The Leadership Vision Podcast

Building Intentional Organizational Culture with Derek Newberry

• Nathan Freeburg • Season 7 • Episode 33

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In this episode of the Leadership Vision Podcast, we speak with Derek Newberry, the Head of Organization and Culture Design at co:collective, about the importance of cultivating a purposeful organizational culture. Derek explains the concept of generative organizations that create value for various stakeholders and discusses his background in organizational anthropology. 

The conversation covers:

  • Simplifying complex cultural concepts, 
  • The power of rituals and habits, 
  • The impact of physical and online environments on team dynamics
  • and more!

Derek shares practical advice on how leaders can be intentional about culture-building to ensure alignment and drive performance.

Derek's Books:


03:01 The Role of Anthropology in Organizational Culture
05:58 The Complexity of Culture in Organizations
07:15 Formative Experiences and Influences
09:28 Anthropology and Development Problems
10:41 Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up Approaches
12:14 Building and Changing Habits
16:13 Addressing Bad Habits in Organizations
19:10 The Importance of Team Rituals
22:16 Impact of Physical Environment on Culture
23:34 Challenges of Remote Work
25:06 Engaging Remote Colleagues
25:27 Post-Pandemic Workplace Challenges
26:17 Building a Shared Culture
26:53 Stakeholder Issues and Cultural Impact
27:18 Cultural Playbook
27:55 Google's Aligned Culture
30:19 The Role of Community in Workplace Culture
35:14 Technology's Influence on Culture
42:26 One Thing to Build Culture TODAY

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The Leadership Vision Podcast is a weekly show sharing our expertise in discovering, practicing, and implementing a Strengths-based approach to people, teams, and culture. Contact us to talk to us about helping your team understand the power of Strengths.

Speaker 1:

So I think oftentimes we think of culture as what one of my former colleagues called sort of cultural confetti. It's foosball tables and casual Fridays and stuff like that. But to me it's not a sideshow, it is absolutely core to the business and core to your operating model and in fact I think culture is going to be a real differentiator and how you show up with customers and how you attract top talent and so sort of my message is really intentionally, think about the culture you want to build and drive through your organization, because if you don't, you are going to get a culture, whether you like it or not. Every organization has one and the chances are if you're not really intentional about building the right one, you'll get one that's not the one you would want. Right, really intentional about building the right one, you'll get one.

Speaker 2:

That's not the one you would want. Right? You are listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. Our consulting firm has been doing this work for the past 25 years so that leaders are mentally engaged and emotionally healthy. Hello everyone, my name is Nathan Friberg and today on the podcast, we welcome Derek Newberry, head of organization and culture design, at Co-Collective. There, derek guides organizations through large scale cultural transformations to actualize their purpose and achieve strategic goals. There's lots of similarities there with our work.

Speaker 2:

Derek has had an amazing career, which you can learn more about via the link in our show notes. He is the co-author of the books the Culture Puzzle Harnessing the Forces that Drive your Organization's Success, and Committed Teams Three Steps to Inspiring Passion and Performance. In our conversation with Derek, brian, linda and I discussed the concepts of generative organizations, the importance of simplifying complex cultural concepts, and we also discuss the power of rituals and habits in embedding cultural values within a team and a whole bunch of other fascinating stuff that I really think you're going to enjoy. We just had an absolute blast. It was a ton of fun and so enlightening and just really stretched our thinking. Chatting with Derek and as you listen, I just want you to think about your team and how maybe you can integrate some of these concepts today or tomorrow or next week or whenever you're done listening to this. This is the Leadership Vision Podcast, enjoy.

Speaker 1:

So I'm the head of organization and culture design at Co Collective. So basically our whole focus is on building what we call generative organizations, so we can get into that idea of generative. But when I think about that at the organizational level and how we think about it at Co is basically building an organization that creates value for the widest range of stakeholders. Creates value for the widest range of stakeholders so shareholders yes, customers, of course, but also communities, also regulators, whoever those stakeholders are for you. And we do that in a lot of ways. We do it through brand strategy, but I focus on everything that's kind of about the employee and the culture inside of a company. And that kind of leads me to sort of my deeper background, which is actually in organizational anthropology.

Speaker 1:

So I'm an anthropologist, I study and I'm super passionate about organizational culture. Like you both, I am a geek all the way through about this stuff. I actually have an academic background in it. I got my PhD at UPenn and I'm still affiliated faculty there. And I say that because it was really cool to hear that you both are interested in positive psychology and you have roots in that field. I can't say I'm a psychologist, but I've been inspired by folks like Marty Seligman, angela Duckworth in our positive psychology and so yeah, that strengths-based view. So yeah, really, I'm all about sort of understanding kind of the theory about how you build really great cultures and drive change, but also kind of how you put it into practice day to day.

