June 10, 2025

What Your Words Reveal: Uncovering Culture Through Everyday Organizational Language

What Your Words Reveal: Uncovering Culture Through Everyday Organizational Language
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Have you ever noticed how strange the language of a new workplace seems when you first join? Even disorienting, yet how fast you pick up the new language? That shared way of speaking isn’t just habit—it’s culture in action. In this episode, Gill Ereaut reveals how analyzing everyday language inside organizations can unlock deep insights into their true culture—and how becoming conscious of it can open the door to meaningful change.

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WEBVTT

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The topics and opinions express in the following show are

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solely those of the hosts and their guests and not

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those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We

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for choosing W FOURCY Radio.

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What's working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the

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answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose

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at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their

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lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization

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that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their

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highest potential. Business can be such a force for good

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in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide

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guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we

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all want working on Purpose. Now, here's your host, doctor

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Elise Cortez.

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Welcome back to the Working in Purpose program, which has

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been brought to you with passion and pride since February

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of twenty fifteenth. Thanks tuning in again this week. Great

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to have you. I'm your host, doctor Elis Cortes. If

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we've not met before and you don't know me, I'm

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an organizational psychologist, management consultant, LOCO therapist, speaker and author.

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My team and I at Gusto Now help companies to

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enliven and fortify their operations by building a dynamic, high

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performance culture and inspirational leadership activated by meaning and purpose.

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And did you know that inspired employees outperform their satisfied

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peers by a factor of two point twenty five to one.

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In other words, inspiration is good for the bottom line.

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You learn more about us and how we can work

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together at gustodashnow dot com or my personal site at

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least Coortes dot com. Getting into today's program we have

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with us today. Jill iro She is a British researcher, author,

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speaker and organizational consultant. She's the founder of the consultancy

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Linguistic Landscapes, pioneering the commercial application of language sciences, linguistic

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and discourse else Is to real organizational issues. We'll be

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talking about her brand new book, The Way We Talk

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around here, how your organization's culture shows up in your language,

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and why it matters. She joined us today from Oxford. Jill,

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welcome to Working on Purpose.

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Thank you great to be here.

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It is wonderful to have you. And you know, since

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we each of course have books published through practical inspiration,

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that's that's how I met you. I want to give

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a shout out to Elison Jones. She's magnificent and I

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really really enjoyed your book. I learned a lot, and

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I want to first start by celebrating. I'm not sure

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if you call yourself a linguistic anthropologist or how do

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you call yourself.

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I usually try to avoid giving it a name, actually,

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but yes, anthropologist is is a pretty good description in

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that linguist anthrologists are all about how language influences social

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and cultural life, and linguistic anthrology is about how you

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can study culture through the use of linguistic tools. So

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the difference, I guess between me and an academic linguistic

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anthropologist is the subject of study, which in my cases

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organizations beautiful.

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It's wonderful and I love you that you're just obsessed

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with language. I think that's wonderful, and we're going to

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talk about your approach to discourse analysis as we go,

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but first I just want to situate. I really liked

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how you opened the book and talked about how you know,

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when newcomers come into an organization, they immediately detect the

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subtleties of the culture as and whereas their tenure brethren can't.

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So if you could just start by kind of helping

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us step into that place where that is such a

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very powerful way to detect culture through the ears, eyes

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and experiences of those newcomers.

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Sure, most people have the experience or recognize the experience

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of first few days in a new organization, first few

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days in a new job. For the first few days weeks,

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you can hear the way it talks this organization, even

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if you've come from within the same industry, there's something

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about this new place. And most people spend that first

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few weeks months just basically trying to learn the language,

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the acronyms, the code. But what you're also doing when

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you absorb the languages, you're absorbing what's not being said,

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the subtext, if you like the culture that's sitting beneath

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that language. And then after a while you can't hear

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it anymore so when you're a newcomer, you're in a

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very powerful but not powerful position. You can hear it,

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and you can sense the kind of the way things,

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you know, the way we think about things around here

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in this new place, but you're often not in a

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position to comment on it because that would be rude

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or seem aggressive and so on.

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And the one thing that strug me as you talked

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about that was how powerful it would be if organizations

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had the practice of engaging in conversation with the people

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that are coming into the organization and just asking them,

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what do you see? What are you noticing about how

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we do things here? What are you picking up on it?

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That would be so powerful to gain age are we doing?

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Are we actually putting out what we want it to

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be in terms of our culture in the way that

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we're operating. And I don't know too many organizations that

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do that, do you.

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I think that's true. I think I wish I could

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remember who it was, But there was, I believe, a

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chief executive officer of a very large corporation who made it,

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made it a habit to have one or two of

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his newest recruits in for I mean, they must have

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been terrified in for coffee or lunch with him, and

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he wanted to know their first impressions. He wanted to

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know what they'd noticed. But I don't think that's a

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common practice. What I often say to people who are

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interested when they first join an organization is themselves, is

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to keep a notebook. You know, just write down all

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the things that you notice in those first few weeks, because,

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particularly if you are in a position a manager or

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a leader, that will be a resource because you won't

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be able to you won't be able to hear it

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after a half, so your notebook will be a resource.

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Thinking I remember noticing that's a weird way talk about

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customers around here. I've never heard that before. It's not

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that we necessarily have a different name for them, but

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that's a weird position that we kind of put them

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in when we're talking about them. Often people don't quite

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have the language to talk about the language, but they

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recognize that there's something powerful going on in how an

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organization I would say constructs the technical term is how

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they're constructing the customer through the habits of language that

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surround them.

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You're social scinct, that's not surprising, right, but you're social

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syinct and appreciate that. One of the things that you

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talk about, which of course I agree because I do

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also some culture work as well, is that how important

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it is to be able to presence this right. And

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what I really love too is that we talk and

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we'll get to a little bit later, but when you

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start to share back what you're hearing how people are

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using language, like, for example, I just did something. Let's

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see in February, I was working with an organization and

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I kept hearing they were using as I did the interviews,

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they were using language like well, that would get me

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in trouble, and so there was a lot of that

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language and I put it back up to them and

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they were like, we had no idea we were even

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seeing that clearly indicating a lack of psychological safety. And

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you could see how it was impacting how they were

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putting forth ideas and whether or not they were willing

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to engage with those ideas. So I like the fact

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that and it's important for this conversation to share with

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our listeners and viewers how important it is to make

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it explicit what's actually being said and utilized for language

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inside an organization.

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I think you can sometimes make it explicit yourself. I

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think sometimes it takes a shared conversation for everyone to

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share that experience and say we do, don't we that's weird?

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Where does that come from? And what's the implication? What

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is it we're saying about ourselves or about the culture

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here that we're always using that and crucially is that

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helpful to us? Is that something that we want to

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carry on with? But it's is a repeat very difficult

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to see when you're inside the organization. Most newcomers just

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have to get on and learn it in order to

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do the job they've been hired to do. You know,

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you don't have any spare bandwidth or time or you know,

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relationships that you can work when you're when you're new,

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so you need to you need to note it down

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and then find a way of having conversations with people later.

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I'm just working with them a group of young police

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officers in fact, you know who are graduate graduates into

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through into the British Police through a particular scheme and

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talking with them two years in about the opportununity they

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have while they're still that new and they can hear

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the language and think and talk with their colleagues about

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what's the implication of that language and maybe start to

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change it or maybe start to go what's funny, isn't it?

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I wonder why we do that? Do you think that

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helps our our cause? Do you think that helps what

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we're doing? And when we have those habits of how

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we talk about people.

