Human networks are often represented as objects  linked through relationships.

Our natural inclination is to focus on the qualities and value of the object – the person.

What do we know of the connections – our human  relationships.

How can we assess and improve the value and quality of our relationships?

By focusing on the  development of the individual the organization as a whole benefits.  The personal assets of the individual shape the collective collateral of the group.  People benefit both personally and communally from the soft skills they acquire for building  quality human relationships.

Each person’s attentiveness to their interactions has a cumulative effect.  This is an essential component for the development of a healthy culture from which  collective intelligence can emerge.

A social organization is the characteristic pattern of relationships within a group. Developing competencies in relationship building and engagement help us navigate the cultures we  participate in.

Communities where individuals show up as themselves, and genuinely like the people they engage with, are better able to adapt, evolve and  flourish in a changing environment.

A framework which supports the growth of human relationships includes the following:

Intrapersonal Development

The first relationship to consider is your relationship with yourself.    Who are you?   What do you value?  What are your competencies?   Self awareness  guides our  personal development, helping  us bring our best, authentic self to every interaction.

Interpersonal Relationships

The way we interact with others builds trust and connects us.  The quality of a relationship is determined by  each interaction.  It is important to understand interpersonal dynamics and the behaviors that grow strong social relationships.

Group Dynamics and Culture

The purpose and culture of a group, shapes the roles we take and our behavior within it.  As we engage in groups,  mindful of our roles and interactions, we are able to contribute effectively.  Collectively we  have a fertile environment for innovation, one that is productive and adaptive to change.

Collective Intelligence

We come together socially to do or  build something that we could not do on our own.  The many become one.  The end result is collective intelligence, a shared intelligence, that emerges from the  interaction of many individuals.

Company culture is defined as the ‘distinctive personality of the organization’.

How individual behaviour impacts the working environment reveals and reflects the accepted culture.  Through attitudes about teamwork, problem solving, customer service, productivity, and quality, what is revealed is the embedded nature of ‘how things get done around here’.  It is a company’s culture that makes it possible for a person, division or the whole company to address concerns, celebrate success and innovate collectively.   A poorly informed culture is often the source of people-related problems such as communication, motivation, morale, absenteeism and, finally, retention. Because the company culture influences everything and everyone in it, a well-developed company culture creates positive changes and improve the triple bottom line.

Most company cultures are poorly cultivated

Gallup provided a glimpse of the national picture of company cultures in a poll of U.S. companies reported in USA Today, 5/20/2001:

26 percent of employees are actively engaged in their jobs.
55 percent of employees have no enthusiasm for their work.
19 percent are so uninterested or negative about their work that they poison the workplace to the point that companies might be better off if they called in sick.

Apparently 74 (55 + 19) percent of employees work in poorly developed company cultures.
A number of studies have found that high-performing companies tend to have high rates of employee engagement.  Work satisfaction plays a big role in organisational cultural development. The two-factor theory (also known as Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory) developed by Frederick Herzberg, a psychologist, found that job satisfaction and job dissatisatifaction are calibrated by a number of clear factors. The top six factors causing dissatisfaction and the top six factors causing satisfaction, are listed here in the order of higher to lower importance:

Leading to satisfaction

Achievement
Recognition
Work itself
Responsibility
Advancement
Growth

Leading to dissatisfaction

Company policy
Supervision
Relationship with boss
Work conditions
Salary
Relationship with peers
Security

The Meridian Group, experts in aiding the maturity of organisational culture, developed an excellent internal survey to get a sense of employee satisfaction:

This is not a test. There are no right or wrong answers. Answer how you personally feel about the statement in your present job, not how you think it “should” be. Circle a number for each question.

1=No, 2=Mostly No, 3=Not Sure or Uncertain, 4=Mostly Yes, 5=Yes.

People

1 2 3 4 5 Do you feel useful and productive?

1 2 3 4 5 Can you be creative?

1 2 3 4 5 Do you see endless opportunities for improvements?

1 2 3 4 5 Do you know how you fit into the big picture?

1 2 3 4 5 Do you feel you belong?

1 2 3 4 5 Are you valued for your work and contributions?

1 2 3 4 5 Do you have fun?

