Ep.38 – Culture Secrets (V.A.L.U.E.S.). Guest Chellie Phillips.

Nate Leslie

Chellie Phillips, welcome to leading with curiosity.

Chellie

Thanks so much for having me. I’m looking forward to a great conversation today.

Nate Leslie

All the way almost coast to coast from Vancouver Canada to Atlanta Georgia where you are in our pre-interview. We were exploring this idea that in leaders that we’ve both worked with on one end of the spectrum, we have leaders for whom their core values are tip of their tongue all the time, part of their personal brand, people know what to expect of them, they make their decisions based on their values.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have a group of emerging leaders or individual contributors who, you know, after a workshop about values, say things like, so what did I learn?

I’m supposed to be nice to people. Those are very opposite ends. Let’s just take this wherever you want on one end of that range or right in the middle.

Chellie

Where should we go? Yeah, so you know core values, I think, are a vital element for a leader being able to influence, you know, a group of people, whether it’s a workplace or not, but especially in the country where that company is going to go.

So you have an idea for what that success track is. And the decisions that you’re going to make as a leader all revolve around something.

And we hope that that’s a series of core values so that everything can be tied back to whether it’s integrity, whether it’s accountability, honesty, whether it’s communications.

There’s so many that you can choose from from the list. But it is something that’s not really taught in a business school.

It’s not taught in a lot of training that you get on the job, so to say, because so many times, leaderships get moved into a position because of how long they’ve been someplace, or how well they handle a process, or how much productivity they’re able to get out of a line, or something like that.

And so core values are something that you may not have thought about in a really long time, or you may not have actually, you may have them personally, but you may never have thought about how does this

like to my work life and the people that I lead in that situation. And so the culture that you created in an organization or even the culture that you have in a team that’s part of that organization really do revolve around the core values of whoever is leading that group.

And when we’re talking about building culture, if you’re not clear on what that is, then that means you don’t hear people to follow.

And it gets muddy and cloudy and then it becomes confused on what is my role here? What am I contributing?

How do I impact or where is it that you really want me to go? So it is a super important discussion.

And I think it’s something that leaders really need to dive into a little bit more deeply and focus on what their core values are and how they relate to the workplace.

Nate Leslie

In your latest book, your third book, Culture Secrets, Value These are so important. The acronym value is a guiding light through the entire book.

I feel like it’s worth chipping away at this a little bit at this acronym.

Chellie

Yeah, so I talk about culture secrets. Is secrets any leaders can use to build a value culture? And value focuses on vision, accountability, leadership, the uniqueness of the people that they’re leading, and the engagement that you grow and that you’re able to develop inside that organization when you create this culture.

Nate Leslie

Vision, accountability, leadership, diversity, diversity and inclusion and unique employees and engagement. I see some of Lyncione’s work of the five dysfunctions of a team right in the beginning of that vision.

And before you know where you’re headed, your vision, you need to know what’s important for you. And that’s the values.

Chellie

Absolutely. You know, part of a vision is the values that are going to help you solidify that vision. And, you know, it’s about really knowing your why, not just the company, why, but your why.

Why are you a leader? Why did you choose to go to work for this organization? Why do you have this team of people that you’re, you know, you’re basically entrusted with to care for and to make sure that they’re developing and moving along their career paths as well?

And so your vision really does speak to your values as that leader. And so when you get really, when you’re able to solidify those values, it really helps you get very clear on the vision and the path that you’re going to take to be able to guide that team and get to the ultimate finish line that you have, which is a successful organization.

Nate Leslie

And then make the connection there for us from there. To holding each other accountable.

Chellie

So if you’ve got the vision and you’ve got the vision. the values, you have to have a set of behaviors.

So those behaviors are where the accountability comes in. So you have the expectation for your team members. And when you’re clear and you’ve communicated those and everybody knows what they’re in, they all have the buy-in to that point in time of, I’m part of this process.

I can see how my roles, my skills, my talents all help us get to where we’re gonna go. And I’m responsible for bringing my best me to the office that day or to the factory that day or to whatever situation it is that day.