Speaker 1:

Right, how you kind of lead culture building, and I'll also say I split the difference between you in terms of kids. I have two kids, six and three, and they be very busy Wow.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 3:

Yes, they do. All right, here we go Ready. Well, Derek, it's so great to have you on our podcast today. One of the things we're gonna be obviously talking about is organizational culture, team culture and the importance of culture. My first question to you is how in the world did you get interested in this in the first place?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah Well, so, like I said, my deep background is in cultural anthropology and I didn't go into that necessarily thinking I would focus on organizations. I was just really deeply interested in. You know, culture is this incredible force right, Enables people. It's something that when you get two to two or three people together, they just start creating on their own, whether they realize they're not. We're almost like culture machines as humans, and it's this incredible force that enables us to be basically larger than the sum of our parts, right, and to solve problems and get things done in really incredible ways.

Speaker 1:

The way I got interested in organizations is you see how that works at a really large scale, right, but also the challenges that comes with it. Once you're bigger than a startup, where you're, you know, let's say, 20 people in a room a founding team, how do you kind of hold people together and get them aligned and get them on the same page? So I started getting really interested in those particular problems and that's what kind of led me down this path of understanding how to build great cultures and organizations. At that point I was pretty firmly in academia, but I also got really interested in thinking about how do I actually apply this stuff out in the world, not just kind of think about it in an ivory tower. And that's what got me into this space of sort of you know doing this in organizations as well.

Speaker 4:

So how has your thinking evolved since maybe that first going from the ivory tower to the action, as well as all the course of events that have happened historically right now? How have you evolved your thinking? How has it sharpened? What are the things that you have learned?

Speaker 1:

I think the biggest thing I learned, moving from just doing theory to actually working with executives who are trying to take action inside of their organizations, is that you just have to be able to make the complex simple, because culture is complex, right, I've seen every definition of culture you can imagine, from beliefs, behaviors, mindsets, to just the way we do things around here to you know everything in between.

Speaker 1:

And the truth is it's all of that because culture is really everything we do. Right, but from sort of a leadership standpoint, when you're thinking about how do I get things done in my organization if culture is everything, then it's nothing at the same time. Right, you can't really focus on anything in particular, you can't actually drive change. So one thing I learned is even though that's always going to be true, culture is complex. It's kind of all encompassing. We need to be able to talk and think about it in a way that's a lot simpler and kind of more actionable. And that's where I've gotten into sort of building evidence-based frameworks, that kind of help you move from one to the other, where it's like okay, if I have just four things I need to focus on when I'm driving a big change, whatever the case may be. What are those things right?

Speaker 3:

yeah, yeah, derek. One of the things that we often find is that people don't always stumble into what they're doing right now. They may have had some unique formative experience that has significantly shaped why they're where they are now. Have you had a type of organizational culture early in your life that was a significant influence on who you are?

Speaker 1:

Wow, that's a really great question, brian. I really have to think about that one, because you know, I guess what I would say about that is actually being in a university environment really influenced how I think about culture, because that's a classic example where just because you say we're all part of the same organization doesn't automatically assume that we actually feel that way and that we're actually aligned. That's especially true in universities because they act like actually little fiefdoms, right. So like UPenn, where I have my affiliation, every school and every department is kind of its own kind of little kingdom, its own little tribe that has its own leader, its own way of doing things. And you know that's especially true in academia, but I think it's true in organizations especially now.

Speaker 1:

I think one of the things I'm seeing in a post-pandemic environment. I feel like every leader I talk to, every organization I work with, is dealing with some version of the challenge that we're totally fragmented, we're super siloed, right, and I think that's a product of the fact that once you get to a certain size, it's really hard again to create sort of that shared sense of identity. So I started seeing that and sort of my university life and when I moved to different types of organizations. When I moved into the business world I thought oh, that's actually a problem everywhere.

Speaker 3:

That's interesting because all three of us Nathan, Linda and and myself all have spent time in our careers in the university setting, so when you bring that up, I think we all have some scar tissue and highlights of what that's like Beefdom is a great word.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, it's so shaping. Did you have a professor or a coach or somebody that really opened your eyes or steered you in some ways to anthropology?

Speaker 1:

so where I got really turned on to anthropology was in, uh, undergrad and it was. My background was actually in international development. That's what I thought it was going to go into. Okay, and I got into anthropology because when I looked at sort of you know, different ways of solving development problems how do you kind of raise the income and quality of life and all those indicators for lower income countries, that kind of a thing Every economics model seemed to have deep, deep flaws and only anthropology seemed to be able to address that, you know, in a really honest way.

