“What do we need to do to better convince senior managers that changing their culture to increase engagement and collaboration has significant organizational impacts?”

Having spent 40+ years focusing on people and performance issues and presenting and asking about it, I thought to ask Gemini about better ways of convincing skeptics, from the perspective of a senior HR person building a business case. I thought the initial response pretty damn good, so I added some thoughts of my own and try to make a useful and convincing case:

Question Presented to Gemini:  As Head of Human Resources, I understand the importance of a strong company culture. It’s not just about ping-pong tables and free lunches; a positive culture fuels employee engagement, collaboration, and ultimately, the bottom line. Yet, convincing any senior management of the need to invest in cultural transformation can be an uphill battle. Please explore some key strategies to demonstrate the undeniable impact a cultural shift can have on our organization’s success.

1. Data-Driven Persuasion: Numbers Speak Louder Than Words

Facts and figures resonate with senior leaders. Let’s gather and share data to paint a clear picture of our current internal state and the potential benefits of change.

Here are some metrics to consider:

• Employee Engagement Scores: Low engagement translates to lost productivity and innovation. Utilize surveys like Gallup’s Q12 or implement pulse surveys to track employee sentiment. There are many outstanding measurement and feedback tools available.
• Turnover Rates: High employee turnover is costly. Quantify the financial impact of losing our experienced employees and the cost of recruitment and training and of the cost of getting up to average performance. (Read about Boeing and how their policies impacted their people and then their entire industry – click here)  And recognize that our new hire may never get past “average” and that it is often the best employees who choose to leave.
• Customer Satisfaction Scores: A happy, engaged workforce leads to better customer service. Analyze correlations between cultural initiatives and customer satisfaction metrics.

2. Benchmarking Against Industry Leaders

Showcase the many real success stories of companies that have demonstrably benefited from prioritizing culture. Research industry leaders that are known for their positive work environments and high employee engagement. Quantify their achievements in areas like revenue growth, innovation rates, or customer loyalty.

And showcase our internal success stories about the organizational successes we have had in changing things.

There is PLENTY of research out there showing a 20+% improvement for a more collaborative and engaged workplace. Gallup, PwC, Arbinger, Microsoft, Forbes and so many others publish solid statistics clearly demonstrating many different impacts on profitability and performance. We measure a LOT but do we measure the right things?

3. The War for Talent: Culture as a Competitive Advantage

In today’s competitive talent market, a strong culture attracts and retains top performers. Highlight the impact of a toxic culture on recruitment efforts and on motivation and teamwork in general. Explore how a positive and collaborative environment becomes a selling point for potential hires.

(Note: RETAINING good people is a key impact of having a positive performance culture. There are a lot of data, economic and anecdotal, supporting this reality.)

4. Innovation and Problem-Solving: Collaboration as a Key Driver

Breaking down silos, dealing with “Spectator Sheep” and fostering more interdepartmental collaboration unlocks the collective genius of our workforce. And recognize that many in our workplaces respond to our competitive culture inappropriately. We benefit greatly by dealing effectively with that old oxymoron, “Interdepartmental Collaboration.”

Let’s identify examples of missed opportunities due to a lack of communication or collaboration between departments.

(And how many of US might be motivated to change jobs to work for a top-shelf employer?)

Let’s look to minimize the negative impacts of too much competition and how it affects how things really work within and among our various workgroups.

5. A Culture of Continuous Learning and Growth: Investing in People Enhances Performance

Employees who feel valued and supported are more likely to invest in their own development. Understand the tight connection between a culture of learning and growth with improved skills, adaptability, and innovation.

From Awareness to Action: A Roadmap for Change

Once we’ve established the business case, we can create a realistic roadmap for cultural transformation. This should include:

• A Clearly Defined Vision: What does our ideal company culture look like?
• Identifying Core Values: What principles are fundamental to our success?
• Leadership Development: At every level and including our supervisors, our leaders must champion cultural change and model desired behaviors.
• Minimizing Competition: Competition drives competition and not collaboration. And many choose NOT to compete and often become the Coasters who CHOOSE not to contribute much.
• Communication and Transparency: Employees need to understand the “why” behind any change and be kept informed throughout the process. They need to know the mission and the goals and develop trust in the management team. Building and maintaining employee trust is imperative.
• Recognition and Rewards: Reinforce new behaviors aligned with the desired culture. MANY cultural things can reward being a collaborative player.

Cultural transformation is a journey, not a destination. By more clearly understanding the compelling case supported by data and taking some clear action steps, we can dis-un-empower senior management to champion a cultural shift that unlocks the full potential of our workforce, driving engagement, collaboration, and ultimately, sustained business success.

We KNOW how to do this and we are not INVENTING some new solutions but merely choosing to implement changes that we know will work here. We just need to better actively involve and engage our overall management team in the change process of focusing on a new vision of how we choose to improve.

We need to decrease the competitive nature of what has made our senior managers reach their positions and do more to focus on the benefits of collaborative behavior. 

The opportunity exists to transform our company culture from a “nice to have” to a very strategic competitive imperative that propels us forward against our competition. Let’s work together to make this happen.

Thus ends my editing of Gemin’s simple thoughts on how to improve ANY organization.

I firmly believe that our powerful experiential learning simulation, “The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine,” can readily set the stage for performance improvement in regards to changing people’s attitudes about collaboration and generating more engagement focused on change.

We share the goal of, “Mining as much Gold as WE can” and then watch as teams compete and effectively choose to sub-optimize performance. The cognitive dissonance we create then serves as the anchor point to generating real discussions about desired outcomes during the debriefing.

Your thoughts?

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