#10: Company Culture and How to Renovate It with Kevin Oakes
Learn the top findings from one of the largest studies ever conducted on company culture and how it applies to the arts.
Best-selling author Kevin Oakes is the CEO and founder of the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), the leading human capital research company in the world, and he shares how high-performance organizations we’ve all heard of have successfully changed organizational culture.
We don’t have to be giant behemoth orgs or flush with cash to make inroads on culture. A point Kevin emphasizes with actionable advice on how we can keep pushing forward to make our workplace culture better for all of us.
His book: Culture Renovation
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Aubrey Bergauer: Hey, everybody. It's Aubrey Burgauer here. Welcome to Season 2. Season 2 is here. I didn't even know if we were going to have a Season 2, to be honest. Season 1, if you've listened, you know this already, but Season 1 was an experiment, and I was not sure how this podcast was going to go. And I have to say, I'm so honored by the traction it got and support that you all showed, sending it along to others, posting online.
So I decided to bring it back because it seems like you all like it and find it helpful. So again, I'm just, I'm really grateful and honored by your response. So this season features interviews with some of my favorite experts I've learned from both inside the arts as well as from other sectors whose work directly applies to what we do.
And these interviews were all captured over recent months. At the time of recording, they were exclusive to LinkedIn as part of the LinkedIn Creator Accelerator program. But now I'm able to share this content more broadly, so I've chosen my favorite conversations, which I'll be sharing with you here.
First up in this first episode of Season 2 is company culture. How company culture used to not be at the forefront for arts organizations, but really has shifted in the last year or two. It's And, you know, back in 2017, I think it was, I remember writing a blog post quoting Capacity Interactive's Ashley Nunn Gatterdam, and at the time she was a senior consultant, eventually a VP there, and she was saying she had never heard an arts organization talk about company culture.
And she was right. And now, though, it is part of the day to day conversation. We talk about values, we talk about who do we want to be. We do research on company culture. It's, it's quite remarkable in my opinion, that just in the last five years or so, this really has come to the forefront. So this whole season is about how the narrative is changing for the arts.
And this is a big area in which that is true. And I'm so happy. It's true. So today I am joined by Kevin Oakes to talk about this very topic. And. I first came across Kevin Oakes, oh gosh, I don't know, a year and a half or so ago, maybe, and I had heard him on multiple business podcasts, I read his book and I loved it, if you saw my 2022 book review, his book is on it, and I'm going to spend the next, I don't know, 20 minutes or so talking about company culture with him.
And as we get going here, I just want to share at the time I captured this conversation with Kevin, I had put out a poll on LinkedIn, and the question was, what is the most important aspect of company culture? It received hundreds of votes, and just to share the results, the number one. Response was feeling like work has purpose.
That was the most important aspect of company culture. The number two voted by you all on LinkedIn was psychological safety. The number two, most important thing to you. So put a pin in that because we're going to come back to that. In my conversation with Kevin and like I said, this whole series is called the narrative is changing and I started saying that I think at the beginning of last year, early 2022 and I'm still saying it today a year later.
The point being, there is a lot shifting for the better in the business of arts and culture, and I am so glad you are here to be a part of it. Season 2 of the Offstage Mic starts right now. Hey everyone, I'm Aubrey Burgauer. And welcome to my podcast. If we haven't met, I'm known in the arts world for being customer centric, data obsessed, and for growing revenue.
The arts are my vehicle to make the change I want to see in this world, like creating places of belonging, pursuing gender and racial equality, developing high performing teams and leaders and leveraging technology to elevate our work. In this season, I'm bringing you conversations with some of my favorite experts from both inside and outside the arts.
All to help build the vibrant future we know is possible for our institutions and for ourselves as offstage administrators and leaders. You're listening to the Offstage Mike.
So today we're hearing from Kevin Oakes. Kevin is the CEO and co founder of the Institute for Corporate Productivity. They go by I4CP. They are the leading authority on next practices in human capital. Kevin, I mentioned this before, is also an author. His book is called Culture Renovation, and when it first came out, it was a number one new release in a dozen Amazon book categories.
I saw another run has been printed. Again, what that means is that this is very popular. And the book draws on data from one of the largest studies ever conducted on corporate culture. It really gets into how high performance organizations, organizations we've all heard of, like Microsoft, T Mobile, 3M, MasterCard, and many others, how they have successfully changed their organizational culture.
