The difference between talking about values and actually living them
Culture, in its simplest definition, is how you really do things. It’s how you make decisions, how you treat each other, and what you tolerate. Going back to an old adage: what you permit, you promote. But here’s the wake-up call every executive needs to hear—focusing on culture transformation requires more than just talking about it.
When Leaders Model the Wrong Behaviors
One of the biggest missteps I see organizations make is mistaking a communication campaign for true culture change. Don’t get me wrong—communication and culture transformation go hand in hand. But a communication campaign rings hollow or can actually erodes credibility when the stated values look nothing like the actual leader behaviors.
Let me share a story that perfectly illustrates this point.
I was working with a large healthcare system that included multiple hospitals and medical practices. During a senior leadership meeting, I observed something that spoke volumes about their culture. At the meeting were the CEO of the main hospital, the CEO of all medical practices, and key personnel from HR, operations, and various clinical departments.
When both CEOs were present and engaged, everyone else was attentive and participating. But throughout our one-hour meeting, both CEOs were frequently preoccupied. They focused on their phones several times. Twice they got up and left the room to take calls. When they did, there was a marked change in the other leaders’ behavior as well.
When the CEOs disengaged, the rest of the attendees disengaged. They didn’t make eye contact with me. They started looking at their phones and completely disengaged from the conversation.
Living Values vs. Communicating Values
Later, I followed up with the CEOs in private 1:1 conversations. I started by asking them to remind me of their three core values, which they did easily. Two of those values were respect and accountability. I let them know that I didn’t see any evidence of those values during the meeting. I explained that the minute they left, everybody mimicked their behaviors—getting on their phones and completely disengaging. It was disrespectful and a sign that they lacked accountability when the senior leaders were not present.
Fortunately, both leaders received this feedback well, apologized and told me how they planned to follow up with the others in attendance. They recognized that if they wanted to change the culture, their efforts needed to start with their own behaviors.
This story illustrates a crucial point: it’s not what you communicate about your core values that matters most—it’s how you live them and model them that makes the biggest difference in your culture.
You can include culture as a core strategic objective, but don’t assume that all it will take to achieve your objective is a communication plan that talks about your values. Yes, communication is important. But if leaders don’t model the espoused behaviors consistently, your efforts will fail.
The Behavior-Values Alignment Challenge
The bottom line: culture transformation requires good communication, but even the best communication efforts will fail to achieve desired results if leaders’ behaviors aren’t aligned with stated values.
Take respect, for example. You can talk about respect as a core value all you want, but if leaders walk down the hall without greeting anyone or making eye contact, that behavior flies in the face of the words around respect. And staff notice.
So how do you evaluate your culture? You need to take a hard look at:
- What are the actual behaviors throughout the organization?
- What are the beliefs and attitudes among employees, providers, and middle managers?
- What is the consistent message about values?
- How is that message aligned with everyone’s behavior?
Most organizations don’t do this effectively. Often, it takes an objective, outside perspective to really examine what’s happening by drilling down into these areas with an honest and unbiased assessment.
That’s where we come in. We can help you determine the level of alignment that exists between your stated cultural values, the behaviors exhibited by your leaders, and the messages employees are receiving.
The question isn’t whether your employees are watching your behavior. They are. The question is: what are they learning from what they see? Let’s set up a call to talk about how we could start with focus groups to find out what your employees are thinking about the culture.
Tags: change, change management, changing culture, corporate culture, culture, CultureTransformation, employee communication, HealthcareLeadership, OrganizationalCulture
