In order for people to flourish at work, we’ve discovered that how we do HR must evolve. And in order for HR to evolve, leaders must create an environment where people can feel successful. There is A LOT of content out there about this topic, and some of it is very valuable. The reason there is so much content is that the same formula doesn’t work for every leader, for every culture, at every company. There are a multitude of factors that contribute to the end result of developing a culture of success.
In my time as an HR leader and setting up HR for different companies, I’ve discovered that success and flourishing is predicated on establishing an environment where people can focus on becoming their most successful selves and delivering the most successful product. So, the job of leadership is to make sure that distractions are limited.
Leadership also serves the purpose of creating stability and predictability. One’s experience at work replicates the early human experience of surviving in a village community. And so, our evolutionary biology kicks in really quickly when we feel threatened, or there is a perceived scarcity of resources, or we feel like we are losing our position or power. So, the goal is to create village stability so that the community can flourish.
So, how do you do that? From my experience, there are several factors that influence the creation of a successful environment:
- Leadership Dynamics – It’s not cliché to acknowledge that it starts at the top. For a typical organization, the senior leaders of the company work together to set strategic goals and create roadmaps to execute them. If the leadership team doesn’t work together well, or there is in-fighting, or they are operating with conflicting values, then the teams that report into each leader will begin to operate in a silo. Once silos form, we immediately set the stage for turf war.
We’ve all been part of a company where departments are pitted against one another, where we are fighting for power and resources, and the in-fighting becomes the focus rather than the success of the company. Well, it starts at the top. Leadership teams that work well together and that execute strategies in respectful collaboration set the stage for successful teams to flourish and focus on delivering amazing results for the company.
- Trust – One of my favorite TED talks of all time is Frances Frei on Trust. She also wrote a book with her partner, Anne Morris called Unleashed. I highly recommend both and I also understand that the topic of Trust has been discussed in leadership circles for years. But the reality is that it continues to be talked about because it’s so true. Every village must be built on a foundation of trust. Whether we agree or not, successful companies have leaders that establish and maintain trust.
Frances Frei says, “You build trust when you reveal empathy, logic and authenticity”. What this looks like at different companies and for different leaders might look very different. But the underlying goal remains the same. Once conspiracies or doubts in leadership set in, the focus shifts from the collective development of a really cool product to the biological imperative for “winning”. It’s very difficult to organize your way back to trust.
- Adaptability – In Darwin’s writings on evolution he says, “It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change”. Adaptability is a cornerstone of a successful village. If the weather suddenly changes, the team must work together to build a shelter. If the weather changes for a longer period, resulting in routine flooding, the team must work together to re-locate the village. All of this requires a mindset of adaptability and teamwork.
In James Marcia’s work on identity development, he describes a stage called “identity foreclosure”. In this stage, the individual has a low degree of exploration and a high degree of commitment, which results in rigidity. When we are fully committed to a path, we no longer see the opportunities presented to us. As leaders, we must have a combination of being open to change, working together to develop a solution, and ultimately leading the team through the change with a high degree of adaptability.
There are numerous factors that influence a culture of success. From my experience, these are the most important ones. Because they are ultimately the ones that have stood the test of time in how we have operated in groups since our beginnings as hunter/gatherers. When we start with creating a community focused on flourishing and surviving together, we are able to truly evolve.