How to Cultivate Culture Change with Lauren Tashman | S01E08 - Cultivate your Culture

Episode Transcript
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Zoran Stojkovic (00:03):
Hello, I'm your host, Zoran Stojkovic and
welcome to Cultivate yourCulture. This podcast we'll be
discussing how leaders can buildconnected high performing teams
and business in sport usingactionable tools, evidence-based
systems and simple processes.
And today on the show, we haveLauren Tashman. Dr. Lauren

(00:25):
Tashman is a Performance Coachand certified Mental Performance
Consultant, based in New YorkCity. She works with clients in
a variety of performance domainson mindset, leadership and team
culture through her practice,Align Performance LLC. And as a
master coach for ValorPerformance. Lauren co-hosts The

(00:46):
Path Distilled podcast, a reallygreat podcast, I'd suggest
checking out. And that podcastexplores the shared human
experience of striving forsuccess. And she's been working
with teams for over 15 yearsnow. Quite a background. Lauren,
welcome to the show.

Lauren Tashman (01:01):
Thanks so much.
Thank you for inviting me totalk about one of my probably my
favorite topics. I don't knowwhy I didn't think about
starting a podcast specificallyon this topic. [LAUGHTER]

So great to talk, you know, to talk to you
and Lauren. Lauren and I metwhen she was delivering a
session down at a conference inPortland, a Sports Psychology
conference. And I was justcaptivated with with the way she
she presented the session andwith her style and delivery. And
so we've stayed in touch sincethen, and had some of these

(01:34):
conversations, kind of like notrecorded. And now we're doing
the thing. [LAUGHTER]

Now other people get to listen in. Yeah

Now other people get to listen in, yeah.
So Lauren, maybe we'll diveright into it. I mean, how, like
"team culture" is this phrasethat gets thrown around so much.
It's hard, sometimes hard topinpoint. So I mean, how, how
can we define it?

It's funny, you say that, because I actually had
a client say that to me theother day, like with very much
frustration in her voice, thefact that people just kind of
flippantly throw around thisterminology now. To me,
honestly, when I think aboutwhat it means, the first thing
that comes to mind is that it'sthe identity of the team, right?

(02:16):
It's who they are, asindividuals and a collective.
It represents their attitudes,their perceptions, their
expectations, the way theyrespond to things. And so that's
why it's so important, becauseit's truly a representation of
that team, which then also feedsinto the behavior piece, right?
And the goals and the norms theyhave, it's not just who they

(02:38):
are, it's what they do thatdemonstrates who they are, which
is a really importantconsideration, right? Because
it's it's easy to have an ideaand identity, it's very
difficult to align multiplepeople, even small, you know,
some of the teams I work withare two person teams, right?
Like maybe two founders, the cofounders in a startup, who

(02:59):
started it together, becausethey were so passionate about
the idea and then find that wow,even with just two of us right
now, it's actually kind of hardto do this work of being a team.
Right but, easier said thandone. So I think it also in that
way, whether it's a small teamor a larger team, like a sports
team, or a MultinationalCorporation, it's about the

(03:23):
environment, right? I often whenI talk to leaders, I talk about
leadership being the job ofcreating, "the right
environment". And what "right"means is complicated as well,
right. And so really workingtowards that creating that, that
identity and that shared senseof identity in terms of how we

(03:44):
live out that identity, thinkingabout the processes that we use,
how we cultivate relationshipsthat are going to serve, work
towards those shared goals. Andthen thinking about how we take
these principles that we haveabout leadership, about teams
about team dynamics, and reallytake a very critical and
intentional, individualizedapproach to thinking about what

(04:07):
does that look like for ourteam? And that's where sometimes
right people really get trippedup because they want as one of a
guest on my podcast recentlysaid that the episode that's
coming up this weekend, there'sno secret sauce, but we're
always looking for the secretsauce, right? And so we have
these principles. And then it'sour job. The hard work is
thinking about, well, how doesthat apply to us and our team

(04:30):
and who we want to be and what,you know, our goals are? That's
really the the multifaceted kindof definition that comes to
mind.

Wow, that's quite a...quite a comprehensive
definition.

[LAUGHTER]

And I mean, some of the some of the wording
I heard you use that I foundinteresting was, was it's a team
identity. It's the attitudes ofthe group. It's the perceptions,
but it's also who they are andwhat they do, which isn't always
aligned. Is it?

Absolutely right. And you know, there's a
kind of saying, which isabsolutely true, which is every
team has a culture, it just notmight be one that has been
intentionally and criticallythought out, right? every leader
has their own core values, theirown needs, their own goals,
every person on a team has thoseas well. And so there's an

(05:21):
environment that gets created bythe very nature of the, you
know, human and social dynamicthat we have to work with. And
so it's really kind of criticallens on that and thinking about
what environment do we have? Andwhat environment do we want to
have? And who do we want to be,which we see in today's world
of, you know, people reallywanting to be purpose driven,

(05:45):
you know, impact driven have asense of meaning, which has
always been a feature of thehuman dynamic, right to have a
sense of meaning, and a sense ofagency, we see that showing up
even more so. And so it's evenmore critical to really be
thinking about team culture.

Right, having a sense of meaning, and that in
that environment can sometimesgive that sense of meaning.

Absolutely. And that's what a lot of people are
looking for, right, is that, youknow, certainly with your more
kind of social, you know,socially organized groups, for
example, you know, in business,there might be some socially
driven, you know, impactstartups. But really, in any
sense, right? We're always, ashumans, we're very goal focused,

(06:26):
and we have our very purposedriven and so that shows up no
matter the team.

