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Laura Hamill: Human-Centric Leadership- Boldly Transforming Workplace Culture · The Bold Lounge

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My name is Leigh Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Every week, we'll hear from someone who has taken a leap or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Whether they face challenges or doubts along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be freed.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Today we have Dr Laura Hamill.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: She is an organizational psychologist and business leader focusing on the intersection of science and human resources.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Laura is an expert on creating great places to work and the owner of Paris Phoenix Group, a consulting firm specializing in forming and transforming culture.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Previously, laura worked at Microsoft and was the co-founder of LimeAid.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Laura is a podcast host at the Happy at Work podcast and has also written a book on organizational culture that we'll get into today, called the Power of Culture, with the Economist.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: She lives in Woodinville, washington, with her husband, two children and a wonderful golden retriever.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: What is your golden retriever's name?
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: I have to know, oh he's just the best.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: His name is Stanley, oh, and he sort of has an old man feel to him.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: And also, my son played hockey, so they thought it was kind of funny when they were little to call it that Stanley pup instead of Stanley cup.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: So that's, that's the history with Stan.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: That's pretty awesome.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: So just so you know, dogs kind of rule my world.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Here we have four, aren't they the best?
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: They're just the best.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, 100%.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: They definitely keep me on my toes and definitely keep me present, so I enjoyed that.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Dealing with us, for sure.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Yes, so we talked a little bit in the green room, but I'd love to just jump into your definition of bold and what that looks like in your world.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that you asked that.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: That is such a great question.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: I was thinking about that.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: I think it's about really being true to yourself, even when you're likely to be judged or it's going to be hard, you know, just doing what you feel like you need to do.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and sometimes, when we're being bold, I do think there's a trend of certainly potentially people not understanding or having even fear for us, because they want to keep us safe, they care for us, but it can be limiting and you go for it anyway.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: So in your life, what's a moment where you lived aligned to that particular definition?
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: I like the idea of thinking about when was the first time I could remember being bold and that was a really like oh, I remember that really clearly we had relocated from basically we were living in Michigan and we moved to North Carolina and my parents this is, I guess, third grade my parents were hippies and so we were very different from everybody else who lived in around where we lived in North Carolina, and so we look different, we talk different, everything about us was different, and so I remember being introduced to the other kids and they were just laughing at me because I talk so fast and I wore weird clothes, the colors were different from what they were used to seeing, and one of the things about that I definitely was being bullied.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: There were a group of girls that were bullying me and just they doing weird things, they steal my gym clothes and wrote with permanent magic marker on my clothes and just yeah, it was just really hard.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: And one of the things that I had done and this is the bold, I guess sort of the bold part that kind of cracks me up when I look back on it is I had this signature little ponytail that I wore on one side of my hair Like this is.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: That was just what I did Every day.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: I put my hair up on just one side with this little tiny ponytail and they made fun of it all the time and they kept teasing about cutting it off and things like that.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: And so I remember I was bold in that I was going to keep that ponytail right.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: I just kept wearing the ponytail and to me, that is like my first recollection of yeah, you stood up to her.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that that is like my first recollection of yeah, you stood up to her.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and what I felt like I needed to do.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Even when everybody around me was judging me and telling me that I was different and weird, I wanted to keep being my version of weird yeah, well one.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: I'm really sorry that happened.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I think you know it's terrible in the sense of being bullied and so wrong on so many levels.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: But the fact that you had, I think, the strength and the resilience to say you know, they're who they are and I'm who I am, even at such a young age, and keep your ponytail and keep doing the things that you know, would have been easier to just take it down and maybe not, you know, maybe they wouldn't pick on you or maybe they wouldn't do X, y or Z, but most likely they would just find something else, right, yeah, so I think in general, I think when we're being bold and we do something that is misunderstood or maybe someone doesn't like, I think we can, you know, acquiesce like back up and maybe not do what they're saying.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: But then I think what happens is, regardless of that, it's not enough for whoever's criticized most likely, and they may want you to do something else differently and it kind of leads to this train of change that you never wanted in the first place, right?
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Completely agree.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: And then you just get smaller and smaller versions of yourself.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: When you kept doing that, acquiesce in those kinds of ways, right?
