Creating a High Performance Culture, Mike Figliuolo

• linkedinLearning culture public
  • Course Title: Creating a High Performance Culture
  • Description: If you're a leader, you're responsible for establishing the culture in your organization. In order to remain competitive, you need to build a culture of high performance.
    • In this course, executive coach and consultant Mike Figliuolo reveals how to define your organization's culture, set direction, manage organizational performance, and ensure the right platforms and processes are in place to reinforce the culture.
    • Throughout the course, Mike brings this topic to life by sharing actionable tips and real-world examples.
  • Author: Mike Figliuolo
  • URL: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/creating-a-high-performance-culture
  • Reviewed:: December 23rd, 2020

• Takeaways

  • A high performing culture is an environment where people drive performance with the right behaviors
  • To achieve such a culture, what we define as performance needs to be aligned with the beliefs of the organization, and broken down into behaviors that are believed to be right to achieve such performance
    • Assessing your current culture

      • What should current culture assessment include
        • What your current culture stands for
        • How people behave
        • What incentives you have in place to drive behavior
      • Culture Assessment Questions
        • What descriptors best explain your culture?
        • Get answers from senior leaders, managers, and front line
        • Are the answers consistent?
          • If not, you might have a cultural problem
      • Is the organization's direction clear?
        • Do people know how it's tied to culture?
        • Are goals/expectations clear?
      • Does culture support reaching those goals?
        • What communication channels exist for discussing and reinforcing culture?
        • Are those channels being used effectively?
      • What behaviors do people demonstrate that are consistent with the culture?
        • Which are inconsistent?
        • Are they incentives for the positive behaviors?
        • Are there consequences for the negative ones?
      • What processes exist to support/reinforce culture?
        • Are they effective?
        • What processes or platforms are missing?
      • How well do you live the culture every day?
        • Are those moments reinforced?
      • What should current culture assessment include

        • What your current culture stands for
        • How people behave
        • What incentives you have in place to drive behavior
        • What your current culture stands for
        • How people behave
        • What incentives you have in place to drive behavior
      • Culture Assessment Questions

        • What descriptors best explain your culture?
        • Get answers from senior leaders, managers, and front line
        • Are the answers consistent?
          • If not, you might have a cultural problem
        • What descriptors best explain your culture?
        • Get answers from senior leaders, managers, and front line
        • Are the answers consistent?

          • If not, you might have a cultural problem
          • If not, you might have a cultural problem
      • Is the organization's direction clear?

        • Do people know how it's tied to culture?
        • Are goals/expectations clear?
        • Do people know how it's tied to culture?
        • Are goals/expectations clear?
      • Does culture support reaching those goals?

        • What communication channels exist for discussing and reinforcing culture?
        • Are those channels being used effectively?
        • What communication channels exist for discussing and reinforcing culture?
        • Are those channels being used effectively?
      • What behaviors do people demonstrate that are consistent with the culture?

        • Which are inconsistent?
        • Are they incentives for the positive behaviors?
        • Are there consequences for the negative ones?
        • Which are inconsistent?
        • Are they incentives for the positive behaviors?
        • Are there consequences for the negative ones?
      • What processes exist to support/reinforce culture?

        • Are they effective?
        • What processes or platforms are missing?
        • Are they effective?
        • What processes or platforms are missing?
      • How well do you live the culture every day?

        • Are those moments reinforced?
        • Are those moments reinforced?
  • The first and most important step is to create a compelling vision that articulate as much as possible the desired behaviors
    • Example of the author's consulting firm:

      • Mission:

        • Advance the art of business leadership through hands-on training and coaching led by dynamic businesspeople

      • Vision

        • Be a global firm of uniquely skilled executives who teach managers around the world how to be great leaders

      • Short-hand vision: I'm trying to build the McKinsey of training, for leadership development
      • Mission and Vision implications:
        • Advance: generate new ideas and perspectives
        • Art of leadership: embrace that different leaders have different approaches
        • Hands-on: build things that are practical and teachable vs. theory
        • Dynamic: high energy, unique, bring their personality to the classroom
        • Global: seek global clients, build global perspectives, and understand and respect different cultures
        • Uniquely skilled: celebrate our differences and know that diversity makes us stronger
        • Managers to great leaders: focus us on specific kinds of content and skill-building and talk to whom we serve and how we help them
      • Mission:

        • Advance the art of business leadership through hands-on training and coaching led by dynamic businesspeople

        • Advance the art of business leadership through hands-on training and coaching led by dynamic businesspeople

      • Vision

        • Be a global firm of uniquely skilled executives who teach managers around the world how to be great leaders

        • Be a global firm of uniquely skilled executives who teach managers around the world how to be great leaders

      • Short-hand vision: I'm trying to build the McKinsey of training, for leadership development
      • Mission and Vision implications:

        • Advance: generate new ideas and perspectives
        • Art of leadership: embrace that different leaders have different approaches
        • Hands-on: build things that are practical and teachable vs. theory
        • Dynamic: high energy, unique, bring their personality to the classroom
        • Global: seek global clients, build global perspectives, and understand and respect different cultures
        • Uniquely skilled: celebrate our differences and know that diversity makes us stronger
        • Managers to great leaders: focus us on specific kinds of content and skill-building and talk to whom we serve and how we help them
        • Advance: generate new ideas and perspectives
        • Art of leadership: embrace that different leaders have different approaches
        • Hands-on: build things that are practical and teachable vs. theory
        • Dynamic: high energy, unique, bring their personality to the classroom
        • Global: seek global clients, build global perspectives, and understand and respect different cultures
        • Uniquely skilled: celebrate our differences and know that diversity makes us stronger
        • Managers to great leaders: focus us on specific kinds of content and skill-building and talk to whom we serve and how we help them
  • Z: Culture emerges from daily behaviors, so it is critical to make sure that any project undertaken fits that culture
  • Culture needs to be constantly communicated, through every available communication vehicles, including conferences, blog posts, emails, etc. The most powerful tool to convey culture is Storytelling
    • Effective Stories include

      • Have a hook to pull you in
      • Set the context for the story
      • Highlight a challenge that is the problem or opportunity
      • Identify the conflict and resolution
      • Explain the lesson of the story and actions you want the listeners to take based on that lesson
      • Have a hook to pull you in
      • Set the context for the story
      • Highlight a challenge that is the problem or opportunity
      • Identify the conflict and resolution
      • Explain the lesson of the story and actions you want the listeners to take based on that lesson
  • Culture needs to be an essential part of decision-making. Z: It should be clear to any party involved in a decision how culture is driving the choice being made.
  • The organization should be a direct reflection of the culture we are trying to build. Cultural fit needs to be an evaluation criteria for selecting leaders and employees, and culture contribution should be a clear factor of promotion
  • There must be a clear linkage between living the culture and delivering results, so it is vital to set goals and measure results

    • If culture contributed to your organization reaching a goal, make that linkage explicit. Let people know when you communicate results that culture was a big part of that overall result

      • Balanced scorecards can be an effective way to achieve that

    • After all , as the adage goes , what gets measured gets done . (Location 4129)

      , Multipliers (highlights)

  • Good behaviors need to be rewarded and bad behaviors punished, at any level within the organization. It is also important to publicly highlight “culture moments”, good examples of when demonstrating the right behaviors have clearly contributed to performance and results
  • The most common obstacle to introducing a new culture in an organization are legacy culture, resistant associates, missing processes, and missing behaviors, but they can all be tackled
    • Four common pitfalls

      • Legacy culture
        • send a strong message on what the old context was, why the old culture worked for that context, and what's the new context and the new behaviors
      • Resistant associates
        • Clear expectations settings in reviews
        • Immediate feedback
        • Move to new roles as appropriate
      • Missing processes
        • Clear task assignment to build processes
        • Make process creation/integration a result on annual reviews
        • Give these assignments to those who exemplify the new culture
      • Missing behaviors
        • Provide training, coaching, and incentives for building new skills and behaviors
      • Legacy culture