So then why is it important to Cultivate the
Culture of a business or sportsteam?

I think it's, it's a huge factor and being
able to set the seat team up forsuccess. Not but not just one
shot success, right? Not the onehit wonder success, but really
more long term success. Andalso, then, because of that, it
helps them be robust when theyface challenges and failures,

(06:57):
right. So I think in a way, itcreates the opportunity for more
consistent success and theability to withstand challenges
and adversities. I think it alsogives people a sense of
belonging, which we see youknow, from a psych need
perspective of our need forrelatedness, or from what's kind
of being referred to as the newpsychology of leadership, this

(07:20):
kind of social identity approachto leadership really picking up
on our, our need for kind of ornot our need, but our tendency
to be kind of in groupers, outgroupers. When it comes to our
social dynamic, it creates asense of "we", a sense of
collective, which does a lot ofthings. For us, it brings
challenges that sense of we butit does a lot of things for us
to set us up for success.

So what I'm hearing you say is Cultivating a
Culture is important because itultimately leads to better
performance, partly becausepeople have that belonging, and
they feel more connected. Butwhy would that elevate
performance? Can't teams performwithout having that sense of
belonging? And...

Certainly, and I think there are many examples of
that in sport and other areas ofteams that perform that way. But
inevitably, at least in myexperiences, in the many years
of doing that, and been doingthis, inevitably there are there
are cracks, right in therelationships, that dynamic that
environment, and it's a lot oftimes what I see is when the

(08:19):
team most needs to perform welltogether. So maybe they've done
a good job of performance. Let'stake a sports team, they've done
a good job performing allseason, and now they're heading
into postseason. Okay, well,they really need to be able to
collectively produce performancein that time period. And because
of the impact of the pressureand stress and things like that,

(08:41):
it can sometimes turn thoselittle cracks or things that are
amiss in the culture into biggerthings that become a
distraction. And that's reallythe idea is that it becomes a
thing that gets in the way ofperformance, whether individual
or group, same thing I've seenwith both teams, and let's say
startup companies is it mightnot be an issue in the

(09:04):
beginning. So the pursuit ofthat, you know, first year of,
you know, getting the businessgoing and getting some income
coming in or the first timepursuing, you know, that
National Championship, becauseof you know, it's being the
first time because of the energybehind that and the excitement
behind that in a particular kindof mental lens, we take on that

(09:27):
the challenges to the cultureand the environment of the group
don't seem to really be anissue. And then but then let's
say that they accomplish thatgoal. Well, then now it's about
either holding on to whateverwas gained, right? So it shifts
us maybe into a kind of a lostmentality. Or it's about
pursuing the next big thing. Andagain, it then maybe exposes

(09:52):
some of the things that weremissed on the culture and then
they become a problem. So it'snot that teams can't be
successful without optimalcultures, it's that that success
might be hit or miss, which isnot what a lot of teams want.

Right. Yeah.
And, and you're saying thatmaybe...maybe they have a
successful year as a team. Butultimately, that's going to
catch up to them. And culture isgoing to be one of the can be
one of the hindrances that getsin the way, and I love your,
your, the way you explain aboutthe cracks, and the cracks get
bigger. And those cracks add upover time. And I think that's a

(10:26):
great way to explain it. Becauseit's like little these little
injuries are happening to to theecosystem. And we're going to
talk about toxic behaviors alittle bit later. But no
thinking about culture,somebody, let's say somebody
says, Yeah, it's important I getit, I get what it is, how can it
be cultivated?

This is a very, a very multifaceted question.
I'm going to try and dodiligence to. And but is that
my, my reason of saying that isthat it's it's honestly not that
simple, right? If it were thatsimple, then you wouldn't have a
need for a podcast, and no onewould need someone like me to
come in and work on the culture.
And so let me maybe just presentsome food for thought for people

(11:09):
listening. I think first andforemost, and I kind of alluded
to this before, I think that,you know, two keys to this are
being intentional, and beingconsistent. You know, I've
worked too much with leaders inteams who think that, you know,
it's just, it's a simple,because it sounds simple, it is
simple. So we come up with ourcore values and that's it,

(11:31):
cool...on the road to having ournew team culture, right? And
there's no, there's noconsistency in terms of really
trying to actually then takethat and make that actually who
we are and how we do things, andnavigate the ebbs and flows of
putting that into practice. Andthe intentional pieces, you

(11:53):
know, what I mentioned beforeabout making sure that you are
taking the principles andapplying them to your team. My
favorite example of this is thewhat happened when places like
Google and other kind of, youknow, big tech startups started
to really focus on you know,employee engagement at work and

(12:16):
making their employees happierwork, right, they get the the
ping pong tables, they have theOpen Office layout, they have
the food and all this stuff,right, like, so then what people
did was say, Okay, well, that'swhat Google's doing. And they're
finding success with that. Sonow we're gonna do that we're
gonna have a ping pong table,we're gonna have an open office
layout, we're gonna, you know,bring in food for our employees,

(12:38):
may or may not be useful foryour culture, right? So
understanding that it's notthose things, it's the
principles like the why behinddoing those things, that's
important to understand andthink about how that maps into
your your team's needs yourworld, and how to then create
your culture around that. Ithink the naturals...

Wow..

Go ahead. Sorry.

No, no, you you first..

