Part 1 | Company Culture: Definition, Benefits and Strategies | Stories With Traction Podcast

SHOW NOTES:

SERIES: This podcast episode is a part of a company culture series with Ricardo Gonzalez on the Stories With Traction Podcast.

SUMMARY: In this episode, Ricardo Gonzalez and Matt Zaun talk about what company culture is and why most leaders get it wrong.

RICARDO GONZALEZ BIO: Ricardo is the Founder and CEO of Bilingual America and the author of numerous books that focus on multicultural leadership and cultural communications.  He has consulted for many multinational and Fortune 500 companies. He aims to help organizations develop healthy cultural mindsets and skill sets since this drives human connection, creativity, and collaboration.

For more info, check out Ricardo here:
https://ricardogonzalez.com
https://bilingualamerica.com/

PAST EPISODE MENTIONED: Company Culture Statement Needed | https://storieswithtraction.buzzsprout.com/1781130/10862290-company-culture-statement-needed

MATT ZAUN BIO: Matt is an award-winning speaker and storyteller who empowers organizations to attract more clients through the art of strategic storytelling. Matt’s past engagements have catalyzed radical sales increases for over 300 organizations that range from financial institutions to the health and wellness industry.

Matt shares his expertise in persuasion with executives, sales professionals, and entrepreneurs, who he coaches on the art of influence and how to leverage this for profits and impact.

For more info, check out Matt Zaun here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattzaun/

