The Culture Ripple: Transforming Invisible Beliefs into Excellent Culture

0:00 The topics and opinions express in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements radio show, programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability, explicit or implied shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio or it's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY Radio. What's working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their highest potential. Business can be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we all want Working on Purpose. Now, here's your host, doctor Elise Cortes.

1:05 Welcome back to the Working on Purpose program, which has been brought to you with passion and pride since February of twenty fifteen. Hey's tuning in this week. Great to have you. I'm your host, doctor Relas Cortes. Most leaders are sitting on untapped human energy, and I help them unlock it. I'm an organizational psychologist, logo therapist, workforce advisor and the founder of the Gusto Now movement. But the title I live by is much simpler. I traffic and energy now the service level motivation or another engagement initiative, But the deeper force what I call Gusto, the life force for the performance that drives commitment, perseverance, and genuine ownership of a shared mission in the clients we serve. You learn more about us in ho We can work together at Gusto dashnow dot com or my personal site Atliscortes dot com. Getting in today's program we have with us Steve Gandhara, who has spent five decades shaping high performance leaders, teams and organizations. As co founder and managing director of Excellent Cultures, He and his team have partnered with global brands including Toyota, Microsoft, Costs, Go, Caterpillar, and Subway, among many others, to build leaders in workplaces. Workplace culture is recognized for excellence, unprecedented unity in the industry, leading performance.

2:10 He's the author of The Culture Ripple, Unleashing the Power of your Invisible Culture, which we'll be talking about today. He chose to to from McKinney, Texas, which is just a suburb north of Dallas. Steve, welcome to Working on Purpose. Thank you, Elise. That's what a wonderful word. Isn't it great? I love it, you know, And if I hadn't lived in Spain, in Brazil and I speak Spanish and Portuguese, I might never have discovered it. So bringing it to life in the US. But let's first and foremost, my friend, celebrate this beautiful thing that you brought it into the world. The Culture Ripple is amazing. It's jam packed full of all kinds of information. Certainly to me, it really felt like I was touching all of these fifty years of experience that you have. It just it's amazing and as I mentioned, be forgot in a week. It could be used as a weapon if you need it, because it's.

2:57 Yes, it could be a weapon, you know, kind of like those Stanley cups. You know they're great for water, but they you know, they could injure. Somebody, absolutely right, they don't get too close, right, I'm friendly. I don't I'm making sudden moves. I got my Stanley cup. Yeah. Well, I appreciate very much the work that you do, Steve. You and I do some similar work, just from a different vantage point, and I really appreciate how you brought to life especially you know the subtitle of your book you talk about the invisible force of culture. So I want to start with this notion that you talk about. Of course, that culture drives behavior, which we both know in behavior drives outcomes. But what what MINU leaders don't understand is that culture they're only looking at what they can actually see, what's visible, and you really situate the criticality of the invisible if you could start to speak to that first.

3:52 Yeah, well, culture is very much like quantum physics. I mean, anyone who's ever studied quantum physics knows that there are invisible forces behind everything in nature that are made up of these microscopic atoms and even broken down further that drive everything. And you know, culture is the most misunderstood word, certainly in corporate America. Everybody talks about it all the time, but nobody's ever looked up the definition, because why would you look up a definition for a word you already know you won't, But if you did look it up, if you google it, you're going to get two definitions for corporate culture, one from Harvard, one from Cambridge. You put them together. It's the beliefs that govern how people behave at work, which is corporate. But corporate doesn't just mean business.

4:40 It can mean you're going to have corporate worship in the church, So it's any group of people. And so corporate culture is the beliefs that govern how people behave individually or collectively in groups, whether they're teams or organizations or families or you know, even neighborhoods. And because beliefs. Are invisible and they're they're also what other people don't realize, what so many people don't realize, is they're not just invisible to others, they're invisible to us. If you look at the research from the International Masterson Institute, they're going to tell you that the human brain can process eleven million bits of information a second, but only forty not forty million, but forty bits.

5:23 Are we consciously aware of. So there's this ten million and some bits of information our brains are processing that are subconscious. They're below the surface. Doctor Lipton, Bruce Lipton at Stanford will tell you that ninety five percent of our lives are lived on this subconscious level, and yet most people don't even know they have a subconscious Yet it's the powerful force that drives everything. You have a manager who believes my boss is a jerk, they're going to behave totally differently. Than one who believes the opposite. You have a teenager who believes my parents don't want anything but to control my life. They're going to behave differently than the teenager who believe my parents. Want the best for me. But the problem is the manager who believes my boss is a jerk could have a wonderful boss, but two bosses ago they had a boss that was a jerk, and they're subconsciously viewing the world through that lens and don't know they're doing it.

