S Syracuse University Directors and Above Meeting Discussion Topic: Culture | Timing: March and April 2021 meetings Overview: Group Discussion Initiative for March - April 2021 Our March and April Director and Above meetings will focus on culture, To ensure everyone has a chance to participate in the discussion, we will meet in sub-teams within the next couple of weeks, and then have the larger group meeting to learn from one another on March 16, Culture is a complicated topic that requires continuous care, much attention at all levels of an organization, and an appetite for an open and collaborative discussion. To get us started, remember sub-team leaders volunteered to help set up the sub-team meetings and lead the discussions ahead of March 16. Each team should nominate a team representative who will share what was discussed at our larger meeting in mid-March. Thank you to 21) AGING will copture thoughts on March 16 and work on a report out for the April meeting. Sub-Team Planning Information: | | eax Lead: Lead: > ee em ae aie a -~ - a eo a a] BeecsuteSg Syracuse University Directors and Above Meeting Discussion Topic: Culture | Timing: March and April 2021 meetings Recommended Videos and Articles: (Preread/preview materials for personal reflection) «Video: 3 ways to create a work culture that brings out the best in employees by Chris White, TED Talks How to make a cultural transformation by Simon Sinek The Fastest Way To Change A Culture by David Rock, Forbes.com Article: What Google Learned From Its Quest to Bulld the Perfect Team by Charles Duhiag, The New York Times Article: Building a Corporate Culture for Women by Helen Avery Article: Here's Ho Build and Align Workplace Culture by Andy Chan, Medium Questions for Your Sub-Team Meetings Core questions (please capture thoughts on this list) © How do you define culture? © Describe our current culture. What do you like? What are we doing right that we shouldn’t change? Thinking about culture, what do you think the division should value? How is our current culture impacting the people on your teams? What don’t we talk about that we should? Does the Division of Marketing's culture work for all teams? What should our next steps be around culture? = Ideas for discussion: © Do we need a survey, more internal discussion, etc. Are there phases or an approach where with cultural goals in mind? * How does the Directors and Above group take action together regarding culture? How do we work together to implement our thoughts? eo 0000 * Additional questions (if there is time during your sub-team meeting) © What does the healthiest culture look like in our industry? What have we experienced elsewhere that would be incorporated? What would an even more joyful workplace culture look like to you? Wouldn't it be amazing if... What is a better option, a culture that commits to disagree and moves on or one that avoids debate to align with groupthink? oo 00S Syracuse University Culture Discussions Report Summary of Key Themes: ~ Trust. Authenticity. Clarity. Grace. - Communication and Trust. Inconsistent between teams and organi: between teams. levels. Our culture is then inconsistent mode. 1e to eat, go to the restroom, or connect authentically with team members. ~ Psychological safety. ‘A shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. A sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject, retaliate or punish someone for speaking up. ~ Increase social sensitivity and emotional intelligence. ~ Conversational turn-taking/empathy. Equality ribution of conversational input amongst team members. ~ Creative Space. Need to revamp meetings, timelines, and projects to buil and reenergize creativity amongst team members. In time to ideate, think, ~ Process. Our intense focus on process makes our relationships feel transactional. ~ Workfront has created a sink or swim environment. We haven't met people where they are or acknowledged different styles of learning and tech prowess. ~ Marketing Creative Review. Need to revamp and level-set expectations moving forward. ~ Decisions. Too much decision-making by committee. This leads to spinning, inefficiency, and questions around what decision was actually made and who is responsible for the final decision. Empower Directors to make decisions. It’s hard to take risks when you're not empowered to do so. ~ Grant permission to fail. Let’s take risks knowing our team members have our backs. - Roles and Succession planning Need teams to understand roles and succession plans. Will be important to know where an employee can grow within the division. Clear goal setting for employees.5 Syracuse University CULTURE CONVERSATIONS All group feedback is from various team members complied per question asked below with additional group feedback at end. define culture? Describe our current culture. CORE GROUP FEEDBACK & PROPOSED SOLUTIONS QUESTION(S) & THEMES How do you Group Feedback: A shared belief in what's expected and accepted, which may manifest through attitudes and habits. Our team had a hard time defining culture and asked the difference between culture and business practice. The practices in place in our division have seriously affected the culture of the department. Culture comes from what is expected—the institution's top-down expectations. When I look at culture, I’m not looking at Bagel Friday, or free pizza, or cupcakes. Those things are very nice, but they are not culture. I define culture as the combination of values, actions, interactions, ethics, attitudes and goals of all the individuals in an organization. Not just book club or happy hours or any fun stuff—it’s also how we work together and what is expected of us. ‘A good workplace culture keeps people engaged and wanting to wake up in the