February 18, 2021 • 57 mins
In this episode of Cultivate your Culture, we are joined by gold-medal Olympian, professor, and organizational consultant Jennifer Walinga who shares easy-to-apply techniques to foster values-based teams.
Connect with Jennifer on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram. Check out her website for more details on what Jennifer does and the impact she can make in your organization.
The host, Zoran Stojkovic believes that we are all born to flourish in work and life. Through his company, Kizo, he equips organizations and people with culture and mindset tools to reach full engagement through powerful workshops, memorable keynotes, and transformative individual consultations.
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Episode Transcript
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Jennifer Wallinga (00:00):
I worked with a coach once who had to make a
(00:02):
very difficult decision to cut areally a really effective
player, like a very highperformance player, but toxic
and completely counter to a lotof the cultural values that the
team has established together,just resisting.
Zoran Stojkovic (00:21):
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.
Today on the show, we have JenWallinga. So Jen has quite an
(00:42):
impressive background. Jen is aneducator has been an educator
for 30 years, a former member ofCanada's Commonwealth world and
Olympic gold medal rowing teams.
So Jen draws on her personal,professional and educational
experiences when facilitatingproblem solving and leadership
(01:02):
processes in organizations.
After retiring from elite sport,Jen taught English for several
years in the Toronto area, thenbegan teaching at Royal Roads in
the early 2000s. at the Centerfor Applied leadership and
management and schools ofleadership and business. Jen is
also the principal of theconsulting firm, integrated
focus, which offers trainingprograms for individuals, teams,
(01:24):
departments and organizations aswell. And Jen earned her PhD in
organizational studies fromUniversity of Victoria, Canada,
in 2017, where she developed aproblem solving intervention
called integrated focus. Jen,thanks for being on the show
today.
Jennifer Wallinga (01:40):
Such a pleasure. Great to see you
Zoran.
Zoran Stojkovic (01:43):
To see you, how's your day going? so far?
Jennifer Wallinga (01:45):
Yeah, I got to get rolling this morning.
I'll play glass I was with mycrew as well. We're allowed to
grow in a little forced them. Sothat's been lovely. And I might
actually go out again thisafternoon after this, but my son
in our single
Zoran Stojkovic (01:58):
Nice! two workouts, two rowing workouts in
a day still going strong. Thatwas awesome. So tell us a little
bit about your about yourbackground, and a bit about your
story of how you got to whereyou are.
Jennifer Wallinga (02:13):
Well, I was very involved in sport. I was a
nerd first real bookworm andinto art and then discovered
sport I grew really fast andended up focusing in on rowing,
is kind of involved witheverything. And I discovered
rowing by accident, fell inlove, like the first experience,
(02:33):
and I knew it's all I ever wantto do. And I still feel that
way. And so it really shaped mywhole life for many, many years
through high school and intouniversity and beyond. And I'm
still growing at 55 years old,and still competing with my crew
from those years when Irepresented Canada. So even this
(02:54):
morning, I was at with three ofthem. So that's pretty cool. And
I feel like I've learned so muchfrom sport, you know, I've gone
to school for it feels likeabout 1000 years, and really the
sport degree was, was crucial.
And so I weave all of that inincreasingly, I increasingly I
participate and consulting tosport organizations or
(03:14):
delivering educational programs,to organizations, on boards,
etc. And I think I'll justhunker down, and just board and
more and more as I as I growolder. But I also because of
sport, I was always veryinterested in performance. And
that means for me, you know, anindividual's ability to be their
best team and organization. Sothat naturally led me into
(03:38):
consulting. and ended up, youknow, through schooling and
education. And I ended upteaching a lot at a very
progressive Universityrailroads, which focuses on
social change, lots of work noworganizational development. So
that's where I am. And I've beenthere for quite a while I've
been associated with universityfor about 2020 years at least.
And in a professor role for thepast 15 years or so.
Zoran Stojkovic (04:02):
That's solid, quite an impressive background
and set of experiences in bothin sport and outside of sport
and education. And so, you're nostranger to being on teams and
leading teams. And so how wouldyou define team culture? Jen?
Jennifer Wallinga (04:18):
Yeah, I think I think team culture, culture, I
always describe it as "ourvalues communicated". So how are
our values showing up? Becausecommunication is yes, with your
mouth, but it's with youractions and behaviors, your body
language, your decision makingyour structures and what we call
artifacts, local communicationshows up everywhere, culture
(04:40):
shows up everywhere, becauseyour values bleed out of you
everywhere. And so team cultureis exactly that, you know, what
values are is this teamcommunicating? They may be
thinking that they believe incertain things and that they
value certain concepts. Orprincipals. But we really can
(05:03):
read their culture through theiractions, behaviors and
interactions with one another.
Zoran Stojkovic (05:07):
Wow, that's quite a set definition. So
you're talking about values andartifacts and the values being
communicated and actually livedwithin an organization within a
team. And so why then is itimportant to cultivate the
culture of a team and to havethese values and to have them
communicated? And both businessand sport?
Jennifer Wallinga (05:29):
Yeah, well, I think, and I should
differentiate, because we oftenI find, when I'm working with
groups, they often start todelve into a discussion around
"well, what is the value?" Andso to clarify, and define the
terms? When we're talkingvalues, of course, we're talking
those moral code kind of values,like integrity, or I believe in
honesty. I'm a core value mightbe family for me, right? So
(05:55):
that's moral values. When I'mtalking with a group and
organization or an individualabout cultural values, usually
we're talking about thingswhere, what we think is
important. So that could stillbe family. But it's also things
like, collaboration. All right.
So you can sort of see thedifference between those things.
Where do we invest our energy,our money, our we our resources,
(06:16):
in general, our time, our focus,those are what we value as an
organization or team. And Ithink the reason that we want to
attend to culture, culture isvalues communicated. And then
how well those aligned with whatwe state to be or a spouse as
our core values. Because we're,you know, we're promising when
(06:40):
we put our values on a websiteor on a wall, we're promising to
the world that we're going tolive in this way, as you said,
you know, live them. And so howwell we honor that promise is
really cultural integrity. So itis important to develop culture,
because it's about developingthat integrity, that alignment
with what we say we believe inand value and are going to
(07:02):
prioritize me and an individualcan do that, too. I was just
talking with a couple people I'mworking with, and one was
saying, Yeah, I need to do thatcultural audit on myself. And
it's a great exercise to checkin on how aligned am I, with my
actual values I, I believe Ibelieve in and I say I
prioritize, check in on all thethings that you do and say, to
(07:24):
make sure those align teams cando it as well. And it's
important as well, to check inon your cultural integrity, do
the work of auditing that arereflecting on how aligned you
are with your core values as youneed them to be because cultural
integrity is not only energy,now, if you're blind, you're
(07:47):
solid, you're balanced, you'recentered, you've got a
foundation, you're confident,you're also exuding that around
to everyone around you, so theycan trust you. Because they know
you're trustworthy, you haveintegrity, and that with that
energy concept and kind of trustthat you're building, I think
(08:08):
there's also value in it becauseit keeps you focused and clear.
Where we get in trouble is ifit's misaligned, there's
contradictions, we say we buy itup, and then we do the thing.
And now suddenly, you're causingsome kind of abrasion, abrasion,
lack of focus, lack of clarity,and that has huge costs. So if
(08:35):
you scale that to anorganization, if everybody's
feeling a little agitated,because they don't know where
things set, or they don't,they're getting confusing
messages, or the, they'refrustrated, because they feel
like you guys say this, and thenyou do that. All of those all
that agitation, all that lack oftrust, all that concern, and
(08:55):
worry, and anxiety, or anger andfrustration, is sucking the life
out of the organization. And itshows up in all sorts of
different ways, right? We see itin health, we see it in all the
backroom conversations, postmeeting meetings, you know, what
a waste of time. So when peopleare doing that they're not
working, not being productive,and they're not building their
(09:15):
sense of self or integrity orconfidence. So it's just it will
rain on the organization, theindividual team.
Zoran Stojkovic (09:26):
So you're saying it's very important to
cultivate the culture for anumber of reasons. And one
distinction that you've made isbetween these personal values
and cultural values. And thenyou talked about alignment of
action and value and actuallyliving the the value and in the
behaviors that we exhibitthroughout the day. Is it
possible to have misalignmentbetween personal values like to
(09:48):
value something personally, butthen to work for an organization
that doesn't value that?
Jennifer Wallinga (09:53):
Well, I think it is possible, but again, a
huge cost. Okay. And so I dothink the more we talk about
cost So glad people are talkingabout culture a lot more. I'm
not sure everybody understandswhat it is, I think it feels
very intangible and the realpeople still, but that's why I
try and define it all the timeas values communicate, because
people seem to get that. Andthis idea of alignment, and then
(10:17):
it's a tool. Yeah. And I thinkit's really important for
individuals who are thinking tojoin an organization or who are
thinking about leavingorganization, it's a really good
exercise to go through to checkwhether your core values, first
of all, what they are always agood exercise, and then to check
whether they're aligned with theorganization you're working
with. You know, I work with avery progressive University, the
(10:41):
values are very clear, they'reembodied right across the
organization, and the learningteaching research model. But
then we see the president sayingthem as well, you know, in his
messaging, but the reasonthey're the same is because a
lot of consultation, whichagain, exhibits and communicate
a core value of participativedecision making letter does, I
(11:06):
think about my support team,same thing, it was exhaustive,
how much participation went intobuilding a race plan, which is
no different than a strip club.
It was really thorough, and weall fundamentally understood how
important everyone's commitmentto it, and alignment. So there's
a good example of personal andorganizational or team values
(11:27):
being brought into alignment. Sowe built the race plan, just as
employees should be contributingto building a strat plan. And
then of course, you're going tohave alignment, because it's
born up right and, sorry, my dogis snoring in the background,
hopefully,
Zoran Stojkovic (11:44):
No problem.
[LAUGHER] His value is obviouslyrecovery right now. And so
that's, that's a solid, thankyou for, for explaining that.
And so what I heard you sayingwas that misalignment can be
quite costly. And, and havingalignment between personal
values and having the cultural,like being part of an
(12:06):
organization in a culture thathas similar values is very
important, because that, thenthat cultural audit is going to
go quite well. And we're gonnabe living with integrity and
with authenticity, and whathappens when that alignment
isn't there? What's the what'sat stake?
Jennifer Wallinga (12:26):
I think that's when it makes it a little
more clear why the person mightwant to leave that organization
or doesn't fit with the team orI worked with a coach once, who
had to make a very difficultdecision to cut a really a
really effective player with avery high performance player,
but toxic, and completelycounter to a lot of the cultural
(12:49):
values that the team hasestablished together, resisting,
and no matter how hard they try,should they couldn't bring her
into that culture. Now. Youknow, even, you know, one could
argue, well, shouldn't they tryto shift the culture slightly to
incorporate this person as well,and I think they try. But I
think she also contradicted toso many of their values, it just
(13:12):
wasn't a great fit. So thatrealization, that kind of
cultural audit really helped mecoach realize that, actually, I
have to cut it. And even thoughshe's my top one of my top
players, I have to cut herbecause it's having too many
costs. So the same with someonedeciding to leave. And I've had
lots of students, they gothrough and get their masters.
And you know, most students willsay, what job Am I going to get
(13:35):
after these students quit theirjobs? And because they realize,
Oh, yeah, I don't belong thereanymore. I've evolved and I need
to go somewhere where morealigned, right, and they have
the confidence to do that. Ithink it's crucial. I think too
many people are probably workingin organizations they don't feel
aligned with or committed to,and it's not good for them. It's
(13:58):
not good for the organization,because they're not committing
fully. But it's not good forthem either to be living in.
