My Career As a Culture Sleuth

...LESSONS YOU CAN APPLY

IN YOUR OWN LIFE

GRAPHIC/IMAGE TO BE INPUTTED

BY
TERRI KRUZAN
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Culture Matters. What I learned in my 20 years as a change management consultant is that culture matters.
 
If you expect to be a 21st century leader - taking charge of culture is your job , within organizations and working across national boundaries. It will be your personal source
of competitive advantage.
 
Culture Is Bigger Than an Individual.
 
Leaders—most of whom inherited their organizational cultures—do not understand its magnitude, what needs to be done to shape it and how to model new behaviors. The
next generation of leaders is quicker to understand this. Cultural barriers can hinder your ability to change behaviors needed to achieve goals - and move forward.
Thus, understanding the role of culture is critical for those who want to spur progress.
 
Why Blog About Culture? I began blogging to help people adapt to change more easily and become better leaders. – I wanted to share my skills on ‘culture sleuthing.’
 
As a medium, blogging is the best way to reach an international, diverse audience with immediacy. By sharing examples of those who are shaping governments, companies,
countries, communities and families - we can demystify culture.
 
I’ve grouped the most compelling posts to tell a story—to help readers start their journey of taking charge of culture as 21st century leaders.— and compiled them into this
free e-book.
 
The (Cultural) Bottom Line. Culture is all around us. Its impact is enduring and profound—endlessly fascinating and there to be shaped.
 
Through blogging, I’ve engaged with people in the U.S., Asia, Australia, the Middle East and Europe—especially young people, students and leaders responsible for change
within their organizations.
 
I hope you'll join our online community: Leading-Workplace-Change .
  
Terri Kruzan
Founder, Culture Consulting …turned Culture Sleuth
April 2010
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After being introduced to the idea that culture matters for 21 st century leaders, your next
thought is how do I know where to look for culture…
 How To Be a Culture Sleuth
4
Lesson Learned... by digging below the surface, skillful cultural sleuths can solve problems
 
The job of an armchair culture sleuth is to find the underlying reasons for people's actions. Those actions may have been formed during
another time and place. By looking for clues, the savvy sleuth can uncover a set of shared values or a belief system that can help
resolve a problem.
 
So why should you be an armchair culture sleuth? To become more successful at recognizing and solving problems in the workplace, in
community organizations or in your own family.
 
The best culture sleuths are curious. They keep their antennae tuned, continuously digging deeper for data that can be linked together to
detect the underlying causes for a problem. By uncovering clues and developing leads, they learn why issues are not always easily
solved.
 
Imagine yourself as an investigative reporter - such as Carl Bernstein or Bob Woodward who uncovered the Watergate scandal, a writer for
The Smoking Gun website or a CSI detective.
 
Does this kind of problem-solving sound intriguing to you?
 
If so, here are four steps to get you started in how to be a culture sleuth.
 
 Observe what is put up on the wall (pictures, plaques, web-pages)
 Investigate what an organization or community measures (annual reports)
 Dig deeper into stories about founders, leaders - their response to crisis and success (news articles & history timelines)
 Link the clues together (create a shared culture map)
 
More:
For example, let's look into the 'lack of confidence problem' facing many banks today. The culture sleuth observes the pictures and captions on a local bank's website. They project images of reliability and saving for the
future.
 
Investigating further, she reads the bank's recent annual report and notes a recurring strategic focus on higher margin, higher risk products.
 
The culture sleuth digs deeper and reads about increasing annual bonuses paid to the bank's executives in recent years - while reviewing the bank's history timeline, she finds the past focus was on stable and
conservative dividends paid to stockholders.
 
After linking the clues, the culture map is revealing. It appears to chart a shift in the bank's underlying values from stability and reliability to high-risk and high gain.