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Mhm. I think it's useful too to share with their

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listeners of viewers, just really how you talk about culture,

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because it's it's one of those kind of words that

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is thrown about a lot, but I don't know that

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so many people really fully understand it. But I like

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what you say in the book. You say culture is

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the sum effect and enactment of unwritten norms and unspoken assumptions.

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It's not what's dictated from above, but is made and

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sustained every day by everyone. And it comes down to

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simple shared beliefs, habits and rules of thumb. For most

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of the organizations we work with, there there were perhaps

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up to seven key ideas at the heart of how

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people operated at that time. I think that's a really

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important idea of you know, up to what you say,

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seven key ideas that really dictate how an organization is

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really run. That's powerful and if you knew those.

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Things absolutely, and the the trick, I guess is to

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find a way to surface those things and for me specifically,

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to hypothesize them, if you like, to look at an

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organization and help it to hear itself and then to say, well,

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I'm not saying this is your culture, but from the

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way you talk around here, it looks like these are

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the things you say to yourselves all the time, but

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you don't say them. These are the implicit rules that

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everybody works to like, you know, you better watch out.

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You know, you're get into trouble very easily around here.

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You know, don't stick your head above the parapet because

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you get shot down, or other kinds of rules that

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can look quite perverse on the surface, and it's important

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that people then have the opportunity to recognize them, and

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they usually do if you get it right, and they

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are you know, we all need shortcuts. People need shortcuts

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in very complex in a complex world. And so when

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you I think about culture in a number of ways,

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one is what it's you know, an organization doesn't have

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a culture, it does culture, and culture is something you

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do day after day in every decision in every I mean,

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you can people, you know, set priorities and write strategies.

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But culture is how people operate and interact every day

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in the jobs they're doing. So it's in the micro

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decisions they make. Do I do this thing, or do

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I do this thing? Of all the tasks I've got

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to do, do I choose this promotion or that promotion

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to send to customers? Do I go and consult these

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people or these people within an organization? So that sort

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of if you're like small decisions that actually make up

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organizational life. And I think culture is therefore a kind

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of living, breathing, moving, fluid thing which a makes it

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difficult to hang onto, but really the optimistically it makes

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it easier to change because it's not fixed in stone.

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The only way it gets fixed in stone is that

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we need shortcuts. So people need a kind of I

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sometimes think it an if in doubt, I'll do this

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kind of set of rules. If in doubt, keep your

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head down. If in doubt, always consult legal. If in doubt,

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go to the shop floor and talk to them. You know,

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the sort of we need. We need easy ways to

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make those decisions without processing them cognitively every single time,

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and I think culture sort of sits at that semi

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conscious level, and not unconscious in a kind of Freudian sense,

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but certainly not conscious all the time. And it's it's

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like that it runs in the background all the time.

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If you can't see it, you can't change it. So

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you need to help people to be able to become

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conscious of it in order to consider how useful it

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is in order to change it, and so on. So

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I think if you think about that it's culture is

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what you do and that we have, that instantly changes

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your view. And then if you insert the idea of

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habits and sort of I sometimes think about out thinking grooves,

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you know, they're kind of we will all our thinking

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will always go down the easiest groove. It's quite difficult

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to push yourself out of a habit of thought, and

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that way things just to get done the same all

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the time. And a culture which has perhaps outlived its

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usefulness will be perpetuated, not because people are being stupid,

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and not because they're being evil, or not because they're

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being stubborn or any of those things, but just because

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it's a habit and it's easier to follow a habit. Yeah,

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that makes sense.

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Indeed absolutely completely understand that. Yeah. And the other thing

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that I want to call out here is just how

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you talk about how culture is the answer to three

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big questions. You talk about those those big questions.

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Sure, So, over the twenty plus years that have been

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developing this approach to culture, I realized that what we

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were finding all the time in mattering out patterns in

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organizations language. So essentially, just to go back a step,

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what I would do is to sample language across an organization,

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so internal like how they speak internally, and how they

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speak externally, formally, informally, written, spoken, and so on, and

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look for patterns are quite subtle and over but also

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at subtle levels. And then when you see those patterns,

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what we're trying to work out is what does it mean?

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And sorry, I've completely lost my there's ree big questions.

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We realized that we were doing this inductively the whole time,

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and what can we see? What can we see? What

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can we see? And then realize that those they fall

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into a set of three sort of clusters, if you like,

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of beliefs or types of idea. The first question, if

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you like, is who are we like? Who are we

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you know, really questions of identity and existence and you know,

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who are we? And what's important around the second question

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is who are they out there? Whether they is customers

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or competitors or regulators or whoever the non organization group is.

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And the subject to the subject to that one is

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who are they out there? And what do we really

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think of them? You know, what's our what's what's our

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position with regard to them, because again, you sometimes find

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quite surprisingly toxic ideas we work with an organization once,

286
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for example, where it just became clear as we analyzed

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language that they fundamentally believed that customers were stupid, their customers,

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their own customers were stupid, and how can that be?

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You know, how how does that kind of work? And

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it dated back actually when we excavated it to a

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time when it was a financial services organization and had

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a very long history and many decades ago. We kind

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of wanted our financial services institutions, for all our institutions,

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to be clever, you know, we just wanted them to

295
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know the stuff, and we weren't that interested as culturally

296
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at the time in understanding things ourselves. And we don't

297
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have that trust in institutions anymore, whether financial or governmental

298
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or anything. And so they were continuing to basically strut

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around and say, well, you know, we're we're the people

300
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who know all the stuff, and they, you know, the

301
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thing is they buy these things. They don't know what

302
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they are, which is actually what they were saying. You said,

303
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they've bought these pensions, and trouble is they don't understand them,

304
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not for a second seeing that has anything to do

305
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with them or anything that they could or should be addressing.

306
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And so and of course the world had moved on

307
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around them, and their competitors were cleaning up because they

308
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were addressing people like they weren't stupid. This is different stuff,

309
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but you're not stupid, you know, let's help you understand this,

310
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or let's give you the information you need to make

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an informed choice here. And I think it was it

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was really really getting in their way. So that's the

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first one is who are we? The second one is

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who are they out there? And what's the relationship we're

315
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assuming with them or the attitude we assume towards them.

316
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And then the third one is how do we do

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relationships around here? So we've worked with companies organizations where

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their position in most relationships is one of a slight

319
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arrogance is perhaps too strong a word, but a kind

320
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of well, we are you know, we are clearly the best,

321
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you know, obviously obviously the best, and that leaks out

322
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into communications. That's the thing about these internal attitudes, especially

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ones when it comes to the communications with customers. If

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you essentially believe that you, as an organization are the

325
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best the bee's knees, you know, we would say, I

326
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don't have used that expression in the US. Then that

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will come out in a set of language patterns particular organization.

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While I have in mind would always start any communication

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with a little kind of linguistic fanfare. At Exit Tex Company,

330
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we are always striving to do sounds and so and so,

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and halfway down the page, I'd get to the bit

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that was actually for me and about me, and it

333
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was such a habit, and I didn't see it as

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a habit until and then, of course you show them

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the pattern.

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And they go, oh, of course, yeah, of course that's

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what we do.

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And I can see why that's not helpful.

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Let us let our listeners and viewers to on that

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while we take our first break thinking about those things

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that you're doing that may actually be running customers away

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from you or even your employees away from you. I'm

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your host, Doctor Releasee Cortez. We've been on the air

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with jail Errol. She's a linguistic she's ad linguistic landscapes.

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She's pioneering the commercial applications of language sciences, linguistics and

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discourse and elsa's to real organizational issues. We've been talking

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a bit about culture, what is it, how to recognize it?

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After the work, We're going to get into her actual method,

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which is discourse. I'll be right back.