1 2 3 4 5 Are you well managed?

1 2 3 4 5 Are relationships at work mature and non-political?

1 2 3 4 5 Do you have enough information to make good decisions?

Culture

1 2 3 4 5 People bring their full energy and creativity.

1 2 3 4 5 This is a powerful company that engages employee’s hearts and minds.

1 2 3 4 5 Procedures here are designed with real people in mind.

1 2 3 4 5 Relationships and communications are fine.

1 2 3 4 5 Senior managers keep in mind their early work experiences.

1 2 3 4 5 Power and control is widely shared.

1 2 3 4 5 I am involved in decisions that affect me.

1 2 3 4 5 The company is open to challenges, suggestions, and change.

Leadership

1 2 3 4 5 Leaders here put people first.

1 2 3 4 5 Leaders here are good coaches.

1 2 3 4 5 Leaders here ask people how they can help them.

1 2 3 4 5 Leaders here set a clear direction—“This is where we are going.”

1 2 3 4 5 Leaders here celebrate and recognize and reward desired behavior.

1 2 3 4 5 Leaders here give everyone background information, the big picture.

1 2 3 4 5 Leaders here protect people from abuse from the system above them.

1 2 3 4 5 Leaders here make cooperative, team decisions.

Earning the loyalty of your employees is done by making them feel valued.
Could your staff answer these questions positively? Creating a good employment relationship to foster trust and value makes employees feel respected, they perform better and respect their bosses and the company in return. It takes time, investment and effort to build a thriving company where all employees feel engaged in the overall success and the rewards are worth it. The benefits of a cohesive corporate culture are retention and productivity, a stable workforce, improved customer service, and, inevitably, improved bottom line.

When it comes to taking soft skills seriously is that most bosses think they are just about ‘touchy-feely’ people skills. Soft skills are powerful in creating great workplace environments, happier relationships and better communications. Encompassing listening, sharing with clarity, heightened awareness, both personal and communal, we raise the bar on being self motivated and professionally respected as a value to any team. In a world where getting, keeping and succeeding at work is imperative, anything we invest in that can make us irreplaceable has to be worth learning. Good leaders are forged from the fire of engagement at every level of the business rockface. Great CEO’s build on the strength of their people. The dot’s aren’t difficult to connect.

Among Peggy’s important workplace lessons are the following:

•Knowing yourself is as important as knowing how to do the job.
•Learn when to stick and when to shift or the details will hang you.
•Your procrastination is trying to tell you something.
•Get smart about asking dumb questions.
•You don’t need to be everyone’s best friend—that’s what dogs are for.
•Know where to draw the line between self-improvement and self-destruction.
•When it comes to gossip, learn the art of deflection.
•Keep your visibility when you’re not face-to-face.
•Don’t take it personally.
•Stop stereotypes from sinking you.
•You’re the boss, stupid, that’s why they hang on your every word.

And, perhaps, most favorite of all: Get out of your own way.

Peggy Klaus reveals The Hard Truth About Soft Skills: Workplace Lessons Smart People Wish They’d Learned Sooner (Collins, January 2008). Peggy is a world class communicator who understands why important soft core competencies are invariably ignored and reveals the fact that soft skills can be the key to enduring success.

Performance typology

Defining the key competencies and behaviours of an effective manager includes the ability to inspire high levels of teamwork, and the qualities that are exemplifed in values, ethics, character, knowledge and demonstrated in superior people skills. Often managers are promoted without sufficient grooming or training to take on the roles that allow them to navigate the complexities of individual, team and hierarchical interactions Competencies are the outcome of being appropriately qualified to perform a task and are observable or measurable skills, knowledge, and abilities.Knowles (1975) uses the following typology for competencies:

• Knowledge
• Understanding
• Skill
• Attitude
• Value

These benchmark the distinguishing standards between superior and other performers and are requisite in managers who are frequently the role models to employees and therefore inform the culture enfranchised organisationally. Time invested in training in soft skills competencies provide tangible bottom line results.

