Latest / The Marketing Brief / Jason and Brian Discuss Company Culture and Culture as an Operating System (S3 E2)
Transcript
- Brian: Hello and welcome back to the Marketing Brief Podcast. I am your host, Brian Aquan, and this is the podcast where we talk about anything in the marketing sphere. I'm pretty excited about it and usually bring in a great guest. And I'm excited today to bring in a longtime colleague and old friend, Jason Burnham. Jason, welcome to the podcast. Jason Burnham: Hey Brian, thanks for having me. It's good it's great to see you after all these years. Brian: I know. I saw you post on LinkedIn and I was like, Jason would be an awesome guest. we go back so, so long to the beginning of the digital, the web, the web world, Jason Burnham: The early days. Brian: digital marketing. So we we'll certainly get into that. I know you've been up to some things. You're at Culture Design, which you started. how would you like to introduce yourself to the to the listeners of the podcast? Jason Burnham: Yeah, so yeah, also too, just to s set some just to set some expectations, right? So I I spent, where we first met, I spent the first half of my career, in digital media and marketing. but really for the past fifteen years, I've really moved into doing organizational transformation, customer and employee experience innovation and cultural development work. And that's really kind of the foundation of what what culture design is. You know, I spent you know, a handful of years helping companies develop customer-centric organizations. And I put that in quotes because, the biggest challenge that you have with building a customer-centric organization has to do with the culture itself, right? And how you're actually evolving the culture, right? And inspiring, enabling, and empowering people to be able to deliver a customer cent centric way of working. And so that's that's really been where my my focus has been over the past 10 or 15 years. But more broadly now I've when we look at culture design, This is really about any strategy execution, right? Whether it's customer Brian: Mm. Jason Burnham: experience, AI, right, whatever it is, the question really becomes is, do you have a culture fit to deliver on your strategic goals and outcomes? And that's really that's really the problem I come in to solve, is how do you actually Brian: Yeah. Jason Burnham: assess the culture and then design a culture and evolve a culture that can deliver to your strategic goals. Brian: Yeah. I love talking about culture. it this is the kind of thing that like every organization wants. it's hard to build, it's easy to lose. You can lose it immediately. And what a roller coaster culture at organizations has been on through work at home and the pandemic and just this road. I guess maybe start here. Like, how do you define culture? Like when you start to talk to organizations, how do you define it? Jason Burnham: Yeah. So look, I the the the social sciencey definition would be, it's it's the behavioral manifestation of collective consciousness, right? Now Brian: Okay. Okay. Jason Burnham: the the layman's term would be it's the way things get done around here. Right. Right, right. Brian: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's like how you work. Yeah. Jason Burnham: But it's everything, right? It's I think you don't I think the biggest misconception people have about culture is that, you know, people will always say like, we don't have a culture, or the culture is what it is and we gotta work around it. Brian: Yeah. Jason Burnham: And I think what you need to realize is that culture is constantly evolving, right? you have a every organization has a culture. Whether it's healthy or not, it's a different story. Whether it can achieve your strategic goals or outcomes is a different story. But everyone has a culture, right? And because culture really is drives everything. It drives, our we look at a culture, it's your values, right? It's your behaviors and practices, it's how decisions get made. It's how you, align to strategies, it's how you create and how you innovate. It's how you, collaborate across different functions, right? It's it's how the the organization learns together, right? And how people are being educated. it's operationally, the decisions we make around how we structure our organ organization and operations to actually support all of that. The governance models, behind all of the different decisions, performance management, all of these things are actually cultural. You know, but we don't think about them as culture. Like culture gets kind of tossed up and it's like, that's that's HR's problem to deal with. Brian: Right. Jason Burnham: And it's like, well, no, culture touches everything. If anything, I I think the biggest the shift that that organizations need to make is stop thinking like HR is going to solve all of your culture issues, and that HR should even own culture. The CEO owns culture because the Brian: Right. Yeah. Jason Burnham: CEO sets the tone for for the organization and it signals to the entire organization what it values, what it prioritizes, and ultimately how safe or comfortable feel in terms of the decisions that are being made. Brian: Yeah. it's always been true that in every organization, people are looking up to p to to to model