morning. You could enjoy the work you're doing, but if you don't enjoy the people you do it with or the place you do it at, that outweighs it all. Workplace culture is the environment created by the division as a whole, ranging from working spaces, team management and function, office morale, cross-discipline relationships and more. ‘Some specific culture tactics can range from traditions, gatherings, personable interactions, approachability and overall happiness at work. It’s how you're interacting with the other team members. I think we need a glossary—like what does culture mean? We all need to have the same understanding of that, as well as other terms like strategy, co-planning, collaboration. Those things mean different things to different people—we're not all operating off the same playbook. Group norms, shared everyday habits and values. Culture lives and breathes through the words and actions of employees. It's the reason we get up in the morning and are excited to go to work.S Syracuse University Proposed Definitio The quality of the atmosphere. There are a lot of good things in our culture, too. Great team, great people, hard workers > makes it more frustrating that we don’t get more trust, autonomy. Generally, we all agreed that we enjoy the people that we work with, and any difficulties or divisions that arise are more a function of process than culture. Our division is really solid on interpersonal, team-building, etc. People feel supported by each otheriiih Culture is your organization's personality. It's how our people, processes, and environment work together to achieve the organization's goals. {all's also how our University interacts with employees, customers, and the larger community — and how they perceive the University. Positive elements of our culture: We value innovation and teamwork. We value being responsible and trusted. We value working with the students. We take pride in driving positive outcomes. We strive for quality and excellence and want to elevate the University. We know if we work together, we can change our culture for the best. What we want our culture to be: Quality of product, open and proactive communication, healthy disagreement, and respect for others, both in their opinions and their personalities. Also, appetite for risk. We'd love to be a culture that is living and breathing through the words and actions of our collective team that agrees to take risks and fail fast, for better or worse. Describe our current culture. Group Feedbact Shifting to virtual obviously makes for a big culture shift, which inherently comes with challenges. We alll miss the little things that come with an in-person experience. For example, small, informal side conversations really help resolve issues in an efficient manner, as well as making personal connections easier (joking around, just saying hi to people around the office). There’s something nice about the quickness and informality of it as, ‘opposed to a Zoom meeting. ‘Our culture feels inconsistent between teams and division levels. More frustration, less collaboration I don’t think we give each other enough empathy. It’s often me/you vs. him/her/them.& syracuse University SU Is a top-down organization. I think Dara is trying to make our division more inclusive—bring your ideas to the table. But how does that happen? I've seen it—when Dara’s in the room, people shut up. A lot of attempts to help the situation feel infantile. I don’t need someone to tell me to block my calendar if I need time to work. I don’t need meetings about meetings. Make me feel like a child. The top-down mentality doesn’t go away, even if our division rises above it. Because the rest of SU is still there, and it affects us whether we want it to. E.g., a communicator thinks something is amazing, but their dean rejects it entirely and wants something at best less effective and at worst ridiculous. This University is behind in modern marketing. Dara was tasked with ‘squeezing 10 years’ worth of marketing growth into 3 years and it's taxing everyone to death. It’s suffocating. The very top-top has pushed a level of deliverables on us that doesn‘t allow time to breathe. 1 feel like Dara tries to protect us from some of the directives, but honestly, I just want to know that we're doing this one thing because the BOT or the Chancellor wants us to. Then I don’t have to torture myself trying to figure out why we're doing it when it doesn’t make sense. I think our divisional leadership is not truly on the ground doing all the things, so nothing feels like it’s collaborative. We just present things and wait for a response. I think the lack of access to Dara is a real problem. There are times when someone else is presenting something I had a huge hand in because that person happens to have access, and they may not be accurately representing what I actually mean or my intent. Those who have access to leadership and Dara are promoted faster and or shine in the lime light while we have entire teams doing this work. I don't think everything in our division should be predicated on whether Dara approves of something. She needs to have more trust that the teams will make good decisions without her having to weigh in on everything. Requests: We need to stop taking requests as a marketing division. We need time to focus on what we think the University should do in terms of marketing. This is our expertise. We don’t tell the deans how to do their research. The best work I've done was not requests. We've definitely changed the role of central marketing, but they're still holdouts that we can’t get past and we're still expected to do those things on top of everything else. ‘Our work is really getting to another level. We're producing great stuff, but how