Unleashing the Power of Culture w/ Jessica Kriegel

🌟 Unleashing the Power of Culture:

🤔 Culture can either make or break an organization. But Leaders that draw upon a lifetime of Curiosity and Experiences Thrive.  Therefore, tune into this episode and discover how Jessica uncovered the Power of Culture while traveling the world in a Motorcycle Sidecar with her Father.

🌟 What We Discuss with Jessica:

👉 ⁃       The impact of a positive culture 

👉 ⁃       Creating an environment where everyone wins

👉 ⁃       How you sometimes need to invest in some failure to grow and innovate

🌟 About Jessica:

Jessica Kriegel is a Doctor of Leadership & Management and a Fortune 100 Thought Leader. She is the Chief Scientist at Culture Partners which has helped thousands of companies generate billions of dollars by activating purpose and strategy through culture to get results.

For 15+ years, Jessica has been guiding global organizations on the path to creating results-based cultures that rapidly accelerate business performance. After she received her MBA and became a global consultant for a human capital management solutions provider, Jessica consistently saw highly- stressed leaders failing to deliver against lofty financial goals so she set out on a mission to ‘quantify culture.’

Her doctoral research and engagements with Oracle, Federal Reserve, Toyota, Lockheed Martin, and Bank of America to name a few, led to The Culture Equation - a tested model where purpose and strategy combined with culture delivers incredible results.

🙏 Thanks, Jessica! Reach out, connect, and follow Jessica across her social platforms:

👉 -       Twitter: https://twitter.com/jessica_kriegel

👉 -       LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicakriegel/

👉 -       Jessica's Website: https://jessicakriegel.com/

🌟 Resources mentioned in the podcast:

 👉 -       FREE Culture Gift: podcast.culture.io

👉 -       Jessica’s dad’s motorcycle adventures. http://thetimelessride.com

👉 -       Culture Partners Website : culture.io

Unlocking the Power of Trust: Keynote Speaker Robin Dreeke Shares Secrets to Creating Allies - Robin is the former Chief of the FBI's Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program. With over 30 years of experience in recruiting spies and building trust, Robin is the world-renowned speaker you need. Don't miss out on the opportunity to learn from a true expert. Contact us now to book your event! Click HERE to book a time to chat.

🤔 Take Robin's FREE YouTube Keys to Communication Online Course HERE.

😃 Check out Robin's Speaking, and Training Services HERE.

Transcript

Robin: 0:06

Welcome to the Forged by Trust podcast. I'm your host, Robin Dreeke, former US Marine, spy recruiter, bestselling author, and you're a trust and communication expert. Today's episode is brought to you by my guest, Jessica Kriegel and Culture Partners. Today's episode is all about the power of culture. Learn more about her trusted model for harnessing and strengthening the power of your culture with her free gift for the Forged by Trust listeners at podcast. culture.io and check out the link in the show notes. Coming up next on the Forged by Trust podcast.

Jessica: 0:38

I was like, how can we replicate that in the workplace and create an environment where people have meaning, they have purpose, they feel like they're growing and they're learning, and we're doing it together in a way that everyone wins. I talk to hundreds of CEOs every year, and so many of them, when they have disengaged workers, they don't know why. They're just like, I don't know what's going on. Something's not right, but I can't point my finger at it. Maybe the problem is culture, and it's like, well, the solution is culture, right? The problem might be 10,000 things, but the solution is absolutely culture. One of the key things that needs to be done for any organization that wants to do this kind of real transformation is that culture champions need to be created and nurtured in the organization.

Robin: 1:51

Today's episode, Unleashing the Power of Culture is my friend, leadership management and culture expert, Dr. Jessica Kriegel. Jessica Kriegel is a Doctor of leadership and management and a Fortune 100 thought leader. She's a chief scientist at Culture Partners, which has helped thousands of companies generate billions of dollars by activating purpose and strategy through culture to get results. For over 15 years, Jessica has been guiding global organizations on the path to creating results based cultures that rapidly accelerate business performance. After she received her MBA and became a global consultant for a human capital management solutions provider, jessica consistently saw highly stressed leaders failing to deliver against lofty financial goals. So she set out on a mission to quantify culture. Her doctoral research and engagements with Oracle Federal Reserve, Toyota, Lockheed Martin, and Bank of America, just to name a few. And she also led the culture equation, a tested model, where purpose and strategy combined with culture, delivers incredible results. During the episode today we talk about the impact of a positive culture, creating an environment where everyone wins, how you sometimes need to invest in some failure to grow and innovate, and the meaning of life and so much more. And there she is. Hi, how are you Jessica? Good. How are you? I am good. You are amazing with what you do with culture. I am such a huge fan of creating good, healthy cultures, and you've taken to that next level, you've taken that soft skill and you've broken it down into a hard science that's repeatable. And I'm curious, where did that start? What was a spark that said, All right, I want to dive deep and understand this culture