6:15 Or the teenager who believes my parents just wanted couple. In my life could have gotten that belief, you know, from a friend on social media and then accepted it. At least you're a psychologist, you know that people's ancient beliefs. You can either agree with them or not. But once they're agreed with, they're sanctioned, they're recorded, And now we've got a teenager who's living her life based upon a belief that may or may not be the truth. That's how culture works. So let's bring this into the day to day of what many people would experience. And so when we talk about how these how these beliefs start to drive a culture, well, I'll just give one example and then invite you to chime in with others. But for example, if there's a belief in the organization that if the boss gets mad, if you bring up a new idea or that that's going to counter theirs, great, right, how it shows up in behaviors. People don't speak up, they hold their tongue.

7:05 They might say something after the meeting, or there's no new ideas, there's no innovation because everybody's so afraid of being beaten down or be given a verbal lashing that they're not willing to risk it. And so those are that's an example of just one simple Maybe they're not even aware that they that they feel that way or believe that way, but it's there and it drives the behaviors and the outcome. Yeah, you said it very well. In most cases they're not even aware. Like I was dealing with a client that's a family business today and there's you know, a dad and two sons, and of course the dad is the chairman of the founder, and I'm talking to you know, the president the CEO of the company, who you know, openly admit that you know, doesn't want to provide all of the accurate, candid feedback about one of the sons, you know, in the in you know, the same environment with the dad, even though the dad has said many many times again and again and again, you know, please don't.

8:00 Treat so and so like they're my son. You know, they need to be treated. But again, it's these hidden beliefs that drive behavior and in most cases, unfortunately, don't have a whole lot to do with the truth. They just have to do with people's mindsets and past experiences. And until you know what they are and the outcomes that they're producing, it's like trying to get your arms around yellow. Or as ment. My eighty seven year old mentresses putting socks on an octopus. Yeah, that great, that's doctor Man's secreton sure to love you. Speaking of what you just mentioned, of these different examples with kids and such, I think it's really important that we call out, Steve, that your book is really written, as you said in the beginning.

8:43 You hinted at the beginning, for any group that has a set of that has a culture to it, and that includes a family. And let's just celebrate that. You know, here you are a married man of many, many years, and you have eleven children, and so I think you maybe have been around the block couple times when it comes to raising children, learn a thing or two. So I just want to celebrate that your book is something for really everyone, whether you run a company, you're in a company, you care about leadership, you care about culture. It's for everyone. Thank you. Yes it is. It is. And again we designed it and the team. That helped me put it together, gather all the information from all of these decades of experiences, you know, with that in mind, because culture, it's just look at it like the quantum physics of human beings.

9:30 You know, it's the invisible force that drives everything. And the good news is is the science and the experience is available and you can manage it. You can design it. You can control it, you can be intentional about it. But most people don't even get close to that because they don't understand what it really is. They just talk about it, and it's got a million different definitions, like anything else, until you get a clear, insightful definition. It's like trying to put, as you said, socks on an octipus. That's such a great visual. Yeah, just so great. Okay, So the next thing I want, I want to queue up for us to talk about it. And I really think this is so powerful and I do it with my clients too. But the notion of limiting beliefs versus liberating beliefs. Yes, so first if you could distinguish those, because it's so so powerful to think about the idea of liberating beliefs and how but let's also talk about how limiting beliefs really do limit us.

10:25 Yeah. So, one of my colleagues, doctor Terry S. Smith, is eighty three years old. He's a licensed practicing therapist, you know, also as a minister. But you know, got his doctorate fifty three years ago at Boston University, and in the context of doing his doctoral work, he discovered an instrument that was created by a psychologist in the forties that if he used it the way it's designed sends people into depression, and he figured out a way to flip it where it does just the opposite. And so he served, you know, in his practice as a therapist, and he'll tell you that he doesn't like you to call him a therapist. He calls himself a coach because he says therapy doesn't work. But you know, fifty three years of serving people all over the world, from women who are sex traffick in India to CEOs, PTSD survivors in the United States, eunuchs and Israel, you name it, people all over the world. He's served tens of thousands of them.

11:22 And what he's discovered is that every human being, when they're a child between birth and twelve years old, goes through some kind of emotional trauma. Sometimes you know, the child was abused, Sometimes it had a great life, but they were bullied in the second grade. But at the moment of that emotional trauma, the child, because children they're the best recorders but the worst interpreters. They remember everything and record it, but they don't know where they can interpret what it is, develops a limiting belief. He calls it a core line, a limiting belief. I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm the wrong sex, I'm the wrong nobody loves me. You know, tens of thousands of people, there's about twenty six core lies if you can imagine that, you know, out of tens of thousands of people, that you develop as a child, and everybody has one that becomes a driving force for the rest of your life.

12:15 So now you have a CEO in their fifties who developed a core lie that I'm not good enough when they were six, and it's been driving. Their life, you know, for all these years. So a fifty year old CEO at stress at work being managed by an emotionally damaged twel year old and people don't know what now. The good news is is that these these beliefs, even though they're subconscious, there is a process to help people discover them. And once you discover it, then there's another. Process to help you, you know, change it, turn it around from I'm a gift, you know, from a I'm not good enough to I'm a gift of a measurable value. And when people can get a hold of that and identify it. You know, it doesn't just change their performance at work, it changes their whole life.

