Whole Care Network → 01 Podcast: Unwrapping Culture In A Box

are you suffering from staff turnover too many lost business opportunities is your reputation at risk if so you know your workplace culture needs Improvement but determining how to do so and where to start is about as fun and effective as trying to assemble a puzzle with no picture to guide you culture change in a box is a show that takes you on a compelling Deep dive into an effective real-time culture change process so you can begin to feel hopeful and re-energized about your business and now here are your hosts for culture change in a box Chris mclen and Judy Ryan well greetings everyone it’s Chris mclen you might know me as the bow tie guy I I I am thrilled to announce one of our new shows well our our newest show on the H Care Network culture change in a box with Judy Ryan from Life work systems Judy hi I’m so excited to be here Chris we’re doing it we’re doing it finally yay culture change in a box you know I what what’s exciting for me about this is you know a little self-promotion I did I did finish my Master’s Degree this past year at Gonzaga University and and uh leadership and communication and to be able to collaborate with you on these projects in these podcasts somebody that’s been in that’s professional in leadership and communication for years I mean I’m just honored to have you here with me I think Kindred Spirits attract Kindred Spirits it’s equally the same for me because the world needs really good leadership right now very much so very much so and we’ve got a number of shows planned through for the next a few weeks and you know our goal is to have people creating a life that they love yes that’s my vision statement and it’s not only uh that they love their lives but that they love their lives because I believe each one of us has been called to live a certain um set of gifts for the world and it’s just about helping us uncover those gifts bring out the greatest potential within people and create the conditions in which everybody can live to those highest potentials and so I’m all over it well you know I know you have an an awesome website with h atwork systems.com but I want to read something off your website that I’ve always always enjoyed and I know our listeners because they are now our listeners will enjoy as well and it it really it really tells tells the people about about you thank you when Beethoven saw a piano he saw a symphony when we meet people we see the Unseen Beauty and Truth beneath the surface and uncover it and that truth the one that really happening under the surface is what we all need to see we need this because the old ways of understanding human systems are not working anymore the way of superior versus inferior or management versus employee our parent versus child they never did and now we need new systems that create equality and reveal the courageous people we really are and that’s what your team at life work systems provides and that’s that’s really the essence yes of the Judy Ryan that I know thank you thank you that’s I appreciate that um I really do see the Unseen Beauty in people I think we too often throw people away and people are our greatest asset and I I I think it’s sad that in a lot of organizations they believe that developing people is kind of an option and to me it’s as serious as if you had a engine light on your car come on right and you said well we don’t have budget in time for that right or you have a a a message pop up on your computer that says you have a terrible virus on your computer and you would say h that’s kind of optional if we deal with that right and so people are the greatest asset that you have and what we typically have done is create these systems where there’s somebody being um power over and people doing power under and so it’s almost unimaginable to many people to understand what would it be like if we had a workplace where everybody developed their power from within and shared that in a mutually collaborative way so nobody was coerced or um controlled in order to be a good citizen of collaboration yes that’s kind of what we’re doing yes and I believe that’s why so important that even men and women come into leadership together and bring forth a new way of functioning because it takes head and heart it takes power you know being power as a leader power as a follower and letting those be so interchangeable and flexible that uh we can really create a different world it we all have special gifts and it’s important for those gifts to be drawn out absolutely I think a lot of people feel invisible you know part of the reason I do this work is that I was from environment where I was very loved very cared about but I felt as if I didn’t have the voice that I wanted to have or that it wasn’t taken very seriously or that it was kind of observed from a place of well let me tell you how it really is right and I think it was just kind of uh centuries of doing that so we’re in a new era where that doesn’t work anymore and there are a lot of people that long for the good old days when they think of the days days but think about our good old days we had people that were in slavery we had people that didn’t have the vote we had a lot of people being oppressed to maintain this ideal of good old days and um it’s time has come to Chuck it time to come so how does a how does an organization or even an individual how do they what what’s the trigger points when they realize that you know I need a I need a change I need a culture change for most people it really is pain yeah it’s sad but um I occasionally I’ll meet a leader that just says I’ve got a good team and I really do want to take them to Great you know is good to great idea but most people um they start to open to what we are bringing to them because they’re experiencing things like excessive turnover they’re experiencing things like um hits to the reputation CU nowadays you can be ruined in a day on social media right they’re experiencing uh the low productivity and low engagement of their people and they know they’re missing business opportunities things like that so usually they’re kind of ripe for you know recognizing we’re in this pain and they happen to come upon on a solution that they never even knew was possible because um our model is very different from a traditional leadership development most organizations develop leadership in their top Echelon and everybody and they’re kind of just hoping it’s going to somehow trickle down right in our leadership development model everybody learns every Tak ownership everybody learns the same tools learns the same language of responsibility Etc and so in a uh a leader who’s in pain that recognizes a solution where he doesn’t he or she doesn’t have to shoulder the full responsibility for that the results that need to occur it it becomes this really kind of