behavior, right? what is happening in this company? Who should I be listening to? Who's making decisions? Those are the people that I want to see. So it makes a lot of sense that the CEO sets the culture. What when you first start working with an organization, is that what you're doing is you're going to the top and kind of observing and learning about what they have in place and also where they kind of want to be? Jason Burnham: ideally, that's where you start. Brian: Yeah. Jason Burnham: Ideally you'd want to start that way. I find that that's not usually how I get brought in. Right? Brian: Yeah. Jason Burnham: Usually it's usually it's I usually I'm brought in like I'll give you an example. Like I have one company that brought me in because they were going through a cultural transformation because they had a five year vision plan that they were looking to accomplish. However, the CEO was very focused on AI. Right. But there was a disconnect between the strat the the vision this the five year strategy plan and AI because they developed the plan before AI really started to take off in a in an agentic way. Right. Where it's like now organizations want to think about how they transform their operations. And so as a result, the culture was just, the organization was just we don't know why we're doing this. What's the purpose of doing this? Morale tended to drop. Right. And and so they started to have deeper cultural issues. And so, but I was brought in by the head of HR for that particular initiative. But through that effort, it's like I would say, HR or whether it's CX, who's ever or IT, who's ever leading the transformation is usually the sponsor of whatever program Brian: Yeah. Jason Burnham: that I'm being brought in for. However, very quickly, especially the first thing when we do an audit or an assessment to really understand the culture, right? We do a diagnostic at the onset to really just understand what we're working with here. That usually reveals where the needs are, the gaps are. And then that very quickly you start to realize that wow. In order to actually achieve our goals, we really need to deal with executive leadership, right? Brian: Yeah. Jason Burnham: Because they're the ones that are really setting the tone and they're the ones that are really driving the the the way the work gets done within the organization. And as your result, you start to find that that's where most of the barriers and the challenges lie when it comes to really transforming an organization. It starts at the top. And in many cases, Brian: Mm-hmm. Jason Burnham: you don't even get the C suite aligned, right, in terms of what Brian: Yeah. Jason Burnham: the priorities are. And then the middle managers aren't equipped. with the skills, the tools, right, and then and and the knowledge to be able to coach and mentor their teams through the change. Right. So Brian: Yeah. Jason Burnham: it's so that's where it's like, yes, HR has a huge role in actually transforming an organization, right, and driving the culture. However, it's the responsibility of every single manager to know what it takes to actually develop a healthy culture. there's the famous famous quote, right, is people don't quit jobs, they quit managers, right? Brian: Mm-hmm. Jason Burnham: It's like that's why, because the managers create the culture. And also the other thing that that that people need to realize is that, culture in itself within an organization is not like a monolith, right? It's like, you know, like every team has its own culture, every department has its own culture, every function has its own culture, every layer of leadership has its own culture, right? Locations Brian: Mm-hmm. Jason Burnham: throughout the globe are gonna have their different cultures. And forget about when you're dealing with a global organization, now you're bumping up against different value systems, right, different needs and priorities of people in different areas Brian: Yeah. Jason Burnham: of the world, how they approach work, how they prioritize work, right? all of those start to become nuances to what it actually takes to really design a blueprint for what you want your culture to be, and then what it's really gonna take to actually shift behaviors to achieve, though that desired culture. Brian: For sure. And and you mentioned customer centric culture, which I really love because that's all of my work is built around the customer. Is that a way to quickly align people? Because as we're saying, there's so many different ways you can go and all of these different cultures that that are created. Is that like kind of the North Star when you start to organize? Jason Burnham: Yeah, I would it's it's probably more of a Trojan horse than a North Star, right? Brian: Okay. Yeah. Jason Burnham: because, these days everybody's thinking about the c the customer, right? It's like how do how do we Brian: They should be. Jason Burnham: acquire a customer? Or they should be, right? We how do we acquire a customer, how we retain that customer, right? How do we develop that customer? however, what you learn very quickly, and look, even before culture design with my work with Scrattivity Group, which is now material, you know, you realize very quickly that in order to deliver an exceptional customer experience. You need to have an