Zoran Stojkovic (14:04):
Yeah, the dissonance for sure can be can
be challenging. And I wasreading a book called Fierce
Conversations by Susan Scott,really great book, and she's
going to be a guest on the showhere as well. And one of the
things she says when we live outof integrity with our own values
and don't - her whole frame isaround having conversations that
we need to have, when we don'thave the conversations that we
(14:25):
need to have. She talks aboutimmune system suppression and
being more likely to get sickand just mentally there being
you know, challenges and, andburnout and all sorts of things.
So that's, I think, definitelyimportant. And the starting
place would definitely be tostart start with ourselves. Now.
When we think about the cultureand for leaders who work within
(14:47):
cultures and who are shapingthese cultures and creating
them. How can culture becultivated, like what is the
starting place and who has to bein those conversations?
Jennifer Wallinga (14:56):
Well, I would assume a lot of your audience is
going to be athletic and intosport in some way. So I like
using that metaphor, I do thinkit's an outstanding metaphor,
because, like almost the wholeworld participates in sport in
some way as a spectator, even asa critic, you know, some people
are thinking about sports, youknow, so I think about my
(15:16):
experience in sport, I wasreally fortunate to be part of a
high performing, and very strongcultural team. And the way it
was cultivated was, yes, thecoach, the coach was central,
because he brought his core hisown core values, he was very
clear and very, a lot ofintegrity around what he
(15:38):
believed to be important. And Ithink he, he's matured in that
as well. So we kind of caughthim at a place where he was
really maturing into realizinghow important it was. And, and
then he insisted on our valuesbased approach. So I think
that's a good starting point, isunderstanding that values are
the foundation of anorganization, I think sometimes
(15:59):
people think they're nice tohaves, or we have to go through
with this and figure out amission mission. And they kind
of treat it as though it'stertiary, and soft and fuzzy.
And then it's very concrete issomething that forms the
foundation of your organization,just like purpose. Vision is
(16:19):
right there to add values. Andyeah, your vision is just, you
know, an encompassing thing. Sofoundational values, then he
insisted that we behave inaccordance with the core values,
and the purpose of our team,which, you know, is rowing. So
we're going fast. You can,that's an analogy for an
(16:41):
organization to you, this ispretty easy to define, we're
here to serve the public, orwe're here to make this product,
or we're here to provide aservice to some other
stakeholders, right? So it'sclear what our purpose is. And,
and the values are not. So inorder to go really fast and be
an Olympian. I was part of it,we must not only be really
(17:05):
strong human beings,athletically good at our jobs,
but we also have to be leaders,in order to be Olympians. We
need to be great people, andhigh performers in all aspects
of our lives. So that droveeverything we did. He would say
things like, and you know, I'mattributing A lot of it to him,
(17:28):
because I think that's theresponsibility of a leader.
Their responsibility is tocultivate, I love the word
cultivate, right? They're theones who wrap their arms around,
they do the facilitation work,they design the communication
process, you know, we met everysingle day, we were always clear
on what was expected, but alsowhat was happening. He and she
(17:52):
told us stories all the time. Sowithin those meetings, he would
also embed these stories of thatillustrated the values that we
had all signed on to and theimportance of doing things a
certain way. So he's a designer,he's a cultivators, facilitator,
he is hard to model thingshimself as well. He didn't
always do a perfect job, butneither did us, did we right, we
(18:14):
would fall down sometimes. Butthat's his responsibility as a
leader, it doesn't mean that hedecides on our values, and I
don't think he pushes us pushedus around. That was another key
piece was it was a very balancedbalancing of power. His job was
to, through expertise that hesometimes drew on other sports,
(18:37):
but also from himself, was tokind of design a framework, but
we were crucial players and allof that, and he would say that
to us, you know, without theathletes, the coach is nothing.
So constantly communicating thatbalance of power was really
brilliant, I thought, and thatthen let us always be very much
(18:57):
participants partners inachieving a shared goal. So the
cultivation is need some kind offacilitator, someone just
sparking along someone tounderstand that they have the
expertise need that foundation,but it also needed all of all of
us had to be leaders to we allhad to show a lot of integrity,
really commit to the process.
And I remember when he laid upthe quad, the four year plan
(19:17):
leading up to the Olympics, andit was, you know, astounding,
the standards that were beingset for us. And we were deciding
we wanted to go for Olympicgold. So here's what it was
going to take over the fouryears. And he literally put it
out. It was an invitation. Itwasn't like, this is what you're
going to do. We weren't in EastGermany. And we all went signing
up like I'm in. I don't know ifI can do it, but I'm gonna try.
(19:43):
So that was pretty cool, too,that it's an invitation. But we
then had to commit we were goingto sign on we had to show a lot
of discipline, focus and awillingness to, you know,
believe in the values andparticipate fully in that
participate in all theagreements, you know, the ways
(20:07):
we were getting ration. So it'styped out, but it doesn't need
that one person to spark it.
It's not dominating. Yeah.
Zoran Stojkovic (20:16):
Jen, that's quite a lot of gems you just
dropped here. And it seems likeyour coach really had a big
influence on you. And, you know,it was a positive influence. But
there's, you know, there'scoaches and leaders who don't
have a great influence on their,on their team. And so one of the
things that I found interestingis, is that you said, you know,
(20:38):
better people, something betterpeople make better athletes. And
that was, that's one of themantras of the New Zealand, All
Blacks, better, people makebetter All Blacks. And that's a
part of their values. And theyhave a, they do a lot, and
they've done a lot of work, toreshape and cultivate their
values as an organization. And acouple of things that I heard
(20:58):
you mentioned, Jen was, youknow, having co creating the
values, but also having that oneperson who sort of sparks it. So
when you talk about the valuesbased approach, who chooses the
values? And how are they chosen?
You know. Is it something that'shanded out by the organization,
which says, here's the valueslive by them? How does that
work?
Jennifer Wallinga (21:18):
You know, I think we were we were all in our
20s. And we had a coach who wasin his early 40s 40s. Yeah, I
think in that context is where Ithink the sport differentiates
from organization where therewas definitely the Father, and
then daughters in a way, right.
So he did have more expertise,more experience. So he was going
to bring his values just like aparent would. I think in an
(21:41):
organization, it's different inthat we're much more on a level
playing field, everyone's anadult, the leader is a leader
for a good reason, theydefinitely share he has more
experience more expertise. Andthey've committed to taking on
more responsibility. But I thinkthe, the power is even more
balanced. So our coach had towork at balancing power, because
(22:02):
typically, we would look to himlike a dad. And he did that by
keeping our focus on the sharedgoal of going this fast at the
Olympics, and how what it wasgoing to take to get there his
role, our role. So we wereactually led by our gold medal
standard, we called it greaterthe criteria of success on high
(22:23):
performance, I think you canapply that in organization as
well, you know, that helps tobalance the power, and it helps
clarify that we're all workingtowards something together. And
I think in our organization,it's probably more important for
the leader to co create or coclarify what that shared purpose
(22:45):
is, and repeat it often and makesure it's embedded everywhere.
Whereas in the coachingsituation, I think it was more
important for him to bring likethat was there, but it's a
little more self evidence forwhat the show purpose is. And
then for him to bring the valuesin, based on his experience. So
those were things like teachingus to be humble, and keep
(23:06):
perspective that Yeah, we thinkthe Olympics was so important,
but really, you're going backinto the boat. And not that
that's not important. Butremember, you're one of many,
many, many people in the worldwho are striving to be their
best. And what you're reallydoing is striving to be your
best, you would bring us back tothose values as well. It's not
(23:26):
about getting the sponsorship,which we didn't get it or you
know, becoming famous or winninga gold medal. It was about
striving for your optimalperformance. I think a leader in
an organization wouldn'tnecessarily bring those like our
coach did, but I think they areto solicit them. Now our coach
(23:49):
did that as well. He definitelysolicited what's important to
you. And he helped us do thatwithin our crews as well,
because we then broke down intosmaller crews, and gave us you
know, the tools to do some ofthat reflection. Yeah. But I
would say those are thedifferences and things that you
don't like I participated inorganizations or worked with
(24:11):
organizations where the leadertries to solely identify what
the core values are, andeverybody's roles arise because
they might be true, but youknow, we didn't generate them.
So it's just showing somethingon us imposing something on our
framework.
Zoran Stojkovic (24:29):
Seems like there's more, there's more buy
in when it is a co-creationprocess. And and people within
the organization, or at leastsome of the people within the
organization have have inputover that and have a have a say
in how what the values are andhow they're, how they're
communicated and how they lookin terms of action and behavior.
(24:49):
And Jen, how have you shapedteam cultures? What sort of work
have you done to shape teamcultures? Maybe it's you know,
and coaching and sport orbusiness.
Jennifer Wallinga (24:59):
Yeah. As a coach, right, just working with
teams, definitely try to focuson clarifying expectations. And
you don't often you don't have aton of time with a team. But if
you can clarify expectationsright away, it just establishes
how we behave as a group andencourages people to say adios
(25:20):
if they don't align, right. Andthen just in daily practice
trying to model conversationswhere I can have them and
linking it always back to youknow why we're here. But having
lots of one on ones, I thinkthat's really crucial to bring
out the best in each Jaffe andthen working with Marsha
consultant like I work with theRugby Sevens team sometimes
(25:44):
because my buddy Kirsten and Iare crewmates, and she's their
mental performance consultant.
So the two of us will do stuff,where we were doing that work of
trying to facilitate from themdraw out from them, what's most
important, and then do the hardwork of what does that look like
in daily practice? And then theharder work of an audit, you
know, are really reflecting onwhere are you going off the
(26:06):
rails here, you say, believe inus, but then I see the stuff, it
takes a little while but they'llstart becoming more and more
forthcoming with those kinds ofexamples, because they start to
recognize that we don't look atthese fractures, they're gonna
turn into full on crevices andbreaks. And we're gonna be in
trouble. Because I like that theword of like a cracker cultural
crack is good, because itliterally things can leak out
(26:28):
just like they wouldn'tfoundation.
Zoran Stojkovic (26:32):
Yeah. And leak in. Yeah, that's, that's
interesting. So you've shapedteam cultures, both as a coach,
I guess, as part of part of thethe, the Olympic teams and some
of those teams, and theco-creation process, and then
as, as a consultant with teams.
Jennifer Wallinga (26:49):
And then right now I'm working with a
number of leaders across thesport system. And when I do
that, I've consulted lots ofdifferent kinds of organizations
like geotechnical core inVancouver, or BC Hydro BC,
transit or something like that.
And it's all the same, it'sworking with, usually leaders
from the middle. Sometimes, ifthis always makes me laugh,
(27:12):
because sometimes the CEO willstick around, but usually it'll
leave, which I think is great.
Because usually they're thatpart of the issue is they don't
quite get it. And that's why theorganization has struck
struggling. And we call itbelieve in, I just buy in, but
believe in when you believe insomething, you're gonna give
your heart to it. But when I'mworking with those middle
(27:33):
manager, or leading from theMiddletown leaders, I try to
give them the tools first ofall, to kind of have those
cultural audit glasses on allthe time, or give them a badge
like your cultural police, theylook into the cracks, because
when you find a crack, you canfix it, you can actually feel
it. And they know how they knowhow to bring something back into
(27:55):
alignment by using the valuesand that's where it highlights
values is something veryconcrete, it's a tool that will
bring integrity to yourorganization, if you embed them
in everything that you do, itbrings integrity, that kind of
sense of certainty andconfidence as well. So I just
try to equip people with thatconcept of culture, how to do an
(28:17):
audit how to align things, gothrough that process and
exercise that and, and then as aleader, myself, I've been in
situations where I've had tofoster culture within smaller
teams, bigger teams, and theneven across organizations. So
when I participant organization,I look for the artifact that is
(28:39):
like the heart of the organism.
So my university, for instance,one of the things I got behind
holy, and I'll get on certaincommittees that I know,
facilitate, I would say like thephysiology of the organization.
For us, it was the learningteaching research model at a
university, I knew that that'sthe home of the whole place. Get
involved with that, and it willhave a huge impact, huge reach.