Jessica: 3:36

element? It was working with leaders who did not see the value of culture, did not understand how they could leverage culture to drive results. And knowing that not only could culture transform business, but it was the right thing to do and it made people like their jobs more. And it made me feel more fulfilled in the work I was doing. I could just tell that this was important and working at a big technology company, I would notice a lot of people just think that it wasn't that big of a deal, you know? And so I realized I needed data to convince the people who could make a difference in culture, and that data led me down the path of looking at behavioral sciences and the finance, the financial performance indicators and outcomes that having a better culture results in. And all of that was, it really started with, let me convince people. And once I convinced people, now you don't need, people don't need as much convincing. It's pretty clear that it's an important thing. So now it's just like, okay, now how do we do culture? The best possible way?

Robin: 4:42

Right, and, and could we define what culture is a little bit, kind of get a little more granular on what that feels like and what culture

Jessica: 4:49

is. Yeah. Culture is not ping pong tables It is the experiences that we have, which shape our beliefs. Those beliefs end up determining the actions we take and those actions get us results. So, If you wanna reverse engineer culture in order to drive it intentionally, you figure out what results do we want? And then you say, Well, what actions would we need to behave with in order to get those results? And what broadly held beliefs would we need to have in order to take those actions? And what experiences would we need to create in order to help spread those beliefs? That's culture in a nutshell, and there's a lot of different experiences that can influence culture, but ultimately it does get results.

Robin: 5:32

It made me curious when, when you're sharing that, what was the first really super positive culture you were part of that you remember that made this imprint on you?

Jessica: 5:44

My family growing up. I mean, there are subcultures and cultures everywhere. This model, the reason that it's so brilliant is because it's not about some like workplace, best practice, silver bullet that management consultants came up with. This is the way that humans are. We have experiences in our childhood that lead to beliefs. That lead to our actions, right? I mean, whether you went to church or not, whether you had a close knit family or not. Whether or not you had peers at school that made fun of you or they lifted you up. Those are all experiences that shape a belief about the world, about what's important, what, how I should behave. And those experiences in your childhood that lead to those beliefs determine the actions you take. Are you gonna go to college? Are you gonna shoplift? Are you. You know, all of those actions have results. And so culture is everywhere in everything. It's the development of humanity doing it together, you know? So the first culture I was a part of was my family, as everyone's probably was.

Robin: 6:40

What were the positive aspects of that that you've seen that were most beneficial to bring forward?

Jessica: 6:46

Of

Robin: 6:47

my family life? Yeah. If that's your first, really good, positive. Imprint of culture, what were some of the things that you thought were really important to bring forward from that experience to the workplace?

Jessica: 6:58

Yeah, I mean, I had a really interesting family life because I had two opposite parents. One was very academically intellectual and advanced. My mother, she was a PhD and my father was a high school dropout, but he had street smarts. He went on this motorcycle trip around the world for over a decade and was just a man of the world, you know? And so the broadly held belief that we had was that all types of intelligence are welcome here. You know, the kind that you get a degree for and the kind where you figure out how to deal with the cops that are trying to, who are corrupt in whatever country and trying to hold your passport. I mean, there was this broadly held belief that there wasn't one kind of intelligence. And so my parents nurtured me to seek and to learn in all sorts of ways that are kind of fairly non-traditional. And that led to me taking in action, which is, you know, I'm gonna go out there. And I did semester abroad programs when I was in high school, two of them. One was a survival training camp in the Colorado Rockies, and I was building and living in igloos. Was that NOA.

Robin: 8:08

No. Okay. There's a one. There's a few of those. I've done Outward Bound as well. I'm sorry. Keep going. Keep I'm,

Jessica: 8:13

It's just like Outward Bound. Yeah. No, mine. Mine was called the Rocky Mountain Semester at the High Mountain Institute. It still exists today. I mean, if you're looking for a program for your high schooler, It was fantastic. And then in my senior year, I spent a semester in Thailand learning Thai, learning about Thai culture. And I skipped all the classes in my AP academic institution, you know, and I learned about the world. So that led to kind of growing that I don't think I otherwise would've had, you know, And that got me a result, which is I feel like I'm able to relate to people a little bit more. I hope I have some better perspective. I mean, all sorts of different examples, but that's one of. Where

Robin: 8:52

did that adventure come from? I mean, I, I, I wanna do what your dad did. So he spent 10 years traveling the world on motorcycle. 12.

Jessica: 9:00

Yeah. He spent 12 years.