exceptional employee experience, right? Employees need to, like I said, they need to be inspired to want to cater to the customer. They need to be empowered with the autonomy and the agency to be able to make customer-centric decisions on the fly. And they need to be enabled with the systems, the tools, the know-how, right, in order to be customer-centric. And then their performance needs to be evaluated against customer-centric behaviors and outcomes. And their managers Brian: Yeah. Jason Burnham: need to make sure that they're coaching and mentoring their people, right? To be customer centric to those desired behaviors and outcomes. Unless you're doing all of that, it becomes really hard to say, we're customer centric. People like to throw it around a lot, we're customer centric. It's like, are you really? Because what I have found is actually most organizations are not customer centric. And Brian: Yeah. Jason Burnham: the reason for that has less to do with the intention. Look, I believe everybody would love to cater to the customer. I feel like, But you you you have a lot of other different stakeholders at play that have a say, right? It's like you have shareholders, right, that want to know how much return are we making from these different initiatives that we're we're putting forward, right? You've got you know, you've also got you know, you've also got the barriers of just the how people think about customer centricity within an organization. Because if you think about like the organizations the way they are today, they then the hierarchical structures, they were designed. During the Industrial Revolution, right? That structure, right? it was deal you're dealing with manufacturing types of organizations. Brian: Yeah. Yes. Jason Burnham: And it was designed very product centrally centrically, right? Like, Brian: For sure. Jason Burnham: so here's our product, all right. Let's identify who the audience is, who our desired customer is, let's build our marketing plans. And the entire business model is designed around the product. How do you develop and move and sell a product? Not, hey, here's who where our customer is based on our value proposition. Now we're gonna design products and services that really satisfy their needs and their aspirations. Brian: Mm-hmm. Jason Burnham: And once we understand like the customers' needs and aspirations and the products and services that are gonna be able to satisfy those needs, right, then we design the organization accordingly to create that value or to deliver more value in that way. Right. And so that's where things Brian: Yeah. Jason Burnham: like journey mapping really start to come into play to really understand the customer journey and then start to redesign your organization according to different phases. Unfortunately, it's the idea of the journey map is is is great, but it to me it's just it's a it's a it's a stopgap, right? It's like Brian: Mm-hmm. Jason Burnham: it's just a way to get an antiquated organizational structure to somehow retrofit to you know this new way of working. And unfortunately, it's it becomes really challenging unless you change your operating model. And I think that's the biggest that's the biggest takeaway, which is recognizing that culture is your organizational operating system. Right. And you're never going to actually shift culture, change culture, design culture, unless you focus at the operating model level. Brian: Yeah. That's really interesting. I think one of the big things that has changed since the industrial revolution is consumer feedback too, right? we have it at our fingertips. Consumers will tell you instantly how they feel, mostly unsolicited, but there are data points that you can now point to all along the way to understand who your consumer is. Are they having a great experience? What's wrong with them? What what do they want to change? And that's all coming into us a lot more now than it was even possible before. Jason Burnham: Yeah, absolutely. Brian: Yeah. Jason Burnham: You and and and and and for better or for worse, right? Brian: Mm-hmm. Jason Burnham: Right, because what you're starting what you're starting to have too is, you know, the loudest voice isn't always necessarily, you know, a representative of the the whole, right? A representative Brian: Yes. Jason Burnham: sample of the whole. So a lot of times you also find companies being a little too reactive sometimes to certain to certain feedback. Right. And it's like and Brian: Yeah. Signals. Jason Burnham: that's where it's like it's good to be it's good to cater to people's needs. It's good to address the issues right away. But that's where it's like, I've started to even shift, and you'll see this, you'll see this even with my methodologies. this idea of customer-centric approach is actually not what I preach these days. It's actually purpose centricity. So, right, so it right, so it's so Brian: Okay. Yep. Jason Burnham: like to my methodology is purpose-centered design. And the idea Brian: I like it. Jason Burnham: being that you should be anchoring to your organizational purpose or your brand purpose, right? And then delivering against that. all too often I think we get caught up in like, What are our competitors doing? What is the feedback saying? Right. And and all of a sudden we start to lose