(29:04):
And it does mean it affectseverything we do. It's research,
learning and teaching ourpurpose. And you know, the
bureaucrats can do whatever theywant around you. But once that
heart is beating strong andclear, and people know about it,
and you've been using it and itembodies everything they love,
then you're going to be okay.
(29:27):
Because I think another keything is understanding
organizations can become very,they just shoot themselves in
the foot the people inorganizations because I think we
love control so much. We kind ofhave to describe it really, it's
almost like scar tissue, I thinkwe create scar tissue across the
organization by by limiting andcontrolling and locking down and
(29:50):
creating bottlenecks of approvaland just hinder and hinder and
hinder by squeezing the org allthe different little kind of
communication so it is a goodanalogy the human body. No. It's
like if you were smoking, andyou're just inhibiting that
ability to transfer oxygen andan energy and nutrition around
(30:12):
you, right? So I seeorganizations tending that way
for some reason, and maybe it'sjust aging, and we do it as we
need to. But to understand that,okay, well keep your heart
healthy then to combat theinevitable. So yeah, maybe the
aging is a better example. Andkeep your lungs you know, the
breathing in and out of thecommunication harbor today,
(30:34):
we're sending messages, gettingthat oxygen, out to all the
different areas of the body.
Yeah.
Zoran Stojkovic (30:42):
This is great.
I love that analogy. And whenyou talk about the cracks that
happen, and sometimes thesefissures can turn into into
fractures, which can turn intoclean breaks, that's a very
vivid picture, because you'reright, and what you said before,
culture is very airy fairy, it'svery, not tangible. Typically,
when these cracks happen,actually, what like, what are
(31:05):
these cracks? And you know,like, what behaviors are toxic
for Team culture? And then how,you talked about empowering
people to be the culture policeto actually patch up these
cracks? And so they don't theydon't turn into breaks and scar
tissue. So how, how do you dothat?
Jennifer Wallinga (31:23):
Yeah, exercise really simple. I just,
you put up a PowerPoint slide,or just on the wall, he say,
okay, we say we believe in that.
But then we do these things, andyou you mind for them, and
they'll be all nicey nice atfirst, you have to be patient.
And gradually, they get more andmore brave as they realize this
is a positive thing. So let hergo. And I was like, using his
(31:43):
little cracks where the lightthe light comes in. And it's the
same with culture, like you gotto look at the cracks. Because
those your opportunities, it'sjust like maintaining your home,
you know, you wouldn't ignorethe cracks. Me a disaster. So
seek them out, always bemaintaining, looking to, you
know, it's like looking after acar or whatever, you're always
adding oil and taking care ofthings all the time. So it's
(32:05):
that process of seeking outwhere we are misaligned, and
also being compassionate andunderstanding that a lot of this
stuff is well intentioned, like,you know, people will accuse
politicians, leaders, CEOs ofwill we say we value our people,
but then we don't give themgreat benefits, or we dismiss
(32:25):
them on without evenacknowledging your service, or
we don't recognize the work thatwas done, right. There's all
these and, and those are usuallynot intentional. So recognizing
that it's not an attack on theleaders. It's just going, Hey,
this is where we're misaligned.
(32:46):
Whenever I have new studentscome, I asked them to do this on
us. And that's a good way tostart because they have a chance
to talk about you know, andyou're modeling that you're
totally open, point them out,help us out, because we
sometimes can't see it, either.
We're so biased, or we're sobusy, you know, we're not even
noticing. And so they'll pointout some really helpful things
(33:07):
around our because we value inthe environment, we value
indigenous relations, we say wevalue human sustainability, and
that's a good one. Becausethey'll say yeah, you say you
value ability, you know, balanceand well being but then you like
cram us into this three weekintensive residency and
glamorous with all this work?
(33:28):
Yeah, you're right. Where's thereflection time, right? So
listen to me when we when werespond. They love that too. And
it's good for everybody. So withthat exercise at pointing out
just what you're saying making areally clear examples of what
those cracks really are they,they can be a zillion different
things. And it depends on theorganization. But you'll hear
(33:49):
right away, you know, it's thoselittle conversations after the
meeting. Everybody's rollingtheir eyes,
Zoran Stojkovic (33:54):
What would you say are some of the more common
ones? Like what are the topthree that you've noticed across
a variety of differentorganizations, those toxic
behaviors?
Jennifer Wallinga (34:03):
Oh, God, well, it's usually something
that hits at the real trust. Soa big one would be a leader
asking for like, everybody toparticipate in a cultural values
assessment, you know, or somesort of litmus test, and how are
we doing as an organization, andeverybody participates, takes
(34:24):
about maybe 2030 minutes out oftheir day, and we're all excited
and think they're going to havea big impact. And then the
leader leaders or leadershipteam, say, Okay, thank you and
then ignored. Now maybe they'velistened to it, maybe they've
read the results, but nobodyknows. And especially if they do
something that's completelycontradictory to their values
(34:47):
shortly after, like laying abunch of people off or, you
know, instigating a new policythat's really rigid or kind of
strangles the employee's senseof autonomy of power takes away
or costs or any of these thingsthat can really hurt people's
ability to do their work, thenpeople will just be completely
disenfranchised. So would havebeen better if they hadn't even
(35:09):
done a cultural valid, niceassessment. Sometimes they do
read it, but they don't tellanybody. So there again, it's
well intentioned, they're like,oh, great data, we're going to
make these changes, just like wedid around adding some
reflection time into ourresidency. But no one really
notices or, you know, they're sosuch subtle changes, no one
really is aware, or they'rehappening in one part of the
(35:31):
organization. So 90% of the orgdoesn't even see it. The leaders
have to share, like, follow up.
So that's another reallyimportant piece to culture,
building and cultivating aculture is the communication,
not only of your values, andeverything that you do, but in
your repair or healing of thosecultural crowds, share back to
(35:53):
the people who work at theorganization, what you did with
the information, how you'regoing to try and rectify
something like we do evaluationsall the time of people,
processes, projects,organizations, and then we don't
actually feedback what we heard.
And the changes we've made basedon that are the changes we've
(36:15):
decided not to make.
Zoran Stojkovic (36:16):
And so Jen, how can leaders measure and assess
team culture in valid andreliable ways then? Like, does
it mean having conversations?
Does it mean, listening in onthose after meeting meetings?
Which, I mean, I don't knowthat, that people would be open
to sharing that. Does it meandoing an anonymous survey? Like
what how's that done?
Jennifer Wallinga (36:37):
I think that cultural values assessment is a
great tool, I think there arebetter ones out there and not so
good ones that are too limitedneeds to be quite robust. And
not just a few little question.
But really, the best way is toask those kind of questions.
Where are we misaligned? And ifthere are 1000 things where you
(36:58):
know, you're failing, first ofall, and, but it's a great
opportunity. So it's aproductive exercise, at least,
that you can try to heal allthose cracks. And then you'll be
on your way again, just likedoing a, you know, some sort of
a, an assessment of your of yourhouse, right? When you do an
inspection of the house thatyou're gonna buy, it's already
giving you that kind of feedbackas well, like, Where are the
(37:19):
cracks? Where are the thingsthat we're gonna have to repair,
it's gonna need a new furnace,your water heaters, like what's
going on? And same with anorganization. So those
assessments, those surveys arereally useful if you actually
pay attention to them. Andpeople think, oh, but you can't
measure it. Yeah, you can. LikeI said, if it's 1000, things
that are misaligned, you know,you're not doing very well, the
(37:41):
Barretts, Barrett values, centerinstead of the states, but
something like that, where theyhave these kinds of assessments.
And then at the end, I'll giveyou a reading. And it really it
measures alignment. So the waythey do it is they say here's
what are my values, or here'swhat I see the organization
communicating, here's what Ithink they should be
(38:03):
communicating and shortassessment. But in the end, it
illustrates alignment and howwell you're doing. And I think
some organizations think they'redoing really great. If they're
only like 20, 25% misaligned, Ithink that's a really terrible
score, actually, and you shouldbe aiming for like 3% misaligned
you just aren't noticing andstrive for that. I also see
(38:28):
organizations sort of sharingthe results and then not doing
anything about it. I reallyterrible measure of misalignment
to Yeah, I think the listeningin you kind of you can
definitely rely on some of that.
And there's some really goodwork around social network
analyses and, and identifyingacross your organization where
(38:52):
the, the real strong nodes ofcommunication are, like who
those people are, they're oftennot leaders, they're, you know,
safety person or something,because they have access to so
many people. So you couldprobably have a meeting, like
identify who those people are,they're your cultural auditors,
and they'll give you an honestappraisal, how you doing
culturally? So again, that'skind of qualitative, but I think
(39:15):
it's a pretty sound measure. Anda good leader would have have
those condiments five they are.
They got their fingers on thepulse rate, great signals within
the system. That's another goodstrategy. But you're there are
tons of measures likeabsenteeism, mental health
turnover, not always, but youknow, for the most part, and
(39:39):
it's worth exploring and askingwhy that person left. So exit
interviews, great feedback. And,you know, for a university, I've
hired probably eight facultyover my tenure there. And every
single one of them says, Well,I'm keen because of your model,
your learning teaching researchmodel. So that's it. Got a
little piece of informationwould be really great to
(40:01):
interview them three years downor something to see if that
still, yeah.
Zoran Stojkovic (40:07):
That's interesting. So john, you
mentioning, using surveys acouple of questionnaires talking
to people and those exitinterviews. I think that instead
of doing exit interviews, Ithink we should be doing entry
interviews. And when people comein asking them, what is it that
you need to be at your best sothat, you know? And what are you
bringing to the organization,and then actually giving them
(40:29):
that and treating people as, asindividuals and not as a group.
Because in that sense, equalitydoesn't really work, because you
can't treat everybody the sameway. Right? Everybody has their
own unique blend of values,behaviors, traits, skill sets,
you know, and and so that's, Ithink that's, that'd be really
(40:53):
important. For you what, whatdoes cultivating your culture
mean? When you when you hearthat what comes to mind?
Jennifer Wallinga (41:01):
when it comes back to what you just said,
because it started me thinkingabout the word we would do on a
rowing team of acknowledgingthat diversity, right. And
really, I think sport missesthis quite a bit lately, where
we're not thinking of everyindividual as this beautiful,
(41:22):
unique human being that we'retrying to elevate to their peak,
right. But to do that, youreally need to know who they
are. And they're not theselittle automatons that we can
control. They're human beings,and to leverage your physical
capacity, I also need to be ableto leverage your emotional and
(41:42):
your mental. So I need to knowthe whole story before I can.
And as an educator, I get that,but I think a lot of leaders
aren't educators, so they missedthat boat. And I think it has to
do with that 100% understandingthe individual and then helping,
the facilitation you do ishelping them connect, connect in
(42:04):
their own way. So I'll describea race planning session for our
women's eight was eight womenplus a coxswain costume, which
facilitated lead it coach wasn'tdidn't need to be in the room.
He didn't need to know whateverhe wants, which I thought was
brilliant, and exactly right.
Because it showed thatcommunicated trust in us as
athletes, professional athletes,so we sit in this room, we
(42:27):
booked off the whole day. Like,no question that we we knew it
might take all day. And we allhad to be prepared for that. And
we were all committed to theprocess of identifying 220, 225
strokes in a race over 2000meters, demanded that every
single person had to identifywith every single call that the
(42:51):
coxswain and we all wouldassociate with each stroke. So
you think about an organization,it's the same with designing a
project, or department, any kindof process within the
organization's you have theright stakeholders around the
table, not be afraid to have toomany, whoever is going to play a
role needs to be there. And thenwe have lots of really great
(43:14):
facilitation processes thatdon't have to take all day. But
be prepared that they might takesome time. So this will usually
take us about three to fourhours. And it took too long,
because we get to a point, youknow, first 250 and we want to
do this and then that and thensomeone would go, you know, I
really hate that word. And it'dbe one out of nine. And
(43:36):
everybody do like, you know,especially if we get to the last
200. And we have 20 stories todeal with, like, we just agree.
And so I would have to be braveand say No, that doesn't work
for me. And we wouldn't, wewouldn't roll our eyes any sort
of way because you're tired,right? Y'all understand
fundamentally that of course, wehave to make sure it works for
(43:58):
her, as well as everything else,because without her on that
stroke, we're gonna lose a race.