And what I like about this is a few things. First is If these massive corporations can make company wide culture change, then arts organizations absolutely can too. Even the largest organizations, or the slowest, or the most entrenched, because all these big companies are all those things and more, as we know.
So if they can do it, we can do it. The second thing I liked about this book is that the way he writes about each principle feels very applicable. I could see myself applying this work if and when I'm back leading an orchestra or another organization, it felt like it wasn't too distant, even though he was primarily working with larger for profit companies, so I really appreciated that.
And then lastly, I love that the whole point of culture renovation is that change is possible. So that completely matches my brand, changing the narrative, the whole series is, the narrative is changing. And it definitely matches what we're seeing play out in our field right before our eyes. So let's bring in Kevin.
[00:06:39] Aubrey Bergauer: Welcome, Kevin.
[00:06:41] Kevin Oakes: Thank you, Aubrey. That's a very nice intro. I appreciate that.
[00:06:45] Aubrey Bergauer: First question. Can you share an example of An organization or industry that is very slow to change. And then if you do have the end of that story, that's good. That's even better.
[00:06:56] Kevin Oakes: Yeah. Yeah. Well, as you correctly pointed out in the book, it's not only database, but there are a lot of stories in there about.
Real life situations and companies that have undergone culture change, both on the good side and the bad side. And in fact, I read a monthly newsletter where each month I have a culture fail of the month. So I talk about some companies that probably could change one company that I did profile in the book that I think has been slow to change and probably won't come as a big shock as Boeing, Boeing, anytime you have a large organization, it's going to be hard to change culture.
But Boeing in particular has had some issues, you know, around their overall culture that has manifested itself into some real tragedies. And we all know the 737 MAX tragedies and the U. S. House of Representatives blamed that on a culture of concealment in their investigation of those tragedies. And what they meant by that was there wasn't psychological safety, as you mentioned in the company at the time.
Where engineers and others felt comfortable sharing some of their concerns. And that was one of the factors that led to those tragedies, unfortunately. Now, obviously they're doing a lot to try to change that. And I think they're making some good progress, but they're one that I profiled in the book around, you know, the slowness to change the culture and some of the ramifications of it.
Despite that, you know, I think when you look at some of the big companies that you mentioned that have been very successful in changing their culture. Microsoft was one that I featured early in the book. I think there's lessons there for any size company in any industry to take away and use within their own organization.
I talked to a lot of smaller startups or nonprofits and the lessons that I highlight from some of those larger companies are completely applicable to those smaller organizations.
[00:08:48] Aubrey Bergauer: I want to hit on that a little bit more if you would. I think what is so interesting, I love the Microsoft case study. Many of you watching also know I lived in Seattle for almost a decade before moving to San Francisco.
So that company was just so prevalent in my life. My ex worked there. I mean, so I feel like I saw this culture. Almost firsthand. And then reading about the change and now seeing everything Satya has done, it's just been really amazing. But my question out of this is to pick up on what you just said, that there are so many things that you don't have to be a massive institution like Microsoft.
There are things that smaller organizations can do to bring about this change. So how to start is really the question, where to start. Does this answer vary by organization size, or is it really sort of the same process? No matter who you are or where you're at.
[00:09:33] Kevin Oakes: Well, that was kind of why we wrote the book.
I didn't set out to write a book. We set out to do a research study on culture change because we recognize that most companies who set out to change their culture, they fail and many fail miserably at trying to do so. And only about 15 percent actually succeed in changing their culture. And I've seen other research studies that have similar success metrics.
What we were very curious about was that 15%, was there some kind of blueprint that other organizations could follow if they want to change culture? There are a lot of books on culture out there, but they tend to stay very ethereal and high level. And what I was trying to create was a manual that CEOs and organizations could use to enact that change.
And so it's organized into three phases. Plan, build and maintain. And the reason we chose those phases because as we got into doing this research, we were using the term culture transformation, which most people use when they talk about culture change. Well, we recognize that none of those successful companies really transform their cultures.
What they did was renovate and that became a better term to use in a, almost a safer term to use because those successful companies kept what made them great to begin with. You know, kept what was unique and hard to replace, but like an old house, they renovated to improve the future value of that house going forward.
Now, like in an old house, you wouldn't just go in if you're going to renovate that and start knocking down walls without having a plan. Cause you're going to knock down a load bearing wall and bring the whole thing down. And the same metaphor holds true for companies. And so I think those successful companies did a very good job at first, listening to the workforce, really gauging employee sentiment, really understanding what some of the underlying issues are.