Robin: 9:03

Holy ca. Like outside of the continental US as well. Like

Jessica: 9:07

all, Oh, mostly, yeah. He wasn't in the continental US for hardly any of it. The he joined, he would come home for Christmas and that was when he was in the continental US was when he was visiting me. But yeah, no, his very first trip was, he went to the ice roads up in Tuktoyaktuk up in Canada. In the winter with his motorcycle and he has some pretty incredible video of that if you wanna check it out. His website is still up. It's called the Timeless ride.com, and

Robin: 9:35

you can see timeless ride.com. Excellent. The Timeless Ride. Yeah. I will put in the show notes for everyone. Definitely. Yeah. Wow. So you have this yin and the yang between your parents. Yeah. But a beautiful balance. Where did the adventure come from in you?

Jessica: 9:52

My dad a hundred percent. My dad, I mean, I grew up riding in our side car. It was a motorcycle with a side car, and so he would pick me up at preschool in the side car. He was a messenger in Malibu delivering. Remember in the old days you had to deliver packages and letters to through businesses, through Messenger. So he was doing that with his sidecar. And I would just ride around the city with him and, and do his work with him. And he always had this dream of going on this big trip. He had gone on big trips before I was born, but he knew that he couldn't really do that until I was out of the house, until he was an empty nester. So he left when, on the same year that I graduated from college, and I just, I would join him on his trip whenever he was somewhere where I knew I would never visit that place unless my dad was with me. I would go, I went to Kurdistan with him. I went to Namibia with him. I went to Columbia with him, and so he really nurtured my sense of adventure. And

Robin: 10:51

what did your mom's perspective have on all this

Jessica: 10:55

My mom is a dancer. She's an artist, and she has absolutely no interest in traveling the world. So my mom stayed home and they would just be together when they would be together. He, she would go visit him, when he was in places that had a bathtub and a hotel and room service. And and he would come and visit her and they just basically had a long distance relationship for a while and that really, it worked for them.

Robin: 11:23

Wow, that is, boy, I don't, I don't like making past references other people I've had on the show sometimes, but Jordan Harbinger, who's on the show, you sound so much like him with his get out of doors and a semesters abroad and he goes, Last thing I need to learn about was nimbus clouds for like the 15th time, you know, just getting out and experience. So you have this great, rich exposure of, like you said, culture. Of, I'll call it a culture of curiosity because mm-hmm. it really kind of seems like it fueled you. How do you then take that and inspire that kind of positive outlook? What was the challenge there?

Jessica: 12:05

Well, you know, I got older and I stopped wanting to travel as much. I had really amazing, incredible experiences at some of these trips and places that I went. But also some scary experiences. I mean, I've been held unfairly by police in corrupt countries where. Probably more often than I would like to count and stopped in airports and held in a tiny room for hours without explanation. And I, I got to an age where I was like, Okay, I don't need to prove that I'm adventurer, adventurous anymore. You know, like, I think I'm okay with sticking with Paris and Hawaii for vacations for now on, you know, and, and then I wanted to find, there was still this hunger for meaning, still a hunger for learning. And I found that in the work that I was doing, and so. I mean, my dad's trip was such a perfect example of how he had an experience on this trip, right? And that experience shaped a belief in him about the nature of humanity, about how we're all the same regardless of where we come from and our socioeconomic status and the language that we speak. And that belief led to him taking new action, which is, I mean, he was so. He would just attract people when he would st. Excuse me. When he would stop his sidecar, people would just swarm him, you know? And he would befriend people and he would continue relationships with them long after he left their town. When he died, I probably got 2000 emails from people all over the world saying, Your dad was an inspiration. I met him at a gas station in Peru, and I've never forgotten him since. We stay in touch all the time. I mean, he knew how to build relationships that looked beyond. Labels and beyond, you know, that unconscious bias thing disappeared for him, and that led to a result, which is that he built this huge community and I was like, how can I'm, I'm, you know, 30 something. I'm trying to build a foundation for myself. Financially I'm in the real world, you know, the typical world of having a job and building a family. I was like, how can we replicate that in the workplace and create an environment where people have meaning, they have purpose, they feel like they're growing and they're learning, and we're doing it together in a way that everyone wins. And also that we are getting results. Because I mean, the thing that I think often gets. Be Fuddled or Confu? ConFuzzled. I don't know which one of those is actually, in a word. Maybe they, I like them both. Okay. Is that there are a lot of people out there who think, if we're gonna get results in this, That is at the expense of putting people first. Or if we put people first, that's gonna be at the expense of driving financial results. And the reality is they are not at odds with each other. Right. And the people who think that they're at odds with each other are failing to see the symbiosis of those two things. And so we can't accomplish our purpose if we don't exist and we have to make money in order to exist. Right? So making money is part of the thing, you know? Right. And I think that's what I think everyone is starting to figure that out now in the post pandemic world that's becoming top of mind. I

Robin: 15:07

definitely agree. It's the a resounding theme of everyone I've been chatting with. Oh my gosh. Your dad is just like blowing my mind. What was he doing to forge these relationships? Why was he so popular?

