A thought from Bain

“Our research found that nearly 70% of business leaders agree: Culture provides the greatest source of competitive advantage. In fact, more than 80% believe an organization that lacks a high-performance culture is doomed to mediocrity.”

BAIN & COMPANY

Reinvent your approach to culture LEAP HR Boston July 26, 2017

My intention

Topics

Key principles

All the puzzle pieces

The full process (with tips)

Our format

Discover

Discuss

Debate

Action

Action

Discover

Discuss

Debate x3

Action

What one change could you make to impact culture when you return to the office?

Will you settle for four steps?

1. Go to HBR.org

2. Buy Jim Collins article- “Building your company’s vision.”

(Note: 21 years old)

3. Read then send to CEO

4. Schedule meeting with CEO to discuss

A 21-year old article? Really?

Key principles

Principle #1

Principle #2

Principle #3

Principle #4

Principle #5

Levels of involvement in decision making

Ownership

Involvement

Decide & announce

Get input from individuals & decide

Get input from the team & decide

Alignment

Delegation with constraints

Source: Interaction Associates

Some very bad news…

HR cannot and never will

build the culture (It can and must

nurture it)

Principle #6

Discuss/Debate

Questions on principles?

Other questions or comments?

All the puzzle pieces

Collins Vision Model

Core Ideology

Core values

Core purpose

Envisioned Future

10-30 year BHAG

Vivid description

Discovered

Created Preserve the core

Stimulate progress

What is Core Purpose?

An organization’s reason for being

Gives meaning to our work

A perpetual quest that should stimulate change, innovation, and progress

Attracts, motivates, and retains talent

Core Purpose - examples

HP – Make technical contributions for the advancement and welfare of humanity

Mary Kay Cosmetics – Give unlimited opportunity to women

Wal-Mart – Give ordinary folks the chance to buy the same things as rich people

BMC – Exceptional care. Without exception.

Walt Disney –Make people happy

Collins Vision Model

Core Ideology

Core values

Core purpose

Envisioned Future

10-30 year BHAG

Vivid description

Discovered

Created Preserve the core

Stimulate progress

What are values?

A small set of timeless guiding principles that are fundamental and deeply held and that will change seldom, if ever.

Core values

Just a few (between three and five)

Most successful organizations have three or four

There is power in three

Need not be unique, except in the way they are lived

The acid test

“If circumstances changed and penalized us for holding this core value, would we still keep it?”

A few examples

Disney – No cynicism

Nordstrom – Never being satisfied

Shire – Brave

Vertex – We wins

Sony – Do the impossible

Collins Vision Model

Core Ideology

Core values

Core purpose

Envisioned Future

10-30 year BHAG

Vivid description

Discovered

Created Preserve the core

Stimulate progress

What is a BHAG

Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal

10-30 years to complete

Not a sure thing (50-70% probability)

Takes extraordinary effort

And a little luck

What a BHAG does

Unlike Core Purpose, a BHAG has a clear, tangible goal

Provides people with a finish line to shoot for

The goal should produce a “gulp factor”

Strong enough to motivate the organization even if leaders change

A few BHAG examples

Become the dominant player in commercial aircraft and bring the world into the jet age (Boeing – 1950)

Democratize the automobile (Ford – 1900’s)

Crush Adidas (Nike, 1960’s)

Become the Harvard of the West (Stanford University, 1940’s)

Become #1 or #2 in every market we serve, and revolutionize the company to have strengths of large firm and agility of a small one (GE, 1980’s)

Trivialize cancer by 2036 (SQZ Biotech)

Collins Vision Model

Core Ideology

Core values

Core purpose

Envisioned Future

10-30 year BHAG

Vivid description

Discovered

Created Preserve the core

Stimulate progress

Vivid Description – example

We will build a motor car for the great multitude. . . It will be so low in

price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one and

enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great

open spaces. . .When we’re through, everybody will be able to afford

one, and everyone will have one. The horse will have disappeared

from our highways, the automobile will be taken for granted…and we

will give a large number of men employment at good wages.

Vivid Description - example

We will create products that become pervasive around the

world…We will be the first Japanese company to go into the

US market and distribute directly…We will succeed with

innovations that US companies have failed at-such as

transistor radios…We will signify innovation and quality that

rival the most innovative companies anywhere… ”Made in

Japan” will mean something fine, not something shoddy.

Discuss/Debate

Questions on the pieces?

Other questions or comments?

The full process (with tips)

Heretical truths

1. Stakeholder interviews

• ## 45-minute interviews

• Management, high potential juniors, cross departments, cross functions, cross sites

• Dates/times

• TBD

2. Culture/Values Focus Groups

3. Culture/Values

Drafting Session

4. Core Purpose/BHAG

5. Implementation

Meeting

Process flow and schedule

Process timing: Three to four months

38

Interview guide

1. Tell me about why you are at (company)?

2. Metaphors: if company were a car, animal, object in nature?

3. What are people passionate about (proud of)?

4. What could we be Best in the World at?

5. Three words to describe the culture?

6. What would radical success look like in 15 years?

7. What is our greatest strength?

8. What holds us back?

9. If you set the company’s top three priorities, what would they be?

10. If our culture work was inordinately successful, what would you see?

1. Stakeholder interviews

• ## 45-minute interviews

• Management, high potential juniors, cross departments, cross functions, cross sites

