Over the past five issues, we have looked at the building blocks that help create a culture for higher performance. That endeavor starts with our beliefs about people, work, and people working together—our leadership philosophy. It occurs almost entirely with a focus on the health of our organization, rather than its “know-how.” It depends more upon leadership than management. In this final article, we will look at the when, where, and how we use leadership work to grow the culture and cultivate change.

Evolution, Not Revolution

Creating a culture for higher performance is a long-term effort. It is not a project with a deadline. It is a continuous journey that requires patience and perseverance. It is more a proverbial “20-mile march” than a dash for the finish line.

Creating culture should be viewed as growth and development of the organization, evolving from the present to a more advanced, preferred way of doing work. Certainly, change occurs, but that change isn’t made using a “take away the old and plug in the new” approach. Rather, it is a process where we grow out of our current stage and develop into the new one.

Agencies of Adaptive Change

While change occurs regularly in organizations, it is too often simply assimilated into the organization’s existing operations. We keep changing but nothing ever really changes. Think about how we have adapted cell phones and social media into our operations. For the most part, we do the same things in the same way, we just use different tools.

Meaningful organizational change requires more. Fundamental change in the way we work, evolving from a Likert System 2 to a System 3-4, requires a variety of efforts and change agencies. First, a clear understanding of what we are striving for; second, a practiced skillset of teamwork and facilitation; third, a parallel organization as a change mechanism at all levels of the organization; and fourth, a major transformation of the organization’s strategies, structures, and systems, aligning them with the leadership philosophy and operating values.

Change Agency 1: Walk the Talk

To be successful, change efforts require demonstrable role models, champions of the new way. However, no role model can “walk the talk” without first understanding what the “talk” really means and then developing the skills to “walk” it. That understanding and skill development is the leadership work of building clarity and competence. People in the organization must be given the opportunity to learn, understand, and experience for themselves the meaning of the high-performance principles and leadership philosophy.

One effective way to provide that opportunity is through formal organizational development programs, whether in-house or through outside sources, such as our classwork and seminar at University of Kansas. Those programs should not be viewed as “training.” They need to be thought-provoking and challenging, seeking to build mutual understanding about how the organization intends to do its work.

In Johnson County, Kansas, we developed a program called Leadership Empowers All People (LEAP). The program has been attended by thousands of county employees, building a common understanding of the culture and the way the county chooses to do its work. The county also developed a Skills to Enhance Performance (STEP) program to build greater competence in working together. While not all attendees become champions of the change, many do, and the program has produced a very active and visible culture.

Change Agency 2: Leadership Teams

As previously discussed, higher performance happens when the work of leadership gets done in organizations. The forum for that work is “leadership teams.” Not teams of hierarchical “leaders,” but teams at all levels in the organization doing leadership work. The leadership teams should have sufficient formality that they establish responsibilities for the group, and they should function both within the hierarchy (production side of the organization) and the parallel side. We believe that it is essential that Leadership teams be established at all levels.

Leadership teams drive the change. They are where we ask the high performance thinking questions, where collaboration and team dynamics begin to flourish, and where new ideas and creative learning build solutions. They provide the means for greater engagement, a real-time opportunity for employees to experience meaningful autonomy, mastery, and purpose related expressly to their particular work.

Change Agency 3: Parallel Practices

We have also outlined the parallel organization concept. As a change mechanism, it is the greenhouse in which culture grows and change gets cultivated. While change can certainly grow from any one place in the organization, it is greatly enhanced when, at all levels of the organization, all work units and work groups, formal and informal, use parallel practices.

The relationships formed in parallel, the behaviors developed, the skills practiced, the learnings experienced will become new habits and practices that get transferred into all work of the organization. Moreover, the green house is the source for creativity, a place for bouncing ideas through collective thinking, for evaluating “smart risk” opportunities, and for removing the barriers and “killer phrases” that are so detrimental to new ideas.

Change Agency 4: Values, Behaviors, and Alignment

Key to both cultural growth and adaptive change is a commitment to shared values regarding how we behave and do our work. Those values must be more than posters on a wall or lists of policies for employees. They must be standards and guidelines that help determine “is this the right thing to do?” We develop meaningful values only when they are understood in action terms. What actions are consistent with the values? What actions are not? We answer the questions only through purposeful discussions. It cannot be left to individual interpretation, nor to some authority figure. It must arise from collective appreciation.

The formal processes and actions of the organization must also be consistent with the shared values. We cannot say that we value teamwork but always act and reward individual behavior. Our change efforts will be hindered substantially, if not totally, without a constant evaluation and norming of our strategies, structures, and systems. Please note, however, that we cannot simply jump in and make changes to our strategies, structures, or systems. To do so would not be consistent with the values and the way we intend to work together.