13:00 Yeah, that's such a That was a really powerful CRISP examples. Do you thank you? Tho And I think you know you and I do very similar work and helping people to do this, to arrive at this. And I think one of my favorite things, which I've said often on the show, is when you get the call from the certificate others saying I don't know what you're doing there in the company with the leadership and the culture, but boy, I like this person who's coming home a lot better these days. Exactly exactly. It affects everything, you know. It's like culture is like the water coming into a harbor. When the tide comes in, every boat goes up. But also when it goes down, every boat goes down. I mean, believe it or not, We've solved almost twenty seven different business problems for organizations from family business to startups to fortune five operating divisions, twenty probably twenty six ish different business problems with the same strategy.

13:48 It's the same strategy. You change the culture, it changes everything. I mean, I'm talking about problems from low sales to engagement to diversity. I mean, you name it twenty SIXI ish different business problemblems for the same strategy. You change the culture, then everything changes. It's like I said, it's like quantum physics. You change the molecular structure and everything on the outside gets the benefit of it. One hundred percent of line, because that's the same stuff that we do. I really appreciate the way you articulated that though twenty seven problems, one solution, let's do it. Yeah, And you can't tell people that because you love lose credibility really. Fast, really fast? Right? Right? What are you you're selling? Doctor? Good snake oil? You know it cures everything? Well? Right, you know, you know, culture really does. I'm talking about even even funding. I mean a lot of startups.

14:34 You know, the research will tell you that the reason that that such a small number make it, they say it's, you know, the major reasons lack of funding. Know, if you have the right culture, you find the funding. I understand. People do. Yeah, people do percent Yeah, And it's so excited to get to do this with with organizations. Okay, but let's talk about we've got you know, made a Houston. There's a problem here. We've got an issue here. So you talk about in your book and I talk about it too, is that we have so many disengaged employees. It's something like seventy percent or more. They're stressed, they're quietly quitting there, or worse, they're just hanging on and you know, holding a warm spot while they for something else. Yeah, but why do you say in your book, but let's talk about it here, why do you believe this is less a management problem and more of a culture problem?

15:19 Well, because. You know, well, just look at the example that that we've talked about. If you've got if you've got someone that that believes that their boss is a jerk, and they don't know that they believe it, but they're reliving the pain of an abusive boss two bosses a go. Then as long as they're embracing that belief subconsciously, then they see the world through that lens and it controls how they relate to their current boss, to their in every situation, how they communicate, how they act, how they respond, and until you can get to the root of that and a good the good news again, there's there's there's signed instruments and assessment tools that don't necessarily identify there's tools that identify let's just say, there's there's skills that you can help identify the belief, but there are scientific tools instruments that you can use to identify the fruit of that belief. You know, that measure the culture that measure you know, So, for example, when you have an approval culture. An approval culture is a Washington, DC culture where people get more emotional gratification out of being liked and approved of than they do telling the truth or getting the job done. So everybody's always sugarcoating everything and being nice, but deep down inside their angrier.

16:36 They're frustrated, you know, and they don't even know why they're frustrated. But until you can see that behavioral norm, you don't know what questions to ask to get to the place of Okay, why are you feeling like you want me to like you as opposed to you want you know, you want to tell me the truth? You know, why are you here? Until you know the right question to ask? My favorite Einstein quote is if someone gave me for you know, fifty nine minutes are sixty minutes to solve a problem, I'd spend the first fifty nine minutes trying to figure out what the right question to ask is. So, yeah, the good news is you can find this, you can discover it, you can change it. But most don't just because they have these lies they're believing, like if we have a successful business, we have a great culture.

17:16 We'll know you don't. Less than ten percent of successful business we have God mom and apple pie values. We have a wonderful business. Well, we're a Christian company, you know we have great values. You know. No, you don't show me your data because until you know what's going on below the surface and the behavioral trends in the norms that it's driving and whether that's limiting or liberating, you can be doing great, but you can do three times better if you knew what was going on and knew how to manage it. Wonderful way to take us into our first break, Steve, Let's let our listeners and viewers consider just what we've been talking about here. There was a lot of meat there. I'm your host, doctor Release Cortez. We were on the air with Steve Gundhara, who is a co founder and managing director of Excellent Cultures, which helps build leaders and workplace cultures recognize for excellence, unprecedented unity, and industry leading performance.

18:06 We've been talking a bit about some of the anchors of cultural aspects from his book. After the break, we are going to dig in more deeply into this notion that financial success does not equal excellent culture. We'll be right back. Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author. She helps companies visioneer for a greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at eliscortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to a lease alisee at elisecortes dot com. Now back to working on purpose.