Speaker 1:

And I think what I learned from all that is the anthropologist view is basically you have to kind of solve problems not just from the top down but from the bottom up. That really appealed to me, the fact that you have to deeply understand people's context, their experience, if you want to help them create change, for example. And so that kind of anthropologist mindset was something that was really attractive for me because it just felt very true and that's something I take into my work with organizations. There's so much that happens in organizations that's right under a leader's nose and that they don't realize is going on, sort of deep problems that they don't realize are happening.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that approach, derek. When you said an anthropologist is solving problems from the bottom up, not from the top down, I know that we find in our practice that that is. That is so true, because the the granular nature of what goes in a building culture is often not even in the sight line of a leader, because they're looking at or concerned about or paying attention to many other things. In your work, do you go at both sides at the same time, or do you choose one or the other to start?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the way. So I think it is from both sides and the way I think of it is especially at sort of the more senior levels. There, I think the responsibility and the impact is around kind of driving the shared vision. So this is basically what the way I think about this is are you telling a really clear and consistent story about where you're going as an organization and why and why people should care and what it, what it means for them? I think where the bottom up part comes in is what you were talking about earlier, that habit building building. How do I make that vision real in my part of the organization, in my area, my function, and that's where you have to get down to really concrete behaviors that are kind of built from the bottom up. Um, so that's how I kind of think about bringing those two pieces together. There's kind of the saying that happens up here and the doing that has to happen from the bottom up.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, okay, I now I have a question. When you talk about habits, are you talking about individual habits, team habits, organizational habits or all?

Speaker 1:

You can define it at both the organizational and the individual level. The actual change has to come at the individual level. So that's what I mean by saying it has to be bottom up, Sure, but I think you can say, okay, add an organizational or add a team level. And this is an example from recent work. So he's working with a financial services organization around. They had gone through a lot of change and sort of needed to reset the culture, and one of the things just one example one thing that he said was really important to them is and one of the things, just one example one thing that I said was really important to them is you know, we really need to focus on sort of shared customer oriented outcomes, not just on, like the work we do, Like, you know, developing financial products, for example, but like what is the end outcome for the customer, what's the impact?

Speaker 1:

So at the team level, you might say, OK, that's an important habit for us, that we're constantly thinking about that. But when we got down to the level of, okay, how do I as an individual actually live this? We started to find individual actions as almost like a menu of options. So what could that mean for you? It could mean every time you start a new project to develop a new financial product, you, at the kickoff, one of the things you do is you articulate a hypothesis on what do we think the customer impact will be with this product and how do we measure that impact? Let's agree to some KPIs and then let's set some milestone points where we kind of check in are we hitting those KPIs or not so that's just one example.

Speaker 1:

But, I think at the individual levels where you have to be able to translate to action.

Speaker 2:

Gotcha. So how, I guess, how? How do habits differ from KPIs or goals or cause I'm are you familiar with, like James Clear and some of like?

Speaker 1:

his stuff. No, please yeah.

Speaker 2:

He has a book, I think it's just called habits, but it's basically this idea of it's like the things that we, that we do without even thinking about it, and kind of like, what is the lowest level.

Speaker 2:

So like he's like an example of like you know, don't say that like, okay, I'm going to run a marathon. It's like, how do you transform yourself into the type of person who is a runner? It's like, well, the first thing is to like get your shoes on and get out your door, and so how do you kind of break down, you know, whatever behavior change you want to do or thing you want to instill, how do you break that down to its like smallest level, so that it's just like, it's just a habit, like so I've been a runner for my whole life and so now it's just a habit. I wake up, I put on my running stuff and it's like it's just part of the process, and in that process you remove some of the decision fatigue that happens, um, to try to make a big change. So does that make sense? I don't know if that applies to what you were just talking about, but with the kpms and stuff like that, 100 and I think that that is a fun.

Speaker 1:

What you just talked about, nathan, is a fundamental principle of kind of habit building, and, by the way, that's how I think about culture. It's kind of the sum total of all the individual habits that people have. You know, it's basically what do you do on a day-to-day basis, no matter what you say, your culture is about your values, all that stuff. It comes down to what do people actually do on a day-to-day basis. And so yeah, absolutely To kind of set sort of new habits and, by extension, to kind of create culture change. It really is all about being really explicit about how to embed those, about how to embed those you know, the behaviors, things like that into everyday actions, such that they all of a sudden, over time, just become part of the background.