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Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning

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and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies

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visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired

353
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leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and

354
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commitment within the workforce. To learn more, or to invite

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a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her

356
00:19:40.039 --> 00:19:43.279
at Elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get

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your employees working on purpose. This is working on purpose

358
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with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or

359
00:19:55.519 --> 00:19:58.279
to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to

360
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a lease Ali s at a Lastcortes dot com. Now

361
00:20:03.559 --> 00:20:05.119
back to working on Purpose.

362
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Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to working

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on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes, as I

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am dedicated to help them create a world where organizations

365
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thrive because their people thrive, are led by inspirational leaders

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that help them find and contribute their greatness. And we

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do business at betters the World. I keep researching and

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writing my own books, so one of my last ones

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came out. It's called The Great Revitalization. How activating meaning

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and purpose can radically in liven your business. I wanted

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to help leaders understand the lay of today's workforce land,

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what do they want, and then I provide twenty two

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best practices to help equip you to provide that for them.

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You can find my books on Amazon or my personal

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site at Leastcoortes dot com if you are just now

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joining us. My guest is Jill Errol. She's the author

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of the Way we Talk around here, How your organization's

378
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culture shows up in your language, and why it matters.

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So I was very intrigued to see your methodology, Jill

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of discourse Analysis. It's just really, really interesting. So for

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our listeners and viewers who probably have never heard of that,

382
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you did mention it a little bit before and help

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what you're analyzing. But if you could just situate a

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bit about how you use discourse analysis in the internal

385
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and external ways of speaking or communicating.

386
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Sure, many many of you of viewers, I think we'll

387
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be familiar with the work of egg Shin, who's one

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of the biggest names in organizational culture, and Seine talked

389
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about three CIPHU light levels of culture. He talked about artifacts,

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which are the things on the surface that you can see,

391
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so the way the organization looks, and rituals and practices

392
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and so on. Then he also talked about his spouse values.

393
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I mean, we tend to call them planes and wishes.

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They are the things that an organization says it's about,

395
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and often since the he believes it's about but may

396
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not necessarily match up with what happens. And then his

397
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third level, that the deepest level. He calls basic and

398
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set assumptions, and we usually abbreviate those settling assumptions. What's

399
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most interesting about artifacts is they are of many, many

400
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different kinds. I mean, he talks about the physical environment,

401
00:22:10.880 --> 00:22:15.640
how people dress and so on. But our method uses language,

402
00:22:15.640 --> 00:22:18.119
as I call it in the book, a super artifact.

403
00:22:18.599 --> 00:22:21.640
It's a very very powerful artifact, and it's great for

404
00:22:21.680 --> 00:22:24.240
a number of reasons. One is it gets everywhere. Everyone

405
00:22:24.319 --> 00:22:27.920
uses language an organization. There's no shortage of data like

406
00:22:27.960 --> 00:22:32.480
in fact, quite the opposite. It's also everybody uses it,

407
00:22:32.559 --> 00:22:35.440
so we're not just analyzing culture, if you like has

408
00:22:35.480 --> 00:22:39.960
represented by the senior ranks or indeed by any one

409
00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:43.440
part of the organization. The other brilliant thing about language.

410
00:22:43.680 --> 00:22:45.720
Two other brilliant things is you can collect it and

411
00:22:45.839 --> 00:22:49.960
analyze it offline, out of the organization. Don't have to

412
00:22:49.960 --> 00:22:52.599
crawl all over the place for weeks to gather data.

413
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But the most important thing is that there is an

414
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enormous range of very well grounded academic work in looking

415
00:23:01.240 --> 00:23:05.640
at how language works in social and cultural terms, so

416
00:23:05.839 --> 00:23:09.440
how we create and co create our worlds linguistically, And

417
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that's where the anthropology piece comes in, and what discourse.

418
00:23:13.920 --> 00:23:18.240
Those methods collectively are called discourse analysis, and what they

419
00:23:18.400 --> 00:23:23.000
offer are these extremely well grounded, empirically based frameworks and

420
00:23:23.000 --> 00:23:27.480
ways of thinking about language. So that means that you

421
00:23:27.519 --> 00:23:30.680
can use it as a particular kind of artifact, take

422
00:23:30.720 --> 00:23:34.240
stuff away and analyze it in a systematic way. It's

423
00:23:34.319 --> 00:23:38.880
qualitative work, so we're not counting things, use some semi

424
00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:43.519
quantified some quantified approaches to very large bodies of data,

425
00:23:43.559 --> 00:23:46.359
but mostly it's qualitative. What you're looking for is meaning

426
00:23:46.480 --> 00:23:49.880
significance that is systematic, and it means that we can

427
00:23:50.079 --> 00:23:53.880
show people in the organization, can show them the patterns

428
00:23:53.880 --> 00:24:01.000
and the language. So we will gather internal and facing language.

429
00:24:01.000 --> 00:24:03.119
It might include We would of course look at all

430
00:24:03.200 --> 00:24:06.359
of those levels of shine, so we'd look at what

431
00:24:06.480 --> 00:24:09.640
the espoused values and strategies and so on. So I'd

432
00:24:09.680 --> 00:24:12.400
want to look at strategy and policy documents. I'd want

433
00:24:12.440 --> 00:24:15.640
to look at high level statements of values and purpose

434
00:24:15.680 --> 00:24:18.079
and intent and so on. I'd want to look at

435
00:24:18.079 --> 00:24:21.440
those actually, though primarily as examples of the culture and action.

436
00:24:22.400 --> 00:24:25.920
So there's sort of manifestations of a culture rather than

437
00:24:26.920 --> 00:24:30.720
a definite or definitive description of it. So we use

438
00:24:30.759 --> 00:24:33.160
that language, and I think a different way to the

439
00:24:33.160 --> 00:24:37.119
way that some other analysts might. We also would look

440
00:24:37.160 --> 00:24:40.759
at things like induction materials, like new Joiner materials, because

441
00:24:40.799 --> 00:24:45.720
again they sometimes make explicit things which are implicit and

442
00:24:45.799 --> 00:24:49.480
showing up everywhere. Sometimes you might find an piece of

443
00:24:49.519 --> 00:24:52.599
induction material that runs absolutely counter to what we can

444
00:24:52.599 --> 00:24:55.279
see on the ground. And that's quite important, you know,

445
00:24:56.640 --> 00:25:02.480
for recruitment, for development and all sorts of tasks where

446
00:25:02.519 --> 00:25:05.119
where people are trying to get a group of people

447
00:25:05.920 --> 00:25:09.920
aligned behind purpose and values and meaning as you talk

448
00:25:09.920 --> 00:25:13.759
about Alice. So we look at that kind of if

449
00:25:13.759 --> 00:25:18.680
you like, the shine's surface stuff is vowels, values, but

450
00:25:18.720 --> 00:25:21.440
we also want the really informal stuff that people don't

451
00:25:21.440 --> 00:25:23.759
pay any attention to. It's littering the place.

452
00:25:24.039 --> 00:25:24.240
You know.