19:27 Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor e Release Cortes, as I am dedicated to help and create a world where organizations thrive because they're people thrive and they're led by inspirational leaders that help them find and contribute their greatness. And we do business at Better the World. I keep researching and writing my own books. So one of my latest came out is called The Great Revitalization. How activating meaning and purpose can radically enliven your business. And I wrote it to help leaders understand today's diverse and discerning workforce. What do they want and need from you to give their best and stick around? And then I provide you twenty two best practices to equip you to do this your leadership and your culture. You can find my books on Amazon or my personal site at least quartest dot com if you are just now joining us. My guest is Steve Gandara. He's the author of The Culture Ripple, Unleashing the Power of your Invisible Culture. So I do want to dive into this a bit for the use you started to talk about this before the break here, but I think this is really worth digging into a bit here because I think a lot of organizations and I know you've seen a too, or she wouldn't have read about.

20:23 In your book. Think, oh, you know our numbers are great, We're growing year over year. We must have a great culture. So how can leaders start to detect cultural weakness even when the numbers look good. Well, the only way to really know is to get data on the culture in fact, and you'll put it up later. We have a tool that we've developed called the Business Culture MRI or Organizational Culture MRI that in ten minutes a leader can go online and answer ten questions about their culture. There are ten key core beliefs from EMBOR. Culture is the beliefs that govern how people behave Like what do your people believe about accountability? Is that well, just let me raise my hand, hold me accountable? I want to contribute to the team, or everybody hide under the desk because the boss is going to yell at you or something in between. What do they believe about their ability to do their jobs? What do they believe about leadership? What do they believe about their capacity to learn and grow? So ten key core beliefs in ten minutes, they can answer these ten questions twice once about this is the culture that I want. I desire this and secondly, this is the culture that I see my people acting like.

21:34 And the algorithm will benchmark, you know, will benchmark and give you data your vision against our database of the best cultures in North America and really the world, as well as your own, your own current culture. But again, until you can see data, you know, until you can see real numbers. Imagine how difficult it would be to go on a diet without getting on a scale. Until you can see data. It's so easy because this is hidden, this is quantum physics. It's below the surface. You can't see the atoms unless you have unless you have an electron microscope. And again, what the data will tell you. It won't tell you what. The beliefs actually are that are driving it, but it will tell you what the behaviors are, the norms.

22:15 That you see, because nobody can see a belief. You don't look inside someone's mind, but you can certainly see how they act. And once you see the behavioral norms, then you know what questions to start asking individually and collectively. So again, until you have data, you know, it's just a nice, warm and fuzzy guess that may or may not be true. And I also appreciate I know you know, you and I doing some of the similar work. But when we get to go into organizations and we get to you know, do the listening tour and then a hold up the mirror what we heard. Like I was working with one organization where I heard consistently in my interviews with the team, well, if we do X, we're going to get in trouble. So it had the parent child language in there. And when I when I came back and did the first workshop with the leadership team and I said this people people nodded, and then they said I didn't know. I said that, Oh, all of you said it. It was so in the water, in the air, it was. And it drives of course, you know that hunker down sort of behavior. But until you get until you have somebody to be able to help you see this stuff and hear this stuff and mirror it back to you, you can't see it as you've been saying.

23:23 Yeah and again similar to that. Again, I've seen that in lots of places. And even if. People will tell the third party. Consultant, you know that, you know, I really don't want to say anything because I'm afraid this and. That and the other. They don't know why they're afraid. It's subconscious and you know they don't know why and until they can identify and change it. And then in many of those cases, you talk to the boss. You know, we had one where this was like a global fast food change, got the time over sixty five thousand global locations, and you know, the belief was, well, you know, the CEO won't let us, I mean, won't let so what let us? And they're stuck? I mean, and usually I mean, then you talk to the CEO. Well, I ask for ideas all the time.

24:06 You know, I tell them to tell me the truth. I tell them that, you know, to not treat me like I'm a family mamyer. I tell them, I tell them, I tell them that it's not about what you say or what you tell them. It's about what people truly believe. And they act based upon what they truly believe. And if it's a subconscious belief and you don't know it's there, then you know, literally it goes undetected and in many cases even increases the frustration rather than decreases. Okay, so let's go on to this next idea here. I love this, the adaptive constructive cultures that outperform here. So you talk about in your book the research that shows the dramatic difference performance difference between adaptive and non adaptive cultures. So let's distinguish those two. So what do adaptive and constructive cultures actually do differently day to day?

24:54 Well, that was based upon research done by two Harvard scientists at the Harvard Business School day these early nineties, where they gathered data from two hundred and seven different Wall Street companies. I mean, they got every bit of data from these public companies and the question was the question that they were asking was does the culture of the company affect the financial performance? But in the process as. They were doing this eleven years worth of research, they discovered that in their research there were two different types of cultures. They called them adaptive and non adapt The books called Corporate Culture and Performance is still on Amazon doctors John Cotter and James Heskett, but you don't have to read the book unless you just really love data.