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you just keep shrinking.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: So, so good for you and not shrinking.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: And look, look at you now.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I think Oprah said this once because my mom like repeats it to me a lot.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: She's like success is the best revenge.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Right, you know, don't focus on doing something negative or doing it because of them.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Just go be successful, Go be you, Go have a great life right, go have a great life despite all that, yeah, have you always been interested in culture and its impact, Like is this something you noticed early on, maybe in high school or college, or how did you want to focus in on this particular space?
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: So one of the things as I think about how I even got into organizational psychology right, so it wasn't anything that people knew about when I was first learning about it.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: It was very, a little tiny niche field, but I think the root of it I was telling you that my parents were hippies and I grew up pretty poor and we lived in a log cabin that we built ourselves.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: I didn't have electricity.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: It was like a whole thing.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: It's a whole different story and so, but one of the things that was happening is my dad never kept a job, and so he'd go and work for about two weeks at a new job and then hate it and hate the work, hate the man.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: It was always his manager was an awful person, and that's how I started to be really intrigued by what is going on.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Is work really that awful?
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: And I couldn't make sense of it, and so I started to really become thinking about, well, what does it mean to work and what does it mean to enjoy your work?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Because my mom was a teacher and she liked it a lot more and she felt a lot of a sense of fulfillment from it, and so I think that's where it started for me is just not getting it and not understanding and wanting to, wanting to understand.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: So I found out the field of organizational psychology, went to graduate school right after undergrad and started to really learn a lot about it.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: And as I was doing that, what I was really surprised in graduate school we didn't talk about culture at all.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: It wasn't until I started working that I started to do different projects and focus in different areas, like employee engagement and well-being, and I started to realize wait a second, the only way for you to make real progress in those areas is for the culture to be supporting these efforts, is for the culture to be supporting these efforts, and very rarely did organizations spend a lot of time or attention on really understanding culture.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of superficial work around culture but not a lot of real deep work around culture, and so that's.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Over time I started to realize oh my gosh, the reason why we can't make this happen is because the culture's not aligned with it.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Or the reason we can't make this happen is because the culture is not aligned with it, or the reason we can't make that happen is because the culture is not aligned.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: It was sort of the answer behind a lot of the problems that I was seeing in the organizations that I was working in, and so I've had different roles.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: I've done a lot of work.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: When I was at Microsoft, I was in charge of the people research team, so we had more of a research science-based approach, and so I could study things from a scientific perspective and understand what does the literature tell us about culture.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: But then I saw what happened in practice, so I helped start a company called Limeade and I was the chief people officer there, also the chief science officer, and so I had this real like juxtaposition of wait, the science does this, but what I see in practice is completely different when it comes to culture, and so that's.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: I was just really intrigued by that.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: So culture now has been my primary focus in really trying to close the gap between the things we know scientifically about culture and what really goes down.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what's the biggest gap?
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Because I've certainly been in organizations, so I've worked in large academics, primarily Duke and Dartmouth is where I was.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: And you know, in the sense of culture is always something we talk about.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: It's a very important aspect of what we do.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: But then, depending on the size because I think the larger you are, potentially the harder it is to have consistent culture.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: But that would be my assumption for you to tell me whether I'm wrong or right.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: But it doesn't mean the smaller ones always have a perfect culture, because I think sometimes I've even witnessed with my clients or organizations I've worked with, or even with my family, kind of, the smaller ones can be even more toxic because there's not a lot of checks and balances, potential Right.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: Completely, completely.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: To me, there's really two biggest problems I see.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: The first one is that culture often isn't aligned with the strategy, like what the business is trying to achieve.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: So because it's a bit complex and it takes a long time to do culture work, many times we sort of say, oh, this is an HR thing, this is an HR issue.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Hr, you're best suited to work on culture, and there's a lot of truth to that.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of reasons why I could agree with that.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: But what happens when we sort of say culture is an HR issue is then it becomes disconnected from what the business is trying to achieve many times.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: And so if we don't have that explicit link with the strategy, it basically it's sort of two separate worlds, right, what we're doing to try to achieve make money and achieve results and then what we're trying to do internally, and that disconnect can be a real problem.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: So that's one of the biggest things I see is that lack of connection with strategy, and there's so many things that I've seen in my work that are just make that so hard.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: A lot of times the organization has a really hard time articulating the strategy in a way, even for the leaders to be all aligned and on the same page.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: So I see a lot of lack of alignment at the leadership level around the strategy.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: Enough to be able to get clearly aligned around the culture we're trying to create, right, that lack of strategic alignment is a real problem, because then it sort of just becomes a nice to have, like oh, isn't that great.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: So let's create this culture over here when things are good, when everything's working all right.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: But really, when it comes down to it and our business is struggling, that is just, like you know, an afterthought, and so that disconnect creates all kinds of problems.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: So that's one of the real issues.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: I see in practice, a real gap.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: And the other one I would say is organizations tend to do a lot of work on their culture at the website level, right, like let's get really clear of what we can put up on our website.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: So that decal behind the receptionist desk is looks really cute.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: But the experience of the culture is where it stops, right, we don't spend a lot of time thinking about oh well, how do we want somebody who's applying for a job to experience our culture?