sight of our mission and the vision of the organization and why we actually exist in the first place. Right. not everybody is a customer. You're not, you know, you're not gonna provide value to Brian: Mm-hmm. Yep. Jason Burnham: every single person out there. So really focus in first on who you are, define what your identity is as an organization. Brian: Yeah. Jason Burnham: Think about how you're gonna create value in the market. And then from there, right, live that purpose, deliver on that mission. Right, whether that's internally or externally to the organization. that's why I talk about brand experience. I don't talk about employee experience or customer experience. I've always hated this idea of the employer br the employer brand and all that. no, you have one brand, you've got one purpose, right? How that comes to life in terms of how you treat your employees, how you treat your customers, and how you show up in your communities is going to come to define your brand. We live in Brian: Yeah. Jason Burnham: a socially connected digital world, right? everybody shares their feelings about companies and brands for better or for worse. Right. And that ultimately has influence over how people think about your brand. Right. And so it's like so this idea of thinking that, from a marketing standpoint, to think that you can isolate these different audiences and influence them in very different ways. Well, you need to recognize that they're all influencing each other more than any marketing is going to do. Right. So, so showing up for your Brian: For sure. Jason Burnham: employees and for your community is a first step to really establishing who your brand is, what you value, what your purpose is. And then from there, how we're gonna create value in society and from there the customers will come based on the value that you're creating. Brian: Yeah. I I love the idea of the purpose centered approach. And then that obviously really gives employees the why, right? Like because honest that's what they want, right? When they see change, when they see strategy rolled out, like they're like, okay, why and you know, does this impact me? But certainly they want to answer the question of well, why are we doing that? And the purpose driven or the purpose centered approach would would so would support that, it would give them that, right? Jason Burnham: Yeah, and look, here's the look, there's a very simple framework for any leader to use. And and ever and here's the thing, most people have heard of it. It's the five W's plus H. Right. So it's like, right, so Brian: Mm-hmm. Yeah, how? Jason Burnham: it's like employees need to know what is changing. They need Brian: Mm-hmm. Jason Burnham: to know why it's changing. They need to know where in the organization it's changing, right? They need to know who it's going to be impacting and when it's going to actually happen. And then how do I need to change in order to deliver against those goals? Brian: Yeah. Jason Burnham: That's really it. it's it's it is that simple. Unfortunately, it's like you don't, a lot of companies will not dedicate the resources and leaderships won't really commit to be able to to to to they won't commit the re they won't commit the resources, the time and the effort, right? In order to drive what's what it really takes to facilitate a culture shift within an organization. Because they think they think we don't really need that, or it's like it's gonna be too much resources and money and time. But when in actuality, it's like if you actually did all that work initially, you have a far highly likelihood of success. Right. And not only that, but you probably actually your odds of of success far outweigh your likelihood of failure if you don't do. Brian: Yeah. I like this. Get your house in order, right? Get your house in order Jason Burnham: Yeah, get your house in order. Brian: and then you can deliver for your customers. Well, we're in season three. And the question that I've been asking my guests in season three is what are you hopeful for right now? And I think this is a time when we need some hope. So bring it to us, Jason. What are you what are you hopeful for? Jason Burnham: So you're asking me this question of the week when we hear that AI is gonna kill humanity within the next ten years, right? Like that's so you Brian: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, just navigate that. Jason Burnham: look, I think you know, if if if nothing else, I think what I am hopeful for is that I think I'm hopeful for the fact that people are starting to wake up to the impact that these types of technologies are having on us. Look, if I wanna get if you you know, if we really want to get into it, like the the reasons I the reasons I left digital media was because I was honestly, I was just I felt like, you know, and this is going back. I really started to make this shift back in like 2011, 2012. I mean 2015 is when I really kind of was you know, really closed off marketing. Brian: Okay. Jason Burnham: But at the time, it was because we were doing a lot of work in the areas of understanding how to influence people's buying decisions by by understanding their cognitive disposition, like what influences their perceptions and behaviors. And I felt like we were getting into a a space where we are manipulating