And accountability is team accountability but there’s also that personal accountability. The leader themselves has that accountability. Are they showing up authentically?

Are they being open and communicative and several other layers down there? And then your team has that. Each one has their function.

They have their role and responsibility of the day. Are they doing what? They said they’re going to do, and are they doing it in a manner that was agreed upon that this is how we’re going to produce great work.

This is great customer service that we’re going to offer. This is, you know, all of the things that we say are checking the box, but yes, you’ve done your job superbly today.

And so that accountability is something it’s from top down. It’s not bottom up. It’s not, you know, if you’re not accountable to the whole organization and the people that you’re leading, you can expect the people doing the day to day task to get the job done to be accountable.

Nate Leslie

Either. And your next one, unique employees in that diversity I see and love the conversation. But while we can’t all have everything in common, how are we going to have shared values?

The commonalities are your shared values and the uniqueness is your diversity.

Chellie

Absolutely. You know, everybody brings their past, present and their future to work with them, right? So my experience is in life are different than yours.

And yet. Somehow or another, we all seem to find some commonality. It can be something as simple. I do a workshop sometimes and when I’m working with employees, I’ll have 15 or 20 in a group and we’re working.

I want you to come up with one thing that you all have in common that doesn’t relate to work.

It can be something as silly as they all like Mexican food or they all like a certain type of music or they’re all pet lovers or they’re all whatever.

But deep down inside of us, there’s usually, we’re going back to that core value conversation that we’re had. There is a core set of standards that we all have that we all can somehow relate to.

We all want to be treated fairly. We all want to not be lied to. We all value honesty. We all look to integrity as a goal that we’re going to have.

And so when we really focus on the fact that there’s… more commonalities than there are differences. And we can really stroke, you know, go through the process of finding those.

Then those become the foundational core values for the organization itself. And, you know, the thing about celebrating the uniqueness of people is that if everybody had the same skills and everybody had the same talents, boy, the workplace would be really boring and dull.

I mean, you know, and think about all the things that would never get created or never made because no one was using their unique skills or their unique talents to develop anything new or different.

And so it’s really about celebrating those uniquenesses and motivating people to show up and show them, you know. And, you know, we really don’t get to know each other until we start having conversations.

And that’s really where you start to begin that process is bringing people together and having the conversations. Like, what matters to you or why did you choose this job or what it is it about?

the job that you like or what is it that drives you crazy. I mean, like all of these things are simple conversations to have.

And then when you start diving deeper and you learn about their backgrounds or you learn about different side jobs they might have had along the way or different paths that they took and now they’ve diverged into this.

And even their family lives, you have children, are you married? Do you have an aging parent? Like all these things play into who we are and how we relate to what’s going on at life.

And they’re really starting to show up in the workplace, especially after the pandemic and everything when we’re all focused on work-life balance and the flexible work schedules and all of these different things, different groups of people respond to different things.

And I tell people when you’re putting together your compensation packages and that kind of thing is that you really need to focus on this uniqueness of the people because sometimes it’s not five or ten dollars more an hour that they want.

They want the flexibility to be able to, I need to take off some afternoons to take an aging parent to the doctor, or I want to go watch a baseball game with my kids, or I want to be able to run my side hustle and create websites for people.

And I only want to work four days a week so I can have a date on myself. So you can really get creative and really embrace the type of people that you’re wanting to attract to the organization that are going to really do great work for you when you focus on that.

Nate Leslie

And when we do all the things that we’ve just talked about, when we really nail it as a leader, as a company, we get the E in your inner acronym, don’t we?

Chellie

Yeah, then you have that engagement and, you know, I also call that E the enthusiasm as well. And so people want to be there.

They want to work there. They like showing up because they feel valued and they feel like they’re contributing to the success of the organization.

And that’s the ultimate goal is that people feel like they have some kind of buy in in one what’s happening there.

And, you know, when you as a leader are able to go through the whole process and you come out with that whole engaged workforce, you know, you’re going to experience higher productivity.