I was gonna say, I think a natural starting place
is the values, right? That'stypically when I'm asked to talk
about culture, you know, orbrought in and people say, Well,
what are you going to do? Like,where do we start? We get to
talking about the values, right?
Like, let's talk about your corevalues. If you have them
already. Great. Let's look atthat and what you're doing with
them and how they're working. Ifyou don't have them, well, let

(13:27):
me help you start reallyclarifying those. But I think
the true piece of reallycultivating this is working on
the team environment. If wethink about to get nerdy for a
second, the contingency model ofleadership, which says that
leaders can prioritize, youknow, results or relationships,
and it's about knowing when toprioritize either I think it's a

(13:52):
Daniel Goleman, who talks about,you know, 'the golf bag',
analogy to leadership, likeknowing which club you have to
pull out when, right, the bestleaders have this voluminous
golf bag. And it's not just golfclubs randomly thrown in there.
It's very clearly, you know,bringing in particular golf
clubs and knowing which one touse at which time. And I think,

(14:13):
you know, a lot of our models onleadership then suggest that
creating an optimal culture isabout prioritizing both, which
is truly very difficult,prioritizing both relationships,
and results and performance. Butunderstanding that the
relationships need to be inservice of creating optimal

(14:34):
performance individually, andcollectively, not just we have
good relationships, we getalong, we're friends, we hang
out we know things about eachother, but that we know the
things we need to know we havethe dynamic on our team that
supports us in being able to dothe things that we want or need

(14:56):
to do. And so it's really aboutstarting there on looking at the
environment and trying tocultivate an environment that is
going to support creating thisculture.

The environment and, and ideally, like, some of
the things I heard you mentionedis being intentional and
consistent to build the culture,like sitting down and seeing
whether...it might mean sittingdown and seeing if everybody's
on the same page about thevalues, like, what's the mission
of the company? And if peopleare all over the page, while
it's gonna take developing someconsistent language and an

(15:30):
understanding of that language,and actually then buying into
it, which might be anotherchallenge. You making any
changes and whatnot, but thecontingency model definitely
rings rings true with me. Andand I think that with the golf
bag analogy, you know, theremight be more even more clubs,
but those at least having thosetwo and ideally not hitting

(15:51):
employees ahead with that...

[LAUGHTER]

... is that going to help cultivate this
culture. What's the startingplace, though? Like what? As a
rule of thumb, and I know thatdifferent companies, different
teams are at different stages.
But what would in general, bethe starting place? Lauren, who
has to be in thoseconversations? Is it like a
leadership group thing? They goon a retreat and come up with

(16:14):
this? Is it does it includeeverybody?

Yeah, those are important questions to think
about. Let me start with thewhere it starts. And then I'll
talk about maybe who has to beinvolved in what my thoughts are
on how that looks. But I thinkit starts with some form of an
assessment or evaluation ofwhere they're at with their
culture, like, what is theirculture? And what are the
perspectives on that I like tothink of teams as puzzles in the

(16:39):
sense that every puzzle has tohave, you know, multiple pieces,
and each piece has a particularplace on the team. Then thinking
about that each place on theteam might have a particular
vantage point on the team. Andgetting a sense of those vantage
points is essential. Right.
Again, another kind of nerdymodel here. But there's a

(17:03):
leadership model that suggeststhat there isn't a direct
relationship between leaders andtheir team's performance, that
there's a moderating kind offactor in the middle there,
which is the perceptions of theleader. Right? So perceptions
really matter. And so reallygetting at those perspective,

(17:26):
those perspectives, getting asense of what people think about
the culture, if possible,getting eyes on the culture and
watching it and action and doingsome observations. Some people
might use, you know, some morequantitative assessment tools.
So really trying to evaluate andassess the culture at first and
get that picture is reallyimportant. And that's why when I

(17:48):
was at Florida State, I had theopportunity to basically take
some additional classes, getsome things during my PhD,
really, because I decided tostay there after having done my
master's there. And one of thethings that I did was get a
certificate in programevaluation, which is really that
right? Like how do we design anassessment approach, if you

(18:10):
will, to try and get a sense ofa particular program, or a
particular culture. And that's,that's really the place to
start. So everybody then isinvolved, or, you know, very
particular choices about whoyou're trying to get a look into
is, is important consideration.
And then once you start doingthe work, I very much advocate

(18:32):
for, and I've kind of gottenpushback against this. So I'm
curious, your thoughts, I verymuch advocate for starting with
the leaders or the leadershipgroup. Because I think that the
reality is that even if you wantto have what might be called
like a flat, kind of dynamic onyour team, right, not a

(18:54):
hierarchy or something likethat. The reality is that there
are leaders and that there is aparticular role that leaders
have and need to play on a team.
And so their, their vision ofthe team is important their
goals for the team, their corevalues, and what they want the
team, the identity of the teamto be as at least an important

(19:16):
starting place. And then we cango from there and working in
particular people and gettingdifferent people in the room so
that there is a felt sense ofownership over both designing
and bringing to bear theculture, right. So on a sports

(19:36):
team, for example, it might looklike meeting with the head coach
first, then maybe meeting withall the coaches that maybe we
bring in the captains then maybewe go out and we do this amongst
the whole team, then maybe we goback to the captains and then we
go back to the team. So it'sthis very iterative process of
really trying to veryintentionally bring people in

(19:56):
and create that That kind offull engagement that can be
helpful in this process.

I agree that starting with the leadership and
then slowly phasing it out, andstill giving everybody a voice
is, I think that's, that's thebest way to do it. Because
ultimately, I think one of thebest ways to protect the culture
is with who you let in, and thepeople that decide who they
hire, or the leadership group.
And so I think that's, that's apiece of it, as you said, they

(20:30):
had to have the vision, themission, the bigger picture of
things, the why. And so yeah, Idefinitely say starting there,
and I liked how you, you wouldstart there, go down, go down
the levels, and then come backup. And, and still give
everybody a voice. And I think,you know, at some point, having
everybody in the room and givingeverybody a chance to speak

(20:52):
their mind and creating apsychologically safe space to do
that, which might bechallenging, if it doesn't exist
already. And it might take mighttake time to really cultivate
that as well.