Speaker 1:

That's when they truly become habit, right. So in that example I gave you with a financial services company, we might have to explicitly say to them okay, one of our important sort of cultural principles right now is driving toward customer outcomes and customer impact, right. And one of the ways we're gonna do that is, like I said, every project kickoff we're going to talk about customer KPIs. That's just on the agenda At first. That has to be something. You know it's a new routine. People have to think about it. You have to make a point of putting it on agendas. They might forget, you know, but ideally, once they do that over and over, you just you that sort of driving toward customer outcomes is automatic. It's not something you have to think about and talk about so much explicitly, because it just becomes part of what people do Right, and that's the goal.

Speaker 2:

In your work have you come across teams that have bad habits that you have to undo?

Speaker 4:

I'm sure he doesn't. I'm sure you never do, I'm sure he's never.

Speaker 2:

This is a softball setup for some. I'm sure he doesn't know, I'm sure you never do. This is a softball setup for some like so how do you? You know that the team that you know, that, uh, you know choose their nails, let's say, to pick a bad habit or whatever it is. How do you? Because, again, habits are these ingrained rituals. So how do you turn that so that a team can develop new habits but stop doing those old things?

Speaker 1:

yeah, yeah, so I think so. First of all, yes, it comes up all the time, as you can imagine.

Speaker 1:

Usually if I'm being called in it's it's because there's some bad things to change right and I think the key there is to um, not just surface what those bad habits are and just get everyone to kind of align and admit and kind of put out the open that that's a problem, but really to get people out of a defensive mode to honor why those bad habits exist. To begin with, because people are fundamentally rational. We're problem solvers right. Oftentimes and this is another kind of anthropologist mindset is oftentimes I look at behavior that a leader might look at in their organization and say that's totally irrational. Why are people doing that? There's always a logic, there's always a reason, and so it's to try to uncover. Why is that? And how do you change the environment such that you know it no longer becomes reasonable to follow that path?

Speaker 1:

So an example of that is working with a sort of credit ratings company about a year ago where we were new values and new employee value proposition and that was part of the idea of the new values is hey, it's not like we have a terrible culture, but there are some bad habits we want to change and there's some things we want to change as we accelerate kind of toward our evolution as a business. So, just as an example, one of those things is people are so risk averse here and we need to be more innovative. So when we were kind of developing values and thinking about how do we talk about the kind of culture we want to create, it was really important for us to say it's not bad that risk averse 100%, because, especially since we're a credit ratings company, you don't want us to be super risky as one of our customers, right.

Speaker 1:

But so how do we look at that behavior and honor what's really good about it and what parts of that risk averse legacy we want to hold on to, while mitigating some of the shadow sides of it at the same time? Are we sometimes so risk averse which might be in a lot of instances that we're actually missing out on innovations that help our clients manage risk even better? Right, are we missing out on opportunities? So we kind of tried to define what are the good things here and what do we want to hold on to really specifically? But then what are the shadow sides we want to mitigate? And then we kind of turned that into a set of values that kind of articulated the Goldilocks in between of both.

Speaker 3:

So, derek, as you're talking about individual habits and people turning the corner, we really understand and we've seen the holding on to that which is familiar and then what it means to really loosen the grip. Is there something about how team rituals can help individuals understand the need for change, and how does team ritual play into the formation of a new culture or the continuing of a healthy culture?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I mean. So I think about rituals as, like you said, they're kind of the moments when you can unstick yourself from a certain way of doing things and kind of reset right, and so you know, and that's how, again, the idea of being an anthropologist is there are a lot of principles about change and how to bring people together that are timeless and has been with us as long as we've been humans. Rituals are one example of that. They're part of every human society and they're kind of this way of marking change.

Speaker 1:

So one of the things I do when I think about, when I'm trying to create sort of a culture change in an organization is, exactly to your point in a team, let's say Brian, to identify what are some of your key rituals and how do we kind of embed a new way of doing things in that ritual. So let's say it's about onboarding, right? Or is how we're onboarding people really reflective of the kind of culture we're trying to create? I work with lots of organizations that say we're trying to build a culture of empowerment, right, that's a really common thing, common value people have. But then when I look at how they meet, for example, that specific ritual, you see the classic hippo effect the highest paid person's opinion wins out every single time. So you have to get that specific and look at that and say, all right, how do we create an environment where you're more junior people, they have their voices truly heard and that hippo maybe goes last right, that's how you kind of that's an example of using ritual to move from kind of values to action wait.

Speaker 2:

Can you say that values to action?