Jessica: 15:22

He was authentic. He was always uniquely himself. He was the kind of, and he was unafraid of how people were going to perceive him. So I mean, classic example, when I joined him in Kurdistan, I flew into Bishkek and we ended up going to the steppes. I mean, we went out to the middle of nowhere. This is where the nomads live, right? In the steppes. They have Yurts and they take care of their, whatever you call'em, their animal flock, right? And then they move their nomads. Usually the family stays in the city, right? Cuz the kids are in school. And then the father will go out in the steppes and tend to the herd, whatever it is. So, He would, we would drive into the steppes we're, I mean, driving for hours with not a soul in sight. And then we see this yurt and he pulls over and he is like, Okay, let's go see if we can sleep there tonight. And he just like knocks on the door and is like, Hi. Can we sleep here? You know, and it was so normal. I mean, in that part of the world, they know there's nowhere else for you to go. And they welcome you with open arms, they feed you dinner. There's so much generosity and openness, and he was unafraid to embrace that kind of culture and mentality. I was meanwhile completely freaked out. I was like, This is gonna be viewed as rude. Like we can't possibly ask them to give us dinner. Like, you know what? They're gonna really let us sleep in their house. And he was like, Yes, this is how it's done. And so it was this ease of being human that he had that like, I'm so uptight, you know? I was like, Well what if they think it's rude? I mean, was

Robin: 17:00

it a lot of transparency? It seems like he had a lot of transparency

Jessica: 17:04

about Yeah. Him, He was the kind of guy, he would go to someone's house and then he would just fall asleep and take a nap in their living room. Like, no problem. He is like, I'm tired. You know? I mean, he was unapologetically himself. Right. In a way that you know, my mom is totally incapable of being, and I struggle with, I. It's not that easy in America. There is, especially in the workplace. I mean, I think that's one of the points about culture is that there is a way to be in the professional world, right? And if you look at the Myers-Briggs profiles, for example, E N T J is the preferred type. Even if. And

Robin: 17:39

so I saw my head dip. Yes. I call myself a recovering ENTJ

Jessica: 17:43

Yeah, me too. I'm also an ENTJ. I don't wanna be an ENTJ. It's like my type, and it's the bossy kind of CEO type, you know? But having said that, it's also the type that people suggest you act like when you take a classic, you know, executive presentation skills. It's like, be like, Don't be yourself, be like this cuz this is what people expect, you know? And we associate our personalities with the roles that we're in. You know, we see sales people are like this

Robin: 18:14

and you have to balance that dichotomy though. And because everything is, is a dichotomy of a yin and a yang and a balance. And when I think when you recognize that balance, that's where that great culture comes from. I'm curious about your dad. Did he have a humility about him as well? Cuz he had had obviously a lot of confidence. Did he have the humility?

Jessica: 18:36

Oh, absolutely. I

Robin: 18:37

mean, and there's a balance of that dichotomy. Confidence with humility is a beautiful, beautiful balance.

Jessica: 18:44

You know, I don't even know that he had confidence. I would say he was more insecure than anything, but he had a hunger to learn and grow and explore. And so I don't know that that was confidence necessarily, but it was a pride where

Robin: 18:58

that, Where does that hunger come from do you think? You know,

Jessica: 19:01

At his funeral, his best friend said that my father was searching for love his entire life and not romantic love. Not that he was missing love, but just that hunger for love and connection was something that drove him. And I think, frankly, Everyone has it within themselves because the questions that people are asking in the workplace today are the same questions that they've been asking themselves since the beginning of time, right? People, humanity have been asking since consciousness started, what is the meaning of life? What are we here for? What is my part in my contributions to the world? Who am I connected with? What am I connected with, right? And these are questions now that people are asking at work. I think because of Covid really gave us a wake up call, a collective wake up call. And now these questions we used to ask only in our personal life we're asking in more areas of our life. And I think it's really healthy. So what

Robin: 20:00

is the meaning of life

Jessica: 20:01

I think seeking. Seeking is the, the meaning of life is to seek and find truth, whatever that may be. And the answer is different for everyone,

Robin: 20:10

isn't it? I love that. Yeah. It really is. I, I think that theme of love is, Really profound one. It can be a very soft word that people have a hard time quantifying or don't wanna talk about in the workplace, but I've had it come up numerous times before on the show, and I think it's a really powerful one because it's, it's, I love, it's what your father was seeking and seeking love in that connection to humanity. And I'm so sorry. He's no longer with you as well. How long ago was it?