453
00:25:24.240 --> 00:25:30.599
We like language and listens, so internal memos, minutes, reports, emails,

454
00:25:32.079 --> 00:25:36.480
internet pages, notices that are stuck on the walls and

455
00:25:36.559 --> 00:25:40.680
in the kitchens, you know of offices really interesting. And

456
00:25:40.759 --> 00:25:45.359
we work with one organization where one of their unspoken

457
00:25:47.079 --> 00:25:51.839
kind of habits and values was essentially everyone will behave

458
00:25:51.960 --> 00:25:53.920
like a child unless you tell them not to. It

459
00:25:53.960 --> 00:25:57.119
was a very parental kind of position, and it wasn't

460
00:25:57.160 --> 00:25:59.079
just a top down and although there was some of that,

461
00:25:59.279 --> 00:26:02.680
you know from leadership behaving and acting in that way,

462
00:26:03.440 --> 00:26:06.920
but almost everyone in the organization took that stance. So

463
00:26:06.960 --> 00:26:09.079
if a junior person had to send an email to

464
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all their colleagues. They would do it with a very

465
00:26:10.920 --> 00:26:14.519
parental voice. And one of the pieces of one of

466
00:26:14.559 --> 00:26:18.279
the data points that we could show actually made people laugh,

467
00:26:19.160 --> 00:26:22.000
which is a helpful thing. Is amongst all of the

468
00:26:22.279 --> 00:26:25.720
dos and don't send emailss on were notices in the

469
00:26:25.799 --> 00:26:28.960
kitchen where there was there were three versions of a

470
00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:31.359
note above a sink saying don't leave the dirty dishes

471
00:26:31.359 --> 00:26:33.319
in here. Make sure you wash up your dishes. Don't

472
00:26:33.359 --> 00:26:35.799
leave the dirty dishes here. It was a sort of

473
00:26:36.519 --> 00:26:39.079
kind of shouting again and again of this is our

474
00:26:39.119 --> 00:26:41.279
position here. You must do this. You will behold like

475
00:26:41.319 --> 00:26:43.799
a child nurse. We tell you not to. It's silly,

476
00:26:43.839 --> 00:26:47.160
but it's not silly. It's a tiny data point. But

477
00:26:47.400 --> 00:26:49.839
in the midst of all the other pieces that we

478
00:26:49.880 --> 00:26:53.160
could see, it was it was a great example because

479
00:26:53.200 --> 00:26:56.400
people it was completely familiar to people, they'd never seen

480
00:26:56.480 --> 00:27:00.160
it before. So we collapsed stuff, you know, from LLI

481
00:27:00.359 --> 00:27:02.960
and so on, all the way through to internet pages

482
00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:06.559
and notices on walls and notice boards. We would listening

483
00:27:06.759 --> 00:27:12.440
to conversations. Obviously with invitation to conversations between colleagues and meetings,

484
00:27:12.480 --> 00:27:15.799
we would have some conversations with people we want to

485
00:27:15.839 --> 00:27:20.640
look at things like organization charts. Job titles are really revealing.

486
00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:25.359
We once worked with an organization where, for various reasons,

487
00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:29.799
they had a kind of very tightly protected group within

488
00:27:29.880 --> 00:27:33.559
the organization, which itself saw itself as tightly protected against

489
00:27:33.559 --> 00:27:36.240
the world. It had to have this kind of almost

490
00:27:36.240 --> 00:27:39.519
like a medieval note around it, and there was an

491
00:27:39.640 --> 00:27:41.640
app there were a set of people whose job title

492
00:27:41.799 --> 00:27:46.160
was actually gatekeeper. That was what they wanted was to

493
00:27:46.200 --> 00:27:49.279
stop exactly, was to stop people getting in or out

494
00:27:49.319 --> 00:27:52.680
to this wholly sort of keep in the middle where

495
00:27:52.680 --> 00:27:56.279
the extremely important people were. And I mean it was

496
00:27:56.279 --> 00:27:58.119
a gift in a way. When we saw gatekeeper, we'd

497
00:27:58.119 --> 00:28:01.640
already begun to see that through lots of less over language.

498
00:28:02.039 --> 00:28:05.240
But to have a job an organization, a job title

499
00:28:05.279 --> 00:28:08.640
in an organization of gatekeeper, we've never seen before. So

500
00:28:08.720 --> 00:28:11.839
that's that's what I mean by looking for patterns across

501
00:28:12.240 --> 00:28:15.680
different forms of data. We would look at a public website,

502
00:28:15.720 --> 00:28:18.880
we look at social media, we look at if elevant

503
00:28:19.160 --> 00:28:22.599
customer or user communications and so on. So what we're

504
00:28:22.640 --> 00:28:25.200
looking for. I keep saying patterns because that is what

505
00:28:25.240 --> 00:28:28.559
it's about. It's a bit like I often say, if

506
00:28:28.599 --> 00:28:31.720
I hadn't discovered this world, I think I would probably

507
00:28:31.759 --> 00:28:37.799
be an archaeologist or a forensic scientists. Lots of looking

508
00:28:37.839 --> 00:28:41.839
looking a whole load of messy stuff, whether it's you know,

509
00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:45.400
mud in the ground or whatever it is, and seeing

510
00:28:45.599 --> 00:28:49.680
very small indicators of a pattern, like very low signal

511
00:28:49.680 --> 00:28:55.960
to noise ratio pattern data, and as an archaeologist says,

512
00:28:56.759 --> 00:28:59.519
what might have been there, what must have been there

513
00:28:59.559 --> 00:29:01.680
in order to account for this patent they can see

514
00:29:01.680 --> 00:29:06.000
on the ground. What we're saying is maybe this is

515
00:29:06.079 --> 00:29:10.240
what's there, the unspoken staff to account for the other

516
00:29:10.240 --> 00:29:12.319
way around the way, what's under in order to account

517
00:29:12.359 --> 00:29:14.920
for these bits popping up In terms of language choices

518
00:29:14.960 --> 00:29:17.680
on the surface, so we would look at things like

519
00:29:17.880 --> 00:29:23.160
pronouns and labels, you know how our customers or colleagues

520
00:29:23.359 --> 00:29:27.279
or different parts of the organization referred to. We worked

521
00:29:27.279 --> 00:29:33.839
with government organization in the UK, a very powerful government

522
00:29:33.920 --> 00:29:37.720
organization that was attached physically in the same building to

523
00:29:37.799 --> 00:29:42.279
another extremely powerful government organization. They had a relationship that

524
00:29:42.400 --> 00:29:48.039
was necessary but not always comfortable, and the first organization

525
00:29:48.079 --> 00:29:50.960
we're working with would talk about our colleagues at the

526
00:29:51.039 --> 00:29:54.480
other end of the building in a very meaningful way,

527
00:29:54.759 --> 00:29:57.559
and effectively the colleagues at the other end of the building.

528
00:29:58.400 --> 00:30:01.480
Was a subtext for those absolute pains in the neck,

529
00:30:01.759 --> 00:30:03.799
you know, who think they run us and they don't

530
00:30:03.880 --> 00:30:06.039
run us. And it was just a little kind of

531
00:30:06.079 --> 00:30:08.720
a mantra that people would say. And when you see

532
00:30:08.759 --> 00:30:13.799
something repeated like that, and particularly where there's euphemism, there's meaning.

533
00:30:14.119 --> 00:30:16.759
So when people are using a euphemism so as not

534
00:30:16.799 --> 00:30:19.599
to say what they mean, there's all. That's always where

535
00:30:19.640 --> 00:30:23.960
we start digging. We get our trials out and start

536
00:30:24.039 --> 00:30:27.519
kind of scraping away and seeing what's there. We would

537
00:30:27.519 --> 00:30:31.960
look at styles of discourse. So sometimes in an organization

538
00:30:32.039 --> 00:30:36.000
you'll get a dominance, for example, of a particular kind

539
00:30:36.000 --> 00:30:40.000
of language, so dominance of a legal way of thinking

540
00:30:40.039 --> 00:30:43.960
and talking which spills out well beyond the legal department,

541
00:30:44.680 --> 00:30:51.559
or a dominance of marketing discourse that spreads across and

542
00:30:51.640 --> 00:30:54.799
into other parts of the organization. These are not we're

543
00:30:54.839 --> 00:30:57.119
not commenting often on whether this is a good thing

544
00:30:57.200 --> 00:30:59.839
or a bad thing, But what we're doing is observing

545
00:31:00.720 --> 00:31:05.279
and reflecting. Checking it means, checking it's recognizable to people

546
00:31:05.279 --> 00:31:10.559
inside and then together working out what this means for them.

