What's Your Cultural Problem?

WHAT'S YOUR CULTURAL PROBLEM?

We read and hear about it all the time, "experts" and "normal" people, alike, explaining the cause of an important issue as a "cultural problem". You hear it on the news, on the bus, at the coffee clutch, the classroom, the board room, the family kitchen. You read about it in books, newspaper and magazine articles and, yes...on blogs. Just scroll through the results of a culture-related search engine query and you'll find some of the most talked about issues of our times in the results. For example, search "It's a Cultural Problem" or "It's a Cultural Issue" and you'll find myriad communications on: Bullying and Hazing, Family Life, Gender Equality, Addiction, Education, Religion, War, Race and Ethnicity Differences, and Workplace Issues like Employee Engagement, Environmental Safety, Employee Safety, Product Quality, Product Safety, Customer Relationships, and Leadership, to name a few.

So, we are all aware and able to identify that culture is at the core of the greatest problems of our times. The solution is simple, isn't it? Fix the culture and you fix the problems. Easy. Right?

What is a Culture?

Here's the definition: Culture is the shared and learned way of thinking and acting among a group of people within a specific organizational context.

Culture- It's Not As Simple As It Seems

Culture is everywhere. Each one of us operates within multiple cultural contexts. Even what appears to be a clear-cut context such as a company culture isn't really what is seems. The truth is, the culture is divided by sub-cultures, both formal and informal.

Let me illustrate: Both Company and Family Cultures are divided into sub-cultures because of differences in thinking created by Five Factors of Cultural Influence:

• Proximity- Location-specific thinking.
• Different company facilities, divisions, and departments in different locations have a high-risk of identifying and translating different meanings of values based on the influences the people have on each other because of the strength of their exposure to one another. It's that whole "you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with" thing.
• Functional- Process-specific thinking.
• The process one group in a given location follows to create value (intrinsic and extrinsic) can affect how they perceive different key value-propositions.
• Resource- Constraint-based thinking.
• The uneven distribution and limited availability of important resources (Time, Materials, Equipment/Tools, and People (Skills, Expertise, Leadership) between different locations and functional areas can create different views on values-based principles like:
• Internal safety and security
• External safety and security
• Quality
• Efficiency and Profitability
• Expertise- Experiential-driven thinking.
• Each individual's unique combination of age, level of education and training, and amount of experience can skew how they perceive values and how they should be applied in different situations.
• Position- Authority-driven thinking
  • How leaders exercise the authority in their areas of responsibility and the power their position provides will influence how employees think and act.
  • Appropriate uses of authority and power will influence others to engage and exercise their creativity.
  • Inappropriate uses will influence others to disengage out of fear of punishment. 

Each of these influencing factors can play a role in any given context and definitely affects the quality of the culture whithin which it exists. Cultural issues can be enormously complex if we don't take a systematic approach at solving them.

Our human tendency is to allow our Expertise to drive our decisions which, in and of itself, is not enough.

The Common Denominators

There are three common denominators in the influencing factors associated with cultural complexity: Values, People, and Relationships.

The Potentially Simple Solution to Cultural Issues

Create a consistent definition, and understanding of the definition of values and value-propositions for your people across all locations, functions and levels of expertise within the company-level context. Create a culture where thinking and actions are focused on using expertise, resources, and functional capabilities to identify and implement innovative solutions that contribute to your purpose and mission.

In other words: Align people on values. Get them to use those values are the primary drivers for decisions, actions and behaviors and you'll et the conditions for creating meaninful and lasting mutually-beneficial relationships.

I've said it before: Mutually beneficial relationships are magical! Why? Because, when they occur, every stakeholder involved walks away from the situation feeling like they got more out than they put in. 

• The desire to make a connection and stay connected is reinforced. The kinds of employees and customers you need to be successful will be attracted to you.
• Trust is created through a history of shared positive outcomes. Be consistent and reliable and they will come to you when they really need help.
• The willingness, or conviction, to transcend conflict is strengthened when the highest form of love is achieved in a relationship. You may recognize this concept. It's what you mean when you say things about wanting people to, "Go above and beyond," "Go the extra mile," "Take the extra step," "Hit it out of the park." It's what you're talking about when you say your highest performing, most loyal team member has "An intangible quality." It only happens if the bonds of connection and trust are created and consistently reinforced.

