January 2025
The People Puzzle
“Get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats.”
– Jim Collins
The people in any organization make the culture. Their level of engagement, the way they treat one another, and the standards to which they hold themselves all contribute to how the company operates. As you know, it is up to the leaders to set the expectations for what they want the culture to look like and to hold people accountable to those expectations both from a job responsibility standpoint and a culture standpoint. Great leaders also have the ability to leverage the strengths of their team members, and build strategy around the skillsets that complement each other. They understand that people have different needs, desires and ambitions and are able to respond to those accordingly. This month we encourage you to to take stock of the culture and the people within your organization with the following prompts:
Prompts:
Review Mission and Values
Go over the mission and values with your team. Have them rank the values 1-5 based on how well the company is living those values. 1 = barely knew it was a value, 5 = I see examples of that almost every day. Use post it notes for people to write their answer and then come stick it on the corresponding value. Engage your team in a discussion around why they scored each value they way they did.
Awareness
Have each person write down one thing they need to be more successful at their job, and one thing they personally can do to better support the culture of the company. This will give you a good idea of alignment between where people are and how that corresponds to the needs of the company.
Collaboration
Ask team members to write down two people within the company who do a great job of working closely together. Bonus when it's two people who work in different departments! Why are they successful working together? What actions do they take that make them a great example of teamwork? How do they navigate conflict? The goal here is to highlight what great teamwork looks like within the company so that others hopefully aspire to do the same.
New Opportunities
Are there any skillsets missing from our company? If we could add someone to the team, what would they do? How would they contribute to making us even more successful? This is a fresh way to look at areas for improvement. Instead of belaboring the things that aren't working, encourage your team to think about what we could add in terms of talent or a new position that might transform how you operate.
Bonus Activities:
Culture Performance Matrix
We recommend doing this exercise with your executive team or the senior leaders in your organization (not necessarily the whole group). Plot the leaders your team on the Culture Performance Matrix. Then have a discussion about what you see on the graph. What needs to change? Do you have blue dots that need to have their job shifted? Do you have pink or red dots that need CDE (Career Development Elsewhere).
MIBE Culture Assessment
You all took this assessment while part of MIBE Monthly. Moving forward we will make this available to our Masters Community to take on an annual basis. It should provide you with data and information on how you are doing and areas where you can continue to MIBE! We will be sending you a link to send to your teams.