547
00:31:11.319 --> 00:31:13.759
So we would also look at stories, we'd look at metaphor.

548
00:31:13.839 --> 00:31:18.319
Metaphors immensely value. But I talked earlier about the organization

549
00:31:18.480 --> 00:31:22.839
that effectively constructed itself as a castle, you know, with

550
00:31:22.920 --> 00:31:25.640
a big wall and a moat round, a very very

551
00:31:25.680 --> 00:31:29.359
powerful metaphor. And when they were able to see that,

552
00:31:31.799 --> 00:31:34.680
it made sense of a lot of their difficulties. It

553
00:31:34.759 --> 00:31:37.400
didn't solve them, but it helped them make sense of difficulties.

554
00:31:37.400 --> 00:31:40.039
And if you can have some sense of why you're

555
00:31:40.079 --> 00:31:43.200
in the state you're in, then that's the first step

556
00:31:43.240 --> 00:31:45.160
to change in something.

557
00:31:46.680 --> 00:31:48.880
So wonderful. Oh go ahead, you'll was something she wanted

558
00:31:48.880 --> 00:31:49.160
to say.

559
00:31:49.359 --> 00:31:50.880
No, no, no, no, go ahead.

560
00:31:51.160 --> 00:31:52.880
Okay, well let's go ahead and grab our last break

561
00:31:52.920 --> 00:31:55.000
here and let our listeners and viewers chew on that.

562
00:31:55.200 --> 00:31:58.119
Just think about, if you will, ladies and gentlemen, think

563
00:31:58.160 --> 00:32:02.200
about how this language, the way that it's using your organization,

564
00:32:02.440 --> 00:32:05.680
is either helping you get the results that you want

565
00:32:05.759 --> 00:32:07.720
or preventing you from getting the results that you want.

566
00:32:07.720 --> 00:32:10.440
This is a really really powerful stuff, that powerful work

567
00:32:10.440 --> 00:32:13.359
that you do. Jill, I'm your host, doctor Elie Cortes.

568
00:32:13.359 --> 00:32:15.039
We went on the air with Jill Erro. She's a

569
00:32:15.559 --> 00:32:18.759
she's a linguistic landscapes and she's pioneering the commercial application

570
00:32:18.839 --> 00:32:22.920
of language sciences, linguistics and discourse analysis to get real

571
00:32:23.039 --> 00:32:26.200
organizational to get to real organizational issues. We've been talking

572
00:32:26.200 --> 00:32:29.359
a bit more about her actual methodology. It's very, very powerful.

573
00:32:29.640 --> 00:32:31.839
After the break, we're going to get into also talking

574
00:32:31.880 --> 00:32:34.680
about gender and language patterns, as well as how this

575
00:32:34.759 --> 00:32:36.680
starts to show up in terms of results and what

576
00:32:36.680 --> 00:32:38.880
we could do with the data itself. We'll be right back.

577
00:32:54.720 --> 00:32:58.279
Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning

578
00:32:58.319 --> 00:33:02.119
and purpose and inspirational speaker and author. She helps companies

579
00:33:02.200 --> 00:33:06.000
visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired

580
00:33:06.079 --> 00:33:10.039
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and

581
00:33:10.119 --> 00:33:13.359
commitment within the workforce. To learn more, or to invite

582
00:33:13.359 --> 00:33:16.359
Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at

583
00:33:16.359 --> 00:33:19.599
elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your

584
00:33:19.640 --> 00:33:28.440
employees working on purpose. This is working on purpose with

585
00:33:28.559 --> 00:33:31.720
doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to

586
00:33:31.799 --> 00:33:34.880
open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Elise

587
00:33:35.160 --> 00:33:40.519
A Lise at elisecortes dot com. Now back to working

588
00:33:40.559 --> 00:33:41.279
on purpose.

589
00:33:46.160 --> 00:33:48.319
Thanksteresting with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose.

590
00:33:48.319 --> 00:33:51.400
I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. As I mentioned in

591
00:33:51.440 --> 00:33:54.039
my last break that my lady's book came out the

592
00:33:54.079 --> 00:33:56.759
great realization. What I did for you is I created

593
00:33:56.759 --> 00:33:59.519
a simple three page organizational assessment that you can pull

594
00:33:59.559 --> 00:34:02.000
off my whip pite gustodeshnail dot com and it will

595
00:34:02.000 --> 00:34:05.480
help you understand the extent to which your organization is

596
00:34:05.599 --> 00:34:08.960
meeting the listening needs of today's workforce if you are

597
00:34:09.000 --> 00:34:11.159
just now joining us. My guest is Jillie Rose. She's

598
00:34:11.159 --> 00:34:13.320
the author of the Way we talk around here, how

599
00:34:13.320 --> 00:34:15.800
your organization's culture shows up in your language, and why

600
00:34:15.840 --> 00:34:19.320
it matters. So I want to just briefly touch on

601
00:34:19.440 --> 00:34:23.559
this idea of gendered language patterns and just consider the

602
00:34:23.679 --> 00:34:26.480
ramifications of that. That's so so powerful, and I certainly

603
00:34:26.480 --> 00:34:28.719
work with other organizations as well that we're wondering why

604
00:34:28.760 --> 00:34:31.639
can't we attract women around here? Why don't why don't

605
00:34:31.639 --> 00:34:33.360
women want to come to work for this organization or

606
00:34:33.400 --> 00:34:36.519
why why don't they stay? So give us kind of

607
00:34:36.559 --> 00:34:40.039
a peek on you talk about feminine discourse, and then

608
00:34:40.079 --> 00:34:41.559
of course masculine discourse.

609
00:34:43.400 --> 00:34:47.519
I mean, I think it's from observation. It seems to

610
00:34:47.559 --> 00:34:51.719
me over the years that pretty well all organizations are,

611
00:34:52.039 --> 00:34:54.400
if you like, gendered, masculine. And I don't mean they've

612
00:34:54.400 --> 00:34:56.639
got more men in them than women, although obviously maybe

613
00:34:56.679 --> 00:34:58.800
they have. But if you think about the idea of

614
00:34:58.880 --> 00:35:04.360
gender as something you not something you have, but something

615
00:35:04.360 --> 00:35:07.519
you do, so we can do being feminine and we

616
00:35:07.559 --> 00:35:10.440
can do being masculine. I mean that's how That's how

617
00:35:10.559 --> 00:35:14.199
actors work. You know, if somebody wants to walk in

618
00:35:14.239 --> 00:35:16.840
a particularly masculine way, you know, you know what they

619
00:35:16.880 --> 00:35:19.360
would do it, how they do it. They'd swagger and

620
00:35:19.880 --> 00:35:25.480
so on. And similarly, we can walk or talk in

621
00:35:25.519 --> 00:35:30.440
a particularly feminized way regardless of our biological sex. So

622
00:35:30.679 --> 00:35:33.000
if you think of gender as something that can be done,

623
00:35:33.599 --> 00:35:38.400
then organizations do it too. So in how an organization

624
00:35:38.880 --> 00:35:41.119
not so much stresses, but certainly in how it talks,

625
00:35:41.760 --> 00:35:46.400
And a lot of organizational discourse across the board traditionally

626
00:35:46.480 --> 00:35:50.760
has been masculinized. And by that I mean, so I

627
00:35:50.920 --> 00:35:53.519
go here now to you know what's known and written

628
00:35:53.559 --> 00:36:00.400
about widely about the patterns in how I always has women,

629
00:36:00.440 --> 00:36:04.719
but how people talk when they are doing being feminine,

630
00:36:05.280 --> 00:36:10.679
and that means regardless of their state, if you're like

631
00:36:10.679 --> 00:36:13.599
their bodily state or their but how do you perform

632
00:36:13.599 --> 00:36:16.719
being feminine? How do you do being feminine? And what

633
00:36:16.760 --> 00:36:19.519
we would tend to do to perform being feminine would

634
00:36:19.559 --> 00:36:23.880
be to be conversational. There is a lot of evidence

635
00:36:23.960 --> 00:36:28.480
that women use unassertive strategies, so hedging and I'm probably

636
00:36:28.480 --> 00:36:30.639
doing it now, you know, saying well, sort of and

637
00:36:30.719 --> 00:36:34.360
kind of and maybe and adding tag questions and so on.