Jessica: 20:38

He died in 2018. He had an aortic dissection. He, he died suddenly. I was with him in that morning. We, we used to go for an hour and a half long walk every single morning and we would talk about parenthood and, you know, the future of. Our lives as I've just become a mom. My daughter was born nine months prior, so we were just talking about, you know, the baby and his childhood and all sorts of things, and then he died suddenly. It was pretty tragic. But you know, I'll tell you a story that kind of reinforces the. The power of culture, which is when we would go on these walks, I didn't, before my daughter was born, I didn't tell anyone what her name was going to be, because, you know, you wanna keep some things a surprise. And so he came up with a name for her, which was Violetta, and he said, When Violetta gets here, blah, blah, blah. And he knew that wasn't her name, but when he, she was born, he was like, I'll call her whatever her name is. But for now we'll call her Violetta so we don't have to refer to her. You know it. Right. And when my dad died, I really struggled with that. And I started to kind of spiral downwards. I mean, I was making bad decisions. I was drinking a lot more frequently than I had before. I mean, everything was just bleak. Yeah. And a few months later, my husband left me and that was tragic. And just really the morning of. I remember thinking I needed to go to the gym to work out my emotions, right? Whatever they were. And I got in the car and the car wouldn't start. And so then I decided to get on my bike, and the bike had a flat, So then I thought I'd use my husband's bike and his bikes had a seat that wouldn't turn. Like I couldn't sit on it. So if I believed in God, which I did not believe in God, I would've thought that there, these were signs telling me not to go anywhere, you know, But right. I didn't pick up on that message, and so I was like, Okay, I'm gonna go for that walk. But I had gone for a walk with my dad every morning for the year. When I got pregnant, he moved to Sacramento and he stopped his trip to be with us. And I hadn't been on that walk because it was too difficult, you know, emotionally difficult. But that morning, the morning that my husband left me, I decided to go back on that walk again and I was calling my best friend and telling him how sad I was and how distraught I was. And he said, Well, what do you feel? And I said, I just feel like I miss my dad. And he said, Well, what would your dad say? And I said, you know, he wouldn't say anything. He would just do something to let me know that everything is going to be okay. And at that exact second, I looked down at the ground and there was brand new graffiti on the ground I had never seen before that just said Violetta and I fell to the floor onto my knees, and that was an experience that led to a new belief. In that exact moment, I started believing in God. I never believed in God before. And that day I did. And that experience that led to that new belief led to a new action, which is I stopped drinking, I started making better decisions, I started seeking God. And you know, my life is so completely different. I'm getting really different results now. And so I. This culture model is not some great idea for work. It's the way that we are as people. You know? It's why it works cuz we are people doing business.

Robin: 23:57

Oh my gosh, what a profound, beautiful story. Yeah. Oh, I, I identify with so much of that. It's ah, thank you so much for sharing that. That is why I love having a conversation to understand where culture comes from. Mm-hmm. the importance of it, the difference it can make in your life from. Going from, I wouldn't say cuz you never once called yourself a victim, but kind of being a victim mentality. Yes. To class half, empty to, you know what? The universe is actually on my side. Right? All you have to do is be open to it and just start moving And that's exactly what you did. What a beautiful thing. All right, so we have this profound life altering experience where culture is it How do we bring that to

Jessica: 24:50

the workplace? Yeah, great question. So first of all, you have to figure out what you're trying to achieve. The results need to be clear. Our research shows that that alone clarity of results you're trying to achieve can improve culture strength by 44%. So that's the number one most powerful tool that you have, and that means starting with purpose. What is the purpose of this organization? Why does it exist? What are you trying to accomplish? And it needs to be not just clear to the CEO and the executive team, but clear to everybody within the company. So if I were to call someone who just joined your company in an individual contributor role two months ago and say, What is the purpose of your company? They should be able to give the exact same answer that the CEO would give. And that means your purpose needs to be simple. Six words or less. Our purpose at Culture Partners is to unleash the power of your culture So that is what we focus on, and everything is driven by that. Once you figure out your purpose, you figure out your goals that are measurable, meaningful, and memorable. You want numbers that people can use to define whether or not we've won. And that's part of your strategic plan. Go

Robin: 26:04

ahead. And a quick question on that too, because I know every company has a mission statement. Is the purpose the same as a mission statement? What's the difference? If there is a difference?