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: How do we want somebody who's a new hire to experience the culture?
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: How do we want people who've been here for a while to experience the culture.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Where does it show up in real ways so that they say, oh, oh, this is really who we are?
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: There's real authenticity to the website content, right, and so that lack of really experiencing the culture in consistent and authentic ways is the other big gap.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: I see the way culture work goes down.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Which comes first, strategy or culture, when you're defining it for an organization, yeah, and they're so intertwined right?
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: Because a lot of times you've probably heard the idea that people who start an organization, you know their personality really gets reflected in the culture.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: I worked at Microsoft a long time.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: The idea of Bill Gates and how he thought about the world and his personality for sure was in our culture and some of that has changed over time.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: But the idea of we used to call it precision questioning, really digging deep on when somebody has an idea and just hammering them to find the bugs and that was really part of Bill Gates's personality.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: He was like that super smart and trying to find what was wrong.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Part of Bill Gates's personality he was like that super smart and trying to find what was wrong with your logic and your thinking.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: That's very apparent in the culture today there, and so that's what I think is really really hard about it is that the founders can influence the culture.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: So the culture and strategy piece, from my perspective, I really like to see the strategy well-defined first, and you know what is the purpose.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Why are we even existing as a company?
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: What are we trying to achieve?
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: And then, how do we need to be together, how do we need to behave together?
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: What do our practices and our systems all need to look like in order for us to achieve that purpose or the reason why we exist us to achieve that purpose or the reason why we exist.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: And so I kind of like to start with the strategy as the frame and the foundation and think about how we need to be together to be able to make that come to life.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the things you talk about is that culture can either inspire or actually derail, right?
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: So when you think about the signals, that is, you know that could be working against a culture to be inspiring, what are some of those signals, or some of those symptoms that we would see of a derailing culture?
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: So one of the biggest things and this is this is the idea of leaders working against the culture.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: There's the you could just have one leader who is in you know the spotlight, who people say that that leader doesn't doesn't live all the things that all the other leaders are living that are really like the expectations that all the rest of us have, and that's a huge derailer.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Right Is to have somebody who's in a position of power not living up to the culture, and I hear a lot from people that that happens in their organizations and that's one of the big reasons why they don't believe it, even though you know the CEO and a bunch of other leaders could be really believing in the culture.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: To have one person, especially a person, in a position of power who's not so, that's one big derailer.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: But you know there's a lot of other things that happen.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: One of the things that big organization that I was working with.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: It wasn't as dramatic as that.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: It was more just like a blah, like kind of a meh feeling about the culture.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Nobody really could relate to the aspirational values, the things that they were putting forward as like this is who we are.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: People didn't see a connection for themselves in that.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: So it was more of just like you know, like there's nothing here that feels like I want to be part of that, I want to contribute to that.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: I see why this company exists, I see why my work matters and so sometimes not dramatic, it's just sort of like the boring and just the kind of situation where nobody feels inspired.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: And the thing that was wild about that organization is they had an amazing purpose.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: What they were doing was really inspirational if you look at it.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: So there was just this disconnect with the work on culture.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: They just didn't help people see how important they were in achieving that purpose together.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Do you think there's a let's just start, like with someone new to the organization, right?
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Because you think, okay, this person isn't jaded, they haven't been around for 10 years and seen everything, right.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: So when you're bringing a new person in who hasn't had any eyes set on the company before, what are some of the best practices that organizations can do?
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Because I just think of my orientation and onboarding and usually I'm doing a lot of the coordinating or I'm trying to figure out where to go or you know, the details aren't that detailed but and again, I don't need my handheld, I just like the specifics, right?
