Integrating the View from the Top

You know your vision of the future for your organization and have shared it with your team. You see where you want to take the organization and yet you seem to be hitting barriers with your people. What the heck is wrong with them? Forgive the candor, but your looking in the wrong place. If your people don’t get it and if their behaviors are not consistently working toward your vision, then you need to look in the mirror. Too often as a leader you do not take time to understand what you can do differently to ensure that your message is received in a manner that helps your people know what they need to do and how it fits in the overall goal of the organization.

Vision and Mission:

The vision and mission of your organization are very important and a foundation for everything that happens in your workplace, but this is only part of the picture. The meaning of words lie in people and not the words themselves, so you will need to help your people develop an understanding of the behaviors supporting the vision and mission. By this I mean looking at the values which serve as a foundation for the vision and mission and then defining behaviors, based on those values that used consistently will create a culture that supports your vision. The vision is something you define and the behaviors can be collaboratively developed with your team, and the behaviors need to be consistent throughout the organization.

Modeling:

Once your leadership team has a clear understanding of expected behaviors both you and your leadership team need to model these behaviors. If respect is one of the values you espouse in your organization and yet people do not feel respected then the words undermine the level of trust. In addition, the importance of modeling these behaviors needs to be not only encouraged, but identified and encouraged when shown. A good way is to add modeling these behaviors to a leader’s evaluation and coaching them to ensure integration into the culture. A once-a-year evaluation will not bring about sustained behavioral changes.

Accountability:

Leadership needs to be held accountable for the defined behaviors and also taught how to communication this to their people. Modeling will help, but the leader needs to let his or her people know what they are trying to accomplish by framing the conversation. When behavior abruptly changes, people often will try to figure out what is going on and usually their perceptions are off base. By communicating to everyone what he or she is trying to accomplish you can negate false perceptions by your people.

Two-way Communication:

You also need to put in place opportunities to give your people the opportunity to clarify situations by putting two-way communication in place. When your people have the opportunity to ask questions without fear of reprimand you can begin to build a foundation of trust where your people understand clearly the desired expectations.

With a little planning and forethought, you can help your leadership clearly understand your vision then jointly determine how to consistently communication it throughout your organization. If people are acknowledged for modeling the behaviors then held accountable when they do not, you will have a better chance of integrating the cultural changes into your workplace and increasing the trust level as well.