Culture
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Culture
eats strategy for breakfast. Peter Drucker
Most
people think or assume that leadership comes from the top. Remember what has
been said throughout this book – leadership is not positional. However, for all
practical purposes, it is true that whenever a new top leader takes office by
either an in-house promotion or a political appointment, things are bound to
change.
Every
leader carries a vision and a strategy
with them when they come on board to a new challenge. It wouldn’t be wise not
to have a plan to implement when hired as the new leader of a team or a new organization.
This
also applies to the merging of departments and other components of an
organization that is fluid and constantly changing.
How
much and how extreme it changes from the past is based on the strategy and the
culture that exists within the organization at the time of the change of
leadership. Under most conditions, we will almost always experience an immediate clash between strategy and culture
and it’s not pretty.
Even
the smartest man or woman cannot defeat culture without doing something about
it with a deliberate strike of the new tone set by vision or mission.
What
reflects the strength in culture is the time of existence without the work
group – the time it has impacted the root values of the workplace and the
amount of pressure there is to uphold such cultural practices, customs or
traditions. The longer the existence, the stronger the ties with workers to
keep it in place.
Even
a bad culture can survive strong leaders. The change cannot be successful
without the buy-in of the workforce – the
rank and file and most importantly, the buy-in and ownership taken by leaders, managers, and supervisors who must implement
and enforce these new cultural changes.
Keep
in mind some of the variables of a
culture and if the change is very extreme, the longer it will take to grab
roots and grow. What works for one business
does not necessarily work for another, even in a similar industry such as the
prison industrial complex it has been shown that there are various factors in
place that determine growth and success, doom and failure.
Some
of these factors are plain to see and others are well hidden through either a
wall of deliberate silence or just shoddy background checks on the new
investment.
Every
new move requires a new assessment of operational values and pros and cons. These variables of success or doom are based
on the geographies, the economics and the location of the business.
Some
businesses do better in rural settings while others do very poorly in such a
setting and prefer the suburban or metro areas for their workforce and their
business.
Manpower
pools are a serious consideration for prison. The more remote the prison or
jail location, the harder it is to recruit good people for the job. This is shown in the high failure rate of
mergers. Other factors are also considered such as utility costs, infrastructure to and from their facilities,
taxes etc.
According
to a study done by the Heidrick & Struggles, a leadership advisory, and consultancy group, 74% of mergers
fail. The two major reasons they fail are incompatible corporate cultures and
poor leadership of the merged companies. Of course, just having a strong
culture isn’t a guarantee of success either; just ask the MTC
organization- Management, Training Corporation who operated the troublesome
private prison in Kingman, Arizona.
They
had extremely strong cultures built on greed, lack of pride in their workforce,
excessive staff vacancies, extreme overtime costs, shoddy record keeping and last
but very important to the entire operation, weak leadership and alleged fraud.
Cultivating
the right kind of culture for your company is part art, part science, but the
most important tactic is hiring the right kind of people for your type of
culture. There are other examples out there that include state agencies in various states that have undergone
extensive reforms and changes due to corruption and poor management practices
by greedy and selfish leaders. This is rampant still, and it's likely to continue for a very long time
until the right people are in the right places.
It
is certain you can see the instant conflict developing inside the workplace.
People are pitted against each other based on morals, ethics, customs and
practices and most of all, their individual belief that what they are doing is
the right way to get the job done.
Disorder
and chaos are at the front door as good
people exit out the backdoor. It becomes
an urgent priority to guard the front door to your organization without exception.
Without
exception, it becomes even more important
to guard the doors to your organization brutally and selectively, repelling
anyone who doesn’t fit. Now, this is easier said than done, and each
organization must find ways that make sense for their company.
It
has been demonstrated many times over that the quality of personnel has often
been compromised by the need for quantity not quality. Good leaders think of
the future – their successors and their growth.
A
good leader will hire someone who is smarter, wiser, better skilled than he or
she is and not be intimidated by them. This is a critical key to success.
Hiring people who are better than you in all phases of the job.
Certainly
this may work on your own ego and pride but leadership is not about the ‘self’
but rather, the others. We all have egos and desire to be the most skilled and
smartest person in the room. In order for our organizations to grow, we must
learn to humble ourselves by hiring better experts and more accomplished
workers than we are.
If
we do follow this path, our organizations won’t be limited by our own
weaknesses and faults. This is exactly why most privately run businesses reach
a ceiling and can’t seem to break through it. They operate on an incestuous
manner and level. They only seek those from within and not from the outside as
a general rule.
They
choose their own way of mediocrity because they can’t humble themselves and
recognize their organization’s need for better leaders. If you find yourself in
this spot, strongly consider whether you have passed up smarter and more
talented people than you in favor of smaller and less gifted folks.
If
you have, it’s not too late to stop this practice and start placing value on
those who are more capable than you are. The truth is that there is always
someone more gifted and adept than we are; we can choose to ignore or deny it,
but it doesn’t change the truth.
