The takeaway via Doug Heuertz, CEO of The Preferred Group:

“But what I learned… was that the more emotionally intelligent you
are, the greater results you’ll get as a leader and as a CEO.” (p. 11)

Will Scott offers a most practical “how to” guide for cultural transformation, an excellent companion to S. Chris Edmond’s the culture engine. Scott prescribes nine activities via nine chapters in nine weeks, akin to an Academy Leadership staggered Leadership Development Program (LDP). The lasting value of Scott’s book is its focus on visual communication of organizational values.

People think visually. People think in language. When words and visual elements are closely intertwined, we create something new and augment our emotional intelligence (p. xvii).

Scott’s emphasis on values reminds us of Jim Collins and likewise our Academy Leadership Core Values Alignment workshop. A recommended sequence: Define core values in a workshop, then read a story such as Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness describing how to gather internal feedback, and use Scott’s numerous examples how to visually share the values both internally and externally.

Take a look at Great Southwestern Construction’s visual focus and recognition of values. You’ll see the same visuals inside the company’s locations that you see on LinkedIn.

Do people in your organization make everyday decisions based on core values? We should. To build or rebuild your company’s culture, you must make a similar priority – you have to put culture above all else (p. xxiii). That’s the “why” of The Culture Fix – to stick up for employees so that they might love where they work and why they work (xxix).

This book review aligns Scott’s findings with development of a Personal Leadership Philosophy, a Core Values Alignment Workshop and highlights terrific ways to visually share the results.

Alignment | Personal Leadership Philosophy

In his youth Scott observed with each job that [he] held in the interim, [he] saw how a leader’s values affected his/her workforce (p. xix). He also noticed that those who risked the least survived because it was an environment that was disinterested in change and lacked any sense of teamwork or cooperation (p. xx). That may work well in a prior generation, in a static environment. Not so much today.

We should feel vulnerable when composing our leadership philosophy. If you don’t emotionally engage your team, they will have no reason to feel or act on those values (p. 3).

Consider the Global Talent Trends Survey (with almost 8,000 people surveyed) which determined 3 factors that create a successful and efficient workforce: workplace/schedule flexibility, commitment to health and well-being, and working with a purpose (p. xxiv). Are any of these factors your leadership priorities or part of your operating principles?

Scott distills the most successful leaders are the ones with the following five traits (pp. 4-7):

• They have a “culture-first” mentality
• They’re closely involved with the people operations
• They champion the CoreVals (core values) internally and externally
• They really see their employees
• They recognize their culture champions

How well do you and your staff list and align your values, into words (p. 25)?

Vision statements are powerful, especially at the beginning of our leadership philosophy. Via reflection and journaling, we can (p. 130):

• First, Look Back
• Next, Consider Where You Are Now
• Then, Look to the Future

Then put our thoughts into words and share. A good example:

By 2021, improve it! will have trained thirty-thousand people in our live improv training sessions so that they can become better versions of themselves and keep growing personally and professionally (p. 132).

To prevent regression, avoid, reduce, or purge the following non-negotiables:

• Negative employees
• Difficult conversation avoidance
• Fear of conflict
• Lack of trust
• Avoidance of accountability
• Disregard for team objectives
• Sexual harassment or other anti-social behaviors

Alignment | Core Values Alignment Workshop

To start: The word culture comes from the Latin work cultura, meaning to grow or cultivate (p. xxi). Which means simply listing values and posting them on the wall is not nearly enough. Culture is an unseen force that guides and influences key interactions between people who keep businesses and organizations running (p. ix).

Scott has a great idea: When listing candidate core values, think of the associated business stories (p. 23). First, they’ll be authentic, second, you can then think of ways to visualize the story. Scott shares a listing of SABREs four core values and definitions plus normative behavioral statements (pp. 31-33):

Empowerment: More freedom to perform tasks as workers saw fit.

Prepared and engaged: Doing the job right at the factory, test site, and warehouse gives consumers the tools they need to be prepared and engaged – to support a 360-degree awareness of their environments while increasing personal security.

On page 51, Scott shares an example Core Value of Respect from his first company, Waer Systems:

• We hold our colleagues, partners, and customers in high regard
• We are open about issues, plans, results, and problems
• We trust each other and are not shy of conflict-for-good

Alignment & Rollout | Design | Visualize

Scott offers wonderful visual examples – clever pictures – in addition to simply words describing core values on pages 45-48. Terrific idea. He goes much further leading to a visual Core Workflow diagram illustrating business processes and their relationship to core values (see pp. 116 – 121).

A couple other nuggets:

On page 79 is a circular core values diagram that looks a bit like Academy Leadership’s challenge coin. It’s a great challenge coin template.

Scott encourages incorporating values into (p. 91):

• Daily Huddles
• Weekly Team Meetings
• Weekly Management Meetings
• Townhall/All-hands Monthly Meetings (in which awards are distributed)

Award the culture champions. Like our Accountability Workshop case study “Walk the Talk” award. There’s a great example on page 8 – the Pepper Group Kick-Ass Award.

Summary

Scott offers good ways to calculate Return on Investment (p. 146):

• Goal achievement reports
• Financial reports
• Employee evaluations
• Quarterly and annual surveys
• Consultant interviews
• Spontaneous testing
• Gut checks

It’s a nice combination of quantitative and qualitative measures.

He also shares offers a Culture Index Tool (www.cultureczars.com/the-culture-fix-book) which reminds us of Edmonds’ end of chapter culture surveys.

“Culture is an unseen force that guides and influences
key interactions between people who keep businesses
and organizations running.” (p. ix)

Will Scott generously provided a copy of his book for review.

JE | October 2021