This culture sleuthing work reveals a possible underlying reason for the ‘confidence problem’ facing banks today. And most likely guides the sleuth as to where to put her next IRA savings deposit!
 5

In your journey of becoming a culture sleuth, it is important to realize how much national
background influences beliefs - the source of culture. In this short e-book, the focus is on
how ‘being American’ influences culture.
Harnessing the Hustler
6
Lesson Learned..."winning at all costs" requires ground rules to play by.
 
It is always fun to write about how the American persona manifests itself in the corporate cultures of many companies.
 
One of the clear themes in historian Walter A. McDougall’s book
Freedom Just Around the Corner - A New American History, 1585-1828 is that “we are a country and a people with a ‘penchant
for hustling’ - in both the positive and negative senses.” He talks about: 
...how hustlers are folks who are known for getting things done, but also cut corners and cheat and above all are always in a
hurry… fleeing into the future.
 
You can sense that hustler persona emerge in companies today, especially those with win-at-all-costs cultures. When asked what it
takes to be successful in these companies, the following behaviors are often noted by employees:
 
 Must create opportunities and exploit them
 Must be aggressive, compete and take calculated risks
 Must do whatever it takes to get the deal done

 
Harnessing the hustler instincts of the American persona is what good leaders should be about – providing ground rules, incentives
and consequences to structure the competition.

This is not an easy job and usually very much a juggling act on the part of leadership. Their work is to set and maintain the
organizational mission front and center at all times - without sacrificing the willingness of individuals to take personal risks and
create opportunities for the future.
 Culture Connection Between Bullying in the Schools
and the Workplace
7
Lesson Learned...rugged individualism needs to be aligned with institutional mission
 
Recently, I was asked to bring my knowledge about shaping workplace culture to a symposium for educators on Stopping Youth Bullying.
 
I started the workshop with the question: “What are the underlying reasons why American teachers, families and children have a hard time
addressing bullying?” The answers were varied, but a consistent response was: Some people think bullying helps kids ‘toughen up’ for
the real world, so a little bit is OK

These responses reminded me of feedback from folks within organizations as to why harassment of employees—a form of bullying—is
tolerated within the workplace:
  Hazing of newcomers is just expected in the workplace
 Just ‘keep your mouth shut and look the other way’ around aggressive managers or you could become their target
 
The questions then become: does bullying and harassment go with or against the grain of U.S. national beliefs? Is it primarily about the
need for some to seek attention, power and control through humiliation, as postulated by the Workplace Bullying Institute? Is there
something within our national DNA that allows children and adults to gather around and cheer the bully on or just ignore it?
 
It became clear after much discussion that bullying may go with the grain of our traditional American frontier roots: our belief in the
importance of rugged individualism. We admire people who stand up for themselves and show initiative and stamina. This rugged
individualism can lead to creativity and innovation--a core component of U.S. success. In the workplace, that translates into valuing
people who are self-starters.
 
More:
No one wants to get rid of the self-starter instinct in the American culture. But left in its traditional pure form , it appears to influence a passive acceptance of the practice of bullying which can
lead to violence, depression and decreased productivity among youths and adults. There is a need for leaders to balance and align this cultural driver with the organizational mission. For
schools, that means 'creating a safe place to learn.'
 
As a country, we are not alone in the wilderness anymore; we live and work in a complex, inter-related global marketplace. Shifting our national belief in a pure form of rugged individualism
as represented in the cultures of many American-based institutions will not be easy, but it’s important for our country’s long-term success.
Just Say No to Shrimp?
8
Lesson Learned...thinking differently is the first step toward acting differently
 

My family likes to eat shrimp all year. But I recently read an article in the Atlanta Journal & Constitution (7/10/08) about “The
Hidden Cost of Shrimp,” and I am ready to feed my family shrimp far less often.
 
The article explains that both farm-raised and wild caught shrimp can spread disease and contribute to the destruction of the
ecosystem. The reporter, Meredith Ford, recommends we eat less shrimp, saving them for special occasions. She outlines their
cost to the planet as being greater than their cost per pound in the store.
 