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Is there something that we can do or you've seen as a best practice when you're orienting a new person to the organization?
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: That sets the stage for this is how we treat you and we want you to realize what our why is our purpose, etc.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: And we want this to be gentle.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: That is what so many people feel is like it's very stressful and it really shouldn't be.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: And there's so many logistics that seem to go a little south.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: You know how many people don't really get their computer.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: Their computer was supposed to be there but it's not there.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: And then they were supposed to meet their new manager, but the manager's out that day and nobody knew.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Like you hear these stories over and over again and I think you could kind of take that right as its own little version of the culture and how maybe disjointed things might feel Then that's a reflection of what's really going on in the day to day, what you're experiencing on that first day, and so for people who are trying to make that experience better, there's so many great things you can do.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: One of the best ways to bring people in is to think about a cohort and where they come together and the first 30 minutes or so is really just connecting and being human.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: As an intern this summer at Texas Instruments and I was so impressed with they, had this whole group of employees line the hallways and cheer them.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: When they walked in I'm like, what are you doing?
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: And this is an intern, 800 interns, I mean, they felt so welcomed, and then, on top of that, they had things like having a senior leader to tell them how much it mattered that they were there for the internship, like being really human.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: But for somebody who took the time, who's got a really busy schedule, to come and see them in person and say I'm so glad you're here, it matters that you're here, you're important to this future of this company, and so I think having those real moments where there's real human beings saying I see you, you matter to me, I care about you, we care about you, is really an important piece.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: The cohort part of it too, though, is immediately trying to connect with somebody who's going through something that you're going through, and making that really easy, and part of the part of the plan right is that you have sort of friends built in, built into.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: You know people who are starting on this new day, and then, I also think, companies that do buddies that have you buddy up with somebody who's been there maybe for a year or two maybe not 20 years, but a year or two and start who knows what is happening in the organization to help you and to be a resource for you is really good.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: So there's all kinds of things that organizations can do.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: It takes some thinking and some doing and some planning, but the impact is is just really powerful.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: So even just that example of someone actually showing up in the room I mean, I've been to some places where I've seen recordings of a senior leader and things like that and I realize everyone's busy, but again your example of they showed up, they were in the room, they're talking and they're connecting in person again just elevates like this is what we're about.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: We're going to make the time to see you like eye to eye Completely and I think and I think it is a huge opportunity to talk about culture right During that first day and talk about the kind of culture that we're trying to create and how each of you, as a new person here I have.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: I have hopes that you want to be part of this culture and also have expectations that you're living up to it right, and this is what it looks like.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: This is what we need from you in order for this culture to be real.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: So I think there's a huge opportunity to start setting expectations around culture and talking about why culture is so important to the business.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: So when you wrote your book the Power of Culture?
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: What particularly were you seeking to either influence or amplify with you know your work and the science behind it?
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was trying to.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: You know I was explaining before about this disconnect between what the science says and what the practice is, and it wasn't until I was a chief people officer that I started to see why that, why that is.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: So you have so many things coming at you and you're just reactive all day long things you can never predict when you're having coffee in the morning, who knows what's gonna hit you that day?
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: And so I really learned so much by having that role, and one of the things I saw is this really hard to be strategic when you're always in reaction, yeah, reactive mode, yeah.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: And so I think that the the opportunity really there for me was how could I make this easy?
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: How could I translate what the science says into a pretty simple set of steps and you know it's risky to try to simplify something that's complex, but I felt like there was a way to really operationalize.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Here are the things that you can do.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: You can see kind of these almost step by step.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: What work have you already done on culture?
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Where do you fit in the process?
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Where are you next in the cycle?
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: And go do that next thing, you know, and then do the next thing and just the idea of, like I can go and think about what are the simple steps that I could take in this organization to try to be more intentional about our culture.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: So that was really the motivation is to try to make it real digestible and easy for people anybody really in an organization who wants to do culture work.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: So give us an example of the simplification of something, because I think sometimes that we do overcomplicate this, and so I would love to hear whether it's kind of moving through a particular framework or a step-by-step of like, when you notice, check this out, Give us your.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: You know it's hard to pick a favorite out of your book.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: I know that so like, or one that comes to mind that you've seen can be implemented in a way that it doesn't take thousands of dollars and doesn't take, you know, hours.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: So I'd say the first, the first step, most kind of way to get going with culture work is to start saying what do we want this culture to look like, like, what is our vision of where we're going?