        • send a strong message on what the old context was, why the old culture worked for that context, and what's the new context and the new behaviors
        • send a strong message on what the old context was, why the old culture worked for that context, and what's the new context and the new behaviors
      • Resistant associates

        • Clear expectations settings in reviews
        • Immediate feedback
        • Move to new roles as appropriate
        • Clear expectations settings in reviews
        • Immediate feedback
        • Move to new roles as appropriate
      • Missing processes

        • Clear task assignment to build processes
        • Make process creation/integration a result on annual reviews
        • Give these assignments to those who exemplify the new culture
        • Clear task assignment to build processes
        • Make process creation/integration a result on annual reviews
        • Give these assignments to those who exemplify the new culture
      • Missing behaviors

        • Provide training, coaching, and incentives for building new skills and behaviors
        • Provide training, coaching, and incentives for building new skills and behaviors
  • Step by step plan to get started

    • Assess and define culture
    • Create strategic plan
    • Tie vision and mission to culture
    • Plan your communication channels
    • Build library of stories
    • Organize your team and their work
    • Integrate culture into processes like recruiting, hiring, and onboarding
    • Set goals and manage performance
    • Integrate culture into daily conversations about decisions
    • Identify, celebrate and share "culture moments"
    • Provide feedback and take corrective action as needed
    • Reward good behaviors in large and small ways
    • Monitor Culture Health
      • every 3~6 months
      • build monitoring into regular processes (strategic planning, annual reviews, etc.)
    • Assess and define culture
    • Create strategic plan
    • Tie vision and mission to culture
    • Plan your communication channels
    • Build library of stories
    • Organize your team and their work
    • Integrate culture into processes like recruiting, hiring, and onboarding
    • Set goals and manage performance
    • Integrate culture into daily conversations about decisions
    • Identify, celebrate and share "culture moments"
    • Provide feedback and take corrective action as needed
    • Reward good behaviors in large and small ways
    • Monitor Culture Health

      • every 3~6 months
      • build monitoring into regular processes (strategic planning, annual reviews, etc.)
      • every 3~6 months
      • build monitoring into regular processes (strategic planning, annual reviews, etc.)

• Notes

  • Chapter: 1. Building a High Performance Culture
    • Components of high-performing cultures
      • A high performing culture is an environment where people drive performance with the right behaviors
      • Six components of high-performing cultures:
        • 1) Define the culture
          • What is high performance?
          • What are the desired behaviors?
          • How will you know you’ve achieved it?
        • 2) Set direction
          • What’s the vision?
          • What’s the organization’s purpose?
        • 3) Communicate culture
          • What communication vehicles and techniques?
        • 4) Organize
          • How will you build teams?
          • What processes will you create?
        • 5) Manage performance
          • What are the goals?
          • How do you measure them?
          • How do you create behavioral incentives?
        • 6) Live the culture
          • How do you capture “culture moments” and provide feedback to reinforce desired behaviors?
    • Video: Creating the virtuous circle
      • Strengthening the culture => Better results => Performance increases => Strengthening the culture
      • The opposite is also true:
        • Bad behaviors => Bad performance => more bad behaviors => ultimately a bad culture
      • A senior executive just asking the question "how much money did you make me today?" is sending the wrong signals, that financial results are more important than culture
      • Example of an organization that created Team operation principles.
        • How they would work with each other
        • Standards of behaviors
        • How to treat customers
        • => balanced scorecard
      • As a leader:
        • Know what behaviors you want
        • How they link to results
        • How to take advantage of positive virtuous circles
        • Step in immediately when you see bad behavior
    • Assessing your current culture
      • What should current culture assessment include
        • What your current culture stands for
        • How people behave
        • What incentives you have in place to drive behavior
      • Culture Assessment Questions
        • What descriptors best explain your culture?
        • Get answers from senior leaders, managers, and front line
        • Are the answers consistent?
          • If not, you might have a cultural problem
      • Is the organization's direction clear?
        • Do people know how it's tied to culture?
        • Are goals/expectations clear?
      • Does culture support reaching those goals?
        • What communication channels exist for discussing and reinforcing culture?
        • Are those channels being used effectively?
      • What behaviors do people demonstrate that are consistent with the culture?
        • Which are inconsistent?
        • Are they incentives for the positive behaviors?
        • Are there consequences for the negative ones?
      • What processes exist to support/reinforce culture?
        • Are they effective?
        • What processes or platforms are missing?
      • How well do you live the culture every day?
        • Are those moments reinforced?
    • Video: Defining high performance
      • The way you define and measure high performance will dictate the practices you put in place to achieve it resonate
      • Differentiate hard metrics from soft metrics, and make sure not to focus exclusively on hard metrics.
      • Hard metrics: sales, revenue, profit
      • Soft metrics: engagement, moral, retention, satisfaction
      • the goal is to build a team that will focus on doing the right things for the right reasons
  • Chapter: 2. Setting Direction for a High-Performing Culture
    • Video: Creating a compelling vision and mission
      • Mission and Vision should be:
        • Exciting
        • Compelling
        • Define desired behavior required to live out that mission, and achieve the vision
    • Video: Linking culture to purpose
      • The culture you build = enabler of accomplishing your mission
      • The mission could be about the organization's contribution to society
      • How does the culture link to the mission?
      • Example of the author's consulting firm:
        • Mission:

          • Advance the art of business leadership through hands-on training and coaching led by dynamic businesspeople

        • Vision

          • Be a global firm of uniquely skilled executives who teach managers around the world how to be great leaders

        • Short-hand vision: I'm trying to build the McKinsey of training, for leadership development
        • Mission and Vision implications:
          • Advance: generate new ideas and perspectives
          • Art of leadership: embrace that different leaders have different approaches
          • Hands-on: build things that are practical and teachable vs. theory
          • Dynamic: high energy, unique, bring their personality to the classroom
          • Global: seek global clients, build global perspectives, and understand and respect different cultures
          • Uniquely skilled: celebrate our differences and know that diversity makes us stronger
          • Managers to great leaders: focus us on specific kinds of content and skill-building and talk to whom we serve and how we help them
      • {{TODO}} To-do: review mission and vision and discover links to culture
    • Video: Tying strategy to culture
      • As a leader, you always need to show the linkage between Project <==> Culture
        • and you need to make sure the project you choose fit the culture
      • Culture strategic filter to select the right projects
      • Is this project consistent with the culture we are trying to build?

      • Take a look at your strategic plan. What initiatives are you pursuing? How do they tie to culture? Do your teams understand those linkages between the initiative and the culture you're trying to build? If not, explain the link. If the initiative isn't consistent with the culture you're trying to build, you probably need to stop pursuing that initiative

  • Chapter: 3. Communicating the Culture
    • Video: Choosing your communication vehicles
      • You need a Content Management Strategy
        • Conferences
        • Blog post
        • Emails
        • Award ceremony, with some awards directly linked to the culture
      • {{TODO}} To-do: Consider
        • What is your communication strategy? Content? Channel?
    • Video: Telling stories
      • Stories = Vehicle for conveying culture
      • Effective Stories include
        • Have a hook to pull you in
        • Set the context for the story
        • Highlight a challenge that is the problem or opportunity
        • Identify the conflict and resolution
        • Explain the lesson of the story and actions you want the listeners to take based on that lesson
      • Plug to: Leading with Stories
      • {{TODO}} To-do: Identify culture elements that would benefit from having a story to explain them
      • {{TODO}} To-do: Build a story repository and start sharing those stories though communication channels
    • Video: Making culture a conversation
      • Communicating Culture Naturally
      • when making decisions, ask how culture should drive the choice you make
      • Use culture to frame how you talk about strategy, initiatives, and performance
      • When communicating decisions, explain how culture impacted the choice you made
      • Highlight how choices consistent with the culture resulted in financial and operational performance
      • Ask how well you're living the culture and what changes need to be made in areas that are inconsistent with the culture
  • Chapter: 4. Organizing to Succeed
    • Video: Building your teams
      • Ensure cultural fit is an evaluation criteria for selecting leaders and employees
        • Rockstars will be successful only if they fit perfectly the company’s DNA