So it was a really powerful, andit took a lot of time and a lot
of courage and a lot of patienceand, but in the end, we'd end up
with a plan we all 100% believedin. And I tell you, it helped us
(44:20):
win a World Championship lastyear by an inch. Because of our
trust in each other our raceplan. We kept our heads in the
boat because we were losing atthe beginning and shouldn't have
been and then, you know, thingsthat just transpired but we kept
our heads in the boat committedto that race plan. And we knew
if we executed I love this pieceactually executed what we had
(44:44):
created together. It would bringout the maximum peak performance
right? So when we cross the linedoesn't matter how we've done
really, but what we promised iswe would do our optimal and then
when we cross the line had donethat peak performance and then
we look around see how we didyou know what I mean, compared
(45:04):
to everybody else it didn'treally wasn't really about the
gold medal. It was about thatoptimal thing, the gold medal
standard, the speed. And sothere's one time Yeah, we, we
were down like a full boatlength, which is a lot in a
rowing race and to the Russians.
And they were way bigger and waystronger and all that but we
just kept her head in the boatand kept focused on executing
(45:26):
every single stroke. And in thelast 10 strokes or so or
coxswain let us know that youknow, we were moving, we had
been touching them. But youstart to feel like you're gonna
run out of room. And then shesaid, they're dying, they
started looking at us, right andtaking their head out. kind of
gave it to us, but I feel badfor them. But you know, it was
(45:48):
about us staying focused andjust believing and in the end,
they don't repeat about a littletiny bit. And that set us on our
path. So that idea of reallyparticipating but also honoring
all that diversity. Everybodyhas to play a role and in their
own way. You can't forcesomething on someone. Yeah, it
(46:09):
takes time. That's just liketeaching, you know, you're you
can't just sort of give or takea bunch of theory and just like
push it into people's brains,they have to find a way there.
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Zoran Stojkovic (46:22):
Some teachers and leaders still seem to think
that you can. And and I thinkthere's a serious update that
needs to happen in, in society,both in the world of sport and
business in terms of theunderstanding that science has
around motivation. Now theunderstanding that science has
around communication and how howimportant culture is and and the
(46:43):
fact that in practice, we reallyhave a long way to go. And we
haven't we haven't caught up.
We're not there yet. We're usingoutdated systems, models,
frameworks. And so I thinkthat's, that's very important.
Jennifer Wallinga (46:56):
What do you think it is that gets in the
way? Like, what do you thinkwe're stuck on relying on?
Zoran Stojkovic (47:02):
I think a piece of it is fear of change. And the
fact that it's comfortable tokeep doing things the same ways.
The I think the other piece,which may even be bigger is not
having the conversations thatwe're supposed to be having
people not speaking up at work,people know that things aren't,
you know, when culture isn'tgreat, people can feel it, but
(47:24):
they don't always share it. Andso I think sometimes the leaders
in the organization, maybe havean ego, and they don't listen,
or they pretend to listen, andthen go do the thing that they
want to do anyways. So I thinkthat's a couple of things that
definitely get in the way. And Ido see it getting better. Like
there's a lot out there in termsof information in terms of
(47:45):
podcasts, audio, books, books,journals, blog posts, there's a
lot and I think information isgetting out there. And people
are getting more and moreeducated on what to do, what not
to do. But I still think some ofthose things get in the way,
Jennifer Wallinga (47:59):
Really good point. And that's I think, why
I'm hoping this idea of culturalauditing, like looking at the
cracks is an opportunity tostrengthen. It's not about being
critical, or saying that CEOneeds to go, you know, it's more
about, here's an opportunity tobring things into alignment. I
think that doesn't seem torequire as much courage because
(48:21):
I get it like it's very powerimbalanced as well. Speak up
because we can be turned or wecan be excluded. It's not always
about getting fired. Sometimesit's being just invited. The
opportunities aren't there foryou, your cast are a bit of a
pain in the butt.
Zoran Stojkovic (48:38):
Yeah, for sure.
That's a really good pointaround people, reasons why
people don't speak up. And yeah,maybe might be it might be that
fear of losing a job, but itmight be just fear of being
excluded and not in that circle,whatever that means. Is there a
book or resource that has shapedyour understanding of culture,
Jen?
Jennifer Wallinga (48:57):
Yeah, I'd say Peter Sange was one of the first
real leadership books I duginto. I'm sure there were others
like Stephen Covey, and thatkind of stuff, more popular
books, but they're saying hewrote the Fifth Discipline and
lots of others. I think thebridge too, he wrote lots about
how schools learns another bigone. But he, I think he woke me
(49:19):
up to the, to the philosophylike you're describing, like, we
have this kind of these beliefsand philosophies around how
things should be. And I think alot of it was, for me grounded
in sport and in the goodenvironments. They participated
in successful models I've beenexposed to, which is great. And
then I come into organizationsand I wasn't seeing it quite the
(49:41):
same way more more in education,maybe by a little less than
other organization. And so hewill be up to Oh, you know what,
this is possible. And this isgood. And I just, you know, all
the words he was saying, I justwent, Oh my god, it's so great
to have that sort of community.
I think he welcomed me into thecommunity, this kind of thing.
And then another one that's hada huge impact recently, Amy
(50:02):
Evanson, she's the one who'scoined that phrase of
psychological safety. And I likeI love the psychological safety
concept because they, but she'skind of just made her name on
that, but I love her. I love thework she does, she talks about
failure as well, which I reallybelieve in, again, not as a
negative thing, it's not anopportunity. Although learning
(50:24):
happens, it's helped to, torealign my thinking around
failure as well, you know, I cantalk the talk, but then when I'm
in a sports situation, you know,I really try to avoid failure.
And I think this coaching, andyet, it's she has caused me to
reflect back on myself as anathlete being very comfortable
(50:45):
feel you're not that I failed aton. I was really lucky, I
always had good crews and greatopportunities. And so, but I was
when we lost, I would justbecome like, you know, obviously
upset, but then very much in alearning mindset to do with my
coaches. But it took me a longtime to apply that in another
(51:05):
setting. So she's beenfundamental, and I feel like I
share her stuff more thananybody else. So she just put up
a little TED talk on leading andcrisis. And she, she just shares
down the whole concept of whatyou described, here, change
wanting things comfortable, weseek security, she goes knowing
in crisis, we're gonna, we'regonna lean on that we're gonna
(51:28):
look for that. And then she justgoes, and she's kind of taught,
double work, and just giveseverybody home, you won't know
about it. It's about being openand vulnerable, and letting
things go a little bit. Trustingand people are like, awesome.
Zoran Stojkovic (51:44):
Those are really great resources. Thank
you for sharing. And one of mylast questions here is what is
one practical tool leaders canuse tomorrow to cultivate the
culture of their team?
Jennifer Wallinga (51:57):
practical tool, look for the cracks. And
ask your employees to, don'tjust do it all yourself, and
list the whole organization tobe on the lookout at all times.
If you did, that yourorganization would be lying.
Zoran Stojkovic (52:15):
That's powerful. It reminds me of an
activity where the organizationhas to come up with what they
would do if they were theircompetitor, how they would break
apart their organization. Soyou're like forced to look for
the cracks? Love it. And I'veused that with teams and coaches
and athletes before and it's,it's absolutely powerful. People
(52:39):
love it. Really great activity.
So tell me, tell me about yourcompany, Integrated Focus.
Jennifer Wallinga (52:44):
Yeah, it's consulting. And so I do a ton of
different little things really.
So you know, organization, youhire me come in for a day, maybe
I'd be there regularly over thespan of several months, I teach,
you know, workshops, or I'llcome in and just work with the
leadership team and try to teaseapart with the challenges. He
designs and programming withthem. Also things I'll do one on
(53:08):
one stuff, of course, going intoteams, and different different
sectors to bring different sortof context. But I really love
sport intends to get more andmore leading, which is super
fun. And it's all premised onthe work I did during my final
degree we tried to do withproblem solving. And it seems
(53:28):
really like a weird topic. Butit totally relates to sport
because of the idea of highperformance, and how do we get
there. And usually, you'resolving a problem of some sort,
you know, some sort of thingthat you don't have going on in
your body, or an opponent that'sparticularly challenging or
ditions. It's always somethingyou're solving. And our our
(53:50):
interest was around inflate,which is, those people think of
it as like the hall that youhave, when you figure something
out. That seems reallyintractable and complex. But
then all of a sudden, you getit. And we we were quite
interested in that and saw thatas kind of a nugget and
highperformance anything.
(54:13):
Because we don't we didn'tbelieve it was magical, or just
by chance, we knew we couldfacilitate it. So I really dug
into this concept. And what Idiscovered was, it had to do
with failure and barriers, thatif we could be courageous enough
to acknowledge what the barrierof failure actually was the
threat and use that to lead usto what it threatens or when it
(54:39):
gets in the way of that wouldreveal the true goal or value
that was at stake. But it wouldalso keep in focus with the
value or threat was and that wasthe key if you could keep both
things in your view and kind ofexpand your problem plan frame
to include the goal and thebarrier. So for us in sportive
(55:00):
East German gold medal. And, andwhat we discovered in that was
really the gold medal. Becausewhat they threatened is what
they get in the way of is thatwinning, not a gold medal but
being the best. But once weclarify the goal was about being
faster, and they wereimpenetrable because they were
(55:21):
doping differently, way biggerthan us. But what we discovered
them when we brought the twotogether was we had to go faster
than them seems obvious. But ina totally different way. We
weren't going to be big likethat we're not going to take
drugs. So how else can we thatfast. And as soon as it was
framed holistically in anintegrated way, oh, then we came
(55:42):
up with lost of solutions.
Active recovery three times aday, lots of time on technique,
lots of time on building ourlungs. And then we went really
well.
Zoran Stojkovic (55:50):
Wow, that's huge. And that gives every day
in the daily trainingenvironment it gives it it gives
it purpose, it gives itunderstanding everything makes
sense, is what we're doing rightnow gonna make us faster. And if
it isn't, then maybe weshouldn't be doing it. Where can
people find you, Jen? Are youonline on social? Do you have a
(56:14):
webesite?
Jennifer Wallinga (56:14):
Yeah, website is integrated focus. And on all
sorts of social usually jwalingaor Jennifer Walinga. It's a
pretty odd name. So it's easy.
And I'm pretty I think I'mpretty busy on social. I like to
share things I think that willhelp unlock people or promote
these kinds of ideas, sharethose resources, right? I'm a
(56:35):
teacher. So that's always goingto be my first effort, and then
staying connected with mycommunity. And at Royal Roads,
it's easy to find you just putin Jen Waling, that's probably
the first thing that'll come up.
Zoran Stojkovic (56:46):
Perfect. Jen, thanks for taking the time to
talk to our audience today. It'sbeen really enjoyable. And
there's a lot of gems andnuggets that people are going to
get out of this conversation.
Jennifer Wallinga (56:55):
Thanks so much, Zoran and what a great
conversation. Fabulous questionsreally blew my mind. So thanks
so much. Take care.
Zoran Stojkovic (57:02):
No problem, it was a pleasure.
Hey, thanks for tuning in tocultivate your culture, rate and
review our podcast on iTunes.
Any websites and resourcesmentioned in the podcast as well
as the guests information can befound on the show
www.kizo.ca/podcast. Here's asneak peek of what's coming up
(57:23):
in our episode next week.