And not, of course, it's a little bit of a
pitch here for people like us,right, the coaches who come in
and do this work, but that's alot of times why we are brought
in or needed in this process isbecause it's hard for the team
to use on their own, right,we're the ones that get to come
in and really just have allthese principles in mind, the
facilitation skills, the uniqueposition of being really

(21:29):
external to this puzzle, andthese pieces to be able to help
the team work in this way towork towards these aims.

Yeah, and it's definitely important to stay. I
mean, because the leadershipgroup is paying you. So I think
maybe sometimes employees ormembers of a team can get pretty
skeptical and see us as as aspy, or as somebody who's
working on pushing forward theagenda of the leadership group.

(22:00):
And so just again, supportingthose basic psychological needs
and that autonomy, and stillgiving people a chance to make
him feel like they do have avoice in it, that's going to be
heard, and that something'sgoing to be done about that.

Yeah, and you know, that's why it's important
at the beginning with theleaders and people that bring
you in on the group to setexpectations very clearly about
your role, about the fact thatyou might push, you might not be
everybody's fan favoriteprocess, right. Like, that's
not, that's not necessarily thejob. You know, a lot of people
might kind of get put into thehot seat, but for good reason in

(22:34):
terms of sharing theirperspectives and all that. But
at the end of the day, your rolethere is to help the team move
forward. And part of the reasonof, you know, bringing in all of
the people at some point or insome way to this is because
you've really got to create asmany champions of the culture as
possible, right, that everybodyfeels that yes, this is the

(22:57):
direction that we want to movein. And to your point about, you
know, culture fit. And they'rekind of related idea that's been
brought up of culturecontribution. You know, we have
to see what that look ends uplooking like on the team, you
know, I have a couple episodes.
Now in my podcast, weinterviewed, a startup founder,
who was talking about like, oneof his big kind of realizations

(23:20):
or lessons learned was that hedidn't do that quick enough in
his company, you know, realizethat, you know what, some people
don't just don't belong hereanymore. They did. And they had
a great contribution to where wewere going getting out now. But
now there's just not a fit. Andthat's the reality of it, you
know, the unfortunate reality ofit.

Yeah, one of the one of the other guests I
had on the show is a startupfounder as well. And he talks
about this, the team that takesthe company from zero to 2
million, might be different thanthe team that's needed, take it
from a million to 10 million.
And, you know, it even might besimilar in sports teams, like
the the coach that that takesthe team to, to the higher
division or, or to achampionship may not be the best

(24:05):
coach to keep coaching after theteam wins a championship, even
though that does soundcounterintuitive, but just even
the players in the team,

It does, but it also relates to the idea of
culture not being static, right,but being very dynamic. And so
teams that I have been extremelyfortunate to work with over
several years have a lot oftimes realize that okay,
actually, there's times where wethen need to check in and maybe
evolve our culture and look atlook at how it has evolved and
look at then how our values orour, you know, norms or roles,

(24:42):
the people on the team have torise to the occasion or go in
the direction of, you know, thewhat the direction of the team
has been?

Yeah, because those puzzle pieces might have
changed and there might havebeen turnover. There was
something that it was PhilJackson and Juergen Klopp. Both
great, really great coaches.
basketball, soccer, they bothmentioned something around, you
can't stay in a team as aleader. They say five or six
years is like like a expirydate. It's kind of like the

(25:12):
expiry date. And I'm not sure ifthat I'm not sure if I click
with that, but I want to hearyour thoughts on it. Because in
a nutshell, what they say is,either you leave, or your whole
team has to be sort of differentwithin those five years, you can
have the same team from year oneto year five,

Really, actually fascinating. But think about the
teams that have had the truepleasure of working with over
many years, I think you wouldprobably see that that's the
case that as internal andexternal factors change on the
team, the team often changes andthe team's needs change, or the

(25:52):
performance changes, something,you know, these changes that
occur might necessitate changesto anybody on the team. And so I
think that that, I won't, Iwon't say that I necessarily
know that that's truly been, youknow, studied or looked at, at

(26:12):
least in that way that I'm awareof, but I can see how it maps on
to my experiences, I can see howit maps on to, you know, some of
our team dynamics, theories interms of, you know, kind of the
cyclical nature of teams andteam development. And even that
one of my favorites that Irarely hear people talk about,
but it always stood out to mewas the pendulum perspective of

(26:33):
teams are like, you kind of gotthis sub point of like team
operating at its optimal. Andthen something whether internal
or external, the team, likekicks it away from there, you
swing away. And the idea is, youknow, how do we not make those
swings so big and so long? Andhow do we not get stuck, right?
So how do we make sure we'renever going to be able to stick

(26:54):
in the same place, that's nothow a pendulum works. But the
idea is to be able to have thatprocess where we can swing back
and forth, and the swings aren'tas big, and as long as we don't
get stuck there. And so I think,you know, some of those things
maybe come to mind, I think it'salso, you know, human dynamic
that comes to mind of ourtendencies for complacency, at
times our tendencies fornovelty, you know, for the

(27:19):
Steiner's Model of Productivityand the whole piece of social
loafing, right that, and thisreally relates to teams, a
team's potential, and where itperforms is really a function of
what any faulty processes thatare occurring on the team, you
know, things that are related tomotivation, or what you know,
what's kind of put undercoordination, which means how
they're operating together. So Ithink if we look at it from that

(27:42):
way, we can see how maybe whatthey're saying actually makes
quite a lot of sense for anumber of different reasons.