*Below is an AI-generated transcript, which may contain errors

in persuading people of strategic storytelling, enjoy this episode. As I travel across the country giving strategic storytelling workshops, there tends to be one theme that has come up again and again and that is for guarding company culture, how to create a vibrant company culture. What's interesting is six months ago I launched an episode where there were many different aspects of culture that was unpacked. And surprisingly to me, the episode did better than it was one of the most listened to episodes last year. So I had to have the gentlemen back that unpack different elements of culture, especially as more and more leaders are asking for what do we do regarding culture. So today, I have Ricardo Gonzalez, who is agreed to do a two part series unpacking elements of how to create a vibrant company culture. So I highly recommend going and checking out the last episode I will have that in the show notes. Ricardo is the founder and CEO of bilingual America and he's the author of numerous books, the focus on multicultural leadership and cultural communications. Welcome back, Ricardo.
Thanks, Matt. I love talking with you. So I'm really appreciate what you're doing. And I listened to your show. So thank you. I press the lever I'm actually elicited. So. Yeah,
so I wasn't surprised that our last episode did well, but I was surprised with how well it did. And I think there's a reason for that. I think what started out as buzzwords on company culture actually is now being viewed as No, this isn't just these aren't just buzzwords these aren't just we have to check a box leaders know more than ever they need to at least position their organizations to cultivate a very vibrant company culture. And there's different ways as you know that leaders can be looking to do that. So I it is an absolute need and I do feel that it will continue to be a need going forward and 2023 So I want to run off the back dive into different things that have changed. culturally speaking, and what you foresee coming down the road. Let's just focus on this year, so to speak. So clearly, there's been major changes in the way people work. There's been a lot of hybrid work, there's been a lot of virtual work 100% remote work and I've been hearing from leaders Ricardo that because this is what they're telling me behind the scenes not saying this to their people, but we know that this is the case is that culture seemed to be wherever their employees met wherever their employees worked. So basically the building was culture so to speak. Even though they weren't really focused on it. It's we're all together. This is our culture. Well, now that we have remote work, and now that we have virtual that which is a hybrid of work, a lot of leaders are struggling when it comes to creating the company culture at least that they envision. So for leaders that are dealing with this, what would be some things that you would recommend that they'd be mindful of?
So the reason I think a lot of people are interested in this is because there's quite a bit of confusion about this. Right. I've sat in executive leadership rooms, and I've asked kind of a blind giving everybody a piece of paper, right? And ask them to define their corporate culture, and you're talking about C suite leaders. So whatever C suite leaders may be in a room so let's say you have a CIO and a CTO and a CFO and a CSO, and, you know, whoever was seated there, right? And let's say you have eight people in the C suite. And you ask one simple question, and that is, how would you define your company culture? And so everybody just writes that down and you get paid different answers. So when leadership is not clear as to what that culture really is, then it's near impossible for the people to be clear as to what their expectations of culture are. So culture either happens because leadership, curates it and creates it, or it happens organically as the people created. What COVID Did when you decentralized people is you took away that organic ability to create culture within an organization. And so that created more chaos. The The other problem is, is that most people don't even know our culture is. So if you ask that same question, what is culture? Most people don't know? So literally, we're we're charged with and I believe that the purpose of leadership is to create cultures where people thrive together from all backgrounds. Okay, so if somebody wants a different from my definition of leadership, a leaders main task is to create a culture where people from all backgrounds and all cultural frameworks can thrive together. Right. So if I'm a leader, and I'm not sure what culture really is, and if I'm not sure what our culture really is, and now we've had this kind of de centralization of the people, which has caused a difficulty within organizations, then I think that's why this gets listened to and people shouldn't be listening. Right? They shouldn't be listening. So that's just to frame it up a little bit. So I think your question was, what, what should leaders be considering or what should they be thinking about? I think the the first thing is and perhaps go back to that original conversation you and I have, and that is to understand what culture even is before you start trying to manage it. Right. So very quickly, culture is if someone wants just a very, very broad definition of culture, it is the shared experiences of people who, who are together, right? If you want a more technical and real definition of culture it is the aggregate of the beliefs, the values, the norms, the symbols and the language of those people. In other words, if you don't have shared beliefs, you don't have shared values. You don't have shared norms. You don't have shared symbols and you don't have shared language. You don't have a shared culture. What we're trying to do and especially in America is we're trying to bring people from all these different types of cultures together and somehow say to them, here's a new one. Right? But we're not even clear as to what that new one is. And so it becomes very, very difficult, very confusing.
I very much appreciate you mentioning that especially painting the picture of I'm just I'm envisioning C suite executives sit around a table, you're asking them to do this exercise and they're just in complete bewilderment with what some of them are saying. And I think this is really important for everyone listening to recognize is that we do think in pictures. So unbelievably important to recognize especially as leaders we think in pictures, the words that we speak, paint pictures in people's minds. You know, I love mentioning this in my trainings that even if you were to say something as simplistic as dog, D, O G dog, you go around the room and you ask everyone to describe what a dog is, everyone's gonna have a radically different picture and that is a simplistic topic. so then when we take something as complex as culture to many people, of course, there's going to be all kinds of different pictures that are across the board. so I very much appreciate you getting everyone on the same page as far as a unification with at least what is it the definition of culture. I am interested to know though, what are some of the. Can you recall some of the most unique definitions you've heard over the years of what people have brought culture as well
