Three Leadership Behaviors to Transform Your Organizational Culture

Three Leadership Behaviors to Transform Your Organizational Culture

Creating a culture of innovation is a long game. It requires people at all levels and in all functions to buy in to certain ways of thinking and working. On top of buy-in, they need to be equipped with the right skills. It’s a massive and often slow-moving cultural shift. I wouldn’t blame a leader for getting tripped up wondering, Where do I even start? I actually get this question a lot. Start with yourself, I say. Here are three behaviors you can use to initiate a cultural shift now.

Be unreasonable. Ideas that change the world always start out as something that seems wild, laughable, or outrageously impossible. Unreasonable. Imagine if we didn’t have “unreasonable” thinkers who can generate those ideas and their unreasonable supporters who believed in them. Unreasonable thinking not only gives us an expansive starting point, it’s inspiring and contagious. But it needs to start at the top and be visible. Whether it’s setting a 5-year ambition, brainstorming a new product, or figuring out how to solve an old problem, be the first to throw out an unreasonable idea. Or the first to back someone else’s up.

Yes, and… I was CEO at an organization that was 95% franchised, which meant only 5% of frontline team members were our own employees. One day a corporate associate came to me with a great idea for rewarding frontline folks. The problem was, it was only viable for the 5% of team members we employed ourselves. When the associate asked if I thought the idea was worth pursuing, instead of saying “no, because it doesn’t solve for everyone,” I said “yes, and I want you to build on it until it becomes a solution for the other 95%.” When your immediate reaction is “no, because,” stop and think how it can become “yes, and.”

Listen. A few years ago Apple CEO Tim Cook famously sent a one-word email to his key decision-makers. The email was in response to an anonymous developer’s letter expressing frustration about the company’s app review process. The email said, simply, “Thoughts?” This is a masterful display of the listening trifecta: consumers, employees, and yourself. Cook listened to the consumer by not dismissing the feedback, was clearly ready to listen to employees with his one-word email, and listened to himself by taking the action he thought was right. To create a culture of innovation, you have to listen to consumers, employees, and yourself. Be approachable, ask questions and do your best to catalog everything people say.

Viktor Kyselov

Don't be impatient with chargebacks, time is money 💰

4mo

Mark, thanks for sharing!

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Jordan D.

Accounting, sales, and fitness professional. Talk about a Jack (ehem, Jordan) of all trades!

6mo

The “yes, and” has been a game changer for me and my team(s)! Great article! Thank you for sharing.

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Danny Musico

Former World Boxing Champion , Owner Get It Done Brand & Trademark Danny Musico Gyms Celebrity Trainer/ Strength & Conditioning Coach

6mo

Mark King let’s talk asap Sir sent you a DM 💪🏻

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Jay Mininger

Vice President, Director of Business Development at Franklin Retail Solutions

8mo

Great stuff Kinger!

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Kimberly Free Sanderson

Momentum creator | Connector | Dynamic, high energy people person who has never met a stranger

8mo

1) Be unreasonable 2)Yes AND 3)Listen. It’s so true that shifting culture is the long game and these three behaviors are great ways to “move the rudder of a large ship”!

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