How Lauren, you've done some really great
work and some pretty awesometeams, how, how have you helped
shape team cultures?

I think it depends on my role, you know,
any of us in the position thatgets to do this work, it depends
on how we're brought in and howmuch we're integrated into a
team. So there's certainly beenwork that I've done, where it's,
you know, just consultation witha leader on how who they are as
a leader, and how they arenavigating the culture of their
team. there's times where I'mbrought in to do workshops,

(28:21):
which I would say are probablymy my least favorite ones. And
I'm very clear to setexpectations about like, here's
the reality I'm I'm coming in,basically, to help you get
started or to build someawareness amongst the team, get
the conversation going. And Itry to work really hard with the
leaders who bring me in to helpthem figure out what the pros
and cons of that right, we mightbe opening up a can of worms

(28:43):
here. And now you're going to bethe one that has to go and
navigate that can of worms, or,you know, here are the next
steps, right, we've had thisinitial conversation together.
And then maybe it was a greatconversation, it can't stop
there, you hear now myrecommendations on how to move
the needle forward and make thispart of process. So I've had
that I've had ones where I'mbrought in kind of as a

(29:06):
consultant, more consistentconsultant where, you know,
might come in once a week and dowork with the team. And then
I'm, you know, also working withthe leaders on that. So I'm not
a part of the team and I'm butI'm helping, kind of
strategically move it forwardover time. And then I've had the
ones you know, where I've beenreally like, into day to day
with the team and day to dayhelping them do this work, you

(29:30):
know, look at the culture, workon their relationships, work on
their ability to work together,work on really analyzing the
culture and thinking about wherethey are and how to push it
forward. So it's kind of lookeda lot of different ways. And you
know, that is for a variety ofdifferent reasons, all can be

(29:50):
useful, but it's just about kindof managing expectations and
knowing what the team or theleaders want out of this work.

Right. So it seems like it rains from
individual conversations, groupconversations via workshops,
maybe some workplace observationand daily work environment
assessment, and and thendepending on on, you know, your
relationship and the services,either suggesting what the next

(30:20):
steps are, or actuallyimplementing the next steps with
the leadership group.

Yep. And you mentioned the key part in there,
which is, as I said, I thinkbefore, when I can, I love to
get eyes on and observe theculture. Because, as I kind of
said before, it's great to animportant to get the vantage
point. But it's also importantto just watch them and see the
dynamic rate from kind of my owneyes, just observing all the
different interactions and theways they approach things and

(30:48):
work on things and you know,the, the body language, all you
know, all sorts of number ofthings that can truly give you
insight into a culture.

So you go up to people and their desks and just
kind of like, stare at them andsee how they're how they're
communicating. And, like,follow...

I mean, I want to be in the room with meetings,
I want to be around when they'rejust, you know, hanging out with
each other, and just, you know,having lunch or you know, all
that stuff. And it's funny,because a lot of times they'll
be like, What are you thinking,right? You're watching us? Are
you like, yeah, I am, right,like, that's the job right is to
try and get insight. And it'sactually but I don't know why.

(31:27):
But I've always been interestedin that. You know, I don't know
if I told you this. But before Iknew what sports psychology was,
I thought that I really wantedto go into behavioral analysis,
like, I always loved, likestudying body language and
trying to like, think about,like, what somebody was thinking
and why they would do something.
And so I really actually, youknow, that's for me, if I'm part
of bringing that into this workis really trying to get a sense

(31:49):
of that team.

Yeah, and body language may be maybe one of
those things that can eitherelevate a culture or or kind of
crush it. And I'm sure there'sother there's other behaviors
that are toxic for team culture,what have you come across that
have been top toxic behaviors?
And how have you dealt with themor advise leaders to deal with
them?

I think the one of the biggest that jumps out is
like negativity or pessimismabout the culture change. You
know, if you've got people onthe team who are like, this
isn't gonna work, you know,they're just doing this because
they think they have to whateverthe the talk is about this. I
think that's probably one of thebiggest obstacles is just, you

(32:30):
know, anyone on the team who whowill, whether they want to or
not be a barrier to movingthings forward, because they
just don't they can envision it.
I think related to that is, youknow, thinking about everybody's
comfort with change, right,change is hard. There are going
to be particular people on theteam who are going to have to

(32:50):
change more than others.
Sometimes those are the leadersthemselves, right. And so I
think that's another that can beanother challenge is, you know,
just comfort with change andability willingness to change,
you certainly want awareness ofchange and needs to change. So

(33:12):
related to that is resistant,there are some times when people
are resistant to the culturechange, they don't see the need
for it, they think the cultureis fine, they're happy with it.
Maybe there's some fearassociated with the change. And
this can be one or it can be,you know, multiple people who
kind of are resisting for anumber of reasons. That change.