I think the biggest hazard, that's, that's, that's interesting. The biggest confusion right now is.
if it's properly understood, culture is not the EI. And so what we've done now is we've tasked the culture of an organization to the diversity, equity inclusion, division or department or whatever we buy up. But that's not culture that's built around metrics of whatever one might consider to be equitable, or inclusive, which I think are both misunderstood terms in and of themselves. Right. And so I think that that's one of the things that we're people are struggling is in their definition of culture and who's responsible for it? The answer to who's responsible for culture within an organization is all leaders. In fact, I've always had this contention if in fact, all leaders within an organization were culturally healthy and skilled. So I put those two things together. If all leaders within an organization were culturally healthy and skilled you would have zero need or the department because they would be naturally inclusive. They would be naturally equitable. They would be naturally empathetic. The fact that we need and I'm not saying we don't need or haven't needed, I think that there is a next evolution beyond this. And I think it's the focus on culture itself. But the fact that we even need that is simply indicative of a deeper root issue. And that is, is that the core of our leadership, many times it's not culturally healthy and skilled. And we know this, we've done a lot of assessments on leaders, and we know this to be true. So we're asking people who themselves are not culturally skilled, who are not fully culturally healthy. To create a cultural a healthy environment. And that's not possible. So we have literally we have put the cart before the horse. Right, sure. And we're putting band aids on organizational culture rather than actually curing it. And so I always talk about the three C's of culture. So you have to sometimes if it's not healthy, you have to cure it. If you're starting at zero, you can create it right. And then, in all cases, you have to curate it. You have to maintain it, or you'll lose it. The law of entropy will set in which Brian Tracy kind of made famous by, you know, everything declines and, and so I think you have to kind of look at it Okay, where are we at in as an organization as it relates to our culture? How do we measure that? And you only can measure people culture through people, not through metrics that people will determine what you know, so I was looking at one of the symptoms of an unhealthy culture, people are complaining, higher turnover rates. You know, you have the quiet resignation, right? All these other things are going on. That is indicative that those are simply symptoms. Sure, of unhealthy cultures. That's all they are. And so it's an amazing thing is is that companies are so good at putting band aids on these things. You know, but we don't actually want to do the real work of curing the culture. So that does take work, obviously, you know, so I think that the other thing that happens with dei is it becomes depending on who the DEI leader is, and this bears out and is no criticism of anyone here becomes very agenda driven towards whatever particular culture they may be coming from.
You bring up a lot of good points. One of the things that I want to focus on as you're mentioned regarding curae and I want leaders to grab a hold of this is that this is not once and done set walk away. That's really important to recognize because I feel like again, it's that check the box. All right, we got all these different things set we understand what our culture is, and then they slowly step away. And that's not going to work. This is a regular reoccurring, figuring out what's working, what's not working, the organic part that you mentioned, there could be different changes that leaders people are doing that they need to focus on. So would you recommend that leaders spend you know they spend almost like a a debrief from quarter to quarter do you recommend month to month what would be an action step for for leaders to step back and say every quarter every month we're gonna review X, Y and Z, what will be the timing and what would be some things that for them to review?
That's like saying, Do you recommend people to eat every three months?
Well said so this is even more right culture is
the very metabolism of your company. Got it? It's your DNA. It is the energy that propels life. So, it is something that when properly understood,
touches every part of our day. It touches every one of our decisions.
It touches because it's who we are. Culture is so powerful, so pervasive. I give an example in some of my speeches, that if you were born in Iraq, or turkey or Syria, what would be the statistical probability that you are the Islam religion?
The answer is well over 99%. That is the power
of culture. Yeah. So being mindful of culture on a daily basis,
say we're we've bought into this idea that within an organizational culture, we should celebrate differences, when culture actually isn't all about our differences. It's about what we have in common. So you can bring people into a macro culture that's properly created and curated from many different micro cultures. But if that macro culture is not properly created, if it is not clear then that organization will have a weak culture. So the whole concept of diversity within a culture if you think going back to what a culture is, a culture is a set of shared beliefs, values, norms, symbols and language. Right. So we have to create that, especially if we're going to bring in people who are have multiple micro cultures. Sure, and that's that's a very difficult thing, and it's one of the reasons that may larger and medium sized companies are struggling because we have the celebration of diversity, but we haven't paid nearly enough attention as to how to bring all of that diversity into a compelling macro culture. She says we have to have shared beliefs and values and norms and symbols a language or we don't have a culture. So I would I would actually say to you, Matt, that most companies who talk about organizational culture, don't actually even have one.