Kimia Hamidi (57:30):
I think the way that I think about leading a
team and shaping the team is youwant to see yourself as an
editor. And so you know, what isan editor in chief do they
synthesize information, theyread line stuff, they cross
stuff out, and they make surethat you've you've kind of you
need to include this key point.
And so has the overall missionbeen been achieved in this in
this paper?
I worked with a coach once who had to make a
(00:02):
very difficult decision to cut areally a really effective
player, like a very highperformance player, but toxic
and completely counter to a lotof the cultural values that the
team has established together,just resisting.
Zoran Stojkovic (00:21):
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.
Today on the show, we have JenWallinga. So Jen has quite an
(00:42):
impressive background. Jen is aneducator has been an educator
for 30 years, a former member ofCanada's Commonwealth world and
Olympic gold medal rowing teams.
So Jen draws on her personal,professional and educational
experiences when facilitatingproblem solving and leadership
(01:02):
processes in organizations.
After retiring from elite sport,Jen taught English for several
years in the Toronto area, thenbegan teaching at Royal Roads in
the early 2000s. at the Centerfor Applied leadership and
management and schools ofleadership and business. Jen is
also the principal of theconsulting firm, integrated
focus, which offers trainingprograms for individuals, teams,
(01:24):
departments and organizations aswell. And Jen earned her PhD in
organizational studies fromUniversity of Victoria, Canada,
in 2017, where she developed aproblem solving intervention
called integrated focus. Jen,thanks for being on the show
today.
Jennifer Wallinga (01:40):
Such a pleasure. Great to see you
Zoran.
Zoran Stojkovic (01:43):
To see you, how's your day going? so far?
Jennifer Wallinga (01:45):
Yeah, I got to get rolling this morning.
I'll play glass I was with mycrew as well. We're allowed to
grow in a little forced them. Sothat's been lovely. And I might
actually go out again thisafternoon after this, but my son
in our single
Zoran Stojkovic (01:58):
Nice! two workouts, two rowing workouts in
a day still going strong. Thatwas awesome. So tell us a little
bit about your about yourbackground, and a bit about your
story of how you got to whereyou are.
Jennifer Wallinga (02:13):
Well, I was very involved in sport. I was a
nerd first real bookworm andinto art and then discovered
sport I grew really fast andended up focusing in on rowing,
is kind of involved witheverything. And I discovered
rowing by accident, fell inlove, like the first experience,
(02:33):
and I knew it's all I ever wantto do. And I still feel that
way. And so it really shaped mywhole life for many, many years
through high school and intouniversity and beyond. And I'm
still growing at 55 years old,and still competing with my crew
from those years when Irepresented Canada. So even this
(02:54):
morning, I was at with three ofthem. So that's pretty cool. And
I feel like I've learned so muchfrom sport, you know, I've gone
to school for it feels likeabout 1000 years, and really the
sport degree was, was crucial.
And so I weave all of that inincreasingly, I increasingly I
participate and consulting tosport organizations or
(03:14):
delivering educational programs,to organizations, on boards,
etc. And I think I'll justhunker down, and just board and
more and more as I as I growolder. But I also because of
sport, I was always veryinterested in performance. And
that means for me, you know, anindividual's ability to be their
best team and organization. Sothat naturally led me into
(03:38):
consulting. and ended up, youknow, through schooling and
education. And I ended upteaching a lot at a very
progressive Universityrailroads, which focuses on
social change, lots of work noworganizational development. So
that's where I am. And I've beenthere for quite a while I've
been associated with universityfor about 2020 years at least.
And in a professor role for thepast 15 years or so.
Zoran Stojkovic (04:02):
That's solid, quite an impressive background
and set of experiences in bothin sport and outside of sport
and education. And so, you're nostranger to being on teams and
leading teams. And so how wouldyou define team culture? Jen?
Jennifer Wallinga (04:18):
Yeah, I think I think team culture, culture, I
always describe it as "ourvalues communicated". So how are
our values showing up? Becausecommunication is yes, with your
mouth, but it's with youractions and behaviors, your body
language, your decision makingyour structures and what we call
artifacts, local communicationshows up everywhere, culture
(04:40):
shows up everywhere, becauseyour values bleed out of you
everywhere. And so team cultureis exactly that, you know, what
values are is this teamcommunicating? They may be
thinking that they believe incertain things and that they
value certain concepts. Orprincipals. But we really can
(05:03):
read their culture through theiractions, behaviors and
interactions with one another.
Zoran Stojkovic (05:07):
Wow, that's quite a set definition. So
you're talking about values andartifacts and the values being
communicated and actually livedwithin an organization within a
team. And so why then is itimportant to cultivate the
culture of a team and to havethese values and to have them
communicated? And both businessand sport?
Jennifer Wallinga (05:29):
Yeah, well, I think, and I should
differentiate, because we oftenI find, when I'm working with
groups, they often start todelve into a discussion around
"well, what is the value?" Andso to clarify, and define the
terms? When we're talkingvalues, of course, we're talking
those moral code kind of values,like integrity, or I believe in
honesty. I'm a core value mightbe family for me, right? So
(05:55):
that's moral values. When I'mtalking with a group and
organization or an individualabout cultural values, usually
we're talking about thingswhere, what we think is
important. So that could stillbe family. But it's also things
like, collaboration. All right.
So you can sort of see thedifference between those things.
Where do we invest our energy,our money, our we our resources,
(06:16):
in general, our time, our focus,those are what we value as an
organization or team. And Ithink the reason that we want to
attend to culture, culture isvalues communicated. And then
how well those aligned with whatwe state to be or a spouse as
our core values. Because we're,you know, we're promising when
(06:40):
we put our values on a websiteor on a wall, we're promising to
the world that we're going tolive in this way, as you said,
you know, live them. And so howwell we honor that promise is
really cultural integrity. So itis important to develop culture,
because it's about developingthat integrity, that alignment
with what we say we believe inand value and are going to
(07:02):
prioritize me and an individualcan do that, too. I was just
talking with a couple people I'mworking with, and one was
saying, Yeah, I need to do thatcultural audit on myself. And
it's a great exercise to checkin on how aligned am I, with my
actual values I, I believe Ibelieve in and I say I
prioritize, check in on all thethings that you do and say, to
(07:24):
make sure those align teams cando it as well. And it's
important as well, to check inon your cultural integrity, do
the work of auditing that arereflecting on how aligned you
are with your core values as youneed them to be because cultural
integrity is not only energy,now, if you're blind, you're
(07:47):
solid, you're balanced, you'recentered, you've got a
foundation, you're confident,you're also exuding that around
to everyone around you, so theycan trust you. Because they know
you're trustworthy, you haveintegrity, and that with that
energy concept and kind of trustthat you're building, I think
(08:08):
there's also value in it becauseit keeps you focused and clear.
Where we get in trouble is ifit's misaligned, there's
contradictions, we say we buy itup, and then we do the thing.
And now suddenly, you're causingsome kind of abrasion, abrasion,
lack of focus, lack of clarity,and that has huge costs. So if
(08:35):
you scale that to anorganization, if everybody's
feeling a little agitated,because they don't know where
things set, or they don't,they're getting confusing
messages, or the, they'refrustrated, because they feel
like you guys say this, and thenyou do that. All of those all
that agitation, all that lack oftrust, all that concern, and
(08:55):
worry, and anxiety, or anger andfrustration, is sucking the life
out of the organization. And itshows up in all sorts of
different ways, right? We see itin health, we see it in all the
backroom conversations, postmeeting meetings, you know, what
a waste of time. So when peopleare doing that they're not
working, not being productive,and they're not building their
(09:15):
sense of self or integrity orconfidence. So it's just it will
rain on the organization, theindividual team.
Zoran Stojkovic (09:26):
So you're saying it's very important to
cultivate the culture for anumber of reasons. And one
distinction that you've made isbetween these personal values
and cultural values. And thenyou talked about alignment of
action and value and actuallyliving the the value and in the
behaviors that we exhibitthroughout the day. Is it
possible to have misalignmentbetween personal values like to
(09:48):
value something personally, butthen to work for an organization
that doesn't value that?
Jennifer Wallinga (09:53):
Well, I think it is possible, but again, a
huge cost. Okay. And so I dothink the more we talk about
cost So glad people are talkingabout culture a lot more. I'm
not sure everybody understandswhat it is, I think it feels
very intangible and the realpeople still, but that's why I
try and define it all the timeas values communicate, because
people seem to get that. Andthis idea of alignment, and then
(10:17):
it's a tool. Yeah. And I thinkit's really important for
individuals who are thinking tojoin an organization or who are
thinking about leavingorganization, it's a really good
exercise to go through to checkwhether your core values, first
of all, what they are always agood exercise, and then to check
whether they're aligned with theorganization you're working
with. You know, I work with avery progressive University, the
(10:41):
values are very clear, they'reembodied right across the
organization, and the learningteaching research model. But
then we see the president sayingthem as well, you know, in his
messaging, but the reasonthey're the same is because a
lot of consultation, whichagain, exhibits and communicate
a core value of participativedecision making letter does, I
(11:06):
think about my support team,same thing, it was exhaustive,
how much participation went intobuilding a race plan, which is
no different than a strip club.
It was really thorough, and weall fundamentally understood how
important everyone's commitmentto it, and alignment. So there's
a good example of personal andorganizational or team values
(11:27):
being brought into alignment. Sowe built the race plan, just as
employees should be contributingto building a strat plan. And
then of course, you're going tohave alignment, because it's
born up right and, sorry, my dogis snoring in the background,
hopefully,
Zoran Stojkovic (11:44):
No problem.
[LAUGHER] His value is obviouslyrecovery right now. And so
that's, that's a solid, thankyou for, for explaining that.
And so what I heard you sayingwas that misalignment can be
quite costly. And, and havingalignment between personal
values and having the cultural,like being part of an
(12:06):
organization in a culture thathas similar values is very
important, because that, thenthat cultural audit is going to
go quite well. And we're gonnabe living with integrity and
with authenticity, and whathappens when that alignment
isn't there? What's the what'sat stake?
Jennifer Wallinga (12:26):
I think that's when it makes it a little
more clear why the person mightwant to leave that organization
or doesn't fit with the team orI worked with a coach once, who
had to make a very difficultdecision to cut a really a
really effective player with avery high performance player,
but toxic, and completelycounter to a lot of the cultural
(12:49):
values that the team hasestablished together, resisting,
and no matter how hard they try,should they couldn't bring her
into that culture. Now. Youknow, even, you know, one could
argue, well, shouldn't they tryto shift the culture slightly to
incorporate this person as well,and I think they try. But I
think she also contradicted toso many of their values, it just
(13:12):
wasn't a great fit. So thatrealization, that kind of
cultural audit really helped mecoach realize that, actually, I
have to cut it. And even thoughshe's my top one of my top
players, I have to cut herbecause it's having too many
costs. So the same with someonedeciding to leave. And I've had
lots of students, they gothrough and get their masters.
And you know, most students willsay, what job Am I going to get
(13:35):
after these students quit theirjobs? And because they realize,
Oh, yeah, I don't belong thereanymore. I've evolved and I need
to go somewhere where morealigned, right, and they have
the confidence to do that. Ithink it's crucial. I think too
many people are probably workingin organizations they don't feel
aligned with or committed to,and it's not good for them. It's
(13:58):
not good for the organization,because they're not committing
fully. But it's not good forthem either to be living in.
Zoran Stojkovic (14:04):
Yeah, the dissonance for sure can be can
be challenging. And I wasreading a book called Fierce
Conversations by Susan Scott,really great book, and she's
going to be a guest on the showhere as well. And one of the
things she says when we live outof integrity with our own values
and don't - her whole frame isaround having conversations that
we need to have, when we don'thave the conversations that we
(14:25):
need to have. She talks aboutimmune system suppression and
being more likely to get sickand just mentally there being
you know, challenges and, andburnout and all sorts of things.
