Every 2 years, our organization issues out an Organizational Cultural Survey to their 40,000+ staff to gauge the overall morale and effectiveness throughout the company.
This time around, in 2022, they did something different: they allowed every layer of management to view the results within their own respective teams, albeit anonymously. In fact, the goal was to go one step further: have a conversation with your teams and identify what we can do together.
Quite a few leaders were taken aback by these results - I heard some even remarked that they felt quite “demoralized” at the surprisingly poor results. Some even felt a bit frustrated or offended, as the feedback seemed as if it was aimed at them, in particular.
But to me, professionally speaking, I loved this concept. I saw it as a fantastic opportunity. An opportunity to have an open dialogue & conversation with the team and practice psychological safety: to provide a safe space to voice out their grievances which they have kept bottled up. For them to practice their own courage to act, speak up, and own up to their criticism and feedback, instead of just throw anonymous potshots behind a virtual wall like people today do at Twitter.
Boy, was it a conversation to remember.
At times, it did feel a little bit uneasy as we hear a lot of unpleasant perspectives being brought to light. A colleague even remarked “I cannot stand this negative atmosphere”.
But to me, as ‘negative’ as it may have seemed, I saw it differently. As a leader, it was a chance for me to implement the Good-to-Great quality to Confront the Brutal Facts. To fight that ever-present dislike towards constructive feedback - to own up to the harsh reality and improve. I openly told them, “if you have any constructive criticism towards me, also, I would love to hear it. Don’t worry, I’ll take it professionally. I’m a big boy”
Of course, this process was easier said than done: throughout the conversation, I had to refrain myself and always remind myself to be patient and remain calm. This is a time to listen and seek clarification: not to defend or respond. At times, it was tempting to respond with a “clarification” or explaining an answer, but that would defeat the purpose and potentially discourage the team from voicing out what they truly feel. Let them speak, validate their perspective and emotions (without necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with them), seek clarification to understand their points of view, and take it as food for thought for developing empathy and to reflect for future improvement.
But most importantly, it wasn’t just a townhall mob to talk talk talk; we needed to make sure we had clear actions that we can work on to improve. The idea was stimulate the group to go into problem-solving mode: gear the conversation towards one about how WE can take action within what is in our control. Within those elements where we felt our organization needs to improve, what can WE do within our own scope and sphere of influence? For example, if we feel the organization and its leaders need to improve on:
- Action Taking - what are WE doing to listen to our clients, colleagues and superiors, to ask for their feedback and put it into action?
- Transparency - how good are WE at reporting our own work progress, sharing our knowledge to others, and keeping the team updated? How good at we at admitting our own mistakes and demonstrating our commitment towards rectifying our shortcomings?
- Challenge Status Quo - Are we ourselves resistant to change, in accepting new challenges and open to try doing things differently? Or, do we also have a subconscious, stubborn tendency to stick with old ways of working?
If these are the leadership qualities we want to see, then these are the very same qualities that we need to instill in ourselves first - right here, right now. We are creatures of habit: what you do consistently, you will continue doing when you rise up the ranks. And it’s not like you can just flip a switch just because your responsibility goes up. If you fail to be transparent and listen to feedback today, what makes you think you can magically change when you become a leader?
Your actions today is an evidence of your future self.
Our team is part of a team, which is part of a larger team, which is part of a larger team - which eventually makes up the organization as a whole. If we take the ownership to improve ourselves first, imagine if every small team like ours, thought in the same way.
Let’s be the change that we want to see.
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