And you're absolutely right. No one What about companies that don't have the culture? So we've been talking a lot about C suite, you know, their definition. What about companies that don't have the culture, but leaders that can make a difference within their organizations? You mentioned who's responsible all leaders. So what if it's not C suite? What if as a VP of sales or VP of marketing or what if it is a director of a certain department and they recognize there are issues within the company but they love where they personally are they love the team that they're responsible for? Can they create culture within small pockets of an organization and be successful?
Absolutely. Absolutely. Wherever you have a group of people, there's no limit or construction of size here. Doesn't have to be a country. It doesn't have to be a city could be the sales department. Right? It could be 10 people, but wherever you have a group of people have a shared that I'm just going to sound very repetitive, but I'm doing it for a reason. Because repetition is the mother of all learning. Anytime you have a group of people who have a shared set of beliefs and values, look at the military, which has probably been the most effective in bringing diversity into its ranks while still maintaining a shared set of beliefs values, norms, language and symbols. And they go through bootcamp. Right. And the purpose of bootcamp is not just to get them in shape. The purpose of bootcamp is to get them to buy into that culture that they have clearly established. Sure. Right. Absolutely. And companies are not doing this. I this touches also, by the way, the onboarding process, because it's the onboarding process where the company has to, and people don't like the word indoctrination, but think about the word doctrine. Okay? Doctrine is just a set of beliefs. Right. So because beliefs are the foundational point of every culture, right, everything flows out of beliefs, companies and their onboarding, actually, there is an indoctrination process. That's not a bad word. It simply means that we are teaching you our beliefs. And hopefully you will also share these beliefs because if you don't share these beliefs, you can't be part of our culture. Because by the nature of culture itself, beliefs must be shared. Sure, whatever those beliefs happen to be. And it's like we're afraid of that because we're afraid of being discriminatory. But discrimination is different. Sure. It's, it's a different subject altogether. Then saying, here's our culture. We're going to be transparent with you about it. And if you don't feel you fit in this isn't for you. There's nothing wrong with that as long as we give equal access to all people of all backgrounds and all persuasions and all religions and all races and all of those things, is because there are churches, sometimes some churches do a good job with this. Because there is a, I don't know if you're a person who goes to church, but there is a definite indoctrination period. Right? Absolutely. And to become a member, what do you have to do? You have to ascribe to that set of beliefs. You have to ascribe to that set of values and you have to ascribe to those behavioral expectations or you can't become a member. And the most amazing thing happens if you study it the looser churches become with this the more open they become. And then the less rigid they are about requiring a subscription to their beliefs and values and norms. Guess what happens? You know what happens?
The less they the less they grow
shorn Sure. Because they don't know what they believe right? They exactly sure they haven't anchored it in. So So speaking of anchoring and speaking of values Ricardo so I am interested to hear this from you. As you mentioned that under culture, your beliefs, values, norms, symbols, and language. One of the things that I find fascinating you probably will not find fascinating because through your work, you've probably seen this too. It's very interesting when I go into a company and I asked them well, your values and they don't even know they have values somewhere plastered on a blank wall somewhere, but they don't. It's not enough of it's not it's not sticky enough for them to remember. And that there's a big challenge with that, right? That's just one subcategory under a culture is the element of values and then when you have a generational business where it's, you know, the mother or father is not passing it down to the child, and they don't have any connection to the values that they had. What are your thoughts regarding that? Should companies be reevaluating their values to begin with? They've tried to figure out where are we going as far as our values are concerned? Where would they even start in that regard?
So the reason they're kind of iffy on their values is because they're not clear on their beliefs. Because values literally spin off of beliefs. You mentioned, picture being more important than words or that words generate pictures. So rather than thinking in terms of here are five different aspects of culture, think in terms of a wheel, and at the top of the wheel are beliefs and then there's an arrow going down and those beliefs spin off the values and then another arrow kind of going down around that circle and the values will spin off the norms or the expectations of behavior in a society. And then from those expectations, spin off symbols, the way we visually express ourselves within that society, and then spin off language, the way we verbally express ourselves and that society so it's not like here are five different ear related things. Here are five things one produces the next and they are cumulative in nature. So when people think of language, for example, when I look I want to let you know bilingual America has a language division, right? And so people think of language when they think of Spanish, English, French, German, but language is how we express ourselves verbally. It's not just the actual language. It's how we speak with one another. Do we speak with kindness within our culture? Do we permit people to yell at each other in our culture? Those comes from the beliefs that we hold and the values that we hold. So what I want to somehow help people to understand is that these things are intimately interconnected with one another. So if a person or a company is struggling with values, it's only because they're struggling, and they're not clear on their beliefs. I don't know if that's helpful, but I hope it is, I think it is.