Speaker 3:

yeah oh that, that working with rituals is really how you move from values yes, I like that because so many times organizations they have all these values but they don't do anything they just sit there yeah, absolutely well, derek, when you talked about the team ritual, there's a bunch of images going off in my mind because I believe that rituals are practices, rituals take place in places and rituals involve people, so practice place people and we work just for illustration purposes we work with a very ritual-rich organization. They have rituals for everything and they're very dignifying of the individual, and so it's a very rewarding environment. We work with another organization that is a ritual-poor environment and when they relocated for an off-site, it became a talking point Because the ritual meeting was hosted somewhere else, and just that shift created like this imprint on the lived experience that made the experience so much more rich. Have you seen that sometimes it takes just that one move to shift the perspective on why it's important to break some of our maybe negative leaning rituals?

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

I mean, it's one of the reasons that you know I do lots of team building kind of team alignment type off sites.

Speaker 1:

And I say off sites very intentionally, because I'll oftentimes advise that we get out of the office because there is something about being in a physically different environment that actually does have a real impact on the team culture and team chemistry.

Speaker 1:

You know, the physical environment absolutely matters and there's lots of evidence for this's evidence that, um, even just more on sort of a day-to-day basis, when team members kind of get out of their office to take a walk together, grab a cup of coffee, just that, that experience actually builds trust in a tangible way, so that now when we're back in the office and I need something from you I haven't asked that's a much more fluid relationship and there's much better kind of give and take and reciprocity between us. So that's, you know, when you have an off site or something, that's kind of a unique moment. But oftentimes one of the best ways to sort of change culture is to change physical, like physical space. You know, are we laid out in hot desks where there's a lot of open collaboration, or we kind of have like the corner office thing where everyone's sort of separated and siloed. That actually does affect how people collaborate.

Speaker 4:

And what have you seen with some of the remote or virtually tuning in, like how do you interrupt those rituals as people are gathering like we are on video? What have you noticed, or what rituals have you introduced or posed, or prompts that you've asked to get them connecting more?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So it's a real challenge, and I say this as somebody who, as I shared, I'm a father of two young kids, two beautiful daughters, but I, as much as anyone, value the newfound flexibility in a post-pandemic environment.

Speaker 1:

So, you know, co, we used to be five days a week, now we're two days a week required and that makes a huge difference. For folks who want to have a little bit more flexibility. That's great. On the other hand, I do think it has a real effect on trust. There's a lot of evidence that it challenges our abilities to sort of develop our more junior people effectively, to give them feedback at the right moments.

Speaker 1:

So I think with remote colleagues, when you're talking about building an aligned culture, it's not to say then everyone should be in person all the time. We should go back to that. But you do have to be very intentional about how you bring them into the fold. Whether it's. I totally advocate for having a few moments during the year where everyone does get together physically in person in a really intentional way, when it's just about kind of day to day meetings, if you're, especially if there's kind of a decision moment going out of your way to make sure you're bringing in your remote colleagues and kind of actively eliciting their opinion, I think is really crucial.

Speaker 1:

The same way you might if you have somebody physically present who you know is a little bit more of an introvert and they need to be drawn out. Being remote can also have that kind of effect where you have to be called in a little bit right. Oh, that's good.

Speaker 3:

One of the things you're touching a lot of nerves, One of the things about the remote side.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's a good thing Because in the work and research that we do, we take a very behavioral-based and emotional-based approach to the work that we do, in how it is that we're noticing the way people are acting and feeling their way through their environments and what's happened in the post-pandemic world. What are some of the observations that you're making in a post-pandemic world? What are some of the observations that you're making in a post-pandemic workplace that are threatening to culture?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So I think the fragmentation piece is huge. Like I said, I don't think there's a single organization I've worked with in the past few years that hasn't said some version of we're too fragmented right now. We're siloed. You know how do we get aligned. I just worked with a large technology company on kind of building a shared culture, ethos and a culture playbook to kind of drive it through the whole organization because they were going through the same thing.

Speaker 1:

You know, we just it feels like even though we're kind of one company and name one brand, one identity, all of that, when you get down to the business unit and team level it's like we're just totally different, right? So I think that that's one, that kind of sense of fragmentation and disconnection. I think dealing with stakeholder issues in a post pandemic environment is a lot acute and it's something that comes up all the time. So you know, hearing CEOs say we have so many sort of complex, you know networks of stakeholders that we're beholden to and they're becoming more and more vocal about hey, why aren't you taking a stand on this thing? And where are you on this issue? In a way they maybe weren't in the past, and so navigating that, I think, is a special challenge right now. I'm hearing a lot about that as well.

Speaker 4:

So, as you help create these frameworks and the cultural playbook, what have been some of the outcomes from that Like? What have you noticed as far as like? Are they becoming more productive? Is the trust going up? Or what are some of the tangible pieces of evidence that you've seen as a result of trying to be more purposeful or intentional?

Speaker 1:

I think one of the biggest outcomes is creating a feeling of frictionlessness in an organization, if that makes sense.