638
00:36:35.440 --> 00:36:39.360
And this is observational. This is just observing what happens.

639
00:36:39.440 --> 00:36:42.920
Is putting labels or value judgments on. This just tends

640
00:36:42.920 --> 00:36:46.480
to be what people are doing today. Historically would have

641
00:36:46.480 --> 00:36:49.159
been different. In the future, it may be different, but

642
00:36:49.280 --> 00:36:55.559
right now today women if they are offering expertise or advice,

643
00:36:55.719 --> 00:36:58.760
they will tend to offer it rather than assert it

644
00:36:59.079 --> 00:37:02.559
and so on offer and they may offering it, they

645
00:37:02.559 --> 00:37:05.320
may offer it only when they're pretty sure it's being

646
00:37:05.360 --> 00:37:07.760
asked for or will be welcome, rather than just because

647
00:37:07.760 --> 00:37:11.679
they want to give it. Asking questions is a very

648
00:37:12.280 --> 00:37:18.079
feminized form of language, and it's where necessarily and useful

649
00:37:18.119 --> 00:37:21.679
asking questions It's not seen in this form of talking

650
00:37:22.320 --> 00:37:25.760
as being weak or as betraying a lack of status,

651
00:37:25.480 --> 00:37:30.960
and feminine talk. Feminized talk tends to be collaborative, so

652
00:37:31.119 --> 00:37:32.960
not competitive. Now you can see where I'm going with

653
00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:36.119
the opposite of this at the extreme, and I'm characterizing

654
00:37:36.519 --> 00:37:42.320
almost like caricaturing vasculine discourse. Masculine talk will tend to

655
00:37:42.320 --> 00:37:48.079
be showing ritual opposition and competition. Jokes banter are sort

656
00:37:48.119 --> 00:37:51.960
of play fights. If you like linguistic play fighting is

657
00:37:52.039 --> 00:37:58.000
banter teasing. You'll see a lot of war metaphors, sporting metaphors, debate,

658
00:37:58.320 --> 00:38:03.760
open debate, open agreement. And interestingly, as many of us know,

659
00:38:04.679 --> 00:38:07.159
many men will do anything other than ask a question

660
00:38:07.280 --> 00:38:12.639
or ask for directions. I mean, let's not go there.

661
00:38:12.760 --> 00:38:18.400
But because asking questions betrays a lack of knowledge or status,

662
00:38:18.239 --> 00:38:21.440
asking question kind of puts you in a position of

663
00:38:21.480 --> 00:38:23.679
having to confess you don't know and so on. And

664
00:38:23.920 --> 00:38:27.679
this obviously runs counter to all the other stuff about dominance.

665
00:38:28.280 --> 00:38:31.559
And what's so interesting, it doesn't take a huge leap

666
00:38:31.639 --> 00:38:36.320
to see that within an organization classically happens so much now,

667
00:38:36.320 --> 00:38:40.960
But classically a dominance for example, of numbers and graphs

668
00:38:41.000 --> 00:38:46.679
and spreadsheets in PowerPoint presentations, you know, charts with hard

669
00:38:46.719 --> 00:38:50.800
lines and numbers and so on, rather than, for example,

670
00:38:51.719 --> 00:38:55.920
an alternative. It's almost hard to imagine, but PowerPoint slides

671
00:38:56.119 --> 00:38:59.719
making the same kind of argumental point, but using human

672
00:39:00.039 --> 00:39:04.360
voices or using images or narratives, which be you know,

673
00:39:04.440 --> 00:39:10.800
less vasculinized. And again many people will recognize that in

674
00:39:10.880 --> 00:39:16.000
a masculinized kind of language or discourse, it's all about

675
00:39:16.039 --> 00:39:21.559
problem solving, so responding to problems by offering solutions rather

676
00:39:21.639 --> 00:39:25.199
than by listening or empathizing. So you know, I don't

677
00:39:25.239 --> 00:39:26.840
want you to sort this out for me. I just

678
00:39:26.880 --> 00:39:28.800
want you to give me a hug and say I

679
00:39:28.880 --> 00:39:33.519
understand how you feel. I means equivalent of So we

680
00:39:33.599 --> 00:39:37.679
have these, you know some I have caricatured them, so

681
00:39:38.239 --> 00:39:41.960
you know, I hope people are, aren't, you know, getting

682
00:39:42.000 --> 00:39:44.159
too vexed about you know, well, I'm a girl and

683
00:39:44.280 --> 00:39:47.760
I don't talk like that. But they are resources if

684
00:39:47.800 --> 00:39:50.280
you think of those, all the different ways that we

685
00:39:50.400 --> 00:39:53.360
have to talk as resources that we can draw on

686
00:39:54.440 --> 00:39:58.400
any time to do a particular job. So whether you're

687
00:39:58.440 --> 00:40:02.559
a biological man, biological women, or something else you can

688
00:40:03.440 --> 00:40:07.079
be you can use language in a way that is

689
00:40:07.119 --> 00:40:09.280
assertive and dominant and so on, or you can lose

690
00:40:09.360 --> 00:40:13.039
language in a way that's empathetic and so on, And

691
00:40:13.320 --> 00:40:17.159
organizations can sometimes get in their own way like this,

692
00:40:17.280 --> 00:40:19.599
so either it's one of the examples I use in

693
00:40:19.599 --> 00:40:23.039
the book is of an organization that really, really, sincerely

694
00:40:23.480 --> 00:40:27.239
wanted to attract more women to engineering roles, and they

695
00:40:27.239 --> 00:40:30.719
have tried all sorts of things with some success, and

696
00:40:31.079 --> 00:40:35.039
we looked for them at a simple job ad, you know,

697
00:40:35.079 --> 00:40:39.159
an online job ad trying to attract women into a

698
00:40:39.159 --> 00:40:42.599
form of it was sort of it was, it wasn't.

699
00:40:42.639 --> 00:40:45.360
It was an engineer job at communications engineer, so somebody

700
00:40:45.400 --> 00:40:47.440
who would go out to a customer's house. It was

701
00:40:47.480 --> 00:40:53.519
telecoms and fix their Wi Fi essentially, and at the

702
00:40:53.559 --> 00:40:56.360
overt level there was absolutely nothing that this was a

703
00:40:56.440 --> 00:40:59.599
job for men. But when we unpicked it, it used

704
00:40:59.599 --> 00:41:05.559
particular a whole cluster of little phrases that fitted better

705
00:41:05.639 --> 00:41:09.239
into that masculine discourse. So the thing talked about, you know,

706
00:41:09.360 --> 00:41:11.199
you need to be sort of prepared to roll your

707
00:41:11.199 --> 00:41:14.960
sleeves up and get your hands dirty, which just sews

708
00:41:15.079 --> 00:41:18.320
slightly that way. Each one of those data points would

709
00:41:18.360 --> 00:41:20.679
not have been enough, but the cluster of them was enough.