The
world has enough selfish people. How many of us have known a leader who surrounded
himself or herself with yes-(wo)men or followers who are exactly like him or
her in character, values and traits but only on a smaller scale?
Unfortunately,
we have all seen too much of this kind of leadership. That is why this book is
so important to read and understand. We need to break this ‘it is all about me’
cycle and find others who are better than us.
Sadly,
the weaknesses of that type of person as a leader are amplified throughout the
team or organization. If only people were hired that cover the leader’s blind
spots aka perceived weaknesses, the whole organization would be strengthened.
Hiring
is always tricky especially if you hire someone from the outside of the team or
organization. Looking for someone with the right skill set and the right
cultural fit for the organization, but we should intentionally guard against
hiring arrogance and egotistic people by interviewing with another trusted team
member who is wired and motivated very differently from ourselves.
This
doesn’t mean we can’t hire people that have similar values; it does mean we
must guard against hiring an entire army of people whose skills, personalities,
and strengths and weaknesses are too similar to the leader.
This
is not as easy as it sounds. The fact is some of your best leaders are commonly
bonded by friendships. The difference between leadership and friendship
means that sometimes you have to fire your best friend or at the very least,
pass them over for another choice.
This
is hard to do and very few people can actually do it with class. However, the
necessity outweighs the loss of the friend and in the long run, it all works
out for the best. Nepotism
isn’t all bad—just mostly bad.
In
the majority of cases, it is terribly
destructive to the inner strengths and confidence of a team or organizations
and the individual family member’s long-term employability, but
there are some exceptions.
If
expectations are set up right from the
beginning, and there is a healthy dose of respect and
genuine accountability, there can be incredible strength
from employing a family member since
there is a higher level of trust
based on years of witnessing their
character. If you want to hire a family member, ask
yourself the following questions:
a. If
there comes a need to fire them in the future, will you hesitate and
procrastinate about it?
b. Do
they have an established work record or history that they can work for someone
else faithfully as a relative or friend without problems?
c. Do
they have enough of the skills that are required for the position?
d. Do they fit the company culture we are trying
to foster?
If
you can honestly answer all of these with a resounding yes, then you are ready
to take the first step to hiring them. The second step, and just as important
as the first, is setting up guidelines/expectations on how you will work
together. It should be obviously made clear that the business place is not the
same setting as the home, and the professional environment should change how
you interact.
For
example, I used to work for my brother. I was a captain and he was an associate
warden of operations. While on the job, I chose to call by rank and last name
just like I did the Major who was my friend but an intermediary boss most of
the time
I
did this to ensure the chain of command was intact. he never asked me to, but
it was a sign of respect to him and an implicit indication to all the other
team members that I wasn’t above the same etiquette that applied to them. I put
myself under the same rules as everyone else.
In
that instance, it was the team member who took the initiative, but it is
important for the leader to clearly define the rules of engagement, so there
are no misunderstandings on how things will work.
Giving
favoritism to anyone, especially
family, is terribly destructive to team morale. Good people do
not need laws to tell them to act
responsibly, while bad people will find a way around
the laws.
Policies
only work if we hire good people to follow them. If we think we need to add
more policies to fix a human resource problem, we are fooling ourselves. A good
leader will take good people over good policies any day of the week.
Now,
we might need to change policies, but this alone won’t fix most issues. We must
hire the right kind of people who will do the right thing for the business or
profession regardless of policies in place, their pay, or how they feel today.
Sad
to say, these types of people are scarcer and harder to locate. Not because of
the lack of availability of people out there but rather because the
organization isn’t looking for them hard enough or the locality where they are
located are lacking sufficient manpower pools to find these characteristics.
Another
factor is the recruitment and selection process. If it’s severely flawed, this
trait will never be extracted from the application.
But
if you attract these sorts of people to your organization, you will build a
strong, positive, nearly impenetrable culture that will reject the wrong type
of people (i.e., the lying, gossiping, self-serving variety).
If
you hire a team of good people, they will not want to leave, and the policies
will mostly take care of themselves. Hire the wrong people, and it won’t matter
what policies you enact: The guidelines will never have the intended positive
result.
Recruit,
don’t just post a job and make it target the right kind of applicant. Post your
expectations as well as fringe benefits. Many people think they are
“recruiting” for their organization by merely posting open positions on a job
website like monster.com or careerbuilder.com. using the internet is often
abused.
Try
recruitment through the ‘word of mouth’ and offer incentives for their efforts.
Sure there will be friends and family in the group but as it was explained
before, there are good people out there that can bring a good positive change
to the organization if identified to be such persons.
As
a leader you should express such concerns to your staff and encourage them to
do some informal recruitment for the purposes of hiring good people.
It
really is that important to do it. Another activity a good leader gets involved
in is the participation in the recruitment drives at schools or colleges. Do
what the military does and show them the good side of corrections by presenting
the best side of the job – the people and their character, skills and knowledge
in their respective fields of expertise.
