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We interview great leaders, review the books they read, and speak with highly influential authors who study them.
How we do this?
#1 We interview great leaders.
#2 We review the books great leaders read and write.
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Oct 7, 2020
Siobhan McHale led a radical seven-year culture change project that transformed her organization from the lowest-performing bank in Australia to one of the highest-performing and most globally admired banks in the world. This gave Siobhan an insider role and a different perspective on culture change, which led to her book, The Insider’s Guide to Culture Change. Siobhan provides an overview of how to best measure change, what to do if you feel powerless in an organization, and how to be an effective catalyst to improve culture.
Key Takeaways
[3:00] Siobhan noticed that a lot of organizational change and literature was written from an outsider’s perspective. She wanted to write a book on how to make a change from within.
[4:10] Culture is often framed for employee experience, but culture is much more than that. It’s about impact.
[5:30] Middle management feels powerless about creating lasting change within an organization, but change can happen at all levels.
[7:30] Siobhan shares cultural differences between how leadership is led in North America vs. Australia.
[13:40] People are running low on energy, and passion projects can be great ways to revitalize yourself. However, we first need to define ourselves and the various roles we have in our life.
[18:30] Siobhan was led down
this path of culture when she was fired by an organization for
going
“too fast.”
[21:30] Change is not someone else’s responsibility, it’s yours. Instead of empowering your employees to “change,” it’s about framing it around a goal and bringing accountability to everyone involved.
[25:15] It goes back to: People help support what they create.
[29:00] You can measure change
by defining key metrics early in the beginning. For example, you
can measure employee engagement, customer satisfaction, financials,
and sustainability.
[31:10] We all have a mental map of our roles,
but it’s time we update that. You don’t want to operate just on a
functional basis, you want to keep modifying and improving the
culture so that it's healthy, vibrant, and adaptable.
[34:40] A sign of a good culture is when, if there is a position available, thousands of people are trying to apply.
Quotable Quotes
- “Culture change is led at all levels.”
- “It doesn’t matter where you are, you can start to shape the culture in your organization. You don’t have to wait for it to be instigated from the top.”
- “It’s not so much about empowering your employees, but about framing the goal and not co-creating the pattern where change is someone else’s responsibility.”
- “Can you measure culture? No, you can’t measure the patterns of the culture, but you can measure the impact it has.”
- “If you do change right, your part of the business will start to navigate its way through this crisis.”
- “Ultimately, culture is in service. Culture is not in competition with strategy. Culture enables strategy.”
Resources Mentioned
- Siobhan’s website & book: Siobhanmchale.com
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