How to Solve A Cultural Problem

1. Define Your Company Culture- The culture you really want.

2. Identify and define the problem.

• Identify WHAT value-propositions are not being fulfilled and WHEN.
• Identify WHAT Influencing Factors are involved and WHERE (It could be one...it could be all of them).
• Identify WHO is not fulfilling those value-propositions.
• Identify WHY they are not fulfilling them. The answer will fall under one, or both, of these two categories:
• Capability- Identify the conflict, or gap, between process, resource constraint, or experiential situations at the locations involved and the expectation.
• Will- Identify the conflict, or gap, between the value-propositions the individuals involved are choosing to fulfil and the expectation.

3. Solve the Capability and/or Will problem. 

• This problem. Now. 
• Don't try to solve every problem all at once. 
• Incremental, systematic change will change the culture one problem at a time. The change can be positive or negative...you get to choose which depending on how engaged you are.
• As a leader, you're either part of the problem or part of the solution.
• Find conviction, belief in what you are doing, and you will create Values-Driven Leaders who will:



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• Know what the culture you want them to create looks like.
• So they can Think before they take Action.
• Do things that will reflect it.
• Be successful at building lasting mutually-beneficial relationships that are meaningful to your organization's success.

Every culture is a reflection of how it is led.

• Do you feel like you keep addressing the same problems with your employees?
• Do it feel like you're constantly trying to fill gaps in your talent pool and want to reduce employee turnover?
• Are you frustrated with employee attitudes?
• Does it seem like you're constantly chasing customers? 
• Does it feel like you can't make key customers happy no matter how hard you try?

These are all symptoms of cultural problems that create enormous amounts of frustration, waste, and lost opportunities for you, your company and the key stakeholders critical to your success. 

Do you know how to lead the efforts necessary to fix the cultural problems that are at the root of these symptoms? 

ABOUT TOM EAKIN

BUY TOM'S NEW BOOK- FINDING SUCCESS

Can She Really Fly With Her Feet?

Can She Really Fly With Her Feet?

I was fortunate enough to meet Jessica Cox, the keynote speaker at Wire Me Awake, an entrepreneurial and community based event in Yankton, SD.  According to her website,

Jessica shows a member of the audience
how to greet a person with now arms...
you shake feet.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/WireMeAwake/
photos_stream

www.rightfooted.com, Jessica was born “differently-abled,” without arms. By teaching herself to constantly find ways to get past obstacles, Jessica has compiled an enormous list of other amazing feats including “receiving the Guinness World Record for being the first person certified to fly an airplane with only their feet.” As her introductory video played on the large screen, I heard something that made me think of an article I wrote a few months back asking, “Why Are People Afraid of Success?”  It occurred to me, the article may not have been very helpful. “Why Are People Afraid of Success?” only provided an explanation and maybe not a complete one, it didn't provide a way forward.

The Paradox

At the beginning of her video, Jessica told a story from her childhood of a vision she had while watching an airplane fly over the playground at her elementary school. She could picture herself flying high up in the sky, like a super hero. She'd swoop down and picking up friends and family members one at a time and show them the neighborhood from above. What got me thinking, was when the narrator spoke of her greatest fear...flying, as the video faded out signalling Jessica to come out on stage.  Later in her presentation, Jessica mentioned her fear of flying again, not just as a pilot but also as a passenger.  

One of the important messages Jessica delivers is: if you want to accomplish your dreams you need to learn to be fearless. Yet, she admittedly has had to overcome significant fears to achieve hers. 

The paradox? I'm not trying to split hairs on Jessica's message. I thought how interesting it is that what might have been Jessica's greatest dream was also her greatest fear.  I asked her about it during the Q&A. We also spoke about it following her presentation in a brief conversation. She said she'd never thought about the question before but she did clarify that she mainly feels fearful when someone else is flying the plane, like on a commercial airliner for example, but doesn't have the same level of fear when she's at the controls. Jessica's clarification helped me understand how her fear of flying fit into her situation but I sensed there was a more universal paradox to be explained. I couldn't stop asking myself the question, "Why do we need to overcome our greatest fears in order to achieve our biggest dreams?" Why are we afraid of success?

My Attempt to Explain the Paradox.

There are probably many answers to explain this paradox, but this one is mine. I don't wish to speak for Jessica and whether she agrees my answer applies to her, but I'd certainly be interested in her thoughts.

