Changing daily practices is about creating new habits: clarifying desired practices, evaluating current practices, then closing any gaps. Research says that developing new habits requires demonstration of new behaviors for 21 days – and there’s no time like the present to start!
Are the stories being told within your organization today the kind of stories that clarify your desired culture? Storytelling is one of the most effective and impactful methods for communicating the desired culture of your organization to its members. For centuries, tribes of all kinds have utilized storytelling to support their desired culture. In man’s early history, those stories were told around the campfire each evening, with tribe members going to sleep with a clear image of preferred tribe behaviors, values, and norms in their minds.
“I think the problem is that these millennials just don’t care,” Sara shared with us candidly in a moment of total frustration.
We both looked at each other and then at her, “Uh…you do realize YOU are a millennial, right?”
“Yeah, yeah,” she acknowledged, “but I’m a DIFFERENT kind of millennial.”
Of course she is, and so were the people who were frustrating her.
No matter what generation you’re in, we’d bet money you don’t feel like you fit the stereotype.
During a session with a culture change client, the organization’s president had an epiphany: “For 30 years I thought my job was to manage processes and results. This culture change journey has helped me redefine my job – to manage people’s energy.”
Cornell University professor Dr. Tony Simons’ powerful article, “The High Cost of Lost Trust,” appeared in the Harvard Business Review in 2002. In that piece, he described his team’s efforts to examine a specific hypothesis (“Employee commitment drives customer service”) in the US operations of a major hotel chain. They interviewed over 7,000 employees at nearly 80 properties and found that employee commitment drives customer service, but, most critically, a leader’s behavioral integrity drives that and more.