Jessica: 26:12

I don't think there's a difference. It's another word for the same thing, but I would argue that most mission statements I've seen are too long and complex. They include all sorts of details that they don't need to include, which make them less memorable. So I mean like a powerful mission statement, the Sacramento Phil Harmonic and Opera, their statement is to un to, I'm sorry, to engage the community with music. It's simple, right? It's so clear. Everybody gets it. All right? That's why we're here. That inspires me to wake up in the morning and wanna do more fundraising, to wanna sell more tickets, to wanna play the violin a little bit, right? More with precision, whatever. And so, That purpose statement is always where you start, cuz it's your why, you know? And then the strategy is your how. Okay, well how are we going to do that? We're going to do X amount of fundraising. We're gonna try and achieve Y amount of bookings. We're trying to get a customer NPS score of Z. Whatever those numbers are, you need to measure how you will know if you are accomplishing your purpose. That is critical. So now you've got your why and you've got your how. That's the clarity of results. Now you have to activate that with culture. And culture is the way that you get results. And that is now that you get your results, you figure out, well, what kind of sustained behavioral change do we need to see in our people in order to get those results? So let's say you wanna get a result about rolling out 14 new product lines in a year. Which one of our clients did do when they started their culture journey with us? Well, that means we need to act with more of an innovation mindset. It means we, What does innovation mean? It means risk taking, embracing failure to some extent, right? Sure. So that. That's an action that can be a little bit scary for employees. And so then we ask, well, what are those beliefs, broadly held beliefs that we're going to need to hold in order to act that way? Well, we need to believe that the executive team is ready to invest in some failure, that they are willing to embrace the fact that innovation requires

Robin: 28:13

love, that mistake. What a great statement the executives have to be willing to invest in failure. Yeah, that is a great statement. Yeah, go ahead. That's beautiful, and with one

Jessica: 28:25

of our clients, we actually created a budget for failure. We said, What is the budget for failure so that we can make sure that our employees have the experience. That failing is okay. If we can fail fast and we can move forward and we can innovate, that's what we're trying to accomplish right now. Not, that's not the case for every organization, right? I wanna make clear, I'm culture agnostic. Some companies. Innovation is not the answer, right? Sure. Investing in failure is a terrible strategy. for some organizations, for others, is the absolutely appropriate strategy. So your culture and your strategy must be aligned. They're not operating in a vacuum, and so you figure out the experiences that need to be created in order to help allow people to hold the belief that there is room for failure or there's no room for failure, if that's what you're trying to accomplish. And those experiences. They come in the form of feedback with managers of storytelling that happens in the company, in the recognition that we give people for what they do or don't do. We created this innovation campaign where we highlighted failures. This one client that I worked with, it was a technology company, and failure resumes were required to enter into this pool, and then we would highlight big risks that failed within the organization to show that it was embraced, it was storytelling and it was recognition for the kind of behavior we wanted to see.

Robin: 29:51

The idea of, of investing in failure is really intriguing to me, obviously. How do you determine which types of companies that's good for and what types of companies that might not be as good for?

Jessica: 30:05

It's all about the strategic bets that you're making. The executive team needs to come around the purpose and say, Okay, a really good exercise to go through is scenario planning. Right? All right, let's, let's look 20 years out into the future. What does the future of this industry look like? This market, our competition, this product line. How does it evolve? What? What happens if there's a tsunami? What happens if there's a pandemic? Right? What happens if all of a sudden. The internet fails and now we're back to paper. You know, I mean, you can just scenario plan a million different ways, and you make these big bets about what you think is going to get you to win, and those bets will determine whether innovation is the answer or not. I mean, it's all in the priorities that you establish as important for the organization in order to accomplish your purpose or your mission, right? Whatever you wanna call it. That, that's personal to every organization, and it'll help you determine what culture you need to nurture.

Robin: 31:04

One of the terms you had in, in your bio, is the chaos of poor morale. Yeah. What's the chaos of poor morale and how do you overcome that?

Jessica: 31:15

Ugh. I mean, It's a system, right? It's an ecosystem an organization is, and so when there is poor morale, that can be a result of 10,000 things. I mean, it can be a result of poor leadership, it can be a result of bad management. It can be a result of a difficult home life that is seeping into the workplace and has nothing to do necessarily with the workplace. It can be. The peers that we have, and they're, I mean, quiet, quitting, I was just on a panel about this yesterday, is really just bad low engagement, bad morale, and not being able to talk about that, that is contagious when, because of, because culture starts with experiences. So if you have an experience that your peers are talking about how much they hate their job, and that creates an experience that makes you hold a belief that maybe this place isn't a great place to work. And the problem Mo, I mean, I talk to hundreds of CEOs every year, and so many of them, when they have disengaged workers, they don't know why. They're just like, I don't know what's going on. Something's not right, but I can't point my finger at it. Maybe the problem is culture, and it's like, well, the solution is culture, right? The problem might be 10,000 things, but the solution is absolutely culture.

