture is the most
important predictor of where a company
is going John Kotter and James Haskett
both professors at Harvard Business
School and authors said firms where
leaders focused on their culture
outperform firms that did not by a huge
margin so culture has the ability to
gobble everything up it's our strategies
our change management plans efforts
around innovation operational efficiency
processes mission everything so you can
have the best strategy ever but without
a strong and aligned culture strategy
we'll lose every time so let's talk a
little bit more about why is this so
difficult why is it so challenging well
rather than being something that lives
in your head
culture lives in our hearts and our guts
rather than being something where you
it's you know what you should do
culture is what you do anyway rather
than being something that's a master
plan on a white board culture is our
first contact with living people so
think about that experience in your
organization whether it's with a
recruiter or in an interview or with HR
during onboarding maybe it's somebody
who called into a contact center or
customer service department is every
experience that they have with your
company consistent every interaction
with a human being the same and what
would you would expect to represent your
company and who are some examples of
people who did that well Disney other
people who get to go on the tour they
have a you know very well known program
on training a certain in
action with their cast members I believe
they call them not employees
what about here at the Four Seasons for
those of you here seeing here have you
noticed a consistent experience I'd say
they're doing a really good job at that
so also rather than being something
that's very rational it's a little bit
more intuitive it requires learning to
engage both sides of your brain you like
that that's cute you engage both sides
of your brain right the right side the
left side and figure out what makes
people tick and that can be challenging
also rather being something that can be
explained it's more of something that
you feel or that you just know and then
like strategy which describes a future
state cultures the reality of right now
and you need a clear grasp of this
reality to understand how you can lay
out a plan then to get to the future
that you desire that is consistent with
the strategy and rather than being tied
to an org chart or a design on an org
chart that shows you who you should talk
to to get things done the culture is
more about who do you actually talk
about to really get things done so
knowing that this manager went to
college with the CEO or this analyst
play golf on a regular basis with that
VP or this analyst goes to lunch once a
week with that VP it's the understanding
the informal networks and some of those
informal sources of power is important
rather than being really a set of tools
it's about the body that puts those
tools to work and rather than being an
idea culture is an experience
and finally strategy and values can
describe intention and potential but
culture is innovation in action and
implementation so so what what does all
of this mean well some aspects of
culture as I've described them are clear
and apparent and
servable again as the previous presenter
mentioned behaviors is an example of
something that you can observe or record
so but there are other aspects of the
culture that are not quite as observable
they're very deep and embedded and they
they're beneath the surface so these are
things like that's just things that are
understood and hard to detect so things
like perceptions attitudes values
beliefs not really visible in that
regard so ultimately culture does set
the foundation for strategy so it's
critical to have a full understanding of
those things both visible on the surface
but those things that you can't really
see either so what happens when the
culture and the strategy are not aligned
well the short answer is that
misalignment syncs performance in almost
guarantees the organization will not
achieve the results that it desires so
new ideas initiatives transformation
can't survive resistance to change and
bureaucracy culture can chew them right
up and lead to poor results so before
embarking on a culture change the
strategy changes how you have to make
sure that you understand that no
organizational culture and because
leaving it unattended is like not
attending to a foundation when building
a house right it might look okay when
it's done for a while until it starts to
fall apart and crumble so how do you
align how do you align culture to
strategy so this is really the question
of the day I think while you're all here
the very first thing in our approach at
Mitchell Omaha is and I think I would
suggest for most leaders you have to be
willing to ask yourself some really
tough questions do you really know what
your current culture is and what your
employees agree with your assessment of
what the culture really is there are a
variety of ways that you can assess the
culture you know we talked about culture
surveys there's a lot of different tools
they're going to used some very
sophisticated some very simple they can
adjust a baseline what your current
state is
but the next question is what do you
want it to be or what do you need it to
be to support the strategy and then
having your entire leadership team agree