Make
sure the recruitment team is well groomed, well prepared for the questions
asked and wears their best Class A uniforms and go visit them or stand beside
them.
Demonstrate
the professionalism that is part of the job. But this is only one of many tools
in the human resources toolbox. And then those same people complain profusely
to their colleagues that “good people are so hard to find these days.” This is
a fallacy or myth that must be countered or answered by facts, not rumors or
gossip. Merely posting a job is highly unlikely to uncover the high quality candidates that we all want and
strife for during such times.
Again,
this the most common mistake made and a flaw in hiring good people. While it is
agreed that it is harder to uncover those candidates with solid work ethic, you
can access them if you are fishing in the right ponds or going to the right
places – hence schools are the best places to recruit and visit.
Most
of them are either full time students or fully employed presently and wouldn’t
run across your post anyhow unless they happen to be looking or searching the
job ads or an employee reaches them somehow.
Now,
I do believe that posting on niche job boards is useful and a worthwhile
effort, but even that is only a small percentage of the entire recruiting
energy. We need to engage our network to its fullest extent. It has become
customary to regularly use e-mails, phone calls, texts, and posts on social
media groups both personal and professional especially niche LinkedIn
groups depending on the field the team or agency is recruiting for.
Take
the time to think about all of the different network connections you may have
from volunteering in the community, serving on boards, past job connections—the
list goes on and on if you are well connected. And if you aren’t well
connected, then start developing that network now before you need it for
critical and urgent reasons to recruit others or looking for a job yourself.
Leveraging
your network is way more effective if you have previously and intentionally
looked for ways to help your network system before you ask for something in
return and when we get to the interview stage of the hiring and selection process, we shouldn’t forget to
sell both the opportunity and challenges and reality of the situation.
If
we sell the ‘golden’ opportunity too
much, we risk under-delivering on our promise once they realize how bad of a
state the company or position is in, and if we focus solely on all of the
negative reality of the situation, no one will accept our job offer in the
first place. It is best to heap equal interests of good efforts made of the
upside potential when it is for the selection, recruitment and interview process.
Absenteeism or a heavy staff turnover
isn’t the goal of the human resources function – it is an administrative
function. Employee turnover should be viewed as an opportunity to make the team
stronger, even if we are losing a strong team member.
It
has always been hard to deal with the turnover in corrections. How many times
have we heard top leaders expresses their frustration on this matter? Who has
heard them say to the workforce, the media or the leaders in government, ‘we
need to eliminate staff turnover.’
Too
much turnover is definitely a problem in the profession and in the workforce
related to jails and prisons, but having too little can be just as damaging.
It
is odd to say this but it’s true. The right amount of turnover is highly
positive; it allows new blood and ideas to enter the group. Remember what I
said about incestuous management practices – this is one of them.
Some
private prison companies don’t innovate because they are myopic and focused on
their current product and market. They think of expansion without a growth in
their infrastructure.
In
other areas it is purely focused on stock market profits and shareholder
demands. Inside prisons, whether it be private or state or county run, there
are many variables that drive staffing and costs but one thing is constant –
the funding is always short and in need of more attention or fiscal
commitments.
So
what is that perfect amount of turnover? The answer is that it depends. Some organizations may need a high
level of turnover, others need very low, and some will need something that lies
in between the ratio or percentage of turnovers. Surely we can recognize what
is high and what is low based on the industry standard and comparison factors.
This
is where it is critical for leaders not to take exits personal. The upside of
an employee leaving is the opportunity to do an exit interview and ask
questions about the reasons why they want to leave.
Whatever
you do, don’t encourage or entice them to stay if they are unhappy. This could
contaminate the whole team if this person remains with an unhappy attitude or
behavior. Let them go but find out why they are dissatisfied and you will find
that aside of asking or looking for more money, a better position or getting
better benefits, no matter what you offer, they won’t stay for the long run.
No
amount of money offered will keep them from looking elsewhere even when they
are offered a better pay, job or position. Some people will never be satisfied
no matter what you offer and many come from the ‘entitlement’ angle where they
feel you owe them for their work while employed there. Nobody is too vital for
any organization to lose.
Nobody
is that critically needed as it turns out that they are in fact disposable or
replaceable if you look hard enough to find such a person. Some bosses, usually
not very good leaders, are absolutely terrified of losing somebody on their
team or organization.
As
ridiculous as this sounds, they work hard to appease and not lose anyone hence
keeping on those who are disgruntled or dissatisfied with the work conditions and
sabotaging the workplace.
If
the culture expresses such fear, then this would be a strong indicator that the
organization or team does a poor job of recruiting replacement talent and that
we have allowed these team members, no matter how unsuited they are, to become
too critical to the agency to lose them.
In
essence, we had done a poor job of delegating vital responsibilities and
priorities to other team members and relied too much on one specific person.
This creates an imbalance that is hard to restore without losing good people
along the way.
