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Transcript
The other day I went to the library and when I was there on their new book shelf, I saw that Malcolm Gladwell had a new book. Years ago, he wrote The Tipping Point, which was very popular. And this is called Revenge of the Tipping Point. I of course grabbed it and started reading it.
And it’s interesting because in the very beginning, and I believe it was the introduction, he started talking about, conversation that was happening at some hearing about something that some company did that was wrong. But he left a lot of blanks in it. So you really don’t know who’s speaking or what the event is or exactly what happened.
But in it, he was emphasizing that they never actually apologized or admitting to doing wrong. They said like, “We hate that our product was associated with it” versus saying, “Yes, it caused; we’re sorry.” And so on.
And an interesting part of it that kind of stuck out to me, that made me think about what I’ve seen elsewhere, is that I believe it was like politician number one or something, somebody, had said, we need more laws to make sure these companies or these corporations do the things they’re supposed to do, you know, and act ethically.
Wanting the government to guide your ethics and morality???
And it made me think about, there was a group of businesses at in the past number of years that went to Congress or when there was some hearing or something and they asked Congress to make laws to stop them, basically create laws for us to show us how to act.
Basically is almost what it was saying. And my response to that is, because these were in this situation, men, that I understood. So my response to that is, you know, you need to put up your, you need to put on your big boy pants and act like a big boy, you know, act like a man, and do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. That’s my whole response to it.
Like you don’t need the government to tell you what’s right or wrong. Be a big boy for these guys, pull up your big boy pants and do it. I mean, if you need the government, I mean, really, do you really want to rely on the government to tell you what’s right or wrong? What’s moral or ethical? I mean, seriously.
But if you really need that, then you probably shouldn’t be in a leadership position if you can’t do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. And we know just from seeing other companies and other businesses that just having laws doesn’t mean people are going to obey them. You need to act moral and ethically because it’s the right thing to do.
It’s what you model
But it goes deeper than that when it comes to your business as a whole or you as a leader with your team or if you’re a business owner with your team, because you model the behaviors you get in your company.
How you act, what you incentivize is what people do. You create the culture in your company. And depending what you do is what you get from not just you, but with your team or employees.
Fake values
My brother told me a story about a video he watched recently. And it was on how, it was a sketch kind of video, kind of supposed to be funny, about how companies develop their values. And he said in it, they of course had a facilitator come.
They took them to this offsite place and the facilitator listed out these five values. You know, the five common ones, integrity and so on. And the facilitator said of these five, you need to choose five for your values. And then let’s make a big poster of it.
And it was a big joke about the values that companies have because a lot of don’t live by their values. They’re stated there, this is what we believe, and they’re often very generic, but it’s not lived out.
And as the, I mean, if you’re not gonna do that, first of all, don’t even pretend. Like having the posters and everything, just stop. People see it so much as fake, seriously.
But if you have values, live them out. You have to model it.
You are the one who created the culture…
I saw another video, and this was the impression I got. It doesn’t mean it was exactly this way.
But the impression I got was that a company, their culture wasn’t what they wanted it to be. So the leadership got together, had this big meeting and telling people, this is the culture we want.
And I’m just thinking, wait a minute, you’re the one who developed that culture by your leadership, and just telling people to act a certain way is not going to be completely do it because you have to live it out. You have to model it.
You have to incentivize this, the rewards you give, it’s so many aspects that leadership does that creates that culture. If you have values, values are a good thing, but you have to live them out. Cause it doesn’t matter what you say, it’s what you do that matters.
Do as I say, not as I do…
It’s just like with parents. Now do as I say, not as I do. Kids don’t listen to that. Doesn’t, same thing with leadership. If you say you are about as your company, your values, do the right thing, no matter what.
But you’re willing to sacrifice, “Oh, we can make a little bit more profit if we do this right here…,” then you’re not living it out and people will model that. They know that you’re not really about doing the right thing because a little bit of money, you’re like, “Oh, this changed.”
Or if you say we’re about quality, but then, “Oh, let’s slip it,” because again, maybe it’s more money or maybe it’s easier, whatever it is. What does that really say? It means you’re not really about quality.
And the thing is, then people will keep modeling that and following that. And it takes you down. You know, nobody ever goes into something expecting, you know, those big scandals. People don’t really usually start expecting the still millions or whatever they do.
But it’s usually start small, and it’s a slide, especially when it gets to incentives. Simon Sinek talks about ethical fading in his book, The Infinite Game. And we’ll get to that in a second.
But one last thought on the modeling thing is that if you cheat, others will cheat. Because again, you model it, and you often, when you’re being unethical, usually it’s your good people who leave and then you’re left with people who embrace the unethical. I mean, not always, but you get what I’m saying is that people, if you have a environment that’s not good, often the best ones do leave because they want something better.
The incentives you give matter
But also think about incentives, like what do you incentivize? Sometimes unintentionally, we can or people can incentivize the wrong kinds of behaviors or behaviors that don’t help.
For example, let’s say customers are not happy about the wait time on the phone. So the incentive is or you reward people for doing faster phone calls, like the number of phone calls you can get through in an hour, there’s some kind of incentive for that.
So what happens then? Well, then these customers agents, they rush through these conversations leaving customers unsatisfied so they can get those numbers, right? So you end up making the situation worse because of your incentive.