In the new knowledge economy, encouraging initiative is needed throughout the ranks. Involvement in an organization is no longer optional. A manager can work towards engaging personnel to achieve its objectives and increase the triple bottom line. The new ‘knowledge-centric’ enterprises are characterized by flattened hierarchies and multi-tasked workforce. Managers are assuming more leadership and coaching tasks and must work harder to provide employees with resources and working conditions they need to accomplish the goals they are hired to fulfill. Mining the talent by empowering human capital is now the prime focus of organizational success. A critical feature of knowledge-based enterprises is that they are invested with a significant culture of empowerment, or decision-making authority. Communication is vital to stimulate a creative workplace in a mature, seasoned culture and creativity in communication is key to implementing a high performance culture. In brief, managers now work for their staff, and not the reverse. Employee empowerment shifts managers’ mind-set and affording them with more time to engage in implementing agile decisions and keeping their eye on critical issues that require immediate action.

Culture is embodied in the phrase “this is the way we do things around here”. More precisely, “what people perceive they have to do to fit in, be accepted and rewarded around here”. Culture is the sum of the behavioural norms of the workgroup, team, division or organisation. It is relatively common to have different cultures between teams or divisions within the one organisation. These are referred to as sub-cultures and they can range from being marginally different from the culture of the overall organisation to being quite radically different. This has implications for not only understanding an organisation’s culture but also for managing it effectively.

Why is culture important?

Have you ever tried to stay within the speed limit when everyone around you is driving at speeds well over the speed limit? The behavioural norms of a group can strongly influence the behaviour of the individual. Culture defines the behavioural norms (accepted behaviour) in a group, team, division or organisation. In turn, behaviour underpins the performance (what gets done, when it gets done and how it gets done) of the organisation and perceptions (reputation) of that organisation.

A Framework for Managing Culture

While managing culture requires a range of approaches and cannot simply be managed by dictating theculture you want, it is essentially about managing messages. The objective is to ensure messages are consistently conveyed through aligned behaviours (especially of key people), systems and symbols.

What is accountability?

The key concept is the notion of having a sense of ‘responsibility’ and a willingness to be ‘answerable’ to others and is the difference between a group and a team. In our experience, the most important factor in developing accountability is the quality of leadership and management (and this is the only aspect leaders or managers are really in ‘control’ of). Good leaders and managers generate high levels of accountability in their people.

Whilst organisations should plan to recruit the right people in terms of their willingness to be team players and be accountable; recruitment is only the starting point. The real key is what leaders and organisations do from that point onwards. Good recruits can be ‘lost’ in poorly lead organisations with unsupportive cultures. Many managers see accountability as being attributed to an individual’s values, therefore they blame the individual and underestimate their own role in creating an accountability culture. In doing this, a great opportunity to build a high performance organisation is missed.

Responsibility is not blame

It is important not to mistake responsibility for blame as they are diametrically opposed concepts. Where one exists the other will not remain.Responsibility is the ability to make a response,it is future and action focused. Blame is past focused and is more about the ego – isolating people, teaching them a lesson, point scoring or making them feel guilty/bad than it is about accountability. Guilt and fear is not a good basis for developing accountability.

A Framework for Building an Accountability Culture

We see the steps in building an accountability culture as
being:

1. Building trust as the foundation:

The four key elements of trust are

• Openness/transparency (giving and accepting feedback, transparency in decision making)

• Reliability (doing what you say you are going to do)

• Congruence (saying what you mean)

• Acceptance (acceptance of others and acceptance of differences).

2. Engage your people: meaningful involvement with alignment. Remember you can’t truly and sustainably motivate another person but you can engage them. It is through engagement that motivation will grow.

3. Ownership: once the first two elements are in place people start to ‘take’ ownership – they start to think and act like owners. (As this happens the future possibility for selling down equity, as part of the firm’s succession plan, becomes a reality).

The level of accountability is directly related to the level of trust, engagement and ownership that exists within an organisation. Certainly work at improving all levels simultaneously; however remember higher levels in the pyramid cannot progress any faster than the base they are built on, there are no short cuts. Without trust and engagement no performance measures and rewards will be particularly effective over the medium to long term – you cannot buy accountability. The key to building a culture of accountability is to find a way to lead people without ruling them.

Note: This article appears in the Institute of Chartered Accountants magazine “Charter” in October 2007.