Speaker 4:

I like that. Yeah, derek, I might steal that. And makes sense. I like that. Yeah, derek, I might steal that and use it.

Speaker 1:

I'll give you credit, but so you know. So here's a tangible example I can give, because you know, when I was doing that work I mentioned with the technology company I kind of looked at others and wanted to understand when, with the ones that you think of as having a really aligned culture, what kind of how do they do it and what kind of benefits does it confer? And when I looked at Google, for example, I was going to ask about that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and talk to folks there. It's incredible. So, first of all, there are a couple of really amazing things about Google. One is, in my experience anyway, almost anyone you talk to in that company, no matter where in the world they are, no matter what their function is, if you ask them what Google is all about, they'll give you a remarkably similar answer and, without prompting, they'll talk about Googliness and Googliness and how that's all about this helpfulness at this core. That that's what kind of identifies us and that's what identifies a googly person.

Speaker 1:

So that tells me that there's a huge level of alignment, right, yeah, um, but, but one of the but in terms of the benefit of that, you know, one of the things I've heard is that you know if you're a google employee and you go to a new office could be anywhere. You show up at that office and you know exactly how to navigate I know how to the conference room, I know where this, you know where the kitchen is located, and it's also true in interactions you just kind of know if I'm working with this team or that team. There are certain things I can expect of that, right, um, certain just ways of working that are that are just kind of automatic and that just makes it so much easier to work across boundaries, to innovate, when you don't have to get through that friction of how do we figure out shared ways of working. There are just certain things that are understood, so I think there's a real benefit for innovation, for speed, for agility, all those things.

Speaker 3:

Derek, I have a total side question on this.

Speaker 4:

Ask him.

Speaker 3:

This may get edited out. This may get edited out. But when you say that, when you talked about stakeholder issues, that just like rang a gong in my mind, because we why is that so funny, dr schubert? I just like not a heard your call like a little bell, like bing, it was like bong. That's a gong. Sound, derek, stakeholder issues that's a gong. What that rings true in so many clients that we work with and I'm going to share with you my perspective and I'm then going to ask you your observations, if you have the same or it's dissimilar find that their shared community of being a stakeholder was now at risk. When things came back and they had these social needs, their voices became louder, their expectations became more acute, their agitation became more regular, and I just feel that in the last couple of years, there's been this interesting way that stakeholders are trying to maybe reclaim their connection to cause that is then impacting organizational culture in a way that no one ever anticipated Anything on that.

Speaker 1:

So that's really fascinating. I mean, it's a trend, I think, that does predate the pandemic. So even pre-pandemic, I was seeing things like consumers expecting more of the companies that they buy products from, in terms of wanting to buy from companies that share their values, things like that. Same with employees wanting to work with companies that are values aligned, same with employees wanting to work with companies that are values aligned In terms of why that's happening.

Speaker 1:

That's a really interesting theory, brian, and I haven't, you know, dug deep into it to be able to say, I mean, I've heard one person kind of posit that, you know, in the US, let's say, there's all sorts of evidence that our participation in sort of shared institutions is declining, right, so people now are less likely to sort of attend, you know, to identify as being religious and to attend sort of you know, whatever their religious house of worship happens to be every week, less participation in community organizations. So does that mean now we look for community more and more from our workplaces, right, and that we expect those workplaces to provide a sense of community and again to be aligned with our values, not just be a place where we kind of clock in and clock out and earn paycheck, right?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, because I think that, not think that's one of our band words, I believe. I believe that culture is so important and our places of communal connection provide us with a cultural value and interpretation that applies to the rest of our world. When that's taken away, there's a need inside of us that's not being met. We return to those places of cultural connection. I think now we're having higher expectations, whether it's from a health club or as a board member or the places that we work, because I really have seen that when culture is threatened, either voices go silent or voices go amplified.

Speaker 3:

And when we talk about stakeholder issues, board member issues or even executive team issues, it's like when you think of like an aquarium where there's like the sign on the glass saying don't tap on the glass, like all of a sudden you have like 12 board members like hitting the glass all at the same time, like why? Why am I not relevant anymore? I just believe that there's something about our need for connection to culture that we as human beings are missing, because it's part of our evolutionary history of being communal creatures. There wasn't even a question in that. I don't even know. Take that out, nathan.

Speaker 4:

No no, no Respond to it, Derek, please.

Speaker 1:

No, but I mean, I totally agree with that. I think there's a lot of evidence that people are fundamentally social, even if we think of ourselves as introverts, for example. I think humans are fundamentally social beings. We identify and define ourselves with and through other people and through the communities we're a part of, and I really love some of the work that Vivek Murthy, the surgeon, has done.

Speaker 3:

Yes, oh yeah.