By the time things get up to the senior team, it gets filtered. And I see it happen all the time. You know, I tell executives, the worst thing you can do is lock yourselves in a conference room. And decide what the culture is today, because you'll get it wrong, right? You've got to really understand what the employee sentiment is.
And Microsoft did this well, they understood the employee sentiment, and Satya was Did a fantastic job at embracing the HR team and the head of HR in this effort to plan how they wanted to change the culture because he knew it had to change going forward. And he set out some tenets. I think creating a very simple rallying cry inside the organization is an important one.
At Microsoft, it was all around growth mindset and the ability to constantly be learning. One of Microsoft's problems that you probably recognize very well, Aubrey, from the past was that people used knowledge as power and they were very reticent to share their knowledge and they use knowledge to protect themselves, protect their fiefdoms.
And what Satya said right out of the gate is, I want a culture of learn it alls, not a culture of know it alls. And I want knowledge sharing to be power, not knowledge to be power. And that's the mantra that they've really incorporated throughout the organization. It's very much a learning culture and growth mindset is something that everybody in the organization understands and knows and can recite.
And so that's all part of, you know, this planning process, how are we going to roll out, you know, a very consistent message to the organization and set our cultural path? And how are we going to define behaviors that we want to see from our leaders, et cetera, before we really enact the culture change we want to see?
[00:12:58] Aubrey Bergauer: Yeah, I love that. So, okay, gosh, you touched on a couple other things. And now I have these follow up questions for that are so, I just see the parallels to arts organizations. So first follow up is. You say in the book to put a number to this idea of balancing the past. It's not just a transformation, but we got to have a plan and all of that.
You say that 57 percent of successful culture change organizations. So 57 percent of the success stories focused on what to keep of the past culture and not ignore. The parts of who they were that they want to carry forward. I think for arts organizations, this is potentially our biggest fear. We're an art form and industry based on tradition.
How do we keep what we do wanna keep and maintain and yet do renovate and do things differently going forward? So can you speak more to this? How do we grapple with finding that balance?
[00:13:51] Kevin Oakes: Well, you know, I think that's where you've got to listen to the workforce to make sure they are bringing up things that they think are unique and powerful about the organization, but also what does need to change going forward as a leadership team, it's important to all be on the same page too.
on what that culture change effort needs to look like going forward. From there, there's a lot of focus on trying to make sure that you've got the right sentiment and the right people inside the organization to help with that change. While this needs to be leader led, it can't be 100 percent done by leaders.
You've got to get the cooperation of the workforce, and there's got to be a mentality around co creation of the culture change. Early on, we talk about this concept of organizational network analysis, which is really understanding who are the influencers and who are the energizers inside the organization.
In any organization, any department division, there are these go to people that everybody seems to turn to. For information for expertise, but a lot of times just for energy, right? And then there are people in your life, Audrey, that you, you talk to and they fire you up after you talk to them. And then there are others who, after you talk to them, they just kind of suck the life out of you.
You know, they're like Darth Vader. Uh, you want to really understand who those influences are. Cause ultimately they'll become your culture champions. People call them different things. Ambassadors, Microsoft called it a culture cabinet. Yeah. But those people are the ones that are going to make it happen at the ground level.
And so I think identifying those people is the hardest part. Many times they're introverts. They're not extroverts. And most of the time they're buried in the hierarchy. So leadership doesn't really understand who they are. And that's why doing a thorough analysis can help illuminate who those energizers are.
[00:15:38] Aubrey Bergauer: I love this. This part of the book was so. Illuminating for me, I have to say personally. So for anybody who's in a CEO role, I think the lens I had defaulted to was I have to model change from the top. I have to, which is not wrong, but it's not complete. And so this section of the ONA organizational network analysis, identifying these cultural influencers within, I was like, Right, right.
And I've been on this personal quest over the last few years. I would say of just really trying to learn how to better empower others. So that everybody feels powerful no matter their level of seniority. Okay, so this all started coming together for me in this lightbulb moment as I was reading. I guess my question is, can you talk more about how to identify these cultural influencers?
And then this is also coming in from the chat from Sunshine. Hi, Sunshine. She's saying, I recall from previous feedback to Aubrey's blogs, is that there's fear from middle management to push for this type of change. And suggest that this type of renovation needs to come from the top. So anyways, a different way to say the same question, but how do we identify these people?