25:40 But what they discovered was there's two distinctive type of companies. They called them proactive and reactive. But what they didn't know that was that to research psychologists behavioral scientists. The guys at Harvard were business scientists at the University of Michigan doctor Rob Cook and Clayton Lafferty had just covered like twenty years earlier that they were. They called the two different types of cultures. They didn't call them adaptive and non adaptive like Harvard did. They called them constructive and defensive. And the constructive cultures were proactive, so adaptive, and the defensive cultures were either inactive or reactive, which were passive defensive which is inactive, or aggressive defensive, which is reactive. And I mean everybody's heard about passive defensive and aggressive defensive. But in essence, you know, these are our cultures that have labels based upon the dominant mindsets of the people.

26:35 And of course, you know the Harvard study that. The numbers that they followed and the impact you know, on the you know, they looked at at at revenue, at sales, at shareholder value, at growth, the number of people that they hired, in profitability. The numbers between the adaptive and the non adaptive or the you know, the constructive and defensive were just amazing. You know, I think that I think the profitability was like seven hundred and fifty six to one adaptive versus non adaptive. I mean, everything was different and I mean hugely different. And again, you know, many of the companies that were in that study, most of them are still in business today and they've identified which and if you know who they are, you know, you can tell the difference by the reputation and the you know, for example, in retail, the adaptive cultures were Costco and Walmart, you know. The non adaptive were kmartin Pennick, you know, you know, in the study late eighties, early nineties, the adaptive technology company was a Juli Packard HP. The non adaptive was Xerox. Xerox still in business, but nobody knows what they're doing these days. The oil and oil and gas non adaptive was Texico, you know.

27:43 The adaptive you know was you know, Shell, and you know, you can see the difference. The airline, the non adaptive was a Delta Airlines that was formerly Western Airlines, merged with Northwest to come out of bankruptcy, the adaptive with Southwest Airlines. So in you know, culture drives everything, and if you're in the business of being a business, then it's affecting your bottom line, your sales, your revenues, your costs, your turnover, you know, everything or are and it's affecting your family, because if you have a teenager who heard on social media that all my parents want to do is control my life, and they believe it, then then you've got a passive, defensive or aggressive defensive teenager. And until you get to the belief and they decide that they want to change it and know how to change it, nothing's going to change.

28:34 Those examples of the companies that you said. I also captured those research notes too. That is so so powerful and distinguishing when you're arresting when you really look at that. Okay, let's go next to this idea of you make a very very provocative point when you talk about diversity. So you talk about you say that diversity flourishes best when unity, shared purpose, and mutual respect are already in place. So this idea unity is very central. And you also talk about how the best intention people that were trying to go for diversity and inclusion go off the track because they don't achieve this unity, that usual shared purpose and respect. Yeah, so exactly what does it look like in practice? What does unity look like in practice?

29:17 Well, you know, unity basically looks like there there are four constructive styles that represent a high performance culture. You know, you know there's people there. They're people setting and achieving goals. It's called achievement and feeling free. And keep in mind, people have to free, feel free to set and achieve the goals that they want, not that the boss is telling them to. It's continuous improvement called you know, the psychologists call it self actualization. There's humanistic and courage, and which is respect for people. You know, it's like, okay, work on a team where people have my back, they respect me, they care about me, you know. And then there's there's unity what the scientists called affiliative. So unity is teamwork, everybody pulling together. So if you look at and yet there are you know, aggressive and passive defensive styles that work against that. For example, one of them is competition. So you can have an NFL team in the in the postseason who's playing in the super Bowl, who are competing like crazy, but they're competing against those guys over there. Conversely, if you have an NFL team in the preseason, who is everybody stabbing each other in the back to get the coach's attention to make the team, then you know the competition is focused in the wrong direction and it works against you instead of for you.

30:32 So it's it's a matter of identifying, you know, those those those keys that are actually you. Know, driving everything, and until you know what they are. Now back to the diversity question, you know, and we just you know, we've had case studies of clients who who won awards for diversity and they didn't have a DEI. They didn't have a diversity strategy. They had a culture culture strategy. And when they built a high performance culture, they want a word for diversity. And they didn't even know they were diverse. They know they were diverse. They were in the room with everybody talking about diversity. And then, of course, I mean, anybody that's been around for a few years know that knows that the I is a thing of the past. You know, you know, there's what you know, just huge lists of major organizations, companies, including the US government that canceled THEI and throw it out and don't do it anymore. And again, DEI is a strategy, you know, it's a strategy. Yet you know, culture is a component that drives outcomes. And what's really amazing, and you look at all of the statistics, all of the studies that have been done by what uh, you know, all the big consulting companies, you know, even credit Sweee in Europe.