exciting convergence because all of a sudden they go oh I didn’t even know I didn’t even know I could do that and so that’s really what we we do is we um we just bring the message out and and those that are in pain typically are the ones that come to us you know when everybody’s on the same page systems seem to work better well I would almost say that a little bit differently I would say when systems are in great shape people come to better to come together in amazing ways right so it’s kind of um chicken and egg but what I find happens in most organizations is that people uh problems occur and then people start saying why is this happening and who’s to blame right that’s kind of a typical conversation in our heads even as you know individuals in community but in a workplace those are also the questions so we’re really about blaming and analyzing right in our view the question shouldn’t be why is this happening and who’s to blame they should be what system if it was put in place would solve or eliminate this problem and so now you take the focus off of blaming people and really focus on improving systems and why do you think leadership matters I think that leadership is power leadership is power within right and it’s really interesting I read a quote and used it in an article recently by Freud and he said most people don’t want freedom they don’t want joy they don’t want responsibility but they don’t want freedom and joy because it requires responsibility and real leaders are people that are responsible and people are afraid of being responsible I think it’s because we have such a harsh and punitive kind of approach to if you make a mistake or you know whatever and so leadership is actually a path to Joy as his responsibility but most people don’t really understand how to take that on without taking on uh the harshness and the fear that comes with that so well you said a word that really triggered in my mind punitive yes and and I think at times we have worked out of systems that were punitive if you didn’t if you didn’t do a then B was going to happen absolutely in fact a lot of people come to us through a particular doorway and it’s a course we teach called redirecting negative behavior and what happens is we we eventually tell them this is a great tool and it really is a different kind of tool um but but apart from that if you create a healthy culture 90% of your misbehavior is going to go away to begin with and you don’t have to spend all that time redirecting it right right so but they come through that doorway because if you think about these feelings let’s say the emotions are that you feel annoyed and irritated because you feel like somebody’s sucking the blood out of you for attention right it’s not necessarily conflict it’s just this weird little attention grabbing thing or you feel angry and provoked by somebody who’s kind of in that stance of no I won’t you can’t make me or they’re or they’re bossing you around saying yes you will I will make you right or you’re so you’re angry right or or you’re feeling hurt and shocked by certain people’s behavior or you’re feeling um really worried and pity pity for somebody because maybe it’s a son or a daughter or a coworker that you see really failing and you know they have more in them but you want it for them more than they want it for them right or that person who this one everybody can relate to you walk in the room and and you say in your head who died and made you God you know they just make you feel put down you know they make you feel less then well when you imagine all those feelings none of those feelings are happy feelings right when we encounter behavior that evokes those feelings most of us go to harshness punishment or withdrawal and what or or we say I don’t like to be that so we go over here and we go to ignoring neglecting um enabling permissive and so most people would say okay I see those two sides what else is there and there’s a whole lot else besides those two but most of us don’t know how to do that so we automatically assume that if we’re going to drop punishment and harshness that we’re going to be this kind of ooey gooey L Fair kind of permissive person and and we don’t recommend that so that’s often the place that people come through because they they are dealing with negative behavior and they don’t want to continue to be some kind of autocratic you know mean person but they really truly don’t know what else to do and I think in essence what you’re talking about here is engagement engaging people on all levels yes yes and engagement the reason that is so important what you’re saying is because what we typically do to engage people think about it even with a small child we try to engage them through control methods we put carrots out in front of them we say you’re a good boy I’ll take you to McDonald’s right and companies will’ll do that well if you do this you get an incentive or bonus or you get to beat out over this guy over here or we’ll do it’s weird but we actually do what we call judgment where it’s it’s kind of this attitude that the owners are the the managers will take like you got to earn my respect you’ve got to earn my my good review and then I will give you access to certain benefits right and certain advantages and if all else fails I’ll just do the good old you know I’m the boss you do it because I said so and don’t give me any lip right those were the days so what we what we don’t do is we don’t engage people what we do is try to control people so in our model we move people from managing and controlling people to engaging them through a process of picking up responsibility for for their relationships how productive they are all of that but engagement itself is a huge problem that’s easily uh presented in its costly you know its costliness I don’t know if that’s a word or not I think it it is now we’re going to make it up we’re to so there are statistics that we use that usually engage our audiences very quickly which are the costs that are incurred with people who are actively disengaged in a workplace so there’s about 16% of the US culture and this was not my data this is the data through the gallop pole organization and it’s 700,000 us workers and they found that this 16% of people are they’re not only are they very destructive so they’re not just like LLY gagging they’re actually gossiping and suing and uh harassing and just all kinds of things that you don’t like to have and they actually cost an organization about $166,000 per person and they’re hard to get rid of it’s hard to get right they’re embedded they’re embedded but almost equally destructive is that 55% were found to be disengaged now they weren’t actively causing a lot of trouble but these are people that are capable of A+ behaviors that are doing C minus behaviors so they’re texting they’re emailing they’re spending a lot of time