You’re going to have better retention of your employees. You’re going to be able to recruit great employees because your employees are going to be talking about all the great things that are happening there.

And they’re going to attract other people like them to come work with you. The satisfaction level increases. The innovation level goes up.

I mean, it’s still win, win, win all the way down the road from there.

Nate Leslie

If my wife listens to this episode, she’s going to tell me, Nate, you stuck with the acronym. You made it through all of the letters without going down a rabbit hole because there are so many rabbit holes I could have gone down.

So I’m just going to take a moment to recognize we made it. So if listeners are unsure where we’re at, they can go back to vision, accountability, leadership, unique employees, engagement and or enthusiasm.

We may, I was making notes saying, oh, I can’t wait to revisit this one. Yeah, absolutely. Can’t wait to read that one.

That fundamental human need you mentioned, I witnessed this in action, having the privilege of working with a global company a few months ago.

And we had 14 participants who had flown in from all over the world. From 12 different countries. About nine languages represented in the room.

And the core values all came back to what you’ve just described, the fundamental human needs. We all want to be valued.

We all want to contribute. So if the diversity can literally span the globe, it can certainly span neighborhoods. If you’re in a more localized company, what resonates with you about what I just witnessed.

Chellie

Yeah, absolutely. I was thinking about when you were saying that for the book that has. I’ve just finished up.

I interviewed Gary Ridge with WD-40. And I don’t know if you follow him or anything, but he has a great leadership podcast and everything.

So I want to give him big props for taking time to talk to me and do that kind of thing.

But one of the things he talked about is that when they were building their culture, one of the things they focused on was the core value that everybody wants to feel like they belong.

And sometimes it really is just that simple that I want to feel like I’m part of something. And in this day and age, you hear so much negative on TV, the news, social media, all this other kind of stuff.

When you can feel that you belong and that you’re contributing to something positive, just think what it does to our psyche and how that translates into the rest of our life.

I tell everybody, if you have a bad day at work, if you have a bad six months at work, then you might need to start looking at things because you start taking time.

that home with you at that point in time. It begins to affect your relationship with your kids, your spouses, your friends.

No one wants to have lunch with you anymore because you’re constantly complaining about the bad manager you’ve got or the situation at the office.

But on the flip side is when we’re in that situation and we have a leader that values us and that is working to help us grow and nurtures those skills and talents that we have, then the flip side of that happens is that we’re talking about all the great things, how we feel that we belong, how we feel that we’re valued and that carries over into our life as well.

So that positivity and that enthusiasm that you get day to day at work, you know, you’re able to take that home and you’re able to spread that to the people that matter the most with you.

And you know, I think that’s one of the benefits for leaders and for organizations when they focus on that organizational culture is that the impact doesn’t just stop at five o’clock when the office shuts down.

Like what you’re doing there is so then that can translate and can carry over into the day-to-day life of those employees and it can really impact them.

And when you really focus on building that trust, when you have things like a pandemic that happens, then your employees are still going to feel like they’re taken care of, and that you still have their best needs at heart, and that you’re going to be that solid force there that they can count on and depend on, and not just somebody that’s taking off a product or handling a phone call that’s coming in or taking care of day-to-day business.

Nate Leslie

You and I have just created a four-step program for the listeners and here to step one as they’re listening to this.

Step two is they need to go by and read Culture Secrets by Chelly Phillips to understand more deeply what we’re scratching the surface on.

And number three, here’s my shout-out to my partners at the Supporting Lines Institute who have a free leader self-assessment.

So much of what you said is literally measuring in the 42 leadership behavioral statements, academically validated. In fact, I think you need to meet my friends at supporting Lions Institute because you are literally speaking the same language using the same words.

And we use this tool, this free self-assessment to spark interest. So they’ve deepened their learning in step two from you, the free self-assessment.

And then we can use it as a 360 tool or across an entire team or entire company. We’ve done it in multiple languages with thousands of people.