This article provides an example of one kind of push people need to change how they act --thinking about things differently is the first
step toward acting differently.
 
In the U.S., people don't think that less is more. It is at odds with Americans' traditional belief of having unlimited natural resources.
 
For example, utility companies in the 1950s promoted the use of electric appliances to sell more electricity and car companies through
advertising and easy credit created the demand for multi-car families.
 
Americans are starting to question the national belief in unlimited natural resources. Utility companies are offering energy saving tips,
rebates, and car companies are moving toward more fuel efficient vehicles. And there are articles like the one I read in my local
newspaper about encouraging consumption of locally sourced shrimp, in season.
 
It made me think differently and pushed me to act differently.
 9

Another culture clue to seek is for differences in perspective by length of service within an
organization or by age. Generations have always collided within communities and
within organizations. It is important to know what issues are causing the disconnect and
if these generational differences are influencing the strength of a culture to respond to
change.
These folks are not willing to pay their dues…
10
Lesson Learned...be careful when valuing tenure over expertise and training

During a recent Saturday night dinner discussion, a friend started talking about his work and how the “young folks just did not want to
pay their dues.” His voice started getting louder and he said that they need to put their time in and not expect to be landing the
big jobs right away.
 
My response was. “It sounds like you value tenure over training and expertise.”
 
No, he said, “I just think this younger generation is pushy.”
 
His wife smiled and gave his arm a light tap. He looked at me and said, “What do you mean?”
 
“You may want to think about what is really needed to achieve results in a job: years of experience, expertise or both. You can then
make your decision about who to put on a project team based on what is required to do the job rather than on your personal
preferences. It’s important to communicate job requirements when talking to the younger folks in your company to let them know
what to aspire for."
 
He replied, “Hey that sounds like work!”
 
We all laughed, and I said, “Yes, that is what we ‘old-timers’ need to be doing--managing people as part of our job.”
My First Experience with a Daddy Knows Best Culture
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Lesson Learned...generational differences influence the strength of company cultures
 
Twenty years ago, I had my first experience as a consultant in a company with a strong Daddy Knows Best culture. It was
uncomfortable. In hindsight, it reinforces for me the power generational differences have on employees' engagement in their job.
 
Daddy Knows Best workplaces are a form of a top-down culture where employees are primarily told what to do by managers without
input. There is a family feel about the work environment where employees are taken care of; job security usually guaranteed;
and, in return, employees are expected to be loyal
 
As a consultant, I was presenting the results of a culture assessment to the top management team of this Fortune 100 company. We
were at the point of recommending next steps, when the CEO’s assistant came in and whispered in the CEO’s ear.
 
The CEO politely excused himself. No one said anything; we all just waited. Ten minutes, thirty minutes, forty-five minutes. It was
uncomfortable for everyone - and clear through body language, waiting for the CEO to return to the meeting was expected
behavior. I started to worry about how anything got done in this company.
 
Finally, the door opened and the CEO came back into the room. We took up where we left off.
 
My experience in the board room that day reinforced my choice to remain in a small entrepreneurial workplace. The perks of a Daddy
Knows Best culture where ‘loyalty = security’ were not for me. And in my work as a consultant, I learned to look first for cracks
in the strength of a company's culture by checking for differences in perceptions by age.
 12

In times of rapid change, cultures of organizations are vulnerable. Look for culture clues
regarding ability to adapt or die.
Leaders Admitting to Their Mistakes
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Lesson Learned...actions are more important than words in times of turmoil
 
Admitting to a mistake is never easy. But as a leader, it is both an important capability and an action that needs to be done
thoughtfully in times of crisis.
 
In late October 2008, when I read in the papers about former Federal Reserve Chairman Allan Greenspan admitting to a fundamental
flaw in his thinking about the self-correcting power of free markets, I sat up and took notice.
 
This was not just an expression of regret about a day-to-day action. It was an acknowledgement of a flaw in one of his own
fundamental beliefs that impacted his decisions in guiding the U.S. economy!
 
