HOW TO ACHIEVE THE RIGHT CULTURE

This word “culture” is banded around quite a lot these days, but what exactly is it and how can you ensure you have the “right” one.

Well after lots of research, I have concluded that the best definition is:
“The way things are done around here”
But how do you decide the way things are to be done around here?

A little while ago I had the opportunity of working with a group of Senior Managers who were about to manage a large brand new, purpose built Distribution Centre for a major retailer. The managers had come together from different parts of the business and were expected to develop operating practices and people management processes for around 400 staff.

I worked with them to determine how they would like their site to be. We commenced the process before anyone of the 400 staff had been recruited. I facilitated a number of sessions with the Senior Team, helping them to determine their vision for their site from a cultural point of view.
When I asked them ”ideally, how would you like it to be?”. As you might expect they came up with statements such as:

• Treat people like we would like to be treated ourselves
• Have people who use their initiative
• Understand people's problems
• Be open and honest
• Feel involved
• Feel valued
• Treat people fairly
• Reward and praise achievement and effort etc…..etc

I also got the team to complete a questionnaire describing how ideally they would like it to be. The results from the questionnaire bore a striking similarity to the profile for an ideal company.

Once this vision had been decided, attention was focused on the type of people needed within the business to achieve the vision. What characteristics, key attributes and skills would they need?

The day to day work within the Distribution Centre was not complex. People could be trained from scratch for the majority of tasks whether they are picking, goods-in unloaders, fork truck drivers etc. Therefore, the emphasis was to be on recruiting staff, particularly the first-line Managers with People Skills.

We wanted:

• People who gain satisfaction through seeing others grow
• People who will devote energy to coaching others
• People who appreciate the strengths in others
• People who have the ability to inspire and motivate others
• People who are achievers
• People who believe in the benefits of asking for and giving honest feedback
• People who have concern for self-development

So, how could we go about seeking out people with these skills?

The more traditional route taken when recruiting managers and staff was to concentrate and test for technical and specialist skills. However, on this occasion, it was believed that the technical skills need not be that great, and they could be trained. What was more difficult to be trained would be to get the right attitude towards people in general, those softer, interpersonal skills which were to be vital if the vision was to be fulfilled.
So, the process for recruiting the first-line managers, was to test for People Management and Leadership capabilities.

At initial interview, the approach was to determine what they valued and believed in. The reason being that it is always possible to learn technical skills, but values and beliefs are developed over time and are more difficult to change.

Taking the lead from the statements about how we wanted it to be, a number of competency based interview questions were devised. All candidates would be asked to quote specific examples of what they had done previously.

For example:

• Give me some examples of how you have involved your sub-ordinates when making decisions.
• Give me some examples of what you have done in the last two/three years to recognise and reward individual effort.
• Give me some examples about how you have evaluated performance in a fair and objective manner
• What have you done to inspire and motivate others?
• What have you done to maintain your own personal development?

The results from the interviews were enlightening. Those who possessed the attributes we were seeking, had no difficulty in relaying specific examples to confirm that they really did value and believe in the things we were looking for. Others, who did not share similar values, but may have been technically very competent, really struggled to understand what we were trying to assess.

The outcome from all the interviews was the recruitment of a first-line management team who all bought-into the vision we were aiming to create and were not in conflict with the approaches to people the senior team intended to take.

These first-line managers proved to be a major asset to the business and crucial in getting the overall culture right. They went on to apply a similar interview approach when recruiting staff for their respective departments.

When the site opened, people visiting from other areas of the business were quite open in describing the culture as very different from anything they had previously witnessed. There really was a different feel to the place.

The business continues to prosper and exceed expectations. It just goes to show that if appropriate effort is put into achieving the type of business we all would like to work in, it can be achieved.