What are these behaviors that when I exhibit them or demonstrate them frequently to as many members of my team as possible on a daily basis, create this culture, these are the secrets to the culture that you’ve described today and in your latest book.

So my question back to you, can you imagine a day when you operate it in a workplace and didn’t know what you know now?

about the importance of this material.

Chellie

You know, I think back in, and so my background, I started as a journalist and then I moved into corporate PR and then I’ve kind of developed through that through the corporate side of things with hiring and training and, and, and now my own company where I work with people on, on things like their personal brand and building engagement and cultures in the organization.

And, you know, I think back to one very specific instance where I did, I had one boss that I had worked someplace for about 20 years and we had a management shift after retirement came in.

And it was amazing to me the impact that one person could have on an organization because I had always thought the organization was bigger than one.

But when that one person is the person that is in, in that leadership seat, the ultimate leadership seat and they do not value what you do or the skills you bring to the table or.

or their alignment is not like yours anymore. It really can begin to really have a negative effect that trickles down and just grows and grows and grows.

And you can take a company that was, you know, doing really great and it was a great place to go when people enjoyed each other to where people just started hiding in their offices and I’m not gonna engage and I’m not gonna do this because I don’t wanna get on anybody’s radar or do that kind of thing.

And it could happen in a matter of six months. That’s what was crazy to me is you have a 20, 50 year history for the company and one person can undo what can happen in such a short period of time.

And so that leader, I lit back on it and go, they were a leader, they weren’t a great leader but they were a leader is what actually gave me my impetus to like, I know I’m gonna dive deeper I’m gonna learn more, I can make changes, I can do this.

I had been playing with it, you know, through some employee development. element stuff that I was doing and some different things like that and some organizations that I was involved in.

But when I really got to see it and I got to feel the impact that someone could have and how that affected how I felt about coming to work every day and even how I felt about the skills that I had and whether I was actually am I qualified to do my job anymore and those kind of things that it became very apparent to me that this is something that we as leaders when we’re given the gift of a team to be able to lead and be able to help develop an archer we have that responsibility and it is a big responsibility because we can impact whether that goes positively or negatively and when we’re in a work environment that not only impacts the day to day kind of thing but you begin to impact someone financially you begin to impact them physically because I mean I remember at one point in time I literally set in a parking

a lot after lunch one day, just trying to convince myself, okay, you can go back in.

Nate Leslie

You can do this.

Chellie

You can sit here, you know, like you can make it one more day. You can do this, just stay under the radar, just whatever.

And you literally begin to have physical effects from it, whether it’s a headache, whether it’s, you know, upset stomach, whether it’s just nerves, whether it’s tension, whether it’s whatever.

And you do carry that home with you. And so, so to answer your question is, yes, I have that visceral moment where I can, I literally picture somebody when you ask that question, but it’s not a positive thing.

It’s a negative thing, but it turned into such a positive for me because it led me down this path and it really got me to focusing on that.

And I hope now that the people that are on my teams and everything have benefited from that and that the people that I’m working with and training and different things like that now are getting the benefit from what I went through and experience so that their teams don’t ever do that.

Nate Leslie

For the listener who’s thinking, that’s what I’m going through right now. That’s how bad it is at my workplace.

I have great news for them. Your leader unraveled 20 years of culture in six months. I have witnessed as part of a project in my early days of coaching, turning around a culture in less than six months.

These things that you’re talking about are so tangible and repeatable and shareable that it becomes the operating system. It becomes the culture and it just takes the right people getting on the bus, having the right conversations and having the right values and living by them and holding each other accountable to them.

Chellie

We can turn culture around in six months easily, can’t we? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think the first step is someone that’s willing to begin the process and have the conversation.

Sometimes we have that little… inkling or that you know that little nudge back of our mind that’s like something’s not quite right, you know, it may not be Totally unraveled yet, but there’s something like this could be better or there’s there’s this little undercurrent here Or maybe there’s something here, you know, and my advice is don’t let that undercurrent grow into like the tsunami wave Like go ahead and get it why it’s little, you know start the process now have the conversations bring your people in Talk to them, you know, like what do you see?