And for anybody on this, that's not a CEO role, like This question is for you. Like, what do we do with this, these important people?
[00:16:55] Aubrey Bergauer: Let me start by saying it's hard to have culture change really happen if you don't have support from the top. So I'll just say that as a blanket statement, it's not that it's impossible, but it's pretty hard to make that happen.
And the way you get support from the top is to lead with data and back it up with stories from organizations that leadership either respects or maybe even fears. So that you can get some of that buy in. But the hard work is really done in the middle. So that organizational network analysis is typically conducted through a survey process where you're asking employees who influences you, who do you need more time from going forward.
It's really, it's kind of a triangulation exercise to see who those indispensable people are. And we use this technique for a lot of things, not just for culture change. Right now, it's being used heavily to identify people who might be on the brink of burnout. Because everybody's coming to them and they're at the center of the beehive.
It's very likely that they're just feeling overloaded. And those are the people you can least afford to lose. And you want to make sure that you are making it safe for them to speak up and say, Hey, I'm overloaded or try to offload some of that, but they're also the ones that are the most influential.
And so that's why you want to understand who they are so that you can address them. You can use different techniques to also get at the same answer. Some people are monitoring teams or Slack or email. I find that to be a little invasive as a normal process. So I, we prefer the survey method of O and a critically important.
Uh, if you're trying to change culture going forward,
[00:18:31] Aubrey Bergauer: I mean, on one hand, a small organization, you can identify these influencers easier because you know everybody so well. Okay. So it doesn't have to be so formal as a survey at that point. It's more organic and obvious. Okay. Got it. Um, okay. So If somebody is not the chief executive, but they do want to push for change.
Do you have, you're right. It has to be leadership from the top. There has to be buy in. But I do hear a lot to be blunt from people all over who are just frustrated with their leadership. Is there anything somebody not in a position of traditional power can do to try to help with the renovation we need?
[00:19:01] Kevin Oakes: Well, like I said, I think data goes a long way. So the more you can use data to build your case for what you're trying to accomplish, the better off you are. And back it up with real life examples. But, you know, I, I do see there are a number of organizations where it's been a bit of a ground root effort, you know, where people have filtered up some things that need to be changed inside of the organization.
And I've convinced leadership of that. I would counsel anybody to just continue to push. If it's a company you care about, you know, make sure leaders understand that and understand what could change going forward, because typically if you fix, you The culture, the performance follows. That's really the, you know, the number one thing that I think is highlighted in the book and in the original research that every company that has had significant culture change has typically seen their performance improve over time.
It's very, very rare that you have this wildly successful organization and the culture is horrible, right? Usually that doesn't happen. And it's much easier to fix the culture first.
[00:20:09] Aubrey Bergauer: Love it. You're talking about data and storytelling. I mean, Kevin, you are speaking my language. I know we just met, but I like eat this stuff for breakfast.
I love it. Okay, so kind of switching gears a little bit here. Have you done any work with a company or their culture among Okay. Unionized employees. And I say this because so many arts and culture organization do work with in classical music. It's the musicians union. It's our stagehands union. You know, the opera companies have AGMA, the Actors Guild, you know, all these things.
So Unionized culture has its own set of challenges, I would say, and I don't mean to speak with in too many generals or too broad of a brush, but it does have its own set of challenges. Yeah, talk about that.
[00:20:52] Kevin Oakes: So I've never been part of a union personally, but I understand the challenges and we certainly work with a lot of companies that are unionized and have powerful unions.
And so it adds a layer. Of complexity to the whole process, but not unlike, um, where you have different offices in different parts of the world or different divisions, you're always going to have micro cultures inside the organization. And sometimes that happens in, you know, what you just described from a union perspective, from an overall organization perspective, you want to have.
And I talk a lot about this in the book, the importance of an overarching purpose that those different factions can rally to, that purpose should cascade down into the behaviors within those departments, divisions, the unions, and have values that also cascade down into those groups so that even though you do have some micro culture nuances, you're Within each, everybody is very clear on what the broader culture should be and what the broader purpose is.
And I think that's part of painting that vision for the future that I talk about in the book. And there's some good examples about companies that did not do a good job of painting a vision for the future. Usually it was a CEO or a new leader who came in and blamed the past, you know, and blamed the predecessor as opposed to let's ignore all that.
Yeah, it happened, but we're going to focus on what we want to see. For a brighter future tomorrow. So that to me is what some of the best leaders do and some of the best organizations have done in order to rally all those microcultures towards their vision.