(33:35):
I mentioned this one before.
Thinking it's too simple, Ithink is one thing that's toxic,
it's toxic. And even thoughthat's not necessarily a
behavior, it shows up in ourbehaviors, you know, that's just
the Yeah, we had a great, we hada great team meeting on this,
okay, great, everything's gonnabe fine. Or we did this once.
And so you know, we set up ourvalues, that's awesome. Now we

(33:56):
have this cool culture, we gotthe ping pong table, you know,
it's, as I said, unfortunately,it's not that simple. If it was,
it would be lovely, but it'sjust not that simple to get
everybody kind of rallyingaround together and navigating
the beautiful and alsochallenging, you know, human
dynamic. And I think, you know,one of the things I always say

(34:21):
to leaders and teams to try andset expectations at the
beginning about this, is thatyou're, I'm not I'm not a person
that is a black and whiteperson. You know, I my answer is
always it depends. The one thingthat I am kind of black and
white on is the fact that Ithink on a team for various

(34:44):
reasons. I think this you areeither a positive or a negative.
And if you're neutral, you're inthe negative camp, right? You're
either helping the team moveforward or do the things they
need to do having that optimalculture or you're not. And I'm
not saying that that's alwaysintentional that people are
always like, No, I want to, youknow, support this effort. But

(35:05):
that's the that's the true Ithink reality of a time where I
do see things as as black andwhite, right, you're either a
positive or a negative. And youcan be that, you know, positive
one day and a negative and otherday, it's hard to navigate that
sometimes, because working onteams and team culture is is

(35:25):
very personal, as much as it iscollective.

So how can leaders deal with that? If some,
if they have a negative or aneutral? I mean, do you have a
story of something you've adviseto a leader? Or is there some
general advice that you have,

Um, honestly, I think this is where the, the
environment on the team and theability for a team to have that
psychological safety is, istruly important, because these
are some of the like realconversations that need to
happen on a team, between theleader and you know, these
people that might be kind of inthe neutral or negative category

(36:04):
amongst each other. And beingable to have a fundamental
understanding underneath all ofthat of like, like I said, we're
in this together. And we have todo this, this stuff to be able
to do that. And so that's alwayslike, my, my recommendation is
to really work on thecommunication and the
environment of the team first,to be able to have some of these

(36:25):
important conversations, we wantto talk to that person who,
maybe, maybe they're just theneutral category, they're just
not doing much, they're notcontributing their thoughts, you
know, and when you talk to them,they've got great perspectives.
But when they show up in thegroup, they're not talking and
actually, you know, it was agreat experience, actually, for
myself as someone facilitatingthis that I had with a team

(36:47):
surrounding this. So we werehaving a lot of meetings where
we were debriefing together, andI was really pushing people to
share their perspectives. Andthere were a number of
individuals on the team whopretty consistently, were not
participating in thatconversation not actively being
the negative, right, like notresisting that conversation, but

(37:09):
they just weren't the ones whowere jumping in to share their
perspectives. The team kind ofcalled them out on this a little
bit. And what we learned throughthat was differences in the way
people process and reflect onthings. So not everybody in the
moment realizes what they wantto say and how they want to
contribute. And that was such animportant honestly, realization

(37:30):
for me as the personfacilitating this that I needed
to work on different ways ofbeing able to put this stuff in
front of people, so that thepeople who wanted and needed
more time to reflect gathertheir thoughts, consider could
do that, and then could bringthat to the table in the
conversations, right? Versus thepeople who were much it just

(37:51):
came, for many reasons, muchmore easily for them to be able
to think quickly and respond inthe meeting. And so I think
that's, you know, maybe just asimple example of really trying
to, again, be intentional, butalso flexible in the way that
you're trying to work on some ofthese things.

Wow, that's, that's a really good example.
And and I think that I also usedto think that if somebody's not
contributing there, they justdon't want to talk. They they
know what they could say. And,and sometimes that's the case, I
think, your way of dealing withthe with the negative or the
neutral of...well, I mean, inyour story, the team called call

(38:30):
them out, and then everybodylearned that well. I just
actually don't know what I whatI want to say. And I'm not, I'm
not really sure what what tocontribute, and sometimes that's
okay. But really, I think whatwe're what underpins that is
that psychological safety, andjust having having the space so
that people can see ideas, nomatter how stupid they seem.

I think it's the space, but it's also
intentionally thinking aboutyour approach, you know, so one
of the ways this always comes upin my discussions with leaders
and teams is the dreadedmeetings. Most people are like,
I don't like meeting meetingsare awful, right? Like, any
iteration of that. And there'sactually some wonderful books
out there on how to actually setup your meetings and all that,

(39:14):
like it's this, you know, wekind of assume like, well, I let
a challenging process, we havean agenda, and we go into the
meeting. And but I think it's,you know, this is where maybe my
kind of educational psychbackground and my background as
a teacher comes into play islike, thinking about how you
incorporate different approachesand methods into how you design

(39:35):
and facilitate your meetings. Somaybe sometimes you you send
people something prior to themeeting, "Hey, everybody give
this a little bit of thought.
And I want at least twoideas...you know, by the time we
get into the meeting," or maybeit's using some version of
what's called active learningstrategies, like one of my
favorites is the four cornersstrategy in the meeting so that
you're getting this iterativeprocess of people kind of

(39:58):
co-constructing something andco-brainstorming together. And
everybody kind of gets theirtheir ability to bring to bear
their thoughts and theirknowledge, right. So there's
really kind of articulate waysthat you can go about doing
this. And I think that that'sthat would be, that's usually
one of the things I talk to alot about leaders who want to
start driving some of this stuffforward in their processes is

(40:19):
really thinking critically abouthow they could approach their
meetings, I guess

I guess you're talking about differences in
personality and communicationstyles. And, you know, measuring
team culture can be can bereally challenging how Lauren,
how can leaders measure teamculture? Is it? Does it mean
doing personality tests and thensharing that with everybody and
realizing what you know, whatthe results are? And does it

(40:46):
mean, like observing? Does itmean talking to the leadership
group? Is it through focusgroups? Like how, how is it
measured? Is it through thebottom line?