So that's, I think, definitelyimportant. And the starting
place would definitely be tostart start with ourselves. Now.
When we think about the cultureand for leaders who work within
(14:47):
cultures and who are shapingthese cultures and creating
them. How can culture becultivated, like what is the
starting place and who has to bein those conversations?
Jennifer Wallinga (14:56):
Well, I would assume a lot of your audience is
going to be athletic and intosport in some way. So I like
using that metaphor, I do thinkit's an outstanding metaphor,
because, like almost the wholeworld participates in sport in
some way as a spectator, even asa critic, you know, some people
are thinking about sports, youknow, so I think about my
(15:16):
experience in sport, I wasreally fortunate to be part of a
high performing, and very strongcultural team. And the way it
was cultivated was, yes, thecoach, the coach was central,
because he brought his core hisown core values, he was very
clear and very, a lot ofintegrity around what he
(15:38):
believed to be important. And Ithink he, he's matured in that
as well. So we kind of caughthim at a place where he was
really maturing into realizinghow important it was. And, and
then he insisted on our valuesbased approach. So I think
that's a good starting point, isunderstanding that values are
the foundation of anorganization, I think sometimes
(15:59):
people think they're nice tohaves, or we have to go through
with this and figure out amission mission. And they kind
of treat it as though it'stertiary, and soft and fuzzy.
And then it's very concrete issomething that forms the
foundation of your organization,just like purpose. Vision is
(16:19):
right there to add values. Andyeah, your vision is just, you
know, an encompassing thing. Sofoundational values, then he
insisted that we behave inaccordance with the core values,
and the purpose of our team,which, you know, is rowing. So
we're going fast. You can,that's an analogy for an
(16:41):
organization to you, this ispretty easy to define, we're
here to serve the public, orwe're here to make this product,
or we're here to provide aservice to some other
stakeholders, right? So it'sclear what our purpose is. And,
and the values are not. So inorder to go really fast and be
an Olympian. I was part of it,we must not only be really
(17:05):
strong human beings,athletically good at our jobs,
but we also have to be leaders,in order to be Olympians. We
need to be great people, andhigh performers in all aspects
of our lives. So that droveeverything we did. He would say
things like, and you know, I'mattributing A lot of it to him,
(17:28):
because I think that's theresponsibility of a leader.
Their responsibility is tocultivate, I love the word
cultivate, right? They're theones who wrap their arms around,
they do the facilitation work,they design the communication
process, you know, we met everysingle day, we were always clear
on what was expected, but alsowhat was happening. He and she
(17:52):
told us stories all the time. Sowithin those meetings, he would
also embed these stories of thatillustrated the values that we
had all signed on to and theimportance of doing things a
certain way. So he's a designer,he's a cultivators, facilitator,
he is hard to model thingshimself as well. He didn't
always do a perfect job, butneither did us, did we right, we
(18:14):
would fall down sometimes. Butthat's his responsibility as a
leader, it doesn't mean that hedecides on our values, and I
don't think he pushes us pushedus around. That was another key
piece was it was a very balancedbalancing of power. His job was
to, through expertise that hesometimes drew on other sports,
(18:37):
but also from himself, was tokind of design a framework, but
we were crucial players and allof that, and he would say that
to us, you know, without theathletes, the coach is nothing.
So constantly communicating thatbalance of power was really
brilliant, I thought, and thatthen let us always be very much
(18:57):
participants partners inachieving a shared goal. So the
cultivation is need some kind offacilitator, someone just
sparking along someone tounderstand that they have the
expertise need that foundation,but it also needed all of all of
us had to be leaders to we allhad to show a lot of integrity,
really commit to the process.
And I remember when he laid upthe quad, the four year plan
(19:17):
leading up to the Olympics, andit was, you know, astounding,
the standards that were beingset for us. And we were deciding
we wanted to go for Olympicgold. So here's what it was
going to take over the fouryears. And he literally put it
out. It was an invitation. Itwasn't like, this is what you're
going to do. We weren't in EastGermany. And we all went signing
up like I'm in. I don't know ifI can do it, but I'm gonna try.
(19:43):
So that was pretty cool, too,that it's an invitation. But we
then had to commit we were goingto sign on we had to show a lot
of discipline, focus and awillingness to, you know,
believe in the values andparticipate fully in that
participate in all theagreements, you know, the ways
(20:07):
we were getting ration. So it'styped out, but it doesn't need
that one person to spark it.
It's not dominating. Yeah.
Zoran Stojkovic (20:16):
Jen, that's quite a lot of gems you just
dropped here. And it seems likeyour coach really had a big
influence on you. And, you know,it was a positive influence. But
there's, you know, there'scoaches and leaders who don't
have a great influence on their,on their team. And so one of the
things that I found interestingis, is that you said, you know,
(20:38):
better people, something betterpeople make better athletes. And
that was, that's one of themantras of the New Zealand, All
Blacks, better, people makebetter All Blacks. And that's a
part of their values. And theyhave a, they do a lot, and
they've done a lot of work, toreshape and cultivate their
values as an organization. And acouple of things that I heard
(20:58):
you mentioned, Jen was, youknow, having co creating the
values, but also having that oneperson who sort of sparks it. So
when you talk about the valuesbased approach, who chooses the
values? And how are they chosen?
You know. Is it something that'shanded out by the organization,
which says, here's the valueslive by them? How does that
work?
Jennifer Wallinga (21:18):
You know, I think we were we were all in our
20s. And we had a coach who wasin his early 40s 40s. Yeah, I
think in that context is where Ithink the sport differentiates
from organization where therewas definitely the Father, and
then daughters in a way, right.
So he did have more expertise,more experience. So he was going
to bring his values just like aparent would. I think in an
(21:41):
organization, it's different inthat we're much more on a level
playing field, everyone's anadult, the leader is a leader
for a good reason, theydefinitely share he has more
experience more expertise. Andthey've committed to taking on
more responsibility. But I thinkthe, the power is even more
balanced. So our coach had towork at balancing power, because
(22:02):
typically, we would look to himlike a dad. And he did that by
keeping our focus on the sharedgoal of going this fast at the
Olympics, and how what it wasgoing to take to get there his
role, our role. So we wereactually led by our gold medal
standard, we called it greaterthe criteria of success on high
(22:23):
performance, I think you canapply that in organization as
well, you know, that helps tobalance the power, and it helps
clarify that we're all workingtowards something together. And
I think in our organization,it's probably more important for
the leader to co create or coclarify what that shared purpose
(22:45):
is, and repeat it often and makesure it's embedded everywhere.
Whereas in the coachingsituation, I think it was more
important for him to bring likethat was there, but it's a
little more self evidence forwhat the show purpose is. And
then for him to bring the valuesin, based on his experience. So
those were things like teachingus to be humble, and keep
(23:06):
perspective that Yeah, we thinkthe Olympics was so important,
but really, you're going backinto the boat. And not that
that's not important. Butremember, you're one of many,
many, many people in the worldwho are striving to be their
best. And what you're reallydoing is striving to be your
best, you would bring us back tothose values as well. It's not
(23:26):
about getting the sponsorship,which we didn't get it or you
know, becoming famous or winninga gold medal. It was about
striving for your optimalperformance. I think a leader in
an organization wouldn'tnecessarily bring those like our
coach did, but I think they areto solicit them. Now our coach
(23:49):
did that as well. He definitelysolicited what's important to
you. And he helped us do thatwithin our crews as well,
because we then broke down intosmaller crews, and gave us you
know, the tools to do some ofthat reflection. Yeah. But I
would say those are thedifferences and things that you
don't like I participated inorganizations or worked with
(24:11):
organizations where the leadertries to solely identify what
the core values are, andeverybody's roles arise because
they might be true, but youknow, we didn't generate them.
So it's just showing somethingon us imposing something on our
framework.
Zoran Stojkovic (24:29):
Seems like there's more, there's more buy
in when it is a co-creationprocess. And and people within
the organization, or at leastsome of the people within the
organization have have inputover that and have a have a say
in how what the values are andhow they're, how they're
communicated and how they lookin terms of action and behavior.
(24:49):
And Jen, how have you shapedteam cultures? What sort of work
have you done to shape teamcultures? Maybe it's you know,
and coaching and sport orbusiness.
Jennifer Wallinga (24:59):
Yeah. As a coach, right, just working with
teams, definitely try to focuson clarifying expectations. And
you don't often you don't have aton of time with a team. But if
you can clarify expectationsright away, it just establishes
how we behave as a group andencourages people to say adios
(25:20):
if they don't align, right. Andthen just in daily practice
trying to model conversationswhere I can have them and
linking it always back to youknow why we're here. But having
lots of one on ones, I thinkthat's really crucial to bring
out the best in each Jaffe andthen working with Marsha
consultant like I work with theRugby Sevens team sometimes
(25:44):
because my buddy Kirsten and Iare crewmates, and she's their
mental performance consultant.
So the two of us will do stuff,where we were doing that work of
trying to facilitate from themdraw out from them, what's most
important, and then do the hardwork of what does that look like
in daily practice? And then theharder work of an audit, you
know, are really reflecting onwhere are you going off the
(26:06):
rails here, you say, believe inus, but then I see the stuff, it
takes a little while but they'llstart becoming more and more
forthcoming with those kinds ofexamples, because they start to
recognize that we don't look atthese fractures, they're gonna
turn into full on crevices andbreaks. And we're gonna be in
trouble. Because I like that theword of like a cracker cultural
crack is good, because itliterally things can leak out
(26:28):
just like they wouldn'tfoundation.
Zoran Stojkovic (26:32):
Yeah. And leak in. Yeah, that's, that's
interesting. So you've shapedteam cultures, both as a coach,
I guess, as part of part of thethe, the Olympic teams and some
of those teams, and theco-creation process, and then
as, as a consultant with teams.
Jennifer Wallinga (26:49):
And then right now I'm working with a
number of leaders across thesport system. And when I do
that, I've consulted lots ofdifferent kinds of organizations
like geotechnical core inVancouver, or BC Hydro BC,
transit or something like that.
And it's all the same, it'sworking with, usually leaders
from the middle. Sometimes, ifthis always makes me laugh,
(27:12):
because sometimes the CEO willstick around, but usually it'll
leave, which I think is great.
Because usually they're thatpart of the issue is they don't
quite get it. And that's why theorganization has struck
struggling. And we call itbelieve in, I just buy in, but
believe in when you believe insomething, you're gonna give
your heart to it. But when I'mworking with those middle
(27:33):
manager, or leading from theMiddletown leaders, I try to
give them the tools first ofall, to kind of have those
cultural audit glasses on allthe time, or give them a badge
like your cultural police, theylook into the cracks, because
when you find a crack, you canfix it, you can actually feel
it. And they know how they knowhow to bring something back into
(27:55):
alignment by using the valuesand that's where it highlights
values is something veryconcrete, it's a tool that will
bring integrity to yourorganization, if you embed them
in everything that you do, itbrings integrity, that kind of
sense of certainty andconfidence as well. So I just
try to equip people with thatconcept of culture, how to do an
(28:17):
audit how to align things, gothrough that process and
exercise that and, and then as aleader, myself, I've been in
situations where I've had tofoster culture within smaller
teams, bigger teams, and theneven across organizations. So
when I participant organization,I look for the artifact that is
(28:39):
like the heart of the organism.
So my university, for instance,one of the things I got behind
holy, and I'll get on certaincommittees that I know,
facilitate, I would say like thephysiology of the organization.
For us, it was the learningteaching research model at a
university, I knew that that'sthe home of the whole place. Get
involved with that, and it willhave a huge impact, huge reach.
(29:04):
And it does mean it affectseverything we do. It's research,
learning and teaching ourpurpose. And you know, the
bureaucrats can do whatever theywant around you. But once that
heart is beating strong andclear, and people know about it,
and you've been using it and itembodies everything they love,
then you're going to be okay.