Speaker 1:

So he's written a lot about what he would call sort of the work that vivek murthy, the surgeon.

Speaker 1:

Yes, oh yeah, so he's written a lot about what we he would call sort of the loneliness epidemic, uh, in the us, and one of the things he he said is that, like, being social is kind of hardwired into who we are as humans. Why it's because one of the reasons we've been able to out, compete species that are bigger than us, faster than us over time, is we have this incredible ability, back to the, the power of culture, to coordinate at a large scale and solve problems and get things done, and so kind of being social is sort of hardwired into our being. And I I totally agree. I think one of the you know, one of the reasons you saw so many mental health issues, um, in the early days of the pandemic, is there's the sense of disconnection and isolation. And and now, as we've returned to work, where you know spending time in person again, you know people have to rebuild those connections and rebuild that sense of community.

Speaker 3:

Have you seen any correlation with the influence of social media on the degradation or contribution to organizational culture?

Speaker 1:

So I will tell you, as a parent of two young kids this is something I think about a lot and I pay attention to a lot. I do think there's some. So I haven't seen any data specifically about social media use, but yes about kind of use of technology and screens. You know there's evidence that we're spending. There is a Microsoft Work Trends survey showing that we're spending like 250 percent more time in meetings now than we did pre-pandemic, I believe it. People are more distracted by their cell phones than they've ever been. I saw like a survey saying we check our phones 96 times per day and I think when you're spending that much time, you know, staring at a Zoom screen paying attention, attention to your phone, it does sort of detract from the personal connection you have with other people. I think it's something we have to fight against derek, have you read the anxious generation yet?

Speaker 1:

I have not, don't or do or do um.

Speaker 3:

Nathan's read it, linda's read it. I'm 50 pages from the end.

Speaker 2:

Do you know what it is? Yeah, it is late.

Speaker 3:

Do you know what it is? Oh, no um, it's an author who is talking about the transition that has gone from play-based childhood to phone-based childhood, and what happened to people that were born and raised through the 2010s, when social media and you know, the pocket technology took over, and what that is doing for mental health attention. I mean, there's just so much stuff and how it affects girls and boys differently yeah, yeah, with two daughters.

Speaker 1:

You know, that's something I think about a lot.

Speaker 2:

How long?

Speaker 1:

can I hold off on the phone? Do not get them a phone, do not get them social media that's that's the that too long, didn't read version of that book basically you know? You know what I have heard.

Speaker 2:

Maybe this is where we get into, like, the parenting advice.

Speaker 1:

Portion of the podcast. A lot of, a lot of my friends with kids, uh, who are slightly old, that are slightly older, have said um, they've done the thing of getting them watch like smart watches, apple watches, because that's a way where they can stay connected to you. You know, you can call them, they can text you if they need something, but we don't have that.

Speaker 2:

This is, this is interesting and bring this back to community. So our, our kids school, so my son is going into sixth grade, middle school, and our school they can't have phones in school. But the apple watch thing is this new discussion, because it's they're finding it's it's still being distracting in the school community because kids are still like they're texting their parents all day. They're like, hey, mom, can you, I forgot my lunch, can you do this? And it's it's really kind of taking away from that classroom experience. And so the, the tech committee or whatever they're called, are considering not even allowing those, which parents are on both sides of that issue. But for this exact thing, this device that is supposed to help us to be more connected is actually disconnecting us from the people right in front of us. So it's an interesting dilemma.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and let me I'll build bridge now, kind of bringing that back to the workplace world. I think, especially now with AI, as technology gets more deeply integrated into everything we do and even, in the case of AI, almost becomes like a digital sort of worker sitting alongside you, I think we really have to focus on how do we always make sure that technology is always in service of kind of the human relationship and human outcomes that a lot of times it ends up being, sort of we kind of mold ourselves to whatever technology we're bringing into our world.

Speaker 1:

It has to be kind of be the other way around.

Speaker 3:

I think. Have you done any research on the impact of AI on organizational and team culture?

Speaker 1:

So it's interesting because I've been working with a company recently that is one of the ones that are like at the forefront of thinking about this about the impact of AI and organizations and how enterprises can harness its power and I think, in its best sort of iteration, it really is about kind of taking the stuff off your plate. So there are a couple of things, I think, taking the stuff off your plate that you don't want to do. That's usually what we want technology to do, right. It's like automate the things I don't want to deal with and let me focus on more high-value tasks. So an example of that I've seen is you know, can we have an AI assistant? If I'm in marketing and I'm sort of a marketing leader in my organization, can I like take all the tasks off my plate where I'm constantly having to respond to questions around like hey, is this in brand guidelines? Can I use a logo? That way, let an AI assistant do that.