And sometimes in companies we can put things out or they can put things out that incentivize bad behavior. I believe it was Wells Fargo, the way they incentivized that people started creating all these different accounts for people just so they could show their accounts, so they could get the bonuses, whatever it is. It’s what they incentivized.
And especially if you’re mentality is “It really doesn’t matter how you get there”, I mean it’s not verbally said, but “We’re okay with you doing whatever as long as we get these results,” then you’re incentivizing not good behavior.
If you’re saying we’re about the right thing no matter what and if it’s the wrong we’re willing to take a cut to make to do the right thing, and we show that, then that’s more of what you get.
Every action you take has a consequence and intentions don’t matter just the results. I mean, it’s great that you have good intentions, but what really matters is the results that you get. And there’s often hidden consequences in what we do. And sometimes it can be easy not to look for those or see those.
The culture you have
Another way that we can incentivize negative behaviors or unethical behaviors is through bureaucracy and the culture that we create in our organizations.
Simon Sinek in his book, The Infinite Game talks about lazy leadership, which is creating the bureaucracies and the policies and the rules to control people versus supporting people. And that when you use processes and structures to fix culture problems or to fix those issues, then what you end up with is more lies and bigger lies, and then it becomes normal.
One way this can show itself what he’s talking about is when you create all these rules and processes, people lose ownership of what they’re doing.
They’re just following the rules. They’re just following the processes. It’s not “their fault”, because they’re just following the rules. They’re just doing what they’re told.
Also, when you create a culture of fear, when your culture’s unhealthy and people fear speaking up, when you encourage people to blame because they fear making mistakes, and it creates that culture where blame’s normal.
There’s the politics, there’s all those things that happen, and people are more about protecting themselves. You are creating an environment that’s not really healthy and we’re lying in blame as normal.
Abrashoff and It’s Your Ship
Michael Abrashoff talked about certain aspects of this topic in his book, It’s Your Ship. In one story he shared, I don’t really remember every aspect of it, but I believe it was an admiral or someone high up there. They were on the boat, they were doing some kind of maneuver, they were doing something in the waters, of course it’s the Navy, and something happened the way they did it.
I believe it was the propeller or something. It was like a multimillion dollar repair that had to happen. And so the, the leader, it was his fault that it happened, but he blamed and they lied about what happened.
And he was talking about that aspect. And he said a couple of things. And one was, you know, if you make truth situational, people will see it that way.
And another thing was, I’ll just read the quote he had for it. He says:
“It would be far better if we developed a culture that allowed people to tell the truth. Certainly it would be more useful to focus on making sure the accident never happened again rather than on finding someone to blame. Instead we have a culture that repeatedly shows the lower ranks how the upper ranks lie or evade the obvious truth to avoid blame and save their careers.”
That’s kind of what we were talking about the culture you create can push people to lie to blame. Now, I’m not excusing people for doing that, but we create the culture for it to happen easier. And when the leadership models that, what does it show people?
Not only that, the problem is not getting solved. People are blaming instead of looking for solutions and the wrong focus is there. And when you have a culture where people feel like they have to blame to protect their career, that’s not a healthy culture.
Black marks and force reductions
He also talked about another one of his books was in the nineties, they were reducing the workforce or reducing the military and the number of people in the military, and he said, basically, if you had a black spot of any kind on your record, then there’s a good chance you’re going to be gone. I think it was talking about officers at that point.
And the thing about that is, is the message it sent. What message does that send? What will people do when they feel fear putting a black mark on their record? Well, it pushes blame. It pushes people not innovating, not trying because you don’t want to get that black mark where you have to leave.
So it’s amazing, sometimes the things we incentivize, the things we do can lead to behaviors that aren’t great or even unethical.
Making sure he did the right thing
I like what Abershoff said, though, in his book because he said his standard was, “Is this the right thing to do?” And he wanted to make sure he never took ethical shortcuts. So one of the things he did is he called it the Washington Post Test. What he would do is he would ask himself, “If what I’m about to do appeared in the front page of the Washington Post, would I be proud about it or would I be embarrassed?”
Questions for you
Some questions for you.
- What do you model?
- Do you focus on doing the right thing no matter what or do you cut corners when it’s convenient?
- What incentives do you give?
- Do you incentivize the right things or maybe even unintentionally, are you getting some of the things you don’t want by the way you’re incentivizing things?
- And what kind of culture do you have?
- Do you have a culture that encourages people to tell the truth and to take ownership and to look for solutions?
- Or do you have a culture of fear, of politics, of one that encourages people to blame?
Some things to think about.
Steps that can help you stay on the right path
Some things you can do to help yourself try to stay focused on what’s right or wrong.
Some of course is a self-reflection looking at your decisions, looking at your choices, and if you mess up working to fix it.
You could follow Abrashoff’s test, the Washington Post Test, and ask yourself, “Would I be proud of this if it became public?”
But a good way too is have some kind of feedback system. Have people who will ask you about your choices and behaviors, or have people who will call you out if they feel like you’re not being ethical or you’re being untruthful or whatever it may be.
Even the culture in your company with your team, whoever, who’s willing to call you out or people even not in the company or your business or in your team. People just, you know, who are willing to ask you questions.
Those are ways that could help you as well.
These were just some thoughts that came from initially from that book and then kind of spread from me thinking through it.
I hope it helps you somehow.
Something to think about. See you next time.