(29:27):
Because I think another keything is understanding
organizations can become very,they just shoot themselves in
the foot the people inorganizations because I think we
love control so much. We kind ofhave to describe it really, it's
almost like scar tissue, I thinkwe create scar tissue across the
organization by by limiting andcontrolling and locking down and
(29:50):
creating bottlenecks of approvaland just hinder and hinder and
hinder by squeezing the org allthe different little kind of
communication so it is a goodanalogy the human body. No. It's
like if you were smoking, andyou're just inhibiting that
ability to transfer oxygen andan energy and nutrition around
(30:12):
you, right? So I seeorganizations tending that way
for some reason, and maybe it'sjust aging, and we do it as we
need to. But to understand that,okay, well keep your heart
healthy then to combat theinevitable. So yeah, maybe the
aging is a better example. Andkeep your lungs you know, the
breathing in and out of thecommunication harbor today,
(30:34):
we're sending messages, gettingthat oxygen, out to all the
different areas of the body.
Yeah.
Zoran Stojkovic (30:42):
This is great.
I love that analogy. And whenyou talk about the cracks that
happen, and sometimes thesefissures can turn into into
fractures, which can turn intoclean breaks, that's a very
vivid picture, because you'reright, and what you said before,
culture is very airy fairy, it'svery, not tangible. Typically,
when these cracks happen,actually, what like, what are
(31:05):
these cracks? And you know,like, what behaviors are toxic
for Team culture? And then how,you talked about empowering
people to be the culture policeto actually patch up these
cracks? And so they don't theydon't turn into breaks and scar
tissue. So how, how do you dothat?
Jennifer Wallinga (31:23):
Yeah, exercise really simple. I just,
you put up a PowerPoint slide,or just on the wall, he say,
okay, we say we believe in that.
But then we do these things, andyou you mind for them, and
they'll be all nicey nice atfirst, you have to be patient.
And gradually, they get more andmore brave as they realize this
is a positive thing. So let hergo. And I was like, using his
(31:43):
little cracks where the lightthe light comes in. And it's the
same with culture, like you gotto look at the cracks. Because
those your opportunities, it'sjust like maintaining your home,
you know, you wouldn't ignorethe cracks. Me a disaster. So
seek them out, always bemaintaining, looking to, you
know, it's like looking after acar or whatever, you're always
adding oil and taking care ofthings all the time. So it's
(32:05):
that process of seeking outwhere we are misaligned, and
also being compassionate andunderstanding that a lot of this
stuff is well intentioned, like,you know, people will accuse
politicians, leaders, CEOs ofwill we say we value our people,
but then we don't give themgreat benefits, or we dismiss
(32:25):
them on without evenacknowledging your service, or
we don't recognize the work thatwas done, right. There's all
these and, and those are usuallynot intentional. So recognizing
that it's not an attack on theleaders. It's just going, Hey,
this is where we're misaligned.
(32:46):
Whenever I have new studentscome, I asked them to do this on
us. And that's a good way tostart because they have a chance
to talk about you know, andyou're modeling that you're
totally open, point them out,help us out, because we
sometimes can't see it, either.
We're so biased, or we're sobusy, you know, we're not even
noticing. And so they'll pointout some really helpful things
(33:07):
around our because we value inthe environment, we value
indigenous relations, we say wevalue human sustainability, and
that's a good one. Becausethey'll say yeah, you say you
value ability, you know, balanceand well being but then you like
cram us into this three weekintensive residency and
glamorous with all this work?
(33:28):
Yeah, you're right. Where's thereflection time, right? So
listen to me when we when werespond. They love that too. And
it's good for everybody. So withthat exercise at pointing out
just what you're saying making areally clear examples of what
those cracks really are they,they can be a zillion different
things. And it depends on theorganization. But you'll hear
(33:49):
right away, you know, it's thoselittle conversations after the
meeting. Everybody's rollingtheir eyes,
Zoran Stojkovic (33:54):
What would you say are some of the more common
ones? Like what are the topthree that you've noticed across
a variety of differentorganizations, those toxic
behaviors?
Jennifer Wallinga (34:03):
Oh, God, well, it's usually something
that hits at the real trust. Soa big one would be a leader
asking for like, everybody toparticipate in a cultural values
assessment, you know, or somesort of litmus test, and how are
we doing as an organization, andeverybody participates, takes
(34:24):
about maybe 2030 minutes out oftheir day, and we're all excited
and think they're going to havea big impact. And then the
leader leaders or leadershipteam, say, Okay, thank you and
then ignored. Now maybe they'velistened to it, maybe they've
read the results, but nobodyknows. And especially if they do
something that's completelycontradictory to their values
(34:47):
shortly after, like laying abunch of people off or, you
know, instigating a new policythat's really rigid or kind of
strangles the employee's senseof autonomy of power takes away
or costs or any of these thingsthat can really hurt people's
ability to do their work, thenpeople will just be completely
disenfranchised. So would havebeen better if they hadn't even
(35:09):
done a cultural valid, niceassessment. Sometimes they do
read it, but they don't tellanybody. So there again, it's
well intentioned, they're like,oh, great data, we're going to
make these changes, just like wedid around adding some
reflection time into ourresidency. But no one really
notices or, you know, they're sosuch subtle changes, no one
really is aware, or they'rehappening in one part of the
(35:31):
organization. So 90% of the orgdoesn't even see it. The leaders
have to share, like, follow up.
So that's another reallyimportant piece to culture,
building and cultivating aculture is the communication,
not only of your values, andeverything that you do, but in
your repair or healing of thosecultural crowds, share back to
(35:53):
the people who work at theorganization, what you did with
the information, how you'regoing to try and rectify
something like we do evaluationsall the time of people,
processes, projects,organizations, and then we don't
actually feedback what we heard.
And the changes we've made basedon that are the changes we've
(36:15):
decided not to make.
Zoran Stojkovic (36:16):
And so Jen, how can leaders measure and assess
team culture in valid andreliable ways then? Like, does
it mean having conversations?
Does it mean, listening in onthose after meeting meetings?
Which, I mean, I don't knowthat, that people would be open
to sharing that. Does it meandoing an anonymous survey? Like
what how's that done?
Jennifer Wallinga (36:37):
I think that cultural values assessment is a
great tool, I think there arebetter ones out there and not so
good ones that are too limitedneeds to be quite robust. And
not just a few little question.
But really, the best way is toask those kind of questions.
Where are we misaligned? And ifthere are 1000 things where you
(36:58):
know, you're failing, first ofall, and, but it's a great
opportunity. So it's aproductive exercise, at least,
that you can try to heal allthose cracks. And then you'll be
on your way again, just likedoing a, you know, some sort of
a, an assessment of your of yourhouse, right? When you do an
inspection of the house thatyou're gonna buy, it's already
giving you that kind of feedbackas well, like, Where are the
(37:19):
cracks? Where are the thingsthat we're gonna have to repair,
it's gonna need a new furnace,your water heaters, like what's
going on? And same with anorganization. So those
assessments, those surveys arereally useful if you actually
pay attention to them. Andpeople think, oh, but you can't
measure it. Yeah, you can. LikeI said, if it's 1000, things
that are misaligned, you know,you're not doing very well, the
(37:41):
Barretts, Barrett values, centerinstead of the states, but
something like that, where theyhave these kinds of assessments.
And then at the end, I'll giveyou a reading. And it really it
measures alignment. So the waythey do it is they say here's
what are my values, or here'swhat I see the organization
communicating, here's what Ithink they should be
(38:03):
communicating and shortassessment. But in the end, it
illustrates alignment and howwell you're doing. And I think
some organizations think they'redoing really great. If they're
only like 20, 25% misaligned, Ithink that's a really terrible
score, actually, and you shouldbe aiming for like 3% misaligned
you just aren't noticing andstrive for that. I also see
(38:28):
organizations sort of sharingthe results and then not doing
anything about it. I reallyterrible measure of misalignment
to Yeah, I think the listeningin you kind of you can
definitely rely on some of that.
And there's some really goodwork around social network
analyses and, and identifyingacross your organization where
(38:52):
the, the real strong nodes ofcommunication are, like who
those people are, they're oftennot leaders, they're, you know,
safety person or something,because they have access to so
many people. So you couldprobably have a meeting, like
identify who those people are,they're your cultural auditors,
and they'll give you an honestappraisal, how you doing
culturally? So again, that'skind of qualitative, but I think
(39:15):
it's a pretty sound measure. Anda good leader would have have
those condiments five they are.
They got their fingers on thepulse rate, great signals within
the system. That's another goodstrategy. But you're there are
tons of measures likeabsenteeism, mental health
turnover, not always, but youknow, for the most part, and
(39:39):
it's worth exploring and askingwhy that person left. So exit
interviews, great feedback. And,you know, for a university, I've
hired probably eight facultyover my tenure there. And every
single one of them says, Well,I'm keen because of your model,
your learning teaching researchmodel. So that's it. Got a
little piece of informationwould be really great to
(40:01):
interview them three years downor something to see if that
still, yeah.
Zoran Stojkovic (40:07):
That's interesting. So john, you
mentioning, using surveys acouple of questionnaires talking
to people and those exitinterviews. I think that instead
of doing exit interviews, Ithink we should be doing entry
interviews. And when people comein asking them, what is it that
you need to be at your best sothat, you know? And what are you
bringing to the organization,and then actually giving them
(40:29):
that and treating people as, asindividuals and not as a group.
Because in that sense, equalitydoesn't really work, because you
can't treat everybody the sameway. Right? Everybody has their
own unique blend of values,behaviors, traits, skill sets,
you know, and and so that's, Ithink that's, that'd be really
(40:53):
important. For you what, whatdoes cultivating your culture
mean? When you when you hearthat what comes to mind?
Jennifer Wallinga (41:01):
when it comes back to what you just said,
because it started me thinkingabout the word we would do on a
rowing team of acknowledgingthat diversity, right. And
really, I think sport missesthis quite a bit lately, where
we're not thinking of everyindividual as this beautiful,
(41:22):
unique human being that we'retrying to elevate to their peak,
right. But to do that, youreally need to know who they
are. And they're not theselittle automatons that we can
control. They're human beings,and to leverage your physical
capacity, I also need to be ableto leverage your emotional and
(41:42):
your mental. So I need to knowthe whole story before I can.
And as an educator, I get that,but I think a lot of leaders
aren't educators, so they missedthat boat. And I think it has to
do with that 100% understandingthe individual and then helping,
the facilitation you do ishelping them connect, connect in
(42:04):
their own way. So I'll describea race planning session for our
women's eight was eight womenplus a coxswain costume, which
facilitated lead it coach wasn'tdidn't need to be in the room.
He didn't need to know whateverhe wants, which I thought was
brilliant, and exactly right.
Because it showed thatcommunicated trust in us as
athletes, professional athletes,so we sit in this room, we
(42:27):
booked off the whole day. Like,no question that we we knew it
might take all day. And we allhad to be prepared for that. And
we were all committed to theprocess of identifying 220, 225
strokes in a race over 2000meters, demanded that every
single person had to identifywith every single call that the
(42:51):
coxswain and we all wouldassociate with each stroke. So
you think about an organization,it's the same with designing a
project, or department, any kindof process within the
organization's you have theright stakeholders around the
table, not be afraid to have toomany, whoever is going to play a
role needs to be there. And thenwe have lots of really great
(43:14):
facilitation processes thatdon't have to take all day. But
be prepared that they might takesome time. So this will usually
take us about three to fourhours. And it took too long,
because we get to a point, youknow, first 250 and we want to
do this and then that and thensomeone would go, you know, I
really hate that word. And it'dbe one out of nine. And
(43:36):
everybody do like, you know,especially if we get to the last
200. And we have 20 stories todeal with, like, we just agree.
And so I would have to be braveand say No, that doesn't work
for me. And we wouldn't, wewouldn't roll our eyes any sort
of way because you're tired,right? Y'all understand
fundamentally that of course, wehave to make sure it works for
(43:58):
her, as well as everything else,because without her on that
stroke, we're gonna lose a race.