31:46 You know, diverse teams far outperform those that are not. Diverse, far outperformed, far outperformed. In every case, every case, there was never a study that was done that the diverse team doesn't outperform the team that's not diverse. Now, the best way to look at it, I see is if you can put it, you know, break. It down to sports. One of my good friends is is doctor del Harris Dell is a you know, inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. He coached five NBA teams as an assistant coach or head coach in his career of the Chinese national team, the Puerto Rican team. You know, this guy knows basketball, he knows team. And I asked him, I said, well, what do you what do you think about de I?

32:27 And he's looked at me like I was crazy. I said, well, what's the matter? He says, teem, the only color that matters on a basketball team is the color of your jersey. And he says, and nobody wants. To be included. People don't want to be included. They want to be celebrated. If I was including my teammates, they wouldn't want to have anything to do with me. They wouldn't want to have anything to do with me. So that if you look at you know, the the court. You know of basketball teams, the NBA, the w n b A, I mean, they're the most diverse workforce you can find. I mean they got they got every every type of versity you can imagine. But I don't know of one basketball team who has a strategy for diversity. They have a strategy for unity, you know, because they know that unity wins basketball games. And guess what, when the goal is winning and unity is what wins, then you go find you know, who is whoever is the best three point shooter, whoever's the tallest, can make the most rebounds, you know, whoever can do the job. And guess what, we live in a diverse universe. We live in a diverse world, and diversity always wins. But again, it's about the strategy that you use. If it's something that's force fed and mandated, it never works. If it's something that is rooted in uh, you know, principles and beliefs and mindsets that people love and they flourish in it always works, always.

33:50 Works, beautifully situated. Steve, Let's let our listeners marinate on that as well while we take our last break. I'm your host, doctor Elis Cortez, who go in the air with Steve Gondhara, who's the co founder and managing director of Excellent Cultures, which helps build leaders and workplace cultures recognize for excellence on president unity and industry leading performance. We will continue our conversation after the break and talk about owning our own part of culture. We'll be right back. Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies visioneer for a greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at Elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to alise A Lisee at Eliscortes dot com. Now back to working on Purpose.

35:21 Thank you for staying with us, and welcome back to Working on Purpose. I'm your host, Doctor Release Cortes. As you know by now, this program is dedicated to empowering and inspiring you along your journey to realize more of your potential. I mentioned in my last book, The Great Vitalization, contains those twenty two best practices to equip you to create a culture for today's discerning workforce. I created a simple three page assessment for you so you can learn just how you're doing with that. It's at gustodeshnow dot com. It's on the homepage if you are just now joining us. My guest is Steve Gandhara. He's the author of The Culture Ripple, Unleashing the power of your Invisible Culture. So in our last segment here, I want to start with this idea here of importance of owning you're part of the culture. So you talk about how culture transformation, transformation begins personally before it becomes organizational. So how can leaders start to own their part of culture and its need to be transformed?

36:14 Yeah, yeah, great question. At least so. One of the leaders that uh was one of our pilot readers, you know, of the culture Ripple, who read it and studied it like you did, told us that he thought we should change the subtitle to be from invisible to intentional to invincible, you know, and we may do it, I mean, the publisher may do it. It will come out, you know, and probably in the fall in September. Now you can only you can get a proof copy if you want, and you can see the link to get it. But so, you know, we talked about how culture is invisible. You know, it's like quantum physics. You can't see it. You know, you've got to have the scientific tools and the data to measure it. But the second piece of the puzzle is intentional. Excellent cultures are intentional.

37:05 Nobody ever got one by accident because the default nature of human beings. We call it the culture monster, the dark side of human beings. You know, by nature we're selfish. You know, everybody's interested in what's in it. For me, it's all about me, you know. We have a little mythological character. We call them the culture monster. And if you could read his thoughts, it's me and me and me, what's in it for me? It's all about me, you know, or anybody that ever raised a child knows that you don't have to train them to how to hoard. Their toys because or to how to fight with their siblings over who's going to get the toy. You know. It's just the fault nature of the dark side of human nature. But it doesn't mean that we have to stay that way. But in order to change it, we've got, you know, got to get intentional about the culture that we want. And it's a culture of service over self and a culture that embraces those four behavioral styles.

37:57 That we talked about. And I mean, that's not about out the values that you have you know on you know, in the gold frame or on the. Website, because nobody ever lives those those are just nice web candy. You know. It's about the values that you hold in your heart. So in our strategy, and we learned this, we learned this by experience. Years ago, we were called to work with a General Motors plant in Sagonaw, Michigan. That General Motors were decentralizing their plants and they were selling off their plants to suppliers and then would buy the end product back from the supplier to put on their vehicles. And so they sold the steer gear plant in Saganaw, Michigan, to a company called Delphi. Delphi went bankrupt, they renegotiated the contract with United Auto Workers to lay off seventy five percent of the hourly workers, to hire them back or to hire new ones at a lower wage. So you can imagine, you know, the folks who got laid off just to get hired back to the same job at a lower wage.