What do you feel? What do you hear? Where’s the misalignment? You know, how do you see the values? This is what I see are they the same things that you see and hear when you’re out on the floor talking to our employees and You know really leading by that example, you know, it really does make a difference You know, I always tell a revise that you can’t talk the talk if you want walk the walk and You know, you’ve got to be that person that’s willing out to step out of your office And go make those contacts and have those conversations and then you’ve also

got to be, if you’re not the, let’s say you’re not the CEO, say you’re, you know, a higher level leader that’s, that’s okay, I’m starting to hear things from my teams that I’m managing and that kind of thing is you’ve got to be the heat shield for your employees to like if they’re, if they’re trusting you to share this is what’s happening and this is what’s going on, you’ve got to be the buffer between them and the ultimate CEO and you’ve got to be the person that’s going to step up and have that conversation.

And then that goes back to what we were talking about your core values as a leader is that your job is to take care of that team and how are you going to do that effectively.

Nate Leslie

If you’ll indulge me for a moment, I’m just picturing my last weekend and here it was. Three new leaders in a small company who all left the same company because of the values that were being lived by that company did not drive with theirs.

They started their own company and I have a small. treat center. I can hold half a dozen people nestled on the edge of the mountains on a lake right next to the ocean.

It’s a magical place. And we spent almost three days declaring their personal values, really helping these emerging leaders see what is important to them.

So that we could get to day three and help them declare what is important to them as a company, what they want their new hires to feel, what they want their customers to feel.

And there was this sensor Leon like, could we skip the team part and find out what we all want to stand for?

And we came, we came through the process and the first draft of the team values was, was close. We slept on it, we woke up the next morning, we said, Oh, there’s something missing.

And by the time we were done, just stroking out and editing, just like probably happened in your book, and we finally got to version three or four, I said, okay, team, who sees your

herself in all three of these value statements. And they, there was just this like, exhale, I was like, yes, there’s three very different people who all see themselves in the shared values that they came up with that will now define who they are as a company that their customers will feel and that their new hires will feel and want to get on board.

When I share that with you and you think about your work about the secret to great culture, what comes up for you, Kelly?

Chellie

You know, I love that. I was sitting here thinking like, how cool is that? Like, they’re going to leave there with a clarity of purpose and focus on where we’re going to go for the employees and for the processes and everything that go because they’re all going to center back on one of these values.

how you buckets that you’ve created for them, they’ll fit in there and it’s going to be alignment and it’s going to feel right and it’s going to be a great place and a great process.

I’m just sitting here imagining the plane ride back or the car ride back or whatever it was. They’re all like like we can talk it through now, like we’ve got that down pat.

The thing that I think is interesting too is that even places with great culture right now is that you don’t want to let the conversation stop just because you’ve got it started and you’ve got that.

That is because as we were talking about the more people that you add to the process, they’re bringing in these unique experiences and ideas and values and things in the world change and different opportunities come about.

Culture can also be a little bit flexible and it’s not rich and it is something that you need to continue to nurture and follow and develop as time goes on and as your company changes and the people that are involved in it change.

But if you have that set of core values that we keep coming back to, when you have that set in place, no matter what evolves in the workplace or what change happens in your industry or whatever, you’ve got that foundational piece that’s going to help you address anything that comes up.

And so I think they’re set for success there no matter what happens.

Nate Leslie

Yeah, you said it right there. There’s no surprises when behaviors don’t align. It is right there. This is our code.

This is how we live. Right. And I’m picturing that weekend of work and some of the work was at the top of a little mountain literally overlooking the ocean.

The morning sun was hitting us. It was, it was fantastic. And it reminded me how important it is to take time and remove yourself from your environment to do some of this internal work in a book like culture secrets secrets.

Jelly Phillips should be read in an inspiring location. Right? This is where the magic happens so that you fill your bucket and you can go have those conversations and get out from behind your computer and find the game changers in your organization that want to make positive change.

And you mentioned something there when new people come on board, number one, your values and your vision might get tested and challenged a little bit.