Speaker 1:

And let me think about our marketing strategy, like that's what I should be getting paid for, right? So Let me think about our marketing strategy Like that's what I should be getting paid for, right. So I think that's the best version of it. I think with AI in particular, you know there's been a ton of investment and I think we have yet to realize the value of it just because it's happening so quickly. But you know, I think the best version of it is really exciting. We just have to yet to see it really fully come to fruition.

Speaker 4:

Derek, any final thoughts? We appreciate your not even just your study, how you are evidence-based, the work that you're doing. Sometimes culture becomes this nebulous thing. It almost becomes like leadership and people hear it and they almost tune out, and I think the conversation that we've just had with you today has ignited new aspects of culture. What would you want our listeners to hear about? Reframing or understanding culture from your perspective as an expert?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I think oftentimes we think of culture as what one of my former colleagues called sort of cultural confetti. It's foosball tables and casual Fridays and stuff like that. But to me it's not a sideshow. It is absolutely core to the business and core to your operating model and in fact I think culture is going to be a real differentiator in how you show up with customers and how you attract top talent. And so sort of my message is really intentionally, think about the culture you want to build and drive through your organization, Because if you don't, you are going to get a culture, whether you like it or not. Every organization has one and the chances are, if you're not really intentional about building the right one, you'll get one. That's not the one you would want, right?

Speaker 2:

That's why I would leave with your listeners. Can I ask you one follow-up to that? Wow, so you're in Manhattan, sure, you're going down an elevator, you're holding a copy of your book the Culture Puzzle Harnessing the Forces that Drive your Organization's Success, and someone standing next to you that you don't know says, oh, that's really interesting. And you briefly tell them you know, this is, you know culture is important. And this person says, well, what's one thing I can do today that will help, you know, low hanging fruit, just something that I can do to help my culture just increase by a little bit. What?

Speaker 1:

would you tell them? You know, one of the things I said when we started is when you think about culture, you really have to think about how do I make the complex really simple? Right, and one really simple thing I would focus on as a leader is am I articulating a really clear story for my people about why our business exists in the world? Just, can I articulate that in a sentence? Is it, is it a really clear narrative that that people can connect to? Uh, if you don't have that, you're not going to have that North star that can really drive alignment and drive performance.

Speaker 2:

I love it Ding. We're at the bottom elevators opening, Derek. Thank you so much. This was so much fun Just listening to you talk from your years of wisdom experience, and just with Brian and Linda's as well. It was really great.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I want to thank you again, derek, for just coming on the podcast and sharing your expertise, but what I am really impressed by with you is how relational you are and how thoughtful, and you must be looking at something over there because is how relational you are and how thoughtful, and that's you must be looking at something over there because, um, I feel like you are, you are sharing and wringing out your wisdom with us from, um, um, from both your experience and your expertise, and that's just uh, we're really humbled by that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Likewise. This has been an awesome conversation.

Speaker 2:

I'm so glad we connected, not just for the podcast but I'm really glad to be connected to both of you.

Speaker 1:

It's like you can see kind of the really rigorous kind of background you all bring from positive psychology. But just you know you're just so practical and thoughtful about how to apply it. So really appreciate the conversation. It's been awesome.

Speaker 4:

Thank you.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for your time today.

Speaker 2:

Another great big thank you to Derek for taking the time to chat with us. Brian texted me after and he said that was so refreshing. I think there's just something just so I guess I'll just use the same word refreshing and energizing talking to someone who is in a different kind of a different approach, like the anthropological, if I can say it, side of things, and the research that Derek has done is very different in a lot of ways from what we're doing, but we're getting at the same thing, or we have the same heart or what we want to do with building positive organizational culture, and so the three of us just had just such a great time talking to Derek. Go get any one of his books, but the puzzle one is especially one that I really resonated with. There are links in the show notes. You can also just go buy it on Amazon or go to Derek's website. Just fascinating. So, derek, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us and thank you, listeners, for listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture, and if you found value from this episode or any of our other material, there's a couple things you can do to support us and our show One. Just send this to somebody. Send this to somebody that you think could benefit from this or any of our other material about building strong teams, about identifying and understanding and harnessing your strengths. Send that to them. You can also sign up for our free email newsletter and then it takes a little more work, but review us on iTunes or go leave a comment on YouTube or social media. That also helps get the algorithms going and having other people learn more about the work that we do. You can learn more about Leadership Vision at leadershipvisionconsultingcom, or send us an email. Connect at LeadershipVisionConsultingcom to learn more, or talk to us about how maybe we can help your team build more positive culture. And on behalf of our team, I'm Nathan Friberg. Thanks for listening.