Robin: 32:33

What's the first step they should take? So if a CEO or anyone in the C-suite becomes aware enough that, all right, we got a problem, and the problems, morale slash culture, what's the first step they should take to start trying to figure out if it's 10,000 things or just one?

Jessica: 32:49

Strategy, figuring out what our strategic plan is. Once we figure out our strategy, then we elevate the voice of the employee. And in fact, you should be elevating the voice of the employee well, as you're creating the strategy. The best strategies are not created in a boardroom, in a leadership retreat in Napa by the executives. It's created by the whole collective asking frontline workers what they think should be done, and. Interviews, focus groups, one-on-one conversations. Listening to the people in your company is, is a priority? Is that

Robin: 33:20

what you mean by when you said elevate the voice of the the employee?

Jessica: 33:24

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, The reason Undercover Boss was such a popular hit was because people are like, Yeah, I wish my boss knew how hard it was to work here. Right, right. So the companies that are thriving are those where they are the executives are listening. They understand that they don't have all the answers that they are. They're the chief reminding officers cuz they're constantly talking about purpose and strategic goals and where we're going, but they're also the chief listening officers because they need to be open to feedback. If people wanna create a feedback culture, the best way to do that is to ask for feedback, not to start giving feedback out to everybody, but rather receive feedback so that you create the norm. Also, demonstrate role model what receiving feedback looks like in an ideal world, so that when you do give feedback, it's the safe place, there's psychological safety for that exchange to happen.

Robin: 34:17

Yeah. I love psychological safety. It's one of my favorite things in the world to talk about. Say you got a company that says, All right we wanna bring you in because we've realized we have a problem. Is there, like out of all of the companies you work with, a predominant thing that generally happens first, that there's resistance around, or there's these aha moments around that is an epiphany right off the bat that is hard to

Jessica: 34:40

overcome. I don't know about hard to overcome because, you know, we take people on a three year culture journey and so we kind of roll out information as they're ready. One of the key things that needs to be done for any organization that wants to do this kind of real transformation is that culture champions need to be created and nurtured in the organization. People who will hold the torch, cuz we all co-own culture. But some people are just frankly more passionate about it than others and are willing to do the extra work to demonstrate new behaviors. And those culture champions can become really powerful tools. That's not where we start though. We start with defining culture because everybody has a different definition and, and that's the problem. No one knows what we're talking about when we say we're gonna change our culture. Right.

Robin: 35:26

So walk us a little bit through that three year journey, you know, with forming Culture champions.

Jessica: 35:31

Yeah, I mean, so we start with purpose. We always start with purpose. What is your why? How is this, why resonating with the team? What do people think the why is? How does your why connect with your strategic goals? We do strategic planning first. Frankly, we don't even talk about culture in the very beginning because we need to make sure that we're gonna create a culture that amplifies your strategic goals. Again, we're culture agnostic, so we're not gonna come in and say like, You need to be more innovative, more agile, and more, you know, whatever. I mean, those are. They may or may not work for you, depending on your strategy. Once we figure out your strategic goals, then we implement various tools that will help people nurture the right kind of experiences. Those are focused feedback focused storytelling and focused recognition. So teaching people how feedback can't be given in a bag. It can't just be great job on that project. That's really useless. You know? I mean, the way that you give feedback is you say, I noticed, blah, blah, blah. Give the example. That was a great example of how you are exhibiting the cultural belief that we wanna nurture of team first or standardized to scale or whatever your cultural belief is, you've decided is important in your strategic planning. And by doing that, you are going to help us accomplish our key result of 35 million in bookings or you know, a client NPS score of plus 75, whatever these goals are that we've identified in the strategic plan, all of the feedback talks about the cultural belief that it's an example of and how it will impact the bottom line so that people see that these aren't just like values on the wall that you see integrity, collaboration, teamwork, and everyone is like right. What does that mean? How do I do that? Why do I care about those values? Cultural beliefs are more powerful when they're tied to results. So that's how you do feedback or, And if you're doing constructive feedback, you would say, Here's how I could see you exhibiting the cultural belief of team first a little bit more, and how this would help us impact our results. Same thing with focus storytelling. We're tying it to results. Same thing with focused recognition. Always tying it to results. Once you implement those basic tools, then you start to do things like building out culture champions who will take those tools and run with them. Role modeling how we use them more effectively, right? Then we look at systems. What systems do you have in place that may be countering your strategic goals or need to be cha changed in order to amplify the goals you're trying to accomplish? Always looking again at results and so everyone gets involved. HR does not own culture. The CEO starts culture and everyone co-owns culture.