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: And if, as a leadership team, we haven't done that yet, how would we expect anybody else to be able to imagine or share in that vision?
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: So the first step is really how can we easily start to put down on paper what is this culture that we're trying to create and how is it connected to our business strategy?
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: And then how can we tell people about that in a way that is inspiring?
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: So I basically just talk about it in terms of creating a culture vision, and for me, that really needs to come from leaders.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: I called the book the Power of Culture for a couple reasons.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: One of them was because of the importance of power positional power to culture formation.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Leaders have this really big culture megaphone and they're sending messages all day long about what's important in this organization and what's not important, and so if leaders aren't, you know, carrying this culture megaphone, that's really aligned with what we said we were trying to create, with the values.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: That's a real problem, and so we really need leaders to be articulating, you know, and being the primary voice, the loudest voices around the culture we're trying to create.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: So that's I think that's a really important part of this whole thing is the role that power plays.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: We look to people in positions of power to kind of make decisions about what we should be focusing on and what we should be prioritizing, and we do all these little course corrections all day long, really looking at those around us and those above us to get those messages.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: So that's how we start to learn in an organization what's important and what's not.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: That's a really important piece of this.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: So when you say that, I think about just my experiences, experience of some of my clients and the organizations that I've worked in, and I'm not sure some of the leaders are ready to be the leaders of culture, or they shouldn't be right, because they actually are not aligned with what we're saying, you know, or there is this sense of I want you to do X, y and Z, but don't do this, this and this, make it what it needs to be, but don't upset anyone.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Or you're doing innovation and change, but everyone still needs to be happy and it's just like some of those things don't operate in the same zone when you're doing them.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: So is every leader culture ready?
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: I love the way you say it.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so should they be given a megaphone?
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Or is that maybe some of the things we, as organizations in the senior leader suite, need to be paying more attention?
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: to Completely.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: And that's what I see even in that first step of creating that culture vision.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: The work isn't getting it into a PowerPoint right.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: The work is for us all, as a leadership team, to be aligned and ready to be the voices of this and that alignment, that clarity.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: It's amazing how hard that is.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Even if you have a CEO who says we're doing this, this is so important, this is about our future, this is how we're going to be successful.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Even if you have the CEO who's completely on board, there's oftentimes people who are like I, like the way we used to do it, or they're just invisible, they're not fully enmeshed and involved in driving the culture.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: So I think you're right.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: I think there are people who, maybe for their own reasons, can't get aligned, or maybe they're kind of stuck in the past and then aren't ready to move forward or change.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: And of course you want to try to bring them along.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: You know like you want to help give them the chance to see why it's important and why they matter so much to it.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: But if they don't, it's going to be what I was kind of talking about before Everybody's just going to say, yeah, this isn't real, because if it was real, you wouldn't let that CFO over there do what he or she is doing.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: It's a really important question and I think it's important for the organization as much as possible to align that leadership team and, if not, make some changes.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, be bold and actually have some conversations and really talk about it, because I think people do see that misalignment and it also just becomes more rhetoric than actual.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: This is our culture, because no one's really walking the walk right.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: They're just completely.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: It's glaring to employees.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: right yeah, so you talk about a human-centric culture.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: What does that look like?