710
00:41:21.320 --> 00:41:24.239
So we kind of fixed it for them in that

711
00:41:24.360 --> 00:41:28.679
we suggested a rewrite, you know, which didn't make it feminized,

712
00:41:29.039 --> 00:41:31.159
so we weren't going, hey, girls, come and work here.

713
00:41:31.480 --> 00:41:35.760
What we did was just neral, genuinely neutralize it linguistically,

714
00:41:36.440 --> 00:41:40.119
and they did it before and after test, and their

715
00:41:40.719 --> 00:41:44.119
expressions of interest went up by two hundred percent or something.

716
00:41:44.320 --> 00:41:50.079
Very gratifying because before people had said, wellow, it doesn't

717
00:41:50.079 --> 00:41:53.800
really stand a job for me, and after many many

718
00:41:53.880 --> 00:41:58.360
women said maybe that sounds quite interesting really, and of

719
00:41:58.400 --> 00:42:00.639
course then they go have to go through the next age,

720
00:42:01.039 --> 00:42:04.000
so getting in their own way in terms of attracting people.

721
00:42:04.599 --> 00:42:07.559
And another company we work with was certainly getting in

722
00:42:07.599 --> 00:42:11.639
its own way in trying to attract female customers. It

723
00:42:11.679 --> 00:42:16.280
was really underrepresented. It knew it was very underrepresented in

724
00:42:16.360 --> 00:42:20.440
terms of female customers. And to be honest, it didn't

725
00:42:20.480 --> 00:42:22.960
take an awful lot of analysis to show them how

726
00:42:23.639 --> 00:42:27.199
masculinized their language was. And again we just did some

727
00:42:27.719 --> 00:42:32.199
sample rewrites where we just neutralized it, toned it down

728
00:42:32.400 --> 00:42:37.360
so that the thing read much more neutrally, and it

729
00:42:37.400 --> 00:42:41.760
was very successful. You know, you don't need to overtly think, oh,

730
00:42:41.800 --> 00:42:44.519
I need to make this attractive to women. What you

731
00:42:44.599 --> 00:42:47.480
need to do is to is to strip out the

732
00:42:47.800 --> 00:42:51.719
unconscious bias that gets put into writing like that.

733
00:42:52.440 --> 00:42:56.360
So well said and explained. You'll just beautiful, so important. Okay,

734
00:42:56.440 --> 00:42:57.800
So we want to go next is we don't have

735
00:42:57.840 --> 00:42:59.519
a whole lot of time left. We've only got about

736
00:42:59.519 --> 00:43:01.360
five minuts still left and we're in one of Your

737
00:43:01.360 --> 00:43:05.119
next is you know, sharing insights now now that you've been,

738
00:43:05.280 --> 00:43:07.480
you've been, you've done this work, and you're going to

739
00:43:07.519 --> 00:43:09.599
come back to your organization. And I really like how

740
00:43:09.639 --> 00:43:14.679
you talk about the the two questions that you are

741
00:43:14.760 --> 00:43:17.559
trying to do to get them to look at one

742
00:43:17.599 --> 00:43:19.960
is do you recognize the picture of us and how

743
00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:22.920
we are? And the other one is what what's The

744
00:43:22.920 --> 00:43:23.960
second question.

745
00:43:24.239 --> 00:43:28.840
Is how far is this set of assumptions serving us well? Okay, now,

746
00:43:28.920 --> 00:43:31.199
if we recognize them, does it serve us well?

747
00:43:31.480 --> 00:43:34.119
That is the powerful questions. If you could speak a

748
00:43:34.199 --> 00:43:34.760
bit to those.

749
00:43:34.719 --> 00:43:38.920
Okay, certainly, certainly, So we came. We've started to call

750
00:43:38.960 --> 00:43:44.079
these the aha moment followed by the oh dear moment,

751
00:43:45.239 --> 00:43:50.440
but the moment if we've got the analysis right, you

752
00:43:50.480 --> 00:43:54.679
know we usually do, then and sorry. One of the

753
00:43:54.760 --> 00:43:58.320
key things I feel very strongly about this is that

754
00:43:58.679 --> 00:44:01.320
we we must not present this work to people as

755
00:44:01.320 --> 00:44:04.280
a in a actually in quite a masculine way, as

756
00:44:04.320 --> 00:44:06.480
a this is your culture, you know where I'm telling

757
00:44:06.559 --> 00:44:09.679
you this is your culture. What we do is to

758
00:44:09.760 --> 00:44:11.800
hold it up. I think I mentioned this earlier to

759
00:44:11.840 --> 00:44:14.679
say we're not telling you this is your culture, but

760
00:44:14.760 --> 00:44:18.039
this is how this culture language thing works. And in

761
00:44:18.079 --> 00:44:21.440
the light of from the way you guys talk around here,

762
00:44:21.800 --> 00:44:25.519
it looks like these are your unspoken assumptions because look

763
00:44:25.559 --> 00:44:28.760
at these patterns and will show them literally aslide with

764
00:44:28.800 --> 00:44:32.079
lots of different examples on it of how they are

765
00:44:32.320 --> 00:44:35.400
doing parental voice, for example, or how they are doing

766
00:44:36.760 --> 00:44:39.840
or any of the other many dimensions that come through

767
00:44:39.880 --> 00:44:43.679
in organizations. So the first question is do you recognize this?

768
00:44:44.280 --> 00:44:49.239
And people generally respond viscerally in We did some customers

769
00:44:49.320 --> 00:44:52.840
and client research a while ago, and it was interesting

770
00:44:52.960 --> 00:44:57.239
how much the metaphor of gut came through in their language.

771
00:44:57.360 --> 00:45:00.679
It was a visceral response. It's like they recognize it

772
00:45:01.039 --> 00:45:03.639
with their gut and then the brain kicks in and

773
00:45:03.719 --> 00:45:09.440
real and says, my goodness, I totally recognize this because

774
00:45:09.519 --> 00:45:13.360
their data, it's they're very familiar language. I've totally recognized

775
00:45:13.360 --> 00:45:16.199
this and I've never seen it before. I've never seen

776
00:45:16.800 --> 00:45:20.280
that pattern, and I've never recognized the implication of that pattern.

777
00:45:20.840 --> 00:45:23.440
And there's often it's very energizing and intriguing for people.

778
00:45:23.480 --> 00:45:31.280
There's often laughter, you know, people recognize oh moment, and

779
00:45:32.239 --> 00:45:35.320
that release of energy then can sometimes be swiftly followed

780
00:45:35.320 --> 00:45:37.840
by as we as we gently prod them into. The

781
00:45:37.880 --> 00:45:40.599
second question is and is that still helpful to you?

782
00:45:41.280 --> 00:45:45.119
Because it used to an organization's culture always made sense

783
00:45:45.400 --> 00:45:48.760
once in the past. It's that people don't make up

784
00:45:48.920 --> 00:45:52.079
dysfunctional cultures. What they do is they fail to see

785
00:45:52.119 --> 00:45:56.039
they're becoming dysfunctional as time passes, the context changes and

786
00:45:56.079 --> 00:45:59.039
so on. So how far is this sort of assumptions

787
00:45:59.079 --> 00:46:02.320
helpful to this now we need to change to thrive today?

788
00:46:04.239 --> 00:46:07.239
What can we consciously rework and we sometimes talk about

789
00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:10.400
getting people to with a bit of help, of course

790
00:46:10.400 --> 00:46:14.079
from us, sorting them into like what are the burdens?

