Alexis Halkovic, PhD, Founder and Co-CEO
This morning, I had a conversation with a business coach today about culture. She has worked with companies on their culture for years and years.
But, she said, we don't talk about culture. We talk about revenue. We talk about expense. We talk about the things that are most salient for those particular businesses.
The two of us shared that one truth that all coaches know. The client wants to work on the thing they think is the problem. That's the thing that's staring them right in the face. The thing that they could not possibly ignore, because it demands their attention.
That's surface noise. That's the trap. It looks like the problem, it acts like the problem, but it's actually the symptom of the problem.
The actual problem is generally deeper and never gets diagnosed. That's the problem that very few businesses call for help about. Rarely does a client say, "We're having a values conflict and I need your help." It's more likely that this will show up in a different way. For example, it could look like an interpersonal conflict.
When there's an interpersonal conflict, there's an effort to stop it so it doesn't leak out into other areas of the firm. The truth is that it's most likely already out there. One person had the audacity to bring the issue up. Perhaps their anger got the better of them and they weren't able to articulate their real problem — the underlying need — effectively.
When that happens, when anger erupts, we tend to see the angry person as the problem to be fixed. It's their temperament that's the problem. And because they didn't communicate effectively, the thing they were so passionate about gets ignored. And this person, who is an early warning signal, stays pissed. They might even be more pissed because they were shamed for their inappropriate expression of anger AND they were never heard.
So, that symptom was loud and clear, but rather than illuminating the underlying problem, it further obscures the problem. Even the person who raised the alarm might not be able to tell you what's going on, because now they are mad at themselves. And they lost the right to speak up. So, that's a new, separate problem.
What would happen if that person had the vocabulary to articulate the values conflict? To say, "You all are so focused on doing your due diligence that you have stopped trusting our client. I deeply value trust. How can we bring these two seemingly opposite values into conversation with one another?"
Learning about culture gives you that vocabulary and the ability to go deeper into the problem. To stop looking at the thing that's in front of your face as the problem, and to start recognizing it as the symptom of something bigger.
Try CultureCamp with your team: https://app.culturecamp.ai/
Contact me about doing a proof of concept with your team: https://tidycal.com/alexishalkovic/30-minute-meeting