great to be here John so looking forward to hanging out with you me too uh we always have such great conversations I'm not sure exactly where this one will go that's not entirely true but it could go out to off to a whole bunch of different directions which is actually the joy because you know the work that you've done by the way I'm jealous you've run five companies I've had trouble running one um but uh but just so excited um to kind of dig in today with you and uh Adrian thanks for that lovely introduction and setting this all up and and also just I love um the representation from you know kind of all over the world so John you know organizations leaders are facing challenges today tell me some of the challenges that you see them facing uh dayto day yeah go um we had you know we did that very quick LinkedIn live and I so we sort of kicked it off with this idea I'm entering my 30th year uh in business and Consulting been through a couple of ups and downs in the economy and during the last the Great Recession uh or the global financial crisis the GFC for those overseas uh I saw three major issues that really hurt companies and they're the same things I'm seeing today uh the first was and I say this very carefully it's from a big Harvard research study uh the lack of a vivid comp compelling and well-communicated vision and strategy for growth uh you know and vuka times volatile uncertain complex ambiguous where we are now people need to know that there's a direction in the organization that we have a plan there's someplace we're going uh and the second part of that and I underly it like 57 time is well communicated I seen a lot of organizations where the senior team they know where they want to go but if you went two layers down they they haven't heard or don't understand or don't don't know which creates a lot of stress and anxiety that's number one number two is and it's one of the big things we're going to talk about today is lack of courageous communication uh people knew there were issues and I see this right now they they know there's issues they know their problems they know that they've G to have to make some some bold moves uh and they don't want to talk about it they want to hope it goes away a lack of urgency a lack of facing the truth big big issue lack of courageous communication then the Third is another big one is lack of disciplined execution or accountability again it's we know where we need to go we're not talking about the problems and when we do create a plan we are not effectively implementing it yeah so John when when people don't have Clarity of where they're going when people aren't having these hard conversations what happens uh well the first one they don't know where they're going if you don't know what success looks like it's hard to be it's hard to win so one of the things I say is make make it easy for your people to win yeah and then the other thing is if they don't know where they're going they don't know how their job actually is moving the company forward they don't know what they're supposed to doing every day because they don't have a destination kind you know it's kind of like driving a car if you don't know where you're going hard to pick which road to go down know if you're moving in the right direction uh so it you've got a directionless organization in a time when you need a strong Direction and a lot of urgency and moving forward uh and then the other thing I said is it's the lack of courageous communication yeah when problems are small you there're they can be you know approached and handled but without that courageous communication small problems become bigger and bigger until they they can become you know catastrophic so the earlier and the more um transparent the more communication people have the easier it is to keep the organization moving in the right direction yeah that's a that's a great point that last Point grabs me we had client who runs a big um I mean an automobile maker uh manufacturer in you know with hundreds of factories around the world so you know pretty big player and they were finding that every two years like clockwork they would have an 80 to hundred million big event and what do they mean by that that means that at the level of the the the plant people you know weren't speaking up something that was you know they're building a new mechatronics arm I'm just making that up but they're building something new and because people weren't speaking up they all of a sudden were in trouble and it became a big mistake and because they didn't go and ask headquarters as well for trouble so it was like double when they actually did go to headquarters and say hey we got an issue it wasn't a 10 to $ million problem it was the 80 to 100 million problem which is just kind of what you're saying and so you know I think that's like there there's so many consequences to not having a hard conversation and you know so so definitely to results I I asked the CEO of Boeing who's testifying before Congress right now yeah uh and the the they have a dozen whistleblowers who said we couldn't even though they have a program called speak up uh they did not feel safe they they felt that would be punished or fired or or you know whatever it might be that there would be very negative consequences for raising issues of safety of reliability things that are fundamental to the company running well let alone people's lives yeah so um you've got to have that culture where people feel comfortable to speak up about even the hardest things and and I'm going to add one other thing when we talked about that vision and it's one of the things I say to clients all the time is you can't overcommunication every time you have a chance to talk about the vision the values the mission the purpose that is another thing that drives that culture and I believe when everyone understands the purpose the vision the mission it also creates a stronger Bond of trust where it is easier to speak up yeah you know what's interesting about that is like just as a leader in a very small organization compared to the ones we're talking about I sometimes feel like I've heard myself say something six or eight or feels like so many times that they might be bored with what I'm saying and I just want to say to all the leaders out there I mean no right people hear things at different times for themselves on their Journey what they hear six months ago is different from what they heard four months ago then two months ago because they're changing the circumstances are changing and so they're hearing it differently and and on top of that by the way we we know we just need repetition in in spite of that which is true and so yeah I I think overcommunication is I mean it's almost TR to say but I think it's really true isn't it yeah and it's important to underline here we're not just talking about CEOs and Senior Executives and you know senior if you lead one person they need to hear you communicate the vision for the two of you where's our department going where's our team where's our sales team going so it it needs to Cascade up throughout the entire organization but this isn't just the CEO's job it's everybody's job to communicate clearly yeah so so let's talk about what's at stake what's at stake if people don't dig in to these hard conversations and as you know John like something that animates us is this idea of the last 8% and um for those who aren't familiar with it um we know for a team to be high performing they need to take risks they need to speak up they need to name inconvenient truths they need to offer a suggestion they if if they think it can help or they see something wrong they need to have you know make hard decisions so so these are all interpersonal risks so to be high performing we know the biggest driver of high performing teams is that they take risks smart risks but they take risks and so what we attempted to do was try to understand that risk we did a study of 34,000 people and we found that we Noble human