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Tell me what that means.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: So I've been working on culture for a long time and when I first started working on culture, I sort of had this point of view that I was agnostic to whatever you wanted to focus on in your culture.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: What I cared the most about was that it was aligned right, that it was aligned with your strategy and so articulate what you're trying to achieve as a business and let's figure out where we need to focus from a cultural perspective.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: That'll help you get there.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: So I sort of said, I don't care what that is, let's you know, let's just figure out what you think is the most important.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: But then over time I started to change my mind about that.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: I really actually do care what it is, and what I mean by that is there needs to be a component of your aspirational culture that's focused on the human beings who are making your business work.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: You know how we treat each other within the organization.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: Has to be part of the culture, has to be part of what we focus on when we're talking about our future customers and they'd have values, about winning and execution.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: You know all this stuff.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: That's really about that probably tight alignment with what the business is trying to achieve.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: But when you leave out the people and how we want to value them and respect them and include them.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: It's, it's a huge gap, and so that's where I, that's how I've kind of changed over time.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: It's, it's a huge gap, and so that's where I, that's how I've kind of changed over time.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, no, I'm not agnostic anymore.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: You know, I still very much believe in the alignment with strategy, but you have to talk about how we are treating each other as human beings in order for us to be able to do those things, to be successful with the business.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: That's the shift.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and sometimes there's a hard conversation that needs to happen, or just a realization, right, of pointing something out or saying here's where we're going or here's what we'd like to do.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: But here are some examples of like, where this is misaligned, right, yes, and the company or organization being open to talking about that, because it's not an easy conversation, right, usually, and there's usually someone bold in the room talking about it, right, like you know, we say this, but I see us doing this, or I we're saying this, but three of us are doing that and four of us are doing something else.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Like, we need to get on the same page in the sense of when it comes to culture yeah, and that has to be called out, that has to be talked about.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: right, we can't just let that kind of just pretend like that's not happening.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: We have to be, as you said, bold around.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: Let's be really honest about what's really happening, how we really are, and that's why I just really want the leaders to start, you know, to start with leaders, and sometimes I see there's a sort of an inclination of like, oh no, no, let's talk to employees about all the things that we want them to do.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: We don't want to have these harder conversations as a leadership team around how we're not all on the same page.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Do you think that organizations, the leaders, really realize that they're actually creating the culture?
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: I know some leaders may or may not, so like, is there something that can give them that aha moment of like, wow, I actually did that.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: I think in my mind of a bad habit.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: So this is my example of I don't work, want you to work on weekends, but I'm going to work on weekends and I definitely want you to respond to my emails on Sunday.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, and just you know, don't worry about me, I, I I'm just going to do this because it's better for me and my and my schedule.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: But the message that that sends over and over again about what's important, it's huge, it's that, it's that megaphone kind of idea.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think what I find is the people that think they're doing it well or want to be a leader and really at all costs, those are the people that I think can be the most toxic to environments, that are really trying or trying to improve or trying to get better, because I I don't know like, does someone get like 100% A plus in culture and then they never need to go back to it?
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: I don't think so, yeah not at all.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: It's constant, and that's that's part of the reason why there were so many reasons why culture is hard.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: There's a lot about the just the characteristics of culture that make it hard, but that is one of the pieces is that you're never done.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: The model that I have around intentional culture is a circle, and who likes circle models?
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: I want linear ones that tell me when I'm done, right, but it's a circle model that you just keep going.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: You don't get an A plus on culture.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: You can get an A, but there's always more work.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: There's always more ways to connect with people, to inspire people, to help the business be successful, and so I think that it's a really important thing for people to understand.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: It's one of those things that's more transformational in nature.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: It's like you just keep adapting, you keep learning, you keep growing, you keep working on it.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: The box is never checked, you know, and that's why culture work is not a quarterly initiative.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: It's an ongoing kind of legacy.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so when you think about culture, I think a lot of the times, like you said, you know, there's the, there's this emphasis on it or there's this kind of you know, relaunch or rebirth of intentionality around it, and then it seems to potentially wane because life happens, things come up, challenges happen, you know, new leadership, all these different variables that can, you know, take you off track or maybe even slow you down.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Is there a way to stay on track and keep it in the forefront that we can use in organizations, more than you know, than kind of like it's this one and done?
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: And yes, we talked about orientation.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: That's the only time you're going to hear about it.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's a lot about.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: What I think is missing is that consistent experience, that drumbeat within the organization where it's just everywhere you look, and so that's why we need everybody to start to think about how are the values that we've articulated really experienced in everything that we do?
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: It's fairly easy to think about that from a people perspective, right, like how we hire people and onboard and what performance management looks like, even what employee development looks like, or leadership succession, how what that looks like.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: So that that's a really great place to start, but you also need to think about wait.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: How does how does our culture show up in how we treat our customers or how we do strategic planning, how we think about what we're funding internally and what we're not funding, how we make decisions just kind of on a daily basis.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: How are we thinking about our culture and how those decisions align with that?
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: So if we can start to get culture to be something that's embedded in everything that we do, it's less of an initiative, right.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: You don't need a person to drive it so much, you don't?