          • SELF(yCQLCVPyR)
          • Rockstars want to work with other rockstars

            • Then , there’s the reality that Rockstars want to work with other Rockstars . You create synergies by assembling Rockstars . If you can’t attract them at every position , maybe your company’s mission isn’t very compelling . Or maybe it’s the leadership you’re providing … or failing to provide (Location 243)

      • Leadership role selection
        • Assess how a person has strengthened or weakened culture in the past when considering her for a leadership position
      • Promotion selection
        • Make culture contributions a very clear factor of promotion
      • When structuring teams, consider a team mix of cultural champions and younger team members (recently joined), or problem team members
    • Video: Building your processes
      • Make sure to include culture in every process in your organization
        • Recruiting
          • A potentially efficient way to recruit leaders with a good cultural fit is to scout them from company with a very similar culture
        • Hiring
        • Onboarding
          • Have segments during onboarding week where senior leaders talk about culture and behavioral expectations
        • Performance Reviews/Promotions
          • Have performance evaluations based 50% on the what and 50% on the how
        • Awards
  • Chapter: 5. Managing Performance
    • Video: Setting goals and measuring results

      • Culture is one element of high performance, the other is delivering results

      • Tie goals to the strategy and communicate those goals broadly

      • If culture contributed to your organization reaching a goal, make that linkage explicit. Let people know when you communicate results that culture was a big part of that overall result

        • Balanced scorecards can be an effective way to achieve that

    • Video: Rewarding good behaviors

      • People do what they have an incentive to do

      • If you want your team to embrace your culture, you need to illustrate how the culture is tied to and drives performance. Those links need to be made both at the organizational performance level as well as on individual performance

      • In short: make sure that culture fit and right behavior is clearly stated during the performance review
    • Video: Punishing bad behaviors

      • Leaving someone in place who needs to be removed because they violate cultural norms is poisonous. Everyone knows the person should face consequences. When they see nothing happen, they conclude you're more interested in results than culture. They'll believe there are no consequences for misbehavior.

  • Chapter: 6. Living the Culture
    • Video: Taking small actions
      • Culture is the sum of our daily actions as a group, and sometimes small actions can create big results
      • There is no such thing as a "negligible" contribution to culture, when it is the right behavior
    • Video: Highlighting culture moments
      • Be rigorous about identifying and sharing stories, "culture moments," and events that reinforce both the culture and performance
      • Elements of a great blog
        • Consistent
        • Authentic
        • Informative
        • Entertaining
      • Make sure you use all the communication channels you have at your disposal to disseminate those highlights and stories
    • Video: Providing regular feedback
      • You need to provide specific and regular feedback on behaviors your people are demonstrating
      • Offer the feedback in the moment, when you witness the behavior, good or bad
  • Conclusion
    • Video: Overcoming common obstacles
      • Four common pitfalls
        • Legacy culture
          • send a strong message on what the old context was, why the old culture worked for that context, and what's the new context and the new behaviors
        • Resistant associates
          • Clear expectations settings in reviews
          • Immediate feedback
          • Move to new roles as appropriate
        • Missing processes
          • Clear task assignment to build processes
          • Make process creation/integration a result on annual reviews
          • Give these assignments to those who exemplify the new culture
        • Missing behaviors
          • Provide training, coaching, and incentives for building new skills and behaviors
    • Step by step plan to get started
      • Assess and define culture
      • Create strategic plan
      • Tie vision and mission to culture
      • Plan your communication channels
      • Build library of stories
      • Organize your team and their work
      • Integrate culture into processes like recruiting, hiring, and onboarding
      • Set goals and manage performance
      • Integrate culture into daily conversations about decisions
      • Identify, celebrate and share "culture moments"
      • Provide feedback and take corrective action as needed
      • Reward good behaviors in large and small ways
      • Monitor Culture Health
        • every 3~6 months
        • build monitoring into regular processes (strategic planning, annual reviews, etc.)