Oh, it's extremely helpful. So just to kind of dive into the language piece, briefly, and then we could talk about the belief part, again, dive a little bit deeper. As far as language is concerned. One of the things that stuck out in my mind is I love looking at different different thought leaders, so to speak, that that companies enjoy. So as an example, I know when a company is really into Seth Godin or Malcolm Gladwell, it's going to be more academic in nature, my session is going to be it's just going to be a little bit different than if a company thoroughly enjoys a Gary Vaynerchuk. Right. This is more of a biomass than form of communication. I think it ties into your language piece as well because these thought leaders, they they communicate and they connect with people using different language that's really important to recognize especially regarding a culture, right, especially when I'm dealing with certain industries, you can tell the language is different and in a big, big way. And also, we think of the United States, but there's a lot of different pockets. As you know, different states are different. I mean, I've spoken in most US states and I will tell you that a Chicago audience is a lot different than in Orange County audience, vastly different. An audience down south is a lot different than when I'm speaking in New York City. Like I literally changed the tone, the pace, the structure of my talk based on even different groups in the US. So that's really important for people to recognize, but I want to dive into the belief part as well, Ricardo, so for companies that are reevaluating their values, so to speak, what are some beliefs that they should be mindful of they believe in A, B or C what would be a couple beliefs that you would throw out as an example to tie in a value they believe in integrity, so the value should be blank. How would you how would you do that? Okay,
so some people may say I believe in equality, but equality is not actually a belief. It's a value that goes into a norm but what would be the belief that would drive the value of equality?
Yeah, garden. So being mindful of elements like that,
okay, so maybe the belief is, we believe all humans were created equal under God, however, one would want to express that our creed are the founding fathers of our country, by the way, we're very good at this. Okay, but that belief, we believe that all people are created equal. would then give the value of equality which would create the norm of equal treatment. Which from a symbolic standpoint, would find ways to visualize that and from a language standpoint, we could never more than degrade or even upgrade people over other people or degrade people under other people. So you just kind of have this. So if you took that one thing, let's say you have a value of inclusivity right? What would be the the belief that would drive inclusivity we believe that all people all humans should have equal opportunity. Maybe that's the belief. Sure. Right. In the last time we had this conversation, I talked to you about a culture statement. I think companies are missing it. You know, the mission statements fine. The vision statement is fine. There's some people have a value statement, but I think what companies really need is a culture statement. Sure. And I talked about this in my book to belong or not to belong in more detail. But it's a simple some people might consider it to be formulaic, but it's not formulaic anthropologist and sociologists all agree that these are the five common core elements of culture. And so that's true, and I believe it to be true. Then if I'm going to create or curate culture, or if I'm going to cure it, we have to then cure and clarify our beliefs and we have to somehow indoctrinate people teach people and by so just so people don't think that indoctrination is a bad word, coming from the word doctrine, which just means teaching, right? We need to teach people that this is why what we believe and why and this is how it works out in our culture and if you're not willing to ascribe to that, then you shouldn't be in this culture. Right? If you look at the word organization, it comes from the word organism. Okay. It is truly an organism that is simply formed up by different people. And if you look at departments look at them as cells, and you start seeing differences in the way people might visualize an organization. Right? But it's, it's the organism and then what makes up an organism. And when Yeah, I'm not trying to be too heavy here. I'm trying to be practical. Sure. Okay. So I think we're approaching this incorrectly, incredibly incorrectly and most accounts, I think were well intentioned. Right, so I no one's questioning motive or desire here. I wouldn't do that. I just think we don't have the right approach. Sure. If we really want to cure ourselves. Right,
which is the first step and your theory right? It's cure. That's right.
It's your cure, or you create your Creator and both cases you have to you have to cure it. Absolutely.
Absolutely. So I very much appreciate you mentioning all that recorded that is, that's a lot of good stuff that you shared right there. A lot of good stuff and I very much appreciate your time and I'm very, very thankful that you've agreed to do two episodes regarding culture. So this is the first one we will have the the second one next week. However, I want to highlight three things that I pulled out of this conversation before we close because I think it's extremely important for leaders to recognize you've mentioned the unification of the definition. So unified definition of company culture. You had mentioned that you have been in numerous rooms with C suite executives and all of them have different opinions on what culture is. We need to get people on the same page as far as them being unified. I also appreciate you mentioning that dei is not culture. I think that that is a big misconception especially prevalent in the United States. They need to go deeper obviously dei is very important in many, many records. However, it's not a check the box, hey, we have culture now. It goes much deeper. You mentioned numerous reasons for that. And then I also really appreciate your three C's cure, create and curate. And again, it's not set it and then slowly walk away and hope that it works. You actually challenged us to think even deeper, you said Be mindful of culture on a daily basis. It really does tie into a lot of the decisions that we make from that organization and organisms slash organization, so to speak. So I appreciate you mentioning that. And Ricardo if anyone wants to get more information on you what you do, where's the best place that they can go to do that?
Are either my personal page which is my name Ricardo gonzalez.com, or the corporate page which is bilingual america.com. Either one of those they can get past
perfect and I will mention to Ricardo I you actually sent me one of your books several months ago, I read it. It was a phenomenal book. And I mean that sincerely. There was a lot of different things that came up that I recognized I needed to do as a leader so highly, highly recommend people checking out your page they will learn if you think you've learned a lot and the conversation we had today, you should go check out Ricardo. I will have those links in the show notes. Check him out. It is unbelievably insightful. Recorded. Thank you so much for your time, and I very much
appreciate it. My pleasure. Thank you, Matt.
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