In fact, when you hire a new leader, your values have changed because there’s new people here. So hiring, testing it against your values is likely a great strategy.

Chellie

You wouldn’t see your head nodding. Yeah, and I think it’s important in that hiring process that you focus on those values.

Nate Leslie

It’s okay not to hire somebody if they’re not a fan.

Chellie

You know, I think sometimes we get wrapped up in, oh, they check all the boxes. but they have this skill, this skill, this skill, this skill, they work someplace to the, but when you actually meet them and you’re talking to them, their values may not align with yours.

And, you know, I tell people a lot of times it’s like, you can teach a skill, you can’t teach a value.

If someone doesn’t feel that or that’s not integral to them as a person or it’s not something that matters to them, it never will be.

You know, our values are basic to who we are, they’re like our fingerprint. They are, you know, there’s something that is not going to be identical to any other person.

And, you know, the way you define accountability may be different than the way I define accountability or the way I define honesty may be a little bit different than how you do or loyalty or any of those, you know, any of the value words that you can come up with.

And so I think it’s really important for leaders too, because they’re responsible for who comes into that organization. And you also have to have the street as a leader to make sure that you are putting the right people in the right place.

And sometimes that’s a gut check. Sometimes that is, I’ll share a story with you from the book. I had the privilege of interviewing Stephen Child, he’s the head resource officer for Panasonic Global.

And they had a culture issue. And one of the things that they did was they celebrated a firing as part of their culture rollout.

And they called it a no asshole culture, pardon the language. But they had someone, they brought in, they went through a whole process where they were training their employees and they were coaching them on how to be great leaders.

And they had one person that was an engineer who was very well connected, very much high up in their organization that just refused to get along with the program and become this kind of leader that they were looking for in the organization.

organization and they ended up having a company-wide celebration and firing him because he was not a value alignment anymore with where the company was going.

And what it did was it let all the employees see that no one is above these values, that they’re all that core and that central to what we’re doing is that even though he felt like he was untouchable and like he was the only one that could do what he could do at the organization, it became very clear that if your cultural alignment isn’t right, then your skill alignment is not something that we need either because you’re going to bring the whole organization down.

You may have great productivity but you’re going to lose team members, you’re going to have turnover, there’s going to be turmoil, there’s going to be all these things that are taking place that are detrimental to the company even though you may be great at what you do.

And I found that fascinating and I loved it because we all have been, you’ve been for a while with companies and that kind of thing.

And I’m sure you’ve encountered like I have as the person that has been passed along to department, department, department, department because, well, there are a problem here, so I’m going to give them to somebody else and they’ve become their problem.

And then instead of just dealing with it and getting rid of it or either, you know, going through the coaching steps and can we make this work or not, we’re just going to pass this problem along so it becomes not my problem.

And so that becomes the way people see that we deal with things in the workplace and it can have a very detrimental effect on the culture that’s inside that organization.

So when I met Stephen and heard his story and how they were able to say, you know what, you’re either all in or you’re not.

And that’s the piece that we’re going to celebrate the fact that you believe these values that you exhibit the behaviors that we want.

Then, you know, I think that’s such a strong statement for an organization. And I think it ties right back into that fact that you really have to have the

right people in the right places to be able to maintain that culture shift that you’re wanting to happen and to continue growing it once that you have it in place.

Nate Leslie

The right people in the right places can make the culture shift that you desire. Shelley Phillips, it’s been such an honor speaking with you today.

I learned a ton and it solidified a lot of the things that I’ve been feeling about this area around values.

Author of her third book, Culture Secrets, where can our listeners find you?

Chellie

So the easiest place is to find me on my website which is chellyfillets.com. I’m also all over LinkedIn. I love to engage there and have conversations so I welcome new connections and am willing to have a conversation if you want to talk about culture.

Nate Leslie

Alright if you’re driving your car right now, listeners will make sure to link to Chellie in our show notes.

Thank you so much for your time.

Chellie

Thanks, it’s been a great time today.