We dream of doing incredible things when we're kids because at that point in our lives, the time we'll be able to try it is intangible and abstract. The thought always includes the phrase "some day" as in "Some day, when I'm big enough, I'll fly." Because we don't get into the details of how we'll accomplish those dreams at that age, because of our limited knowledge and experience, we don't see the reasons why it could fail, so it remains in the realm of possibility.

I believe, when you have a dream of what you could be, it represents something that has importance to you at your very core. As long as it remains a vision, nothing can take the dream away from you. Through the course of living, growing and learning, you experience failures in which you focus on the results. For ease of reasoning, you attribute those results as highly probable outcomes in future situations in which similar conditions exist. You perceive there is a high probability the dream can be taken away from you if you try to accomplish it. You try protect it from the bad things your reasoning convinces you could happen to it. 

Jessica probably never viewed flying super-hero-style as realistic, but I'm guessing there is a connection between her desire to pilot an airplane and her vision as a small child. As she grew to adulthood and accomplished a number of similarly challenging things (scuba diving, surfing, etc.), she grew ever closer to believing it might be possible. But, she wouldn't know if it was possible until she tried.  There must have been a powerful fear that something insurmountable would get in her way. That fear would have to be overcome.

Think about how to apply this to your own life. What dreams did you have when you were a kid that you talk yourself out of trying now that you're grown up? 

Does your fear that failure will remove your dream from the realm of possibility cause you to protect your it and keep it safe. Do you recognize that attempting to preserve your dream and maintain the status quo actually creates the self-fulfilling prophecy that it will never be unrealized?

Can a person who has no arms earn a blackbelt in Taekwondo? Ask Jessica to show you hers. 

Can a person with no arms learn to fly with her feet?

Learning to Fly With Her Feet- The First of Many Problems

Jessica telling the story of how she
overcame an obstacle, strapping into
 an airplane seat harness,
at Wire Me Awake.
Source:https://www.facebook.com/
WireMeAwake/
photos_stream

Once she determined she would attempt to fly an airplane with her feet, Jessica was faced with what might seem like an impossible obstacle, her instructor told her before any in-flight training could start, she needed to securely strap herself into the four-point harness in pilots seat. Can a person do that with no arms? 

The First of Many Solutions

At first, according to Jessica, fastening the four-point harness didn't appear to be possible.  But, she didn't just walk away. She figured it out.  How? 

1. She thought about how important solving the problem was to her (Identified her Inspiration). 
2. She thought about the nature of the problem.
3. She thought about solutions that worked in the past that would conceptually work if she could effectively translate them to fit the current situation.
4. She tried.
5. She evaluated the results- What went wrong and what caused it?.
6. She thought of ways to prevent the failure causes.
7. She chose the best option and tried it.
8. She repeated 1 through 7 until it worked.

Jessica Cox accomplished her dream because she didn't let the results from one situation dictate what she would do i the next. Jessica focused on the cause of the problem, rather than the problem itself, so she could identify what specifically needed to be changed in her approach. The changes in her actions caused the results to change incrementally until she got what she wanted. Jessica engineered her own success!

Getting herself secured into the harness was only one of many problems Jessica had to solve in her quest to become a certified pilot. Today, Jessica is a certified pilot! BOOM!

Few dreams come true without struggle. Most, like Jessica's example, require deliberate tenacity.

Some Questions to Ask Yourself

1. What did you dream of accomplishing when you were a kid?
• Are they still important to you?
• Why?
2. What challenges get in the way of accomplishing those dreams?
• How many of those challenges were identified by you?
• How many were identified by someone else?
• How many relate to what other people will say about you when you try?
3. How many of those challenges are imagined, untested or unqualified?
• Are they even valid?
4. Can you think of things you can do?
5. Are you willing create real and qualified results by testing your solutions? 
6. Are you willing to analyze, adjust and try again?

The truth is, as Jessica shows us, we are all "differently abled."  She can fly with her feet. 

Are you deliberately tenacious? What do you WANT?

If you'd like to learn more about Jessica Cox and how you can support her efforts to create a documentary about her life and her powerful message CLICK HERE.

BOOM!

BUY THE BOOK  NOW! 

UPDATE- 10/15/14- I liked the message in this article so much, it became a part of my new book FindingSuccess: Get what you really want. CLICK HERE to find out more about it.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” 
― Marianne Williamson, Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

BoomLife provides personal, professional, and organizational success engineering services. 

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What do you want? Come visit me on liveninja.com, I'd love to hear about it! Click Here to check on available open session times. 

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