791
00:46:14.199 --> 00:46:15.599
You know, what are the things that are now a

792
00:46:15.679 --> 00:46:18.199
complete liability to us. We've really got to stop doing that.

793
00:46:19.559 --> 00:46:22.360
Where are their gaps? So things that we could do

794
00:46:22.440 --> 00:46:27.239
with boosting perhaps like for example, one organization it was

795
00:46:27.320 --> 00:46:31.119
deeply uncurious about the world outside. It has so much

796
00:46:31.159 --> 00:46:35.800
potentially to learn and gather from. It was a public

797
00:46:35.840 --> 00:46:39.320
sexual organizing, it's peer organizations, and elsewhere it just was

798
00:46:39.360 --> 00:46:42.519
not curious at all. So that was a definite cultural

799
00:46:42.599 --> 00:46:45.199
gap is to be and one of their principles that

800
00:46:45.239 --> 00:46:48.760
we devide for them was be curious. And then there's sparks,

801
00:46:48.800 --> 00:46:50.840
which are things that are kind of there in the

802
00:46:50.880 --> 00:46:54.599
culture that maybe have got left behind or sort of

803
00:46:55.079 --> 00:46:57.519
that they're not strong enough and they could do with nurturing.

804
00:46:58.039 --> 00:47:01.320
So little embers we blow on them and to get

805
00:47:01.320 --> 00:47:06.280
the fire going. So some people change immediately. You know,

806
00:47:05.639 --> 00:47:08.960
there is a kind of there is a set of

807
00:47:08.960 --> 00:47:11.519
people who when we take titting through a presentation of

808
00:47:11.559 --> 00:47:16.400
these findings, will go I kind of understand why this

809
00:47:16.440 --> 00:47:18.400
thing has been so difficult, and they'll just go off

810
00:47:18.400 --> 00:47:22.920
and start having different conversations and interacting differently. They are

811
00:47:23.079 --> 00:47:26.480
a small number of people sometimes realize the game is

812
00:47:26.559 --> 00:47:29.440
up because the old culture has suited them well, and

813
00:47:29.679 --> 00:47:32.159
you know, maybe it's about to get exposed. But for

814
00:47:32.239 --> 00:47:35.840
most people, they're intrigued interested, They just need then a

815
00:47:35.840 --> 00:47:39.039
bit of help to shape how they can work with it.

816
00:47:40.599 --> 00:47:44.199
What it's just such beautiful work and I love to

817
00:47:44.239 --> 00:47:46.159
do it as well, and you're a approach. I just

818
00:47:46.239 --> 00:47:48.719
really I've learned a lot from you about how you

819
00:47:48.760 --> 00:47:50.400
do your work and you and your team do your work.

820
00:47:51.440 --> 00:47:53.559
I want to give you the chance to close the conversation. First,

821
00:47:53.639 --> 00:47:55.320
let me say thank you very much for coming on.

822
00:47:55.440 --> 00:47:58.119
It's been amazing to learn from you, to read your

823
00:47:58.159 --> 00:48:00.000
work and assure you. With my listeners and viewers across

824
00:48:00.239 --> 00:48:03.119
the world, what would you like to leave them with today?

825
00:48:03.639 --> 00:48:07.760
Well, I think I'm going to home one really about

826
00:48:08.639 --> 00:48:10.639
when I started to say at the beginning, I think

827
00:48:10.840 --> 00:48:13.519
there are three things that annoyed me about the way

828
00:48:13.559 --> 00:48:17.119
that culture has often talked about. One is it's often

829
00:48:17.280 --> 00:48:20.519
described as mystical and unknowable. What is not unknowable, You

830
00:48:20.639 --> 00:48:24.320
just have to find the right way in culture sometimes

831
00:48:24.360 --> 00:48:27.320
can be the thing that gets counted, you know, would

832
00:48:27.360 --> 00:48:30.719
count in a survey. And I just fundamentally believe that

833
00:48:30.760 --> 00:48:35.239
it's too unconscious or semi conscious and emotional to be

834
00:48:35.320 --> 00:48:38.239
counted in that way. People cannot tell you about the culture,

835
00:48:38.440 --> 00:48:42.159
otherwise they would do so. And the third and so

836
00:48:42.480 --> 00:48:48.440
I feel that actually addressing addressing culture in this way

837
00:48:49.079 --> 00:48:51.840
gives the power back to the people who actually can

838
00:48:51.960 --> 00:48:55.039
change it. Powers may be too strong, but it puts

839
00:48:56.159 --> 00:49:00.480
it equips your people to choose to behave differently. Culture

840
00:49:00.599 --> 00:49:03.280
change is not because people get told to change, but

841
00:49:03.360 --> 00:49:06.280
because they see the sense of changing and they are

842
00:49:06.320 --> 00:49:08.840
given them some help to move in that direction. So

843
00:49:08.960 --> 00:49:10.880
I think that's what I'd like to leave people. Is

844
00:49:10.920 --> 00:49:14.760
a kind of culture is I and for everyone?

845
00:49:15.679 --> 00:49:18.440
What a beautiful way to close. Jill, thank you again

846
00:49:18.480 --> 00:49:20.440
for coming and working on purpose and writing your book

847
00:49:20.480 --> 00:49:21.719
and putting sharing it with the world.

848
00:49:22.480 --> 00:49:22.880
Thank you.

849
00:49:22.880 --> 00:49:25.159
Listen. You're welcome. Listeners and viewers. You're going to want

850
00:49:25.159 --> 00:49:27.360
to learn more about Jiro and the work she does

851
00:49:27.400 --> 00:49:29.679
at Linguistic Landscapes and her new book The Way We

852
00:49:29.760 --> 00:49:32.079
Talk Around Here. You can start by visiting her website.

853
00:49:32.119 --> 00:49:37.679
It's Linguistic Landscapes dot com. Linguistic Landscapes dot com. Last week,

854
00:49:37.719 --> 00:49:40.000
if you missed the Life Show, we were on with

855
00:49:40.079 --> 00:49:43.400
Rich Fernandez and Carolina Lasso talking about their book The

856
00:49:43.480 --> 00:49:47.559
Purpose Reset, which teaches how to realign purpose to at

857
00:49:47.559 --> 00:49:52.679
every level, individual, team, organizational, and transforming workplaces into more compassionate,

858
00:49:52.719 --> 00:49:55.719
engaged in high performing environments. Next week, we'll be on

859
00:49:55.760 --> 00:49:58.800
the air with Wendy Lipton Dibner talking about her new book,

860
00:49:58.960 --> 00:50:04.199
What Matters Most. How leaders build impassion, engagement, unrivaled loyalty,

861
00:50:04.320 --> 00:50:07.840
and boundless growth by measuring real world impact. See you there,

862
00:50:07.880 --> 00:50:09.880
and remember work is one of the best means and

863
00:50:09.920 --> 00:50:13.360
realize I'm realizing our potential and making the impact we crave.

864
00:50:13.679 --> 00:50:15.000
And I can give us the chance to make to

865
00:50:15.039 --> 00:50:17.199
do business that betters in the world. So let's work

866
00:50:17.239 --> 00:50:17.760
on Purpose.

867
00:50:20.800 --> 00:50:23.440
We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to

868
00:50:23.480 --> 00:50:27.159
tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes,

869
00:50:27.280 --> 00:50:30.480
each week on W four C. Why Together, We'll create

870
00:50:30.519 --> 00:50:34.639
a world where business operates conscientiously. Leadership inspires and passion

871
00:50:34.679 --> 00:50:37.760
performance and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the

872
00:50:37.840 --> 00:50:41.159
meaning and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's work

873
00:50:41.239 --> 00:50:41.920
on Purpose.