{"id":559,"date":"2018-04-23T11:29:37","date_gmt":"2018-04-23T11:29:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/?p=559"},"modified":"2018-05-31T19:30:48","modified_gmt":"2018-05-31T19:30:48","slug":"matt-tenney-organizational-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/matt-tenney-organizational-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Tenney, Chief People Officer, The Generous Group"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"> <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/forms\/d\/e\/1FAIpQLScFD7XYWgHendz7nS7X6oYuVKhKzoXkJcak4v2Pr6ty3eQhvA\/viewform?usp=sf_link\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-561\" src=\"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/HvjWN-i2_400x400-300x300.png\" alt=\"Matt Tenney\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/HvjWN-i2_400x400-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/HvjWN-i2_400x400-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/HvjWN-i2_400x400-250x250.png 250w, https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/HvjWN-i2_400x400.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><strong>Matt Tenney<\/strong> is the <strong>Chief People Officer<\/strong> of <strong>The Generous Group<\/strong>, a marketing agency with a workplace culture designed to improve the well-being of team members and create the conditions for world peace.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">He is also the <strong>author<\/strong> of the highly acclaimed books\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Serve-Great-Leadership-Monastery-Boardroom\/dp\/1118868463\/\"><i>Serve to Be Great: Leadership Lessons from a Prison, a Monastery, and a Boardroom<\/i><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Mindfulness-Edge-Leadership-Personal-Excellence\/dp\/1119183189\"><i>The Mindfulness Edge: How to Rewire Your Brain for Leadership <\/i>and<i> Personal Excellence Without Adding to Your Schedule.<\/i><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>What does organizational culture mean to you?<\/h2>\n<div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">Organizational culture is essentially the same as societal culture.\u00a0 If one asks, &#8220;What is that group of people like?&#8221;\u00a0 the answer you get is likely a good description of the culture.<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\"><\/div>\n<h2 class=\"gmail_default\">What are the major determinants of organizational culture?<\/h2>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">As leaders, one of our core responsibilities is to create a culture in which people thrive and thereby effectively serve each other and the external customers. The most important elements for creating and sustaining that type of culture are<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">(1) creating clearly defined core values with objective, binary metrics for determining whether or not the values are being lived,<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">(2) living the values, as leaders, and<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">(3) making the values non-negotiable &#8211; hiring and firing based on values fit.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">\u200b<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"gmail_default\"><b>What is the best way to communicate company culture?<\/b><\/h2>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">Company culture should be communicated through the core values, and those core values should be communicated as often as possible. The most important way for leaders to communicate them is to actually live them. If that doesn&#8217;t happen, no amount of other forms communication will help.<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">Assuming senior leaders are living the values, they should also have written examples of the values in as many places as possible, they should talk about them whenever possible, they should share them via weekly emails through stories of people living the values, and even encourage teams to role play values-based decision making in team meetings.<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">Until every single person in the organization can recite the values from memory, as well as the associated measurable behaviors that demonstrate one is living that value, I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s possible to communicate the core values too much.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">\u200b<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"gmail_default\">What is the role of employees in organizational culture?<\/h2>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">The three main responsibilities of team members are to<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">(1) hold themselves accountable for living the values,<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">(2) hold others accountable for living the values, and<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">(3) be honest with themselves about whether or not their values are aligned well with the organization (if they&#8217;re not, everyone is better served if the team member finds another team).<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\n<div class=\"gmail_extra\">\n<div class=\"gmail_quote\">\n<div class=\"gmail_extra\">\n<div>\n<div class=\"m_5396861602926400952gmail-m_-6544658370561991550h5\">\n<div class=\"gmail_quote\">\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\n<div>\n<div>\n<h2>What are the ways to innovate company culture? Any best practices to share.<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">\n<p>I think the best practices for creating a highly differentiated culture that adds tremendous value to all stakeholders are outlined above in the answers to questions 2 and 4.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/forms\/d\/e\/1FAIpQLScFD7XYWgHendz7nS7X6oYuVKhKzoXkJcak4v2Pr6ty3eQhvA\/viewform?usp=sf_link\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-488 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Do-you-want-to-recommend-anyone-for-a-Toptalk-interview_-300x300.png\" alt=\"Recommend anyone?\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Do-you-want-to-recommend-anyone-for-a-Toptalk-interview_-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Do-you-want-to-recommend-anyone-for-a-Toptalk-interview_-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Do-you-want-to-recommend-anyone-for-a-Toptalk-interview_-768x768.png 768w, https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Do-you-want-to-recommend-anyone-for-a-Toptalk-interview_-1024x1024.png 1024w, https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Do-you-want-to-recommend-anyone-for-a-Toptalk-interview_-594x594.png 594w, https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Do-you-want-to-recommend-anyone-for-a-Toptalk-interview_-250x250.png 250w, https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Do-you-want-to-recommend-anyone-for-a-Toptalk-interview_.png 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Matt Tenney is the Chief People Officer of The Generous Group, a marketing agency with a workplace culture designed to improve the well-being of team members and create the conditions for world peace. He is also the author of the highly acclaimed books\u00a0Serve to Be Great: Leadership Lessons from a Prison, a Monastery, and a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[12,8,11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":594,"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559\/revisions\/594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grosum.com\/topTalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}