Notice in the following statement made by Mr. Greenspan before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that he
includes a personal reference and an emotional response to his mistake:
 Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a
state of shocked disbelief…
 
He did not go into elaborate detail at the Congressional hearing, but he took responsibility for his mistake and later in the hearing,
briefly noting an idea for corrective action.
 
In the world of organizational culture, how current and past leaders respond to mistakes has profound implications. In cultures where
adaptability and innovation are engrained, leaders regularly model learning from mistakes by doing it themselves and rewarding
others who do the same.
 
More
It is a natural part of how they lead to encourage creativity, making it safe for people to commit to stretch goals and hold themselves accountable for achieving them.
 
The lesson for leaders is that their capability to openly acknowledge a mistake is a powerful tool. It allows for people within an organization to move quickly from blame to action.
 
It’s not easy to lead. No matter how you feel about Allan Greenspan’s policies, his action in a time of turmoil is worth pondering.
Healthcare Reform and Organizational Culture
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Lesson Learned...in times of change, alignment between leader and employee values is a critical ingredient for success

The past 20 years have been a wild ride for doctors, patients, hospitals, insurance companies and legislators. We have all experienced
the pain and the little triumphs of trying to fix our healthcare system in an ad hoc, change-as-we-go manner.
 
The conversation is even turning to what role organizational culture will play in our change efforts.
 
The Annals of Internal Medicine recently published research connecting healthcare working conditions with quality of patient care.
The results are not conclusive, but Medpage Today, an on-line resource site for physicians starts their analysis with this synopsis:
 Adverse working conditions for primary care doctors, including time pressures and an unfavorable organizational culture,
may lead to stress, burnout and ultimately to lower quality patient care, a new study found.
 
The aspect of organizational culture that seemed to have the strongest connection to patient care had to do with the alignment of
values between physicians and leaders: the higher the alignment, the higher the quality of care.
 
More
It would be interesting to know exactly what shared values are important between leaders and physicians within healthcare organizations, but we surmise from
recent news articles that they include::
 
 Emphasis on preventive medicine or medical treatment
 Believing healthcare is a social mission or a for-profit business
 Being patient-, doctor- or insurance- centered
 Focusing on quantity or quality of patient contacts
 Use of technology as a tool
 
The challenge of fixing our U.S. healthcare system is far from over. But as in any change management effort, clarifying common goals is an important first step.
 
The next step is for leaders to work on defining and aligning core values. These core values will guide strategies and allow for more unified action among the myriad
of stakeholders within healthcare organizations.
Is 'Bigger- Better' for Banks from an Organizational
Culture Perspective?
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Lesson Learned...bigness leads to arrogance and to the fall of empires

 One of the big business topics in October 2009 was how to address banks considered 'too big to fail.' According to Allan Greenspan,
former Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve - “If they’re too big to fail, they’re too big.”
  
I do not have an easy answer to what is a complex regulatory decision, but I do have some knowledge from an organizational culture
perspective about how the bigger is better belief plays out in organizations.
 
This belief may start with founders and/or leaders focusing on measuring their company’s success through growth in market share,
revenues or customers. If this approach proves successful, they may find that bigness brings benefits, such as domination of their
industry or elimination of competitors.
 
As a result, the company may play an industry leadership role, setting their own rules and driving government oversight and regulations.
Maintaining a reputation and images of strength, bigness and power are all-important.
 
The classic downside of the cultural belief in bigness is a corresponding sense of organizational arrogance and inflexibility that leads to the
perspective that 'we know what is best for our customers, regulators and the industry.'
  
The death knell for most organizations with a bigger is better cultural belief is similar to many kinds of empires: somebody smarter, faster
or stronger comes along and pulls them down.
 