Alignment, then, is leadership work at all levels of the organization, work that can and should be the responsibility of leadership teams, working primarily in parallel. The work efforts are then transferred into the hierarchy side for actual implementation. Working through the leadership teams not only generates better thinking, but it reinforces the culture and cultivates the change.

Change Agency 5: Getting the Threes to Dance

As an old story goes, organizational change efforts can be viewed by imagining a high school dance. There are some who believe that dances are lame and choose not to attend—the ones. There are those who show up, but hang around the parking lot reluctant to join in—the twos. There are those who show up, socialize, and dance when the music stirs them—the fours. There are those who show up and are the popular life of the party—the fives. Then there are those who show up, enjoy being there, appreciate the music, watch the fours, and dance when asked. Those are the threes.

In organizations, we too often take the threes for granted. We spend too much time and management trying to get the ones and twos to join the “dance.” We rely too heavily on the fives and fours to enliven the “dancing.” Our leadership challenge for embedding change in the organization is “getting the threes to dance.” How do we invite the steady, the reliable, the comfortable workers to grow and become full participating dancers?

Certainly, in this change effort, you must deal with those who choose not to come along, perhaps even helping them pursue a career elsewhere. You must be attentive to those who would be your primary change agents, providing them with coaching and opportunities. However, you must enroll and involve the stable group of employees that make the organization work. Ignore them and you will likely fail. Include them and you will likely succeed.

Culture Care

Growing a culture is just the beginning. The health of the organization must be constantly attended to, nourished, and sustained. It requires routine check-ups, using diagnostic questions. It needs key indicator measures, such as engagement surveys and Likert evaluations. It should have established healthy habits, such as normal processes for feedback and coaching, sharing sessions to reinforce relationships, and structured mechanisms for exercising the thinking and practices of the culture. Finally, the organization should regularly schedule and conduct learning sessions on key parts of the culture to renew understanding and enhance knowledge.

At Johnson County, Kansas, we created several useful health habits:

1. Triads— groups of three who met frequently to coach each other, to offer observations and feedback, to hold each other accountable, and to share learnings and experiences.

2. Book Club— groups would form to read books of interest on organizational development topics and then pass along the learning in teaching sessions.

3. Check-ins— conducting some personal sharing at the start of every meeting.

4. Each One Teach One— graduates of the leadership development programs shared the learnings with fellow employees.

While we offer these “habits” for your consideration, they are certainly just examples and by no means exclusive. We encourage you to establish culture care habits that work best for you and the health of your organization.

Putting It All Together

Creating a culture for higher performance requires seeing both the forest and the trees together. It is systems thinking, where the big picture is as important as the details. Over this series, we have offered you a quick, simplistic view of the basic elements of a higher performance culture. How you put them together is a choice for you and your leadership teams. While there is no prescribed methodology, there are important ingredients. For us, they are:

1. A Focus on Purpose— Why You Do What You Do. That’s purpose, not mission. Why do you build and maintain roads? Why do you have a library or park? Why do you tend to public health or transportation? Purpose inspires people. Like the janitor told President Kennedy on his visit to NASA, when asked what he does there, “I help put people on the moon.” Public service is meaningful whatever your part of the task. Help those doing it to feel and live that meaning.

2. A Participative Leadership Philosophy— What You Believe Matters. As we’ve discussed, autocratic management restricts performance capability. Higher performance comes from believing that people are capable and willing to perform excellent service. They just need the right environment, built on consultative and participative practices.

3. Understood and Shared Values— Clarity and Competence. People are more engaged and work more productively when they feel safe, when they are trusted, and when the work is value-driven rather than rule-enforced.

4. Teamwork Dimension— Working Together. A teamness attitude is essential to collaboration, and the teaming relationships and behaviors are more important than the structural teams.

5. Doing the QII Work of Leadership. Leadership practices are work, for individuals and for the organization. It is work that must be done. Create the pathways that enable it to be done well.

6. Employing Leadership Teams to Think for the Organization at All Levels. Teams doing leadership work, not a top-heavy executive decision-making group, drives the higher performance activity.

7. Building the Parallel Organization to Do Meaningful Work. It is not productive to do QII work in a QI environment.

Our Final Thoughts

What you do makes a difference; what you can do together is so much more. We hope that you undertake the journey, choose to create a higher performance culture, and when the time comes, you choose to dance.

 

DON JARRETT is an instructor for the University of Kansas School of Public Affairs and Administration. He has over 40 years of professional experience in local government, serving as the chief legal counsel for Johnson County for 35 years before retiring in 2020. (don.jarrett@ku.edu)

 

 

 

PATTY GENTRUP is the consulting services manager for the University of Kansas Public Management Center. She has been in direct service or as a consultant for local governments for 30 years, including six years as a city administrator. (patty.gentrup@ku.edu)