Retail Observer

RETAILOBSERVER.COM JULY 2022 46 Steven Morris On Brand D uring a conversation with an HR leader I advise, she confessed that she was concerned about their cultural veneer. "Veneer," I repeated, "What's beneath it?" She went on to explain that on the surface things seem good, even great. As a team, they are polite in meetings, the team is hardworking, the company is profitable, and most people seem to get along. Then there are the issues meetings, which get below the veneer. Experience has taught me the biggest threat to a healthy culture is fear. It has many names: unsafe, worries, anxiety, discomfort, distress, agitation. THE FRONT LINE OF ATTRACT, RECRUIT, RETAIN The events of the past couple of years have cultivated a near-daily relationship with fear – and not a good one. The HR leader in this story is not alone. To me, it feels like HR leaders are the Post-COVID front-line workers. The need for great HR is increased by the growing need to engage and retain great employees and build a cultural brand that attracts more of the right prospects. And so much more. When we don't examine why things went the way they did – good, bad, or otherwise – we don't have the insight to understand why something worked or didn't, and what to do about it today, and tomorrow. Fear in a culture usually comes from conversations that didn't happen about events that affected someone's morale, engagement, and/or trust. Gone unchecked, fear in a culture can be covered up by an organization that's trying to be too "nice." While niceness in a culture can be genuine, if you don't have the difficult or hard conversations, you'll experience a veneer of niceness, but you'll also see back- channeling or gossip. Often in these types of cultures, leaders are tolerating a thin layer of politeness that clouds the deeper issues. While we strive for harmony in cultures, if we don't address the underlying issues, leaders will simply bypass what's really happening. Here are three remedies to overcome fear in a culture: • Clarify acceptable values and behaviors. As the saying goes, being clear is being kind. Therefore, clarifying what your behavioral values are and holding each other accountable is essential. Being explicit in how your team should express intellectual honesty, clear and candid feedback, and how the team responds to tough questions are vital to team health. Sometimes, this may look like challenging the status quo that you and your team helped to create. When you challenge each other, you hold each other accountable. After all, living the culture is everyone's responsibility. • Create Candor Protection. Part of a healthy culture is having each other's backs. Often this looks like protecting others in public situations, like meetings. If you want people to have the courage to speak candidly, they need to feel that they're in a safe environment to do so. By accommodating healthy dissent, you recast the cultural tone to one that has psychological safety at the heart. • Confront Poor Behavior. If you don't immediately confront a performance problem, you're tolerating it. Each team member is complicit in the culture you create. If you hesitate to act, you diminish the clarity of what you stand for. Often, standing up to bad or questionable behavior sends the strongest message. By holding people accountable respectfully and privately, you create boundaries. Boundaries are some of the most loving things you can create and hold for others. Trust is diminished when we don't confront what needs to be confronted. This also weakens our ability to hold each other, and ourselves accountable. All of this, of course, kills outcomes and results. Fear can also inhibit us from seeing what's truly taking place in front of us. All cultures need to be examined so the mistakes, misunder- standings and missed opportunities of the past don't dictate your future. The antidote to fear in a culture is the understanding and insight that come from the cultural examination – and living your cultural aspirations into being. From this awareness, you can be armed with the wisdom to change, adapt and evolve, then dictate your future. With clarity, protection and accountability, you can build a truly kind culture – one where the team thrives. THREE REMEDIES TO CULTURE KILLERS Steven Morris is a brand, culture and leadership advisor, author, and speaker. Over his 25+ years in business he's worked with 3,000+ business leaders at 250+ global and regional companies. Discover: https://matterco.co RO

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