More
Consequently, using this cultural perspective as a guide, let’s think about the question of what to do with banks that are considered 'too big to fail.' From the empire
perspective, I’m not sure I want our financial centers that provide credit and a flow of money for all kinds of private, public and not-for-profit entities around the world
to be on paths to eventual failure.
 
It looks to me that Allan Greenspan maybe right: “If they’re too big to fail, they’re too big.”
 16

Being a culture sleuth can make you an optimist. Many organizations survive difficult times
by identifying timeless beliefs, such as…what’s good for the community is good for
business.
 Corporate Cultures With "Win-Win" Strategic Drivers
17

Lesson Learned...sustainable business practices are not new—but they work

 
We usually think of people as heroes/heroines who use their power to serve others. But today is it also important for our
business corporations to take on that role if we are truly going to re-fashion our global age? And are their certain companies
who will be able to embark on heroes’ quests more easily due to their corporate cultures?
 
The answers are yes, based on my findings. Some American-based companies have a practical, win-win strategic belief that
doing things for the common good by practicing corporate philanthropy is good for business.
 
I first encountered a deeper understanding of this belief when doing a culture assessment of an insurance company founded in
the mid-1800’s. One of the insurance company’s first corporate donations was for the building of a community fire station
and the purchase of a steam fire engine. The community benefited from a state-of-the-art fire protection service and the
insurance company benefited from the likelihood of reduced insurance claims due to fire damage.
 
A more recent example can be seen in the Coca Cola Company investment of $40-50 million in a PET plastic recycling plant as
part of their long-term goal to recycle/reuse 100 percent of its bottles and cans in the United States. When speaking of this
project, a Coke executive describes the same kind of ‘win-win’ belief that echoes the insurance company nearly 150 years ago:
  
More
The long-term sustainability of our business depends on our ability to ensure the sustainability of our packaging. This new recycling facility represents a significant
mile stone as we work to advance recycling in the U.S. and ensure a strong end-market for our PET packaging.

I do not think that Coca Cola sees itself as on a heroes’ quest. But I do believe that corporations with ‘win-win’ beliefs regarding what is important for the common good can
also be good for business will be able to effect change in our society.
 
They are at the forefront of leaders who are bringing change forward.
Wal-Mart's Corporate Culture and Environmental
Sustainability
18
Lesson Learned...once goals set, execution cultures are capable of making change happen
 
My recent focus has been on identifying companies who I see as culturally capable of moving through hard economic times - to become
leaders in re-fashioning our global society. My last post identified Coca Cola with its sustainable packaging efforts .
 
Wal-Mart is also embarking on the quintessential heroes’ quest. In this case, it’s the quest to practice environmental sustainability as an
opportunity to improve both the future of its business and the future of the world. Retiring Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. articulated
this underlying cultural belief well in his last public speech as CEO:
 As businesses, we have a responsibility to society…Let me be clear about this point. There is no conflict between delivering value to
shareholders and helping solve bigger societal problems.  In fact…they can build on each other when developed, aligned and
executed right.

After reading about Wal-Mart’s efforts, I sense that the company is truly working to 'walk its talk.' It is also using its operational business
model to force its suppliers to transform their business practices and products.
 
I was curious: is there anything in the company’s traditional culture that will support its business transformation quest? As a culture
sleuth, I turned to Wal-Mart’s history, its leaders speeches and to its published values.
 
At Wal-Mart, they are called Mr. Sam’s Values after the company’s founder, Sam Walton, and they appear to focus strongly on finding ways
to bring the highest quality product at the lowest price to the customer. They talk about never being satisfied and the importance of
asking: Is this the best I can do?”
 
This is a culture that sets goals and then moves mountains to achieve them. Accordingly, once environmental sustainability goals are set, I
sense Wal-Mart is a company that will execute to plan and bring all of us along on their heroes’ quest.
 19

The Cultural Bottom Line is to remember - values inform culture. If you want to see
people act differently, the fastest and most enduring method is to align desired behaviors
with a shared set of values to guide their actions.
How to Tinker With Organizational Culture
20
Lesson Learned…build on the values already working within your organization
 
Economic instability is still with us. And, we keep hearing it is going to take awhile to work ourselves out of this financial crisis of the
new global age. Are there culture best practices that allow some companies to make it through hard economic time more easily
than others?
 