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: It's not going to go away as easily if we get busy with something where we're kind of, you know, putting our eyes on on another topic.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: So that's the the.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: The kind of place we want to get to is not only have we kind of activated the culture where we educated people about it and inspired people about it, not only have we then embodied, activated the culture where we educated people about it and inspired people about it, not only have we then embodied it right where people are living it in their own behaviors, but it's embedded.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Embedded is kind of the last stage of it's everywhere you look, you look in this part of the system or this daily practice, and you can see it everywhere and it doesn't feel fake, it doesn't feel like, oh, eye roll.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: You know, here we go.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: We've got to show the slide at the beginning of the presentation.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: That's got our values.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: You know it's, it's this, it's just so natural we, our language reflects it.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: It's just is who we are, and I've seen that I've been part of cultures where it is very natural and it's everywhere, everywhere, and that's what I think makes it live on yeah.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: So in in the days before social media, I'm sure it was a little different, but I'm I'm interested in what does social media do now for culture that it didn't do before, because I think it's interesting how organizations can use it, what are the roles of the people within the organization, of how they can use it.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: I purposely stayed away from it when I was working because one I didn't have time, I wasn't thinking, I just like, literally, was doing the work and it wasn't essential in a way, I guess, for where I was in my career and those sorts of things.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: So I wasn't interested in it.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: But there were a lot of rules around it.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: But now, like in 2025, like, what do you see the impact of social media being on culture, whether it's positive or?
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: negative, right.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: I mean it's kind of easy to think about the negative pieces, right, because there's a lot less of the ability to hide things in your culture.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: With social media, people are more likely to post about bad experiences or talk about.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: You know how they were.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: I'll never forget all of those different posts around how people were let go.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: Or you know how CEOs acted when there was a layoff.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, those are the kinds of things that didn't used to happen, right, that nobody knew about and so you never would learn that that's how people got treated in that organization, and so the long term consequences that you can see of you know what culture really looks like through social media.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: It's real.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: So I think that's kind of one of the downsides, but I think there are some upsides to.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: When you start to, the curtains are gone, right, you can peer into an organization, and that, from a culture perspective, I think, is so important, because for so long, when you were looking at maybe joining a new organization, all you had was their website, right, where you could just go and say, oh, their values look good to me.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: I look like they align with what an organization I would want to work in looks like and so maybe I'll apply and work there.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: And now we have like oh, let's actually look inside and see what's really happening.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: It's still.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: You know, sometimes it's still you have to take it with a grain of salt, and you know question it a little bit yeah.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: But it gives you a little bit more insight and I think that helps people.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: See, you know, is this the kind of place for me or not?
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: So I think that there's a lot of upside.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: It's just hard.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: It's hard when you're running an organization to know that everything can be outed that you're doing.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think work in progress right, there's a lot of things that you're doing to make it better and at times it doesn't go as fast as you want it to go.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Or again, maybe you don't have the support that you once had, or things you know like.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of organizations I've seen either turn to what I'll call is an excuse, meaning like, oh, we don't have the money for that anymore, we can't do that anymore.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: And I don't think you described either having a magical or a messy type of culture.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: If you want a magical culture, like in that sense of like what it looks and feels like, it doesn't always take money and I would say a lot of the times, you know being empathetic, being kind, being human, those things are really free if people don't know that.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah they are, and, yeah, you don't have to spend a ton of money.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: It's that hard work of alignment and being really clear about what matters here.
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: But then you can do so much around how you are with other people, how you treat people and to your point.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: That is free.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: And I think that when we all can think about the times where we felt the most connected to a culture, it's about those kinds of things.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: It was how we felt, it was how we were treated that made it feel special, and so I completely agree and believe that that's what's important any outdated HR practice or any outdated culture index or, you know, some survey that we've been taking for way too long that we need to maybe set aside or maybe not value as much or value with something else.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: There's so many things.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: There are so many things that, from a kind of culture perspective, aren't supported by research and evidence.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: And so one of them and this is a little one that's maybe hard for people to stomach but there is really no research support or scientific support for the idea of having kind of one culture like one word that describes your culture, so an accountability culture or a performance culture.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: Actually, the idea of describing culture with one word is not supported by research.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: It's multifaceted.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: You need to think about culture more from a profile perspective, just like a personality of a person.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: You're not described with one word.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: You have to think about the profile, and so that's something that I see a lot of organizations still buying into some of the models that were popular a while back, that were, you know, just using one word to describe our culture.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: So it really is multifaceted.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: More of a profile approach.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: I'd say that's one and then the other one is probably super obvious, but it's all the swag and the cute little.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: You know, margaritas on Fridays are not culture and that's.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: I still see organizations having a culture committee which is just an event planning committee, like when's the next party and I am all I'm.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: Four parties, I am, but it's.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: That is not culture right, you know, and if so you could have that as kind of this other thing that you do, that you could connect to your culture.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: But you got to do all the other work, the hard work, the rolling up your sleeves, work of being clear and aligned and really helping people understand what is expected of them from a behavioral perspective, what we are trying to do as a business.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: So all the hard work that comes before that.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so so definitely don't use that as the main thing.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: When someone says, how are you working on your culture?