• Dates/times

• TBD

2. Culture/Values Focus Groups

• ## 2-hour groups of 15 people each (### people total)

• ## at each site

• Emphasis on story sharing

• Each Values Drafting Team member attends one group to listen only

• One recorder with laptop

• All sites

• Don’t start with HQ

• Dates/times

• TBD

3. Culture/Values

Drafting Session

4. Core Purpose/BHAG

5. Implementation

Meeting

Process flow and schedule

Process timing: Three to four months

40

Values Discovery

List two things you consider to be basic guiding principles for working at (Company) when we are at our best Things you’ve experienced

No right or wrong

Tell a story in which you experienced one of these principles in action

Build a master list

Scratch dupes

Vote which principles are most important (5, 3, 1)

1. Stakeholder interviews

• ## 45-minute interviews

• Management, high potential juniors, cross departments, cross functions, cross sites

• Dates/times

• TBD

2. Culture/Values Focus Groups

• ## 2-hour groups of 15 people each (135 people total)

• Three at each site

• Emphasis on story sharing

• Each Values Drafting Team member attends one group to listen only

• One recorder with laptop

• All sites

• Don’t start with HQ

• Dates/times

• TBD

3. Culture/Values

Drafting Session

• One 5-hour session (9:00-2:00)

• Identify Values Drafting Team: 12-14 people, mix of stakeholders, some with writing/creative ability

• CEO participating

• Write core values based on focus group input

• Dates/times

• TBD

4. Core Purpose/BHAG

5. Implementation

Meeting

Process flow and schedule

Process timing: Three to four months

42

Core Values format

Lead value statement

Two or three explanatory phrases to add dimension and understanding

Example

Unexpressed value: Determination/persistence

Move mountains

Make it happen

We ask “why not”

1. Stakeholder interviews

• ## 45-minute interviews

•Management, high potential juniors, cross departments, cross functions, cross sites

•Dates/times

• TBD

2. Culture/Values Focus Groups

• ## 2-hour groups of 15 people each (135 people total)

• Three at each site

•Emphasis on story sharing

•Each Values Drafting Team member attends one group to listen only

•One recorder with laptop

•All sites

•Don’t start with HQ

•Dates/times

•TBD

3. Culture/Values Drafting Session

• One 5-hour session (9:00-2:00)

•Identify Values Drafting Team: 12-14 people, mix of stakeholders, some with writing/creative ability

• Write core values based on focus group input

• Dates/times

•TBD

4. Core Purpose/BHAG/Vivid

Description

•One 5-hour session (9:00-2:00)

•20 to 24 people

•Mix of senior leaders including CEO, and high potentials

•Dates/times

•TBD

5. Implementation Meeting

Process flow and schedule

Process timing: Three to four months

44

Make them practice first

Acme Cesspool

“We’re #1 in #2!”

Writing the future - 2037

Individually, write a headline and a couple of paragraphs from a Globe article on (Company) in 2037 after achieving the BHAG

As a team choose best version and read aloud

1. Stakeholder interviews

• ## 45-minute interviews

• Management, high potential juniors, cross departments, cross functions, cross sites

• Dates/times

• TBD

2. Culture/Values Focus Groups

• ## 2-hour groups of 15 people each (135 people total)

• Three at each site

• Emphasis on story sharing

• Each Values Drafting Team member attends one group to listen only

• One recorder with laptop

• All sites

• Don’t start with HQ

• Dates/times

• TBD

3. Culture/Values

Drafting Session

• One 5-hour session (9:00-2:00)

• Identify Values Drafting Team: 12-14 people, mix of stakeholders, some with writing/creative ability

• Write core values based on focus group input

• Dates/times

• TBD

4. Core Purpose/BHAG

• One 5-hour session (9:00-2:00)

• 20 to 24 people

• Mix of senior leaders including CEO, and high potentials

• Dates/times

• TBD

5. Implementation

Meeting

• One 5-hour session, 20-24 people

• Develop the culture story

• Planning session on how to introduce full vision to all stakeholders

• Generate ideas and plan

• Vision to Reality Team, plus 10-12 more

• Dates/times

• TBD

Process flow and schedule

Process timing: Three to four months

47

Announce & Engage

(Awareness &

Involvement)

Integrate,

Adapt/adopt

(Processes &

Commitment)

Sustain

(Culture)

3-Phase Team Implementation

Phase

(Goal)

1

3 2

3-Phase Implementation

Announce & Engage

Goal:

Build awareness

Ideas:

•Use non-typical formats

•Physical presence of leaders

•Explain rationale

•Tangibility

Goal:

Create

involvement

Ideas:

•Create

conversations

•“What this

means to me”

•Story

harvesting

Adopt & Integrate

Goal:

Ensure

commitment

Ideas:

•Permit ongoing

expression of

values

•Commitments from individuals to managers and vice versa

Goal:

Shift processes

Ideas:

•Integrate into

annual

evaluations

•Integrate into rewards and recognition

•Integrate into ongoing communications

Sustain

Goal:

Sustain culture

Ideas:

•New employee

indoctrination

• Track BHAG

progress

•Ongoing

feedback

• Periodic revisit

(5 years)

Discuss/Debate

Questions on anything?

Other comments?