38:55 They were angry, they were upset. You know, they have shirts that said T shirts remember what they did to us in a certain I mean it was class warfare. I mean the VP of. Caterpillar, another United Auto Workers company we'd the of HR Categoria, actually had a bullet fired. Through every window at midnight. So this is class warfare. What was really interesting, though, when we asked the union leaders, the union bosses, and the managers of the same plant to go online anonymously and answer, you know, the one hundred and twenty questions that provide this scientific profile of culture. The question was, tell us what kind of culture you want to lead to a legacy as your children. You know, legacy eve as a legacy to your children because in Saganaw, Michigan, generations worked for the same plan you know of hourly workers and managers. Guess what, when we got the data back, they were almost identical. They're almost identical. When it came down to what really mattered. Everybody wanted the same thing.

39:53 Everybody wanted to work in the culture that was all about being all that they could be. That you know, your co workers, your boss had your back. That it was about unity, you know over you know, selfishness. It was about freedom to set and achieve your goals and fulfill your your life potential. So again, when you get right down to it, so our secret sauce is anytime we start a culture project, there's a lot more to this, but it begins with again we talked about the. Difference between unity university. It begins upon with what people want. And you know, our first question is, you know, if you could create a culture that was so exciting that everybody woke up two hours early every morning and could hardly wait to get to work, what would that look like?

40:36 Tell us what it looks like in your own words, and tell us what it looks like is scientific data, because if you don't have measurement, you never get their words are just nice and warm and fuzzy. And then the second question is okay, now, tell us about the culture that you have right now and what you think the obstacles are to us being where we want and what needs to change. And then from there, when you get numbers in data as well as people's words, where it's owned, you know it's an owner. It's owned. The number one reason that corporate change iniaestis fail or any changing is it fails is lack of ownership. You know, it's the boss telling people what they want to do, and they spend millions of dollars with marketing and advertising agencies to try to sell everybody on something that they really don't want to do. So what people do is they learn how to nod their head and smile and agree with what the boss wants, but in their heart they want something else. So the key is that it's that intentionality and they and you know intentionality. And again, you know, it's really interesting when you look at the data across the globe and you ask that question, what's your ideal culture? What does heaven at work look like to you what's the culture that wakes everybody up two hours early every morning. The answers are almost identical. Any place in the world a little different, But when you get right down to it, you know, human beings want the same thing.

41:52 Now you know what you want and what you get are not necessarily the same. But it begins with the end in mind, as doctor Covey told us, Until you know what you want, then you have to find out where you are and then figure out a strategy to get there. You know, that's the critical nature of intentionality. I mean, if it's not something that everybody wants you, you know, you can try to get there as long as you want to, but as hard as you want to, but it's not gonna last. Hmmm. That was a lot to chew on, and so so so good, so so good. I appreciate that you bring in some of you share some of these this real world work that you've been doing. Now, one other thing that we I can't let you get off the show without us talking about is the idea of unlearning Steve Right. So you talk about how how adults, most often they must unlearn what they previously accepted us true or useful before they can transform and this is not easy.

42:45 This is not an easy thing to do. So give us some ideas of how leaders what do they need to unlearn about themselves, their teams or success as means for example. Yeah, the first thing is is they have they need to have clarity on the outcome that they that they want, you know, the outcome that they want. And again it's different, it's it's a bit different from an end for an individual rather than a leader. It's impacting others, but again it's also similar. So let's talk about the individual first. We call it the change letter. So there's basically four boxes that any human being ever went went through to learn anything, you know, whatever we ever learned, and whether it was intentional or accidental. The you know, the first one we call unconscious incompetency. You know, I have a problem with something, but I don't know what it is.

43:32 The example I use is, you know, on college football season, after I've had a tough, tough week and I'm trying to relax, you know, you can find me on the couch watching college football games all day on Saturday, and you know, my beautiful bride of fifty plus years, you know, is really good at holding me accountable because she knows that she can. So, you know, I'm laying on the couch and joining my third game. You know, fell I had a rough week. And she comes in and says, well, when are you going to get up and take the kids to the movies? You like you said you would. Oh I didn't say that. Well, yes you did. Well no I did, Yes I did. And I mean so she knows what she can do to get my attention.

44:14 So she points her English, Irish, Cherokee, German index finger at me and she says, you're a hypocrite. You know, you preach about this culture stuff all week long that your family culture sucks. It's terrible. And then she calls in the guns you know, you know the kids. Did he really tell you he was going to take Yeah? He did, he did? You did that? And it's like, she said, you're a hypocrite. So I didn't know what was a hypocrite. I just thought I was tired. But nobody wants to be a hypocrite, or if you do, you're really in trouble. So I moved from unconscious incompetency to conscious incompetency, meaning now I'm aware of the fact that I'm a hypocrite. Now at that point in time, a key decision happens. I can either decide to argue with her forever and hold on to the fact and you know, have all or I can own it and say you're right, I'm a hypocrite. So step one, you know, moving from unconscious incompetency to is owning it.