wasting it at the you know talking over the you know the water cooler they are a huge number of people and while Gallup said that there was no Financial loss loss or gain I can’t believe that there’s not a loss associated with that because when you have mediocrity oh goodness it’s it you lose opportunities you lose cures you lose problem solving Innovation all kinds of good reputation interest interest yes interest and um inspiration that we would bring to one another things that you can’t even kind of measure financially right and so that combination of disengaged and actively disengaged is 71% of the population and I’ve had companies say to me that number even seems low like they actually have it worse than that so I know you’re going to you’re going to love this word in one sense the hierarchical structure of organizations yes this is kind of like creating a you know a different blueprint it it’s definitely a different model it’s definitely a shared governance it doesn’t mean that people don’t still have titles and roles and responsibilities but the attitude is we’re all in this together we’re all going to solve things together we might be leading sometimes but we might be turning over whole projects to you our end goal in our process is to help people be able to work together to resolve and recreate all the systems of the business including the human systems so that that everybody is part of resolving things um so about just a tiny bit more about engagement what we really want to do is increase the number of people who are fully engaged yes and these are people who are good team players you can tell they walk in the room and it kind of lights up and they bring this beautiful energy kind like you Chris right and so I appreciate that thank you so fully engaged people they’re just people who you you know the ones in your head where you think man if I really need a go-to person it’s going to be this person over here because I can count on them to give full effort they always overd deliver that kind of thing so those people were shown to bring $32,000 per year average additional in uh Revenue wow and and this is the tricky part they’ll leave if the culture is a drain to them because they can go somewhere else and do their thing and not feel so so pulled down so here we are working with companies sometimes where they really need to turn around those people that are disengaged so that they don’t lose the people that are fully engaged right and so our goal is to move everybody in the direction of full engagement it’s so important for the employee the employer and the business and the customers the customers and I I always like to think that for an organization they’re probably most they’re important most important customer is their employee absolutely absolutely and it’s easy to take it for granted that we know how to make sure that we’re nurturing them and we don’t always know how to do that well and and sometimes we’re good at it when all things are small and all things just happen to be going well but we really hits the road is the rubber hits the road is when stress occurs so a lot of times we’re brought in when there’s a mder or an acquisition because all of a sudden everything shook up and people don’t know if they’re going to have their job the next day and any place that’s weak within the individual or the collective start showing up so it’s G to happen to anybody eventually because stress is part of life and is a major part of life yeah and if we can’t um have the healthy systems to manage it there’ll be it’ll be difficult well I think when you have a healthy system in a workplace system it it it transfers into your your home life absolutely and you have that uh that self-confidence that just naturally shows yes and when when we go in we actually changed our company name from expanding human potential to life work systems because we want to emphasize how important systems themselves are so a lot of times we’re helping companies to uh take on projects on their on on a different bench on their own on improving their overall Business Systems but we focus strictly on human systems and some people don’t know what that term means so I’ll just describe this for your listeners our listeners I guess our listeners that um that human systems are just the way we think and how we feel because how we think and and feel are actually the drivers for how we speak and behave right and so we don’t examine those we don’t consider like large scale ways to um address those in a consistent sustainable positive manner and so those human systems are kind of just ignored it would be like we went to school and we didn’t have the whole subject of math or the whole subject of science was just kind of left off the books right it would really cause a deficit in Us in the lack of knowledge and awareness so so we’re really um focused on helping people with the human system aspects but also not to ignore their business systems as well and that’s why we want to we want to invite all of our listeners to join us in creating a world in which people love their lives yes woohoo woo we’re doing it yes so before we close our first podcast I’d like you to tell our listeners you know you’ve got a book and your website and okay so I’m going to just tell you a couple things I have really been around the block I’ve paid the dues we have have uh I I’ve written for over 10 years in the women’s Journal I have written for five years in the St Louis small business monthly on topics like emotional intelligence and creating an extraordinary workplace my book which I’m really excited about is a good primer for people on basic questions around workplace culture and it’s called what’s the deal with workplace culture change and um on a personal level I’ve been doing this work since 1980s early 80s with first with my family models and also um having some really big fun uh Adventures on huge large scale projects so we’ve really been having some fun we’ve developed our complete set of online training which allows us to we have a company right now we’re talking to that has 160 employees in 80 countries and they all are english- speaking and they all have internet so our work can be scaled which is that’s that’s just everything for me because now there’s no more excuses for like somebody being left out or not being able to you know help anyone in the organization not just the top leaders so it’s really been a fun ride we’re creating culture change in a box we are moving it and shaking it well culture changeing the box is a part of the Whole Care Network check us out online at the hare network.com and be sure to visit Judy at Lifeworks systems.com I’m Chris MacLellan the bowtie guy I’m creating a life to Love by being with awesome people like Judy Ryan we’ll see you soon for another episode

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