do we continue that without the craziness? We have really great people, but they're not being trusted. There are things I like about our teams, our space, but the processes are clouding all of that.S Syracuse University * Tgenuinely like everyone on our team, but with the work and the processes cause rifts/drama. People tend to check out when things continue on a certain path. So culture isn’t just a nice thing to have—it’s crucial to the work, as welll. Our relationships, our culture and our norms: ‘© Our intense focus on process makes our relationships fee! transactional. © Workfront has created a sink or swim environment and we haven't met people where they are or acknowledged different styles of learning and tech prowess. © We have learned so much into the process we have lost some human touch and strong communication. © Would like permission to fail and take risks knowing our teammates have our backs. © Feel as though we're at a tipping point and we're worried about attrition. Thinking about culture, what do you think the Group Feedback: © Quality of product, open communication, healthy disagreement, and respect for others, both in their opinions and their personalities. Also, appetite for risk. We'd love to be a culture that agrees to take risks and fail fast, for better or worse. '* Predictability, respect, value expertise and knowledge and ability to make decisions, workload/work life balance (difficult to get work done during the day). '* When empowered, our teams will step up and meet the bar and rise to the occasion. There needs to be confidence from leadership that we know what we're doing. «We need permission to fail (real permission, not just talked about) - leave room to fail so we can see what's possible. = Division should value the expertise of all team members, not just leadership. ‘* They should respect our differences. Not everyone can work the same way and be effective. Proposed action item: ‘We should take all of this group feedback and shape it into the response for the first question for how we define culture for the division. How is our Group Feedback: current culture impacting the | ZOOM people on your teams? '* Funny enough, going virtual has also revealed instances where it was ‘appropriate to add Zoom meetings as a way to hear questions other team members were asking, and understand what they were facing.& Syracuse University Other ‘Also, people didn’t necessarily understand or were embarrassed to ask questions at first, but when they were brought together, they began to ask lots of questions and that communication was great. Zoom difficulties are well documented ~ general fatigue, number of people/having the right people in meetings, talking over one another, sheer number of meetings. Generally, we know a lot of Zoom calls have to happen, but the smaller, more informal ones often seem to be helpful and easier to personally connect in. Have been a few personality clashes as a result. Teams have their own cultures ‘Some teams have been forced to remain on the “front lines” during Covid by virtue of their disciplines, and there has been a sentiment of feeling underappreciated to a certain extent. Also, wondering whether oF not it’s a priority to keep them protected has been a noticeable blow to morale. There is a disconnect between rhetoric and expectations which leads to confusion and frustration Heavily impacts our culture (good/bad) ~ competitiveness between teams. Prevents creativity and freedom to take risks There Is pressure to get it right on the first try What don’t we talk about that we should? Feedback: ‘Sometimes, there's use of groupthink as a political device. There have been instances where someone will try to build consensus for ‘something they want to see done rather than bringing it to the table individually, as a way of “de-risking” and spreading out the accountability. *CYA" activity happens from time to time, where if something is presented and doesn’t go well, only the presenter seems to be on the hook. It should be, "we talked, we collaborated, we worked together and we own the success or failure of any given project.” There's a strong dislike for the “one throat to choke” mentality. Fear of retaliation if they were to say anything out of line, ‘Address the politics involved in some of the projects. We know they're there, and we know that we're going to have to do things for those reasons, but if we were open about the real reasons, maybe it wouldn't be so frustrating. ‘The measure of showing our productivity—is it always going to be volume? I think Dara feels pressure that if we show a campaign to the BOT that has 4 students, the BOT is going to be like, “That's it? Four students?” instead of understanding the thought processes and strategy behind those decisions,S Syracuse University Creative Space Group Feedback: Male and female representation isn’t equally distributed across leadership within creative teams Everyone is booked solid in meetings We are supposed to be creative, but it’s hard to have space to be creative when leaders have little to no time to create, research, and funnel down to other team members. ights and weekends come into play leading to exhaustion and burn out. Proposed solutions: Work needs to be planned long term to allow for creative thinking and spaces to digest Develop a creative calendar of recurring projects and plan schedules that provide space and time for ideation and creativity. This may be more process than culture, but nailing down a consistent understanding of what an idea is, how its developed, and what form it takes could really help. This ties into other discussions we've started to have around briefs and concepting. Space to ideate and tap into collective creativity is critical. We need to