[00:22:27] Aubrey Bergauer: Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Lots of microcultures, not that different than a global brand that has offices all over.
Yeah, I like that. I appreciate that analogy a lot. Switching gears a bit here. I want you to weigh in on the future of remote work. So this is like changing in real time before our eyes, and I know the book has been out for a year, so I don't mean to sort of put you on the spot too much, but some parts of our organizations require in person work.
We put on performances, right? But some parts of our job don't require us to be on site. So does any of your research shed light on how company culture intersects this changing nature of our workplaces?
[00:23:07] Kevin Oakes: Yeah, I think it's one of the reasons why the book has continued to be so popular because I think organizations are looking at The move to remote work and how is that affecting our culture overall?
We do more HR research than just about any other organization on the planet. And so you can imagine that during the pandemic, we've just done a ton of research on hybrid work situations, flexible work situations, and we've We have a brand new study coming out that has examined that in depth. We really feel like we'll never go back to the way it was.
You know, we are in an era now that people have to accept that employees will work remotely. Employees are demanding that of their current companies. They're demanding that when they go look for new jobs to have that flexibility. But there's a big difference between hybrid and flexible work, in my opinion, meaning that a lot of companies are saying, okay, we'll, we'll allow hybrid work.
But you got to be here Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and you know, certain hours in the day that typically is not what employees are looking for. And anytime you put a blanket policy across a whole group. You're immediately creating exceptions. You're immediately creating situation where that doesn't work for everybody.
And what several organizations are moving to is truly flexible, which means the manager and the employee work out what's going to be best for the organization and best for the individual. And truly flexible work might mean I'm working remotely all the time, or I am coming in when I need to to the organization, or the flip side is there are a number of employees who really want to get back to the office.
They have better bandwidth there. It's more quiet than their home situation, what have you. So you give them that flexibility as well. Uh, true flexibility is something that we're seeing being embraced by more and more organizations versus this sort of forced hybrid that I keep seeing in some companies.
And yeah, it's, it's changing things for sure. It's also changing the way leaders lead. I think we have to spend a lot more time training leaders. How do I manage a virtual workforce? How do I manage a hybrid workforce, you know, in office and remote? Uh, workforce and the better managers are understanding that and grasping that
[00:25:16] Aubrey Bergauer: the better managers are understanding that and grasping that amen All right I have only about 5 000 more questions I could ask you but uh We have come to the end of our half hour together.
I just want to say as we're wrapping up First and foremost, thank you, Kevin. Like I said, I'm just a fan of the book. One more time. The book is Culture Renovation by Kevin Oakes. It's been out for a year. I just learned it's in its fifth reprint and I just, I really enjoyed it because it does feel so applicable.
And just hearing you speak here just reinforces that, that these really, it's not just pontification. It's really talking about how do we apply these principles and research to our own organizations? Thank you, Kevin. Uh, we're going to call it.
You are so welcome. All right, everybody take care and we'll see you next week.
[00:26:02] Kevin Oakes:Take care.
[00:26:04] Aubrey Bergauer: Hey, off stagers. One of the top things I hear from individuals all over something people are increasingly wanting is people who say, I want more connection with like minded colleagues. If that resonates, I created a new community, and you're invited to join. It's an online gathering place for arts and culture professionals wanting a different, stronger paradigm for the industry.
It's a place for those not satisfied with the status quo for arts and culture, who believe there is a better way forward, and that the future of the field doesn't have to be all doom and gloom. It's a place of people trying to navigate the ins and outs of careers in the arts, and want smart, growth mindset type people alongside them.
It's a place called the Changing the Narrative Community. I'm so excited by the folks who've already joined, and no matter your artistic discipline, geographic location, role, or years in the field, you are welcome and invited as well. Visit aubreybergauer dot com slash community. The narrative is changing.
And I hope to see you there soon.
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Well, what are we waiting for today on top tunes? The now that's better Novo music. Conducting your creative vision. Find out more at novomusic.co. That's all for today, folks. Thanks so much for listening and keep up with more content like this by following me on LinkedIn or Instagram at Aubrey Burgauer.
Definitely hit that follow button to subscribe to this podcast. And if you like what you heard here, will you consider leaving a review or rating? I'd be so grateful for your help and support in that. Thanks again. See you next time on The Offstage Mic. The Offstage Mic was produced by me, Aubrey Burgauer, and edited by Novo Music, a studio of all women audio engineers and musicians.
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