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: Margaritas and pizza good idea, but not really connected to growing aligning, don't lead with that.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, don't leave.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: Exactly, exactly, and I think your point that is excellent.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: If you're interviewing in an organization and you want to, you should ask about culture, and I think the way you were just talking about that is a really good way to ask about it Like, what kind of culture work are you doing, like anything that they're doing on the culture then that's a problem.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: But if they can say, oh yeah, we've really been working hard and making sure everybody understands, you know what our new values are and what they how we're weaving them into our day to day practices it's not perfect yet, but we're on the journey that's a great answer.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: But if they say huh, like, oh yeah, no, we don't do any of that or you'll talk to whatever this person, they can tell you, hr, can tell you right, yeah, I've definitely been, I've definitely been told that before you know, in the sense of they can give you the details.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: But you know, we're all about quality.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: You know, that was like one answer that I got.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: I was like, okay, all right, Red flag.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: So, because I think, ultimately, having a culture that is human, one, that is, you know, creating space and place for the system and the human being, you know, and the organization to literally cohabitate in a way that we know, when you do that, like it's not going to be perfect, there are going to be stumbles, there's going to be things that don't work, but being honest about them is probably, to me, one of the most intriguing things I think a company can say is, yeah, like we had a big hiccup here and we know that and we are really working hard in these ways, right, yeah?
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: And here's what we learned from it.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: Like we learned these things and we had no idea it was going to land that way.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: But now we're changing in this other way.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's beautiful, right.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: So, as we close out, I know there's probably some listeners right now.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: They're saying I know our culture needs work, I know our culture is not aligned or where it used to be, and I'm not sure we're paying attention to it.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: What's one step they can take to get this back on the agenda, back on the radar, in a way that isn't too painful for them?
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: And by that I mean they get assigned it, they?
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: Hey, you brought it up.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Hey, it's yours right.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's happened right To a few, but it just you know, maybe it gets assigned or maybe it's, like you know, not taken as seriously.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: What's one step they can take?
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's digging into which aspects of the culture might be holding us back and just talking about that.
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: So the one of the things that that I found like one organization I'm working with right now, everybody kind of is clear that there's an issue with how they're serving customers and somebody is bringing that forward and saying this is because of our culture.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: We are not serving customers well.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: Not because we don't theoretically value our customers Of course we do.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: It's because of how we're disjointed and nobody feels a sense of accountability around the customer experience.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: That's our culture.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: We need to work on culture if we want to survive as a business.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: So I think the people who are pointing out the connection between culture and strategy, that to me is a really good approach to take.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: It truly is speaking up and putting it out there and just asking the simple question it sounds like of are we aligned?
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: Is our culture truly aligned with our strategies?
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: And it would now be a good time to check in, because here's where I see potentially, you know they could stop there or they could give their examples and then kind of you know, kind of lead into what the discussion needs to be.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: Making that connection and talking about how it might be holding us back from a business perspective, right.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: What are those ways that we can see that if we worked on our culture, we'd be so much better for it, our business would be doing so much better?
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, that connection Well thank you so much for being on the Bold Lounge, for sharing all the science and the pieces that you've really learned over years of being in it yourself, leading it yourself and then helping others.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: The power of culture is something that everyone should really pick up, and all the information about that is in the episode notes, along with how to contact Dr Hamill and her work and see her in action.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being on the Bold Lounge.
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: That was a really fun conversation.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: That was a really fun conversation.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: Through the continuum of bold stories vulnerability to taking a leap you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story.
• 47:37
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• 47:43
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• 47:46
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