identify the ~25% of projects that require more strategic thinking/dot connecting. Also critical to pull in a team to do this that has balanced channel representation. Process and Workfront Group Feedback: No accommodation for process. Expectation to still deliver. We still have the same amount of work to do and even more. No change in deadlines Site All the working levels need more input into strategy, not just those with higher titles. Personal accountability'should be a standard for everyone, whether it’s, being accountable for adhering to the product or the process. If the process isn’t followed and it messes things up, there should be some accountability for that. Often, we feel there's too much decision making by committee, which can lead to spinning, inefficiency, and questions around what decision was actually made. Directors should be empowered to make some decisions. It’s hard to take risks when you can’t make decisions. Workfront. Adds to frustration. Requires constant monitoring. Lack of sensitivity to challenges from those who implemented the tool. Double the work to use the tool properly. Not efficient. Time entering and tracking is a frustrating process. Not always a place to put time. Why do some teams track time and others aren't required to do this. Is it really needed? ‘Our processes are hurting our culture. e.g., Workin is . & ig culture is important. I can’t make my own relationships with people across campus—someone from Strategy is expected to be there. That is a problem. We need to break down all those barriers and work togetherS Syracuse University to get things done. Work from home makes it difficult to collaborate. We are told to put all ‘commentary in Workfront (we can‘t control if people comment or respond to emails) ~ results in delays in process and lack of collaboration/miscommunication Too much emphasis on process (trying to automate things subjective and nuanced, like creative process) ~ it creates the expectation that if we have the exact right process, it will work like an assembly line. Micromanagement, proofing, WF, consistency, clear expectations (or lack thereof), process issues, how much trickles down and needs to go back up. Proposed solutions: We think there’s an opportunity to shift to more “huddle” or “scrum” style meetings that are quick, small, informal, with a quick discussion and a quick decision made. Less forced processes can sometimes be better. Would also advocate for more consistency in process, particularly in the review period. I.e., let's get consistent about who's reviewing, who's approving, and when. A clear and consistent trafficking process would help. Track time if needed by project not by task. Marketing Creative Review Feedback: Creative review process is brutal - confusing (when do we need it reviewed and approved), inconsistent ~ frustrating and time consuming, changes all the time (Example: Dara doesn’t need to see everything, but what does she need to see?) ‘Concerns over missing the mark (making Dara happy)iss: Comments like “its fine...” demoralize and demotivate ~ there's a feeling that nothing I do is good enough. (Example: lawn signs for admitted students - "make them more exciting.”) There is an expectation something should be somewhat close to final, which means we're presenting at deadline with no time to make adjustments. Disconnect between direction vs. expectations The whole review process is difficult. There is pressure to present, not Just to Dara, but 25 of your colleagues. It’s the one time a week we have to present everything to her. It makes it difficult for her and us - how do we respond? jsThere isn’t enough time to give clear direction. Micro-management / hierarchy ~ decisions are made at top of 10Ss Syracuse University 11 ‘organization without informing others. Difficult to get access to Dara.ii Dara needs to review everything, as does Chancellor. Need someone to look at projects from a division-wide perspective. Do we even have time to work on this project? Lack of access to Dara has led to pressure, unrealistic expectations Literally difficult to access Dara (when in the “office,” she is physically removed from team, spending most of her time at her office on campus). Team is terrified of having to present something to Dara because she’s, so far removed from day-to-day work. Creative review is a good example. We work on this stuff for weeks ‘and then we have 10 minutes to present that in a room with people who know nothing about it and we just get a thumbs up or down, no real discussion. We don’t think creative review is doing what Dara thinks it is. It’s scary for people who don’t have a lot of face time with Dara or other leaders, and it's ineffective. Especially for the larger projects. People feel like they are walking on eggshells because we don’t know how people will respond when they see what we're working on. There is a real fear about going too far without leadership buy: The creative review meeting feels like a very public way to fail versus constructive criticism. How do we improve this review? At times something presented to Dara didn’t align with what she expected. Their perception was there were clear disconnects between what she said is ok and how she acted towards them.) Proposed solutions: Tiering system could address some challenges with confusion, trust, etc, Need to revamp marketing creative meeting to include/exclude: However, I do think Creative Review is now being used as a catch all for Dara to review ANYTHING, because it's the only time anyone can get in front of her. I would like to see it retooled as the first 30 minutes being for quick touchpoints (e.g., "Here's a quick sketch of an idea--thoughts?" or maybe a video script or something). The second half should be