So it was a really powerful, andit took a lot of time and a lot
of courage and a lot of patienceand, but in the end, we'd end up
with a plan we all 100% believedin. And I tell you, it helped us
(44:20):
win a World Championship lastyear by an inch. Because of our
trust in each other our raceplan. We kept our heads in the
boat because we were losing atthe beginning and shouldn't have
been and then, you know, thingsthat just transpired but we kept
our heads in the boat committedto that race plan. And we knew
if we executed I love this pieceactually executed what we had
(44:44):
created together. It would bringout the maximum peak performance
right? So when we cross the linedoesn't matter how we've done
really, but what we promised iswe would do our optimal and then
when we cross the line had donethat peak performance and then
we look around see how we didyou know what I mean, compared
(45:04):
to everybody else it didn'treally wasn't really about the
gold medal. It was about thatoptimal thing, the gold medal
standard, the speed. And sothere's one time Yeah, we, we
were down like a full boatlength, which is a lot in a
rowing race and to the Russians.
And they were way bigger and waystronger and all that but we
just kept her head in the boatand kept focused on executing
(45:26):
every single stroke. And in thelast 10 strokes or so or
coxswain let us know that youknow, we were moving, we had
been touching them. But youstart to feel like you're gonna
run out of room. And then shesaid, they're dying, they
started looking at us, right andtaking their head out. kind of
gave it to us, but I feel badfor them. But you know, it was
(45:48):
about us staying focused andjust believing and in the end,
they don't repeat about a littletiny bit. And that set us on our
path. So that idea of reallyparticipating but also honoring
all that diversity. Everybodyhas to play a role and in their
own way. You can't forcesomething on someone. Yeah, it
(46:09):
takes time. That's just liketeaching, you know, you're you
can't just sort of give or takea bunch of theory and just like
push it into people's brains,they have to find a way there.
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Zoran Stojkovic (46:22):
Some teachers and leaders still seem to think
that you can. And and I thinkthere's a serious update that
needs to happen in, in society,both in the world of sport and
business in terms of theunderstanding that science has
around motivation. Now theunderstanding that science has
around communication and how howimportant culture is and and the
(46:43):
fact that in practice, we reallyhave a long way to go. And we
haven't we haven't caught up.
We're not there yet. We're usingoutdated systems, models,
frameworks. And so I thinkthat's, that's very important.
Jennifer Wallinga (46:56):
What do you think it is that gets in the
way? Like, what do you thinkwe're stuck on relying on?
Zoran Stojkovic (47:02):
I think a piece of it is fear of change. And the
fact that it's comfortable tokeep doing things the same ways.
The I think the other piece,which may even be bigger is not
having the conversations thatwe're supposed to be having
people not speaking up at work,people know that things aren't,
you know, when culture isn'tgreat, people can feel it, but
(47:24):
they don't always share it. Andso I think sometimes the leaders
in the organization, maybe havean ego, and they don't listen,
or they pretend to listen, andthen go do the thing that they
want to do anyways. So I thinkthat's a couple of things that
definitely get in the way. And Ido see it getting better. Like
there's a lot out there in termsof information in terms of
(47:45):
podcasts, audio, books, books,journals, blog posts, there's a
lot and I think information isgetting out there. And people
are getting more and moreeducated on what to do, what not
to do. But I still think some ofthose things get in the way,
Jennifer Wallinga (47:59):
Really good point. And that's I think, why
I'm hoping this idea of culturalauditing, like looking at the
cracks is an opportunity tostrengthen. It's not about being
critical, or saying that CEOneeds to go, you know, it's more
about, here's an opportunity tobring things into alignment. I
think that doesn't seem torequire as much courage because
(48:21):
I get it like it's very powerimbalanced as well. Speak up
because we can be turned or wecan be excluded. It's not always
about getting fired. Sometimesit's being just invited. The
opportunities aren't there foryou, your cast are a bit of a
pain in the butt.
Zoran Stojkovic (48:38):
Yeah, for sure.
That's a really good pointaround people, reasons why
people don't speak up. And yeah,maybe might be it might be that
fear of losing a job, but itmight be just fear of being
excluded and not in that circle,whatever that means. Is there a
book or resource that has shapedyour understanding of culture,
Jen?
Jennifer Wallinga (48:57):
Yeah, I'd say Peter Sange was one of the first
real leadership books I duginto. I'm sure there were others
like Stephen Covey, and thatkind of stuff, more popular
books, but they're saying hewrote the Fifth Discipline and
lots of others. I think thebridge too, he wrote lots about
how schools learns another bigone. But he, I think he woke me
(49:19):
up to the, to the philosophylike you're describing, like, we
have this kind of these beliefsand philosophies around how
things should be. And I think alot of it was, for me grounded
in sport and in the goodenvironments. They participated
in successful models I've beenexposed to, which is great. And
then I come into organizationsand I wasn't seeing it quite the
(49:41):
same way more more in education,maybe by a little less than
other organization. And so hewill be up to Oh, you know what,
this is possible. And this isgood. And I just, you know, all
the words he was saying, I justwent, Oh my god, it's so great
to have that sort of community.
I think he welcomed me into thecommunity, this kind of thing.
And then another one that's hada huge impact recently, Amy
(50:02):
Evanson, she's the one who'scoined that phrase of
psychological safety. And I likeI love the psychological safety
concept because they, but she'skind of just made her name on
that, but I love her. I love thework she does, she talks about
failure as well, which I reallybelieve in, again, not as a
negative thing, it's not anopportunity. Although learning
(50:24):
happens, it's helped to, torealign my thinking around
failure as well, you know, I cantalk the talk, but then when I'm
in a sports situation, you know,I really try to avoid failure.
And I think this coaching, andyet, it's she has caused me to
reflect back on myself as anathlete being very comfortable
(50:45):
feel you're not that I failed aton. I was really lucky, I
always had good crews and greatopportunities. And so, but I was
when we lost, I would justbecome like, you know, obviously
upset, but then very much in alearning mindset to do with my
coaches. But it took me a longtime to apply that in another
(51:05):
setting. So she's beenfundamental, and I feel like I
share her stuff more thananybody else. So she just put up
a little TED talk on leading andcrisis. And she, she just shares
down the whole concept of whatyou described, here, change
wanting things comfortable, weseek security, she goes knowing
in crisis, we're gonna, we'regonna lean on that we're gonna
(51:28):
look for that. And then she justgoes, and she's kind of taught,
double work, and just giveseverybody home, you won't know
about it. It's about being openand vulnerable, and letting
things go a little bit. Trustingand people are like, awesome.
Zoran Stojkovic (51:44):
Those are really great resources. Thank
you for sharing. And one of mylast questions here is what is
one practical tool leaders canuse tomorrow to cultivate the
culture of their team?
Jennifer Wallinga (51:57):
practical tool, look for the cracks. And
ask your employees to, don'tjust do it all yourself, and
list the whole organization tobe on the lookout at all times.
If you did, that yourorganization would be lying.
Zoran Stojkovic (52:15):
That's powerful. It reminds me of an
activity where the organizationhas to come up with what they
would do if they were theircompetitor, how they would break
apart their organization. Soyou're like forced to look for
the cracks? Love it. And I'veused that with teams and coaches
and athletes before and it's,it's absolutely powerful. People
(52:39):
love it. Really great activity.
So tell me, tell me about yourcompany, Integrated Focus.
Jennifer Wallinga (52:44):
Yeah, it's consulting. And so I do a ton of
different little things really.
So you know, organization, youhire me come in for a day, maybe
I'd be there regularly over thespan of several months, I teach,
you know, workshops, or I'llcome in and just work with the
leadership team and try to teaseapart with the challenges. He
designs and programming withthem. Also things I'll do one on
(53:08):
one stuff, of course, going intoteams, and different different
sectors to bring different sortof context. But I really love
sport intends to get more andmore leading, which is super
fun. And it's all premised onthe work I did during my final
degree we tried to do withproblem solving. And it seems
(53:28):
really like a weird topic. Butit totally relates to sport
because of the idea of highperformance, and how do we get
there. And usually, you'resolving a problem of some sort,
you know, some sort of thingthat you don't have going on in
your body, or an opponent that'sparticularly challenging or
ditions. It's always somethingyou're solving. And our our
(53:50):
interest was around inflate,which is, those people think of
it as like the hall that youhave, when you figure something
out. That seems reallyintractable and complex. But
then all of a sudden, you getit. And we we were quite
interested in that and saw thatas kind of a nugget and
highperformance anything.
(54:13):
Because we don't we didn'tbelieve it was magical, or just
by chance, we knew we couldfacilitate it. So I really dug
into this concept. And what Idiscovered was, it had to do
with failure and barriers, thatif we could be courageous enough
to acknowledge what the barrierof failure actually was the
threat and use that to lead usto what it threatens or when it
(54:39):
gets in the way of that wouldreveal the true goal or value
that was at stake. But it wouldalso keep in focus with the
value or threat was and that wasthe key if you could keep both
things in your view and kind ofexpand your problem plan frame
to include the goal and thebarrier. So for us in sportive
(55:00):
East German gold medal. And, andwhat we discovered in that was
really the gold medal. Becausewhat they threatened is what
they get in the way of is thatwinning, not a gold medal but
being the best. But once weclarify the goal was about being
faster, and they wereimpenetrable because they were
(55:21):
doping differently, way biggerthan us. But what we discovered
them when we brought the twotogether was we had to go faster
than them seems obvious. But ina totally different way. We
weren't going to be big likethat we're not going to take
drugs. So how else can we thatfast. And as soon as it was
framed holistically in anintegrated way, oh, then we came
(55:42):
up with lost of solutions.
Active recovery three times aday, lots of time on technique,
lots of time on building ourlungs. And then we went really
well.
Zoran Stojkovic (55:50):
Wow, that's huge. And that gives every day
in the daily trainingenvironment it gives it it gives
it purpose, it gives itunderstanding everything makes
sense, is what we're doing rightnow gonna make us faster. And if
it isn't, then maybe weshouldn't be doing it. Where can
people find you, Jen? Are youonline on social? Do you have a
(56:14):
webesite?
Jennifer Wallinga (56:14):
Yeah, website is integrated focus. And on all
sorts of social usually jwalingaor Jennifer Walinga. It's a
pretty odd name. So it's easy.
And I'm pretty I think I'mpretty busy on social. I like to
share things I think that willhelp unlock people or promote
these kinds of ideas, sharethose resources, right? I'm a
(56:35):
teacher. So that's always goingto be my first effort, and then
staying connected with mycommunity. And at Royal Roads,
it's easy to find you just putin Jen Waling, that's probably
the first thing that'll come up.
Zoran Stojkovic (56:46):
Perfect. Jen, thanks for taking the time to
talk to our audience today. It'sbeen really enjoyable. And
there's a lot of gems andnuggets that people are going to
get out of this conversation.
Jennifer Wallinga (56:55):
Thanks so much, Zoran and what a great
conversation. Fabulous questionsreally blew my mind. So thanks
so much. Take care.
Zoran Stojkovic (57:02):
No problem, it was a pleasure.
Hey, thanks for tuning in tocultivate your culture, rate and
review our podcast on iTunes.
Any websites and resourcesmentioned in the podcast as well
as the guests information can befound on the show
www.kizo.ca/podcast. Here's asneak peek of what's coming up
(57:23):
in our episode next week.
Kimia Hamidi (57:30):
I think the way that I think about leading a
team and shaping the team is youwant to see yourself as an
editor. And so you know, what isan editor in chief do they
synthesize information, theyread line stuff, they cross
stuff out, and they make surethat you've you've kind of you
need to include this key point.
And so has the overall missionbeen been achieved in this in
this paper?
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