45:05 You got to own it. You got to look at the truth, look at the facts, look at the. Data, and be willing to admit that you're not the smartest person in the room. And then then then it takes you. Know, once, just because you make a New Year's resolution to not be a hypocrite doesn't mean you're going to change. You have to make a new Year's resolution to renounce it. I don't want to be a hypocrite. I don't want to be a hypocrite anymore. But then that doesn't get you there, because the next level is called a conscious competency. I've got to decide who I want to be, meaning, you know, what's the opposite of being hypocrite? Will a person of integrity. But just because I decide that I want to be a person of integrity doesn't mean I'm going to be one. You know, the Apple commercial told us last Christmas that, you know, our last New Year's that everybody quits on the third.

45:51 Friday after January. First, you know, New Year's resolutions don't work. But then you know, I've got to identify it. I've got to renounce it. But then I've got to replace it, and I've got to replace it with repetitions. And any sports coach, who ever coach a team, knows the value of reps. You know. You repeat it, you repeat it, you repeat it, you know. But if you don't renounce, you know the fact that admit that you're a hypocrite first and renounce it. You can make affirmations about being an integrity a person of integrity all your life and you'll never get there. But again, that works with anything. You know. You've got to find what am I not seeing that is slowing me down and then own it and then renounce it and then have the process with the right amount of repetitions to change it. And again, if you're a leader, you don't just need to know it about yourself.

46:36 You need to know what impact. Your leadership is having on the other people that you're leading. You could be saying, let's set goals for the new year. Let's set some big ones. We're going to have a great year, and they could be hearing well, he's going to change our compensation plans. So set goals really close to your notes until you know what they're hearing, and have scientific tools that tell you that that you can get to the real truth, identify it, and manage it. Your stuff. So so much more we could talk about, because your book was so packing up all this experience, but we're we've got only about say, forty five seconds left here, and i'd love for you, just if you could to finish by addressing this idea of culture as purpose and legacy. Okay, so bottom line, you know, because you know, culture is either accidental or it's intentional.

47:21 Everybody has a culture. You have a personal culture, you have a leadership culture, you have a family culture, you have an organizational or. A work culture. And it's either accidental or intentional. And it can be intentional if you decide that you want it to be and you're willing to invest in the tools of how to learn how to do it. The good news is is we've done it for almost forty nine years now and there's a proven process and it's structured and you can learn about it and you can do it, but you've got to want to so but the key is again, you know, it can become your purpose and your legacy if you want it to be, and you're willing to invest in learning how, which not everybody is because change is tough. You know. It's not warmint fuzzy and comfy all the time.

48:03 You know, or you can just be happy with it the way that it is, but then know that you're underliving your life and underleading your organization because you made a choice to. Have it that way. Wonderful way to finish, Steve. I'm so grateful to know you and to have you here as a as a friend and a colleague here in Dallas. Thank you for coming on, working on purpose and for sharing this book. Amazing. Yeah, my pleasure. It's wonderful to be part of Gusto. Oh. I love that. Listeners and viewers, you're going to want to learn more about Steve Gandhara, the work that he and his team do with excellent cultures in his latest book, The Culture Ripple. So you can start by visiting the main website, which is excellent Cultures dot Com. And then Steve mentioned two other things I want to direct you to. So for that, for that assessment, the culture assessment, when you go to the website, then excellent Cultures dot com. If you do forward slash mr I, you'll get to the assessment. And then if you want to, if you want to look into the pre launch copies of the book, same thing, excellent Cultures dot com. And then forward slash the culture dash ripple that'll get you to the pre launch copy of it the book. Last week, if you missed the live show, you can alway KJVI recorded podcast wherever you get them. We were on air with our Roum Gupta, who is the CEO of Noble Reach Foundation. It's a public charity with the mission to develop and mobilize America's top talent and innovation networks across academia, industry and government for high impact solutions that strengthen the security and prosperity of our nation. Slightly ambitious individual and his team. It

49:33 was amazing to talk to him. So we talked about his incredibly inspiring and provocative book called The Mission Generation Reclaim Your Purpose, Rewrite success, Rebuild our Future, and it situates how a growing massive people are no longer willing to choose between making money and serving and mission in their careers. They want both and the organizations who provide that combination for people are the clear winners. Next week will be on the air with Ingo Routh, who is a mid career chain strategy who helps people bridge the gap between success and meaning into clear strategic direction. We'll be talking about his own journey to purpose and how he helps people find and live their mission. A perfect conversation that builds on what we learned from a Room Gupta and the Mission Generation book and conversation. So see you there and let's get to you leaning in and learning how to help more people flourish, elevate your operating system as a leader, and create destination workplaces where legendary business takes place. Let's work on Purpose.

50:29 We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes each week on W four C. Why. Together We'll create a world where business operates conscientiously. Leadership inspires and passion performance and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning and purpose they crave see you there. Let's work on purpose.