reserved for whatever big project is the most pressing that week so that only the folks on that project are present and there can be some real discussion around actual work. While I like the idea of creative review, perhaps we could streamline it a bit. Idea: Invite the stakeholders that are actually engaged on the projects being discussed in each meeting so they can hear leadership feedback directly. Having 25 people on every call tends to shut people down and the teams seem to be so focused on surviving the creativeS Syracuse University review, they sometimes take their eye off the actual deliverable release. Projects are also not being shared with all the team stakeholders prior to creative review. This is tough because I think Dara tries her best to stay positive and constructive. No matter what form a creative review takes, we all have to have thick skins. It's the nature of the business. That said, I do understand these concerns and agree that some modifications could make creative review better. Maybe more time given to fewer projects. While I like the idea of creative review, perhaps we could streamline it a bit. Idea: Invite the stakeholders that are actually engaged on the projects being discussed in each meeting so they can hear leadership feedback directly. Having 25 people on every call tends to shut people down and the teams seem to be so focused on surviving the creative review, they sometimes take their eye off the actual deliverable release. Projects are also not being shared with all the team stakeholders prior to creative review. What have we experienced elsewhere that could be incorporated? Feedback: Happy hours. Start Happy Hours earlier than Spm Peer-to-peer recognition systems. (High Fives/Shout outs/R&R’s) Internal newsletter was great and kept people in the loop about what was going on company wide. Loved little things in the office. Phrases written on the wall, jim at the front desk singing, sharing her marathon results. All those little things add up to culture. Makes it lighter, more fun. Personal connection also makes for better professional connection. Camp Reconnect was awesome at iSchool. Got people out camping at ne of the falls. It was nothing but tag. Fun, physical games that got people in cabin together, got people playing. Changed the entire culture of our schools overnight. People talking, laughing. It made a big difference. ‘Small gestures make a difference (swag, giveaways, etc.) order a few extra for the division when we have the opportunity. We all like the idea of an anonymous survey, so long as there's clear Intent to it. There has to be an outcome or a result, whether that’s simply reporting back to participants or creating action items based on the collective response. We are all coming from different backgrounds—different points in our careers, different ages—so it’s not reasonable to expect that we're all going to respond the same way to things. There should be leeway for that, not rigidity. We discussed having some cross-over days, where teams can shadow, or even participate in what other teams are doing for a day or two to truly understand what goes into their jobs. We all agreed this would be beneficial from a cultural standpoint, a creativity standpoint, and a scheduling standpoint - if we all understand each other's jobs, it will be easier to know how much time and effort goes into it and plan 12S Syracuse University accordingly. ‘© We also thought things like Lunch N Learns are a good way to understand and recognize what other teams are doing. The social media one was very well received and we'd like to see more of these with other teams. Proposed solutions: Let's implement the solutions above. ‘© There are plenty of fun extras and positive reinforcement mechanisms that we could and should incorporate, with the understanding that they do not constitute a culture in and of themselves. The most important thing is nailing the broader definition of culture, which we've talked about in some of the responses above. 13 Directors Group Feedback: Meetings ‘* don’t think big meetings are the way for these directors and above group to connect. I like what we're doing right now in this discussion. Smaller groups of directors and above meeting regularly (mix up the ‘groups each time) and just talk about things. Maybe there's a topic for discussion each time. I think that would be far more valuable and connective. Proposed solutions: * Encourage members from channel teams (and Communications) to lead "committees" designed to organize opportunities for meaningful engagement with colleagues. Forward Group Feedback: Thinking - ‘* Hope there is more flexibility to working from home in future even a When we return few days a week vs. none would be fantastic. to the office what does our ‘© Finally, one thing that’s been positive about the virtual shift has been refined culture the flexi ity it affords workers. People love being able to step out and give their kids a ride, for example, and still come back and get the job done, whether it’s between 8:30-5pm or extended hours on either side. It makes life a lot easier and it also demonstrates trust, which is always healthy for culture. ‘* The space of the warehouse is not ideal...Loud, no privacy, glass walls, interruption driven, hard to get anything done. Can feel disrespectful. Fear of going back to this environment. How can we improve? '* Dedicating people to work on culture would be helpful. That seemed to be the case with a lot of successful corporate cultures we've read about. Proposed solutions: * T'd love to see us retain some of the flexibility that we were forced to adapt during Covid. Not only is it super helpful for people, it reinforces the key cultural pillars of trust and accountability, -