Robin: 38:23

It seems like in, from everything you're saying requires a great amount of really good, healthy dialogue, especially the feedback aspect of it. What kind of challenges and how do you overcome these challenges when people are afraid to give feedback that's honest and

Jessica: 38:38

open. Yeah, well it is first you ask for feedback and role model what receiving constructive feedback looks like with Grace so that you create an example that people can be back with. Grace. I love it. Feedback with grace. Exactly. And also you allow for empathy of different people's experiences. So I mean, it's, Since Covid, you've heard a lot of people talking about mental health in the workplace, right? 30% of American adults have anxiety disorder at some point in their lives, and one of the symptoms of having an anxiety disorder is reacting negatively to feedback that is constructive. So you might. Without that empathy or awareness, you might give someone feedback, they might react negatively, and you might think, Oh, that person's so unprofessional. Right? But when we make room for different experiences that have shaped people's beliefs and have shaped their actions, we realize, well, maybe that person's going through something or is dealing with a lot right now. And so, not just putting people in boxes based on one experience, but really asking questions, another easy trick. This is a really great trick. Instead of saying, Do you have any feedback for me? You can ask, what feedback do you have for me?

Robin: 39:52

Ah, the what question? Very specific. I

Jessica: 39:54

love it. Yeah, cuz it's really easy to say. No, I don't have any feedback for you. We're good

Robin: 40:00

Which brings me to probably one of the final questions until I flip it on you and making sure I, I got everything that you wanted to cover and that is, cuz we're talking about the employees here, how do we elevate the way we think about our

Jessica: 40:10

employees? Mm, that's a great question. I mean, We've all gotta be in the same boat, rowing in the same direction, right? And so we have to assume that we have not communicated enough at all times because nine times outta 10 organizations, their failure point is communication. And so that's why we like to call CEOs the chief reminding officer, but really every leader is the chief reminding officer. Our ceo, at culture partner, starts every single meeting, including our weekly executive calls, including our all hands calls, including any meeting. He starts with stating our purpose, stating what our key results are, stating the cultural beliefs that are going to get us there. And it's like no one could possibly not know what they are at our company cuz they're hearing them so often it becomes a part of the vocabulary and the language that we're always using. You know, if you think that people got it and you're not talking about it. They don't got it, you know?

Robin: 41:06

You are an absolute treasure trove of culture solutions is the only way this popping into my head. What didn't I ask you that you wanted to make sure that you covered for the audience, if anything?

Jessica: 41:20

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, You know, I'm always looking at how things are evolving and what is happening in workplace trends. One of the things I would love for everyone to know, I wrote a book about this a few years ago, is that this whole generational differences thing is not a thing. Like, I want people to stop asking the question. Here's what I'm glad you didn't ask me. What about these millennials and these Gen Zers, How are we gonna deal with them? Because. That is really just an opportunity for stereotyping to come out in what is otherwise a socially acceptable label. Right. I mean, it's like ageism and the idea that millennials expectations are different than baby boomers is not true. What's happening is the workplace is evolving. Mm-hmm. and it's evolving for all of us, and all of our expectations are changing based on what's happening. And we can't blame young people for everything. And this human tendency that, I mean, Socrates 2,500 years ago was complaining about younger people saying that they value luxury and chatter rather than hard work. I mean, the complaints haven't even changed, right? So if you look at the data on millennials in the workplace, this is what I wrote my doctoral dissertation on. It's what I wrote my book on. The data does not support the stereotypes that are out there, and so let's just throw away those labels. They're not of use to us in the workplace.

Robin: 42:44

Totally agree a hundred percent. People are just people. Situations are just situations. What are you gonna do about

Jessica: 42:50

it? Exactly. We are all the same in our differentness and all different in our sameness. Jessica

Robin: 42:56

got goosebumps just talking with you about all this stuff. Where can people find out more about you and dive deeper?

Jessica: 43:02

Oh, that's a great question. So I have a gift for your listeners if they wanna go to podcast.culture.io. We have a playbook on culture as well as a lot of the research that we have published on what makes culture strong and how to drive financial results through culture so they can go to podcast.culture.io to get those things.

Robin: 43:22

Awesome. Thank you. It'll be in the show notes. I'll highlight it. So thank you so much Jessica, Jessica, for coming on. Thanks for sharing a truly inspirational story so thank you so

Jessica: 43:32

much, Well thank you for having me. I loved your questions and it was a great combo. Thank you.

Robin: 43:38

Bye bye. Thank you for tuning into another episode of Forged By Trust. If you enjoyed the show, took away a few new tools. I hope you'll click like and leave a great review of the show to show your support. If you're interested in more information about how I can help you forge your own trust, building, communication, and interpersonal strategies for yourself or your organization, please visit my website at www.peopleformula.com. I'm looking forward to sharing my next Forged by Trust episode with you next week when we chat with the former submarine officer and CEO Jon Rennie in the Deep Leadership episode on Earn Your Oxygen.