For sometimes for some teams it is.
Absolutely, you know, I thinkI'll bring up two things here,
one I mentioned before, which isfrom my colleague, and guests on
the podcast, Ira Zimmerman, whois there's no secret sauce,
right? Again, there's no oneway, there's a lot of different
avenues we could use here. Andwe really have to think
intentionally about what we wantand need to use. Number two is

(41:17):
thinking about this principle oftriangulation, when it comes to
assessment. We want one datapoint here, just the bottom
line, or is the bottom line, agood data point, and then maybe
we want to do some discussions,you know, with a couple of the
people on the team, or maybe wewant, you know, maybe there's
some other objective, you know,way that we want to do this, or

(41:39):
maybe it's, you know, throughsomething like an after action
review, after a performancewhere we can all collectively
come together and say, Okay,what do we do? Well, what were
the wins relative to theculture? What were the misses?
And what are our solutions fornow trying to do that better
tomorrow, the next time and allthat. So there's many different

(42:00):
ways. The point, ultimate pointbeing is that, particularly at
the start of this process, it isvery important to have these a
lot. People don't always likethat, but that constant check in
of, you know, how are we doingwith this? How are we doing
this? How are we driving thisforward is really important. And
then as people get morecomfortable, the culture starts
getting into place, you might beable to dial that back a little

(42:22):
bit, you don't ever want to goaway from it, never check in on
the culture, but you might beable to dial that back to you,
you know, once a month or youknow, depending on you know,
particular time points that are,you know, chosen for various
reasons, but that that check inis so important.

Okay, so the check ends, and then the after
action review, which at Spotify,they call that the post mortem.
Yeah, I love that. Because it'sit's like what failed, what, you
know, what failed? And remindingpeople and kind of checking in
on how much we're living thevalues and the mission and and

(42:59):
the culture that we want tocreate, in the behaviors in the
action.

So that brings up I think, another
consideration, which is what'scalled the artifacts of the
culture, right? So what in whatways are we going to make this
culture very relevant in yourface? Right, like, Are we going
to have those value words up infront of us all the time? Are,
you know, is it going to beparticular language that we use?

(43:23):
Is it the way Like I said, weset up our meeting, so really
making it very visible andmemorable and constantly
relevant process is reallyimportant, because,
unfortunately, even for thethings that are most important
to us, it's easy to lose sightof them if they're not in front
of our face, right. And I thinkthe other thing you mentioned
the post mortem, sometimes Ithink it's important not to

(43:44):
think about measuring this orassessing it on the back end.
But on the front end, let's dopre mortems. And think about
well, alright, how are we goingto live this out today? Right?
And then we have a good pre tothen have for our post?

Oh, that's that's a neat idea. Pre mortem,
post mortem. See how they matchup? Lauren, what does what is
cultivating your culture mean toyou?

I love this question, any number of things
that we've talked about, but Ithink if I had to drill it down,
I think it means having anintentional and individualized
idea and process. I think itmeans knowing that it's not a
one time event. And I think itmeans knowing that it can't be
shallow, it must involve diggingdeep and getting real.

Oh, that's that's a gem of a definition.
That's a gem of a definition.
Thanks for sharing that. Lauren,out of everything that we've
talked about today, is there onepractical tool leaders can use
like tomorrow to cultivate theculture, their team?

I mentioned the meeting. So I've already kind of
talked about that. I think myone thing maybe I always have
leaders start with is they'reidentifying and looking at the
alignment with their own corevalues. It's great for teams and
companies to have core values,but each one of us has them as
well. And again, we have themwhether or not we've really

(45:13):
articulated them or not, orthought about them or not. And
so, you know, there's a greatlook at this, for example, in a
lot of the, you know, kind oftop companies about, you know,
does a leaders kind of top corevalue align with the company?
And if there's any misalignment,well, that's quite challenging,
right, because if, if me as theleader of startup company X, my

(45:37):
core value is passion. Butthat's not really a part of our
team, or that's not kind of oneof the core drivers of the team,
that's going to be quitechallenging, because I'm always
going to feel that dissonance,right. And so I think leaders
need the kind of first step ifthey haven't already, is really
clarify or work with a coach onclarifying and looking at
alignment with your core values,and how you can make that a part

(46:00):
of who you are and what you do.
How do you communicate themverbally and non verbally to
your team and the way that youset up things within your team?
You know, in the way that youtalk about things, you know, do
you reinforce them? Is it partof what's kind of referred to as
your "day one" speech where youvery clearly say, this is who I
am. This is you know, how I amand this is what you can expect

(46:21):
out of me, and this is what Ican expect out of you. And you
mentioned the hiring processbefore, you know, one client I
have worked with this on hisinterviews, right? Because he
was realizing that once he gotpeople into the company, he
would have these conversationswith them. But these
conversations actually reallyneeded to happen in the hiring

(46:41):
process. So that there was thatboth people could look at, okay,
is there that fit here? And isthat going to work?

He would share his personal values in
interviewing people?

Yeah.

Well, I've never, I've never heard of that
before.

No, right. And both of us actually had that
realization, we were talkingabout it, because we were both
reflecting on how when he wouldget new people in, he would then
have this conversation. Theseare my values. This is who I am.
This is what you can expect outof me, this is what I expect out
of you. And we kind of weretalking about it or like, it's
interesting, because what if youhad that conversation during an
interview? Would that help bothof you make the decision about

(47:23):
whether or not this was theright joint venture? Right?