people at this point in ways that they're not aware of. And we're doing so in a way to just just at the at the at the subconscious levels. Influencing them to in a way that just gets them to buy more crap that they don't need. Right. And and and at that time I remember thinking to myself, gosh, the way we're using these tools, these methods, right, these technologies, yeah, we're using it to move product today, but it's not a far stretch to use the same methodologies to influence people's ideologies and underlying beliefs, right? Brian: Mm-hmm. Yep. Jason Burnham: And and I just felt like we were getting into a very dangerous place with how we were using these technologies. And I Frankly, I was I was I didn't I didn't I I didn't feel good about it anymore. I didn't feel good about Brian: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jason Burnham: where marketing was going. And at that point, I need to make a very conscious decision about what I wanted my career to be. If I wanted that to be my legacy, especially going back to the early days where we were pioneering these technologies and advocating for them. there's a little bit of you there's a little bit of guilt, for what we created coming out of that era and and where we are today. so and and and that's been my soapbox for the past, 10, 15 years. Which is just trying to tell people, look, you do not understand, everyone's being manipulated. everybody thinks Brian: Mm-hmm. Jason Burnham: like, we can see everybody being manipulated, but I'm not being manipulated, right? Right. Brian: Sure, sure, sure. Jason Burnham: Because our egos don't really allow us to believe, we can be manipulated in that way. But we're all human. So we all are manipulated that way. And so what I'm hopeful for is that, it's and and and look, it's the the AI is the gift and the curse, right? it's it's like we know there's if it's if it's regulated properly, it can do incredible things. Right. And Brian: Mm-hmm. Jason Burnham: and and it could usher in a new era of humanity, right? Whatever that may look for. But without regulation, right, it could lead to dire consequences. And I think what I'm hopeful for is that as a global society, we're starting to rise up. Right. And it's like, and that was always my biggest concern because that was my concern coming out of COVID. Like I just felt like globally we were terrible at coordinating like how we manage a global pandemic. And I was like, if this is any indicator of how we need to collaborate globally, we're doomed. but but like, you know, but AI is is has been something different. Like now it's becoming tangible for people because so many people are using it right within their Brian: Mm-hmm. Jason Burnham: works for their personal lives. So they can now start to envision the possibilities for better or for worse. And Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Jason Burnham: so it's no longer like this naive or you know, or this like some some sort of esoteric like concept, right, in the abstract that, like, yeah, we know there's these, you know, Silicon Valley's dealing with all that stuff. Now it's touching everybody in a very personal way, and and Brian: Mm-hmm. Jason Burnham: people are reacting to that. And so I'm Brian: Yeah. Jason Burnham: hopeful that as a society, this could be that impetus for us to get aligned to a common purpose, see what that looks like, and be able to collaborate and design a future, right? That that works for everyone. Right. And that's that's very aspirational. But I feel like, that's where my hope lies. My hope lies is in the abilities of people being able to come together and co-create the future. That that Brian: Yeah. Jason Burnham: makes the world a better place for everyone. Brian: Yeah. Well, I think that is a hopeful message. I I agree with you that change doesn't affect people or they don't feel like it affects them until it's on their doorstep. Right. So I think the waking up is because it's on our doorstep and the warnings are flashing and people are like, okay, this affects me as a human. but I I I agree with you and I think that is a hopeful message. Jason Burnham: Yeah, and my you my one of a quote that I don't know who I don't know who who who said the quote, but one of my favorite quotes is change occurs when the pain of holding on becomes greater than the fear of letting go. Brian: Yeah, that that that negotiation within yourself, right? Yeah. Jason Burnham: Yeah. Yeah. And I think I think people are starting to feel feel the pain. So globally. And Brian: Yeah. Jason Burnham: I and you and I and so I think I think think change change is coming. Now we just Brian: Yeah. Jason Burnham: have to make sure that we manage it properly. Brian: It's coming. It's been coming for a while. It's it's about to come to a head. It's always happening. Yeah. Jason Burnham: Change is constant, right? It's always happening. It's just whether or not we like the outcomes. Brian: Well, thank you so much for being a part of this conversation, Jason. I I I when I saw your name pop up, I was so excited to to talk to you and and this certainly delivered on that. So thank you for being a guest on the Marketing Brief podcast. Jason Burnham: My pleasure. Thank you for having me, Brian. Brian: Awesome. And to the guests out there, stay curious.