Management guru Peter Drucker, recommended in 1991 that leaders build on their existing culture to spur change. He gave examples
about how Japan and Germany re-built their societies after the Second World War through rewarding new habits based on
traditional national values.
 
His advice is still the most reliable and quickest way to redirect an organizational culture.
 
An important heads-up for leaders before they start tinkering is to first understand the lay-of-the-land: what are the organization's
current beliefs and values and what new habits are needed to move forward into the future?
 
Now comes Drucker's best-kept secret of culture change - Do Not Reinvent the Wheel. Instead, seek out individuals or groups within
your organization that already exhibit these desired new habits and ask them how they do it. Next shift recognitions, rewards and
consequences in support of the new desired habits.
 
And finally, the hardest part: leaders need to practice the new habits themselves. They must be willing to make mistakes and tinker
some more, until the formula is found that helps their organization move through the hard economic times and into the future.
 
Voila - best practices for tinkering with culture in five easy steps!
MBA Oath and Corporate Culture
21
Lesson Learned...shared values are key to developing the next generation of business leaders
 
Have you heard about the MBA Oath?
 
It was put together by a group of graduating Harvard Business School students in May 2009 - part of a growing movement within the
business school community to resurrect social, personal and organizational stewardship responsibilities among business
management professionals.
 
The Oath is a voluntary code of conduct created to bind together business school grads with a set of shared values to guide their day-
to-day actions and decisions as future managers and leaders.
 
The MBA Oath is not as naive as you might think. Some professions, such as medicine, require graduating students to take the
Hippocratic Oath which focuses on the social as well as the clinical responsibilities of practicing physicians.
 
It seems reasonable to establish shared professional values for MBA students as well.
 
The potential exists to start setting expectations among graduates to think of themselves as managers with ensuing obligations and
benefits. The profession can then use the strength of peer pressure and disciplinary action to enforce organizational stewardship
standards rather than wait for regulatory or shareholder retaliatory actions.
 
These professional standards also have the promise of affecting the workplace cultures of the organizations MBA graduates will
someday lead. And the business world that we all live and work in every day.
 More
The culture of organizations are most strongly influenced by the personal beliefs and training of their founders and long-term leaders. The behaviors they model and
reward are one of the primary culture-creating mechanisms in corporations.
 
What better place to start than in the classroom and at graduation ceremonies?
 22

What’s next for 21st century leaders who want to take charge of culture – and make it a source
of personal competitive advantage? Start observing and digging deeper for culture clues
that help you understand and resolve problems.

I will continue to monitor pop culture, the news and combine with my experiences as a
change management consultant - turned culture sleuth. Moving forward, blogging will
continue at Leading-Workplace-Change with an expanded focus on Why Differences
Matter, Working in Networked Organizations and in the Global Arena – the new
frontiers for 21st century leaders.

Look for more lessons to apply in your own life.

Thank you.

Terri
About Author
23

Terri Kruzan is a workplace culture specialist with more than 20 years of

experience integrating culture knowledge into broad-based
organizational change efforts at more than 100 companies. She
believes it is important to take the mystery out of managing culture
and supports managers and leaders in practical “how-to” skills to
apply culture knowledge to their day-to-day tasks.  Her blog
“Leading-Workplace-Change,” features insights and stories of
personal and organizational adaptations and won a Finalist Stevie’s
Award for Women in Business for 2008 Blog of the Year.  She
received her MBA from the Goizueta School of Business at Emory
University and her BA from Mt. Holyoke College. She studied
organizational culture under Dr. Edgar Schein of M.I.T. and Dr.
Roosevelt Thomas. She co-authored the book A Guide to Culture
Audits.