on that that could be very challenging
it's not easy to define and it's even
harder to make that shift so it takes a
lot of commitment of time and money so
I'll tell you at neutral Omaha we barque
embarked on this strategic journey to
become more customer focused a few years
back and our executive team did engage
with a third party to conduct a culture
assessment coaches survey and they
identified our strengths and our
opportunities through that and then out
of that we're able to design a culture
shaping workshop it's a two-day workshop
and a support system to take us through
this journey so I'm going talk more
about that journey in a minute one of
the things though that you and it may
also learn as you go through this
process is that the people who got you
where you are may not be the right
people to take it in the future
so it's important to know that changes
like this take all leaders to support
both the strategy and the commitment
that it takes to change habits which
then will change behaviors which will
then lead to the results that you need
so image of Omaha we started with our
senior executive team and the sea level
they all went through the two-day
workshop as a group and then the next
level down all their direct reports went
through the workshop and then at level
three we had all management across the
organization go through the workshop and
we're currently in the level 4 phase
which is all associates so we're talking
about 5,000 people and we'll probably
take us through the at least at the end
of next year I'm guessing we're about 25
or 30 percent of the way through and
this is being done with internal
facilitators such as myself who have
been certified to conduct these
workshops so oh and you know another
thing that's been mentioned already but
it's really really important
to look at your systems and processes as
well so if you're working towards a
culture of teamwork
you don't want incentives that encourage
people to pit people against one another
so so tell you a quick story I think I'm
about out of time about two companies
who had fiercely competitive boards of
directors and they wanted to organize a
challenge a rowing competition to
challenge each other's organizational
and sporting abilities the first company
company X was very command-and-control
ruthless autocratic company with zero
staff empowerment the next company
company Y had a culture of developing
people and you know teamwork so on race
day came company y appeared from The
Boathouse house first with their crew
eight rowers and a helmsman next
followed company X with their crew eight
helmsman and one rower so who do you
think won right not surprisingly company
Y won with an easy victory well the rest
of the story is the next day when the
Board of Directors got back together
from company X to have a post mortem
about what had happened and then this
embarrassing defeat they had a very long
wearing meeting to to talk about what
they need to do they finally came up
with their decision they decided that
the rower should be replaced immediately
because clearly he had not listened well
enough to the instructions he had been
given they also decided well for next
year's competition let's try the same
strategy so the following year the two
companies once again raced and this time
company Y won by an even bigger margin
than the year before
why what had gone wrong well they had
adopted the same strategy they had not
addressed their culture which lacked any
sort of teamwork so again the moral of
the story is that strategy alone can't
move you in a new direction if your
culture was pulling against you
again that's fictional but there are
real examples of companies that are
facing this I know Southwest is here
Southwest is a winner how many of you
have flown on Ted Ted anybody anybody
yeah they're a loser so
Ted had the same strategy as Southwest
you know low-cost point-to-point single
plane different cultures so Ted was a
spinoff of United and they had adopted
the united sculture so did not survive
for very long so final word just that
there is a beacon of light there's hope
at Mutual of Omaha we are investing a
lot we have sixteen internally certified
facilitators we're doing two-day
workshops for about five thousand
employees that's a huge investment in
time and money we also have a growing
number of culture champions across the
organization at every workshop we give
people an opportunity to support this
initiative ongoing we have created
videos to continue to support it we have
posters lots of reminders and monthly
leader led activities to reinforce the
ideas and to introduce it for those who
haven't been through the workshop yet
you start to hear common language they
people talk about mood elevators and
blue chips and things like that we all
know what that means the behaviors that
we're expecting we talk about
accountability a lot of people companies
talk about empowerment but what is
empowerment without accountability if
people don't feel accountable for the
results what could they do to empower
them so again cultures can be
systematically shaped with the right
leadership support and commitment
leading to successful strategy and final
thoughts some people would say you know
if you invest all this time and energy
and money what if people leave and the
answer is well what if you don't and
they stay thank you