Why did he decide to implement that? Like,
would people leave when theyrealized what his values were?
Or what you know, how heoperated? Or?

Not necessarily.
It wasn't necessarily that theywould hear the values and be
like, Oh, no, I don't want towork for this company. It was
more like, at some point, therewas a realization that there was
a misalignment of values. So bybeing able to have these
conversations ahead of time,honestly, it helped him make
this a good part of his hiringpractices. But really, it helped

(47:58):
them to think about, you know,is this the right fit for me?
And that's why I kind of calllike a joint venture, right?
Like both people have to justlike any relationship, both
people have to say, like, yeah,I'm on board. That's why, you
know, the famous example ofZappos, right, is that they
would pay people to leave ifafter a month, they realized
that they didn't want to bethere. So why wouldn't we spend

(48:21):
a lot more time giving people asense of who we are and what our
culture is beforehand? So we canboth make that joint decision
about whether this is the rightmove?

That's I couldn't believe that when I
heard the Zappos thing. Yeah,paying people 1000 or 2000?
Because it's a short term. It'sa short term loss. Ultimately,
and and you're not, it's aprotective barrier against,
essentially, you don't want towork in there for the money.

Yeah. And I think it also represents that
you recognize that, you know,not always can we know what
we're getting ourselves intountil we get into it. And we're
actually saying, Thank you forstanding up and saying, you know
what, this doesn't fit me andwe're going to recognize that
you tried it out. But now, youneed to go somewhere else.

Lauren, there's a lot of good books on cultures,
a lot of good resources isthere, you know, top two or top
three for you?

In terms of resources, there's a ton. I use
a lot of resources to try andwrap my head around all this. I
think the first place I honestlystarted with this was, two of my
own professors at Florida State,Dave Eccles, and Gershon
Tenenbaum, who, so I worked in aresearch lab that was ultimately
headed by Anders Ericssonexploring expert performance and

(49:40):
what Davidson and Gershon didwas take all that work that's
been done on expertise by Andersand others. And think about the
notion of expert teams and teamcoordination. And so that was I
think, the first time I reallystarted thinking differently
about team culture in comparisonto what we had kind of had
before with just to focus onteam dynamics, so their work on

(50:02):
expert teams, team coordinationis really useful. I think
obviously, the most recentprobably that people would be
aware of is Dan Coils' CultureCode book, people may be aware
of that one people might not beas aware of Paul Zach's book on
trust. And Paul Zach is reallygrounded in neuroscience, and so

(50:25):
really comes at it, it's a greatread, actually, for leaders,
that book, and then I think,maybe two more, one that maybe
wouldn't be associated withculture. But it really is, is
Matthew Syed's BlackboxThinking. That really has
actually uses the culture ofmedicine and the culture of

(50:46):
aviation as a comparison interms of how we approach
failure, how adaptable we are.
And then last, but not least, isthere some really good readings
out there on this, what I saidis being called the "new
psychology of leadership", whichis the the social identity
approach to leadership, and howwe, how we create that sense of
we and how leaders can becomekind of that best representation

(51:10):
of "we". So those might be maybesome places to start for people
who are listening,

Awesome, those are really great suggestions,
and a bunch of them outside ofthe world of psychology. And so
that's, that's really great,Lauren, tell us what you're up
to right now. And where peoplecan find you and connect with

You can find me at alignperform.com, that's you.
probably the easiest way is togo to my website. And then you
can connect with me on LinkedInand other social media from
there. And I have to say, and Iknow you and I were chatting
about this before we gotstarted. It's lovely to talk
about culture, because becauseof the pandemic. And you know,

(51:50):
being in New York City, Ihaven't other than some of the
leaders I work with, I haven'treally gotten to work with
cultures, and I'm craving it sobadly. So I am actually planning
several things for next year. Ialready in my practice, offer a
variety of different approachesthat leaders and teams can work
with me, like I said, you know,as we were talking about this,
and then a new kind of program.
I don't know that I'd call it aprogram, but a new kind of thing

(52:15):
that I'm working on idea thatI'm working on is actually Think
Tanks for leaders who reallywant to work on culture and get
some support from me in that butalso have a group of people to
work on this with together. Sothose are maybe some things that
people might be interested in.

Cool. I'll put your website in the show notes,
and people can connect with you.
Yeah. Great. Thanks so much forcoming on. And, and for taking
the time for sharing theseawesome ideas. And and, you
know, I could do this for hours.
[LAUGHTER]

[LAUGHTER] Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, you have a really interesting
perspective. And and you explainthings in ways that are easy to
understand. It's not tooacademic, but it's it's
practical and science back. Sothat's a lot of value in what
you're saying today. So Lauren,thank you so much.

Thank you.

Hey, thanks for tuning in to cultivate your
culture, rate and reviewerpodcast on iTunes. Any websites
and resources mentioned in thepodcast as well as the guests
information can be found on theshow notes at
www.kizo.ca/podcast. Here's asneak peek of what's coming up
in our episode next week.

Nadine Dubina (53:36):
If you think about a fish tank, so you've got
fish, and from the outside, wecan see that the fish are
swimming in water, but to thefish. The water is just a part
of their habitat, right? It'sjust a part of what they
experience every day. And Ithink that culture is very
synonymous with the water insideof a fish tank is that we are

(53:59):
swimming in it every day. Butsometimes it's not something
that we always notice. You tendto notice it when it gets really
really dirty and needs cleaned.
Right? Or when it's reallyreally, really pristine. And
things are going really well andit's almost effortless.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}How to Cultivate Culture Change with Lauren Tashman | S01E08