beings if I just use conversations although what I'm talking about is not limited to conversations but if I just use conversations let's say John and I are having a conversation I get to I can get to 85 90 92% of what I want to say to him but when I get to that harder part of the conversation the part that has consequences for John and our relationship and so many other things all of a sudden he's going to get triggered by that get emotional because emotions are infectious I'm going to get infected by his dominant emotion and now as opposed to following through having that last 8% that hardest part of the conversation I back off I don't have it now here's a problem John can't read my mind your people can't read your mind they don't know you didn't have the full conversation a month later we're in a meeting John's still doing what I thought we talked about we didn't I'm thinking John what are you doing like we talked about that again we didn't from John's perspective this is all nonverbal he's like gosh JP I thought things are on track why are you being so passive aggressive the problem is we never had the last 8% conversation you know Irish playright I love this line um oh who uh George Bernard Shaw said the single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place it never took place and so we we call that the last 8% it's in a conversation it's in decisions it's anytime when on a team we need to take a risk and and so we've Quantified it and the last % is the gap between the risk we know we probably should take the conversation we should probably have and the actual one that we have and that Gap is the last 8% and so from our perspective John look you know when you hear the last % what are some of the consequences we've talked about a few in terms of like I I think there's definitely results you know Boeing clearly uh this auto manufacturer what are some of the other impacts when people don't have the last 8% well as you were and for everyone listen listening we did not plan anything this is a CH just a conversation you know between two people that work spent decades working on this as you were saying that I was thinking and I do a lot of Executive coaching there's there's a couple words that summarize probably 80% of my coaching did you say that to him did you tell her that like oh I got somebody complain and this is not that did you tell them that well no but I'm sure they know no they don't no they don't know so the consequences we can go at it well start at a a low level and work it out the consequences is I don't trust you JP because we don't we don't communicate I don't feel safe talking to you I don't have psychological safety so I don't go that last 8% and all of you as you're list I want you to think about conversations you have with teammates uh or maybe friends or family is even as good of a relationship you and I have um I'm afraid to get that last %. so that's going to impact two things our relationship and ability to work together to produce results and every layer you go up in the organization it's it Cascades further and further down yeah uh you know I was speaking to someone today and talking about the fact that EQ and emotional intelligence as you get higher and higher in the organization which is around the things we're talking about empathy trust Communications relationship building gets more and more important because you you go from doing the work to managing the people that do the work to managing the people that manage the people that do the work to eventually getting all the way up here so now let let me talk up here and I'll give a very quick example please I was working with the board of directors of a company and out of their senior management team of about 11 people uh two of them hated each other uh argued fought no one wanted to talk about it they saw this Dynamic happening and they would you know hoard resources and and manipulate people I won't drag you through it but um they couldn't work it out and eventually it caused the company to go out of business there were 480 employees there they went home on a Friday they came back Monday the doors were chained literally and uh I thought you know here's there's a group of people that couldn't have the hard conversation and two people that couldn't have a conversation and it isn't 480 people it's their husbands their wives their kids absolutely they're they got to sell their homes and this was a company where these people it was very high technology in a small town they're not finding another job there so you've got a couple hundred people whose lives have been completely economically and physically disrupted because a few people couldn't have that hard conversation and I wish I could tell you that doesn't happen very often but it happens far too often and you know this this is what you focused on yeah gosh kind of heartbreaking really isn't it I you know when I talk to leaders I try to help them understand and again whether you lead a few people you lead you know 100,000 you know I have a a gentleman I coach that just moved from coo to CEO and he said I didn't realize how different it was going to be in this seat um when I ran my first company I used to lay awake at night worri about the mortgages I had to pay the cars I had to pay off all the kids I had to put through college I don't have kids um when you get to that level the responsibility becomes huge yeah and not being able to communicate clearly and have tough conversations like I said went through the economic turmoil puts everybody's job in Jeopardy it really does it really does I think there let's add on to that I think so results I mean in really existential ways as John has pointed out I think there's another one which is reputation so when we're in a last 8% situation we're feeling pressure there's more cortisol in our brain cortisol is a stress hormone one of the impacts or effects of cortisol is that it Sears in memory what does that mean so 92% of the time you know things are great there's not much cortisol in the brain we're doing our job now we're in the last % John myself and a few others on the team and if we have a big decision to make or we're in the middle of a really tense conversation there's more cortisol in everyone's brain cortisol Sears in memory which means that if I'm the leader of this team or even if I'm a member how I show up in that moment get seared into into their brain and becomes my reputation right and it seems unfair 92% of the time I'm doing great now I'm in the last % let's say I don't show up so well well guess what sorry that's human behavior that becomes now let's say I an avoid I'm an avoider like what we know is when we Face the last % we can fall into one of two predictable default behaviors 68% of us avoid you know we push pull away 32% of us get a bit hot and make a mess come on too strong have impact we don't intend I'm an avoider if my manager sees me avoiding doing something really important in their mind now my reputation has gone down do we want to give JP a mission critical job of some big project some change of course not and and you know this John most organizations are not really uh very sophisticated in deciding who should get promoted it's really it's a bit of a crime to be honest it's not based on Merit and in fact it's based on what's Salient in the mind of the the manager who's making that decision and guess what drives what Salient in the mind of the manager what you do in these last eight% moments and so in some ways it's like you know everyone listening one of the reasons you want to step in and do the hard things take the smart risk speak up you know is because it's going to impact how people see you and that's going to drive a lot of the decisions that have addressed direct impact on your career your ability to provide all of those things so I think I think that's another piece to throw into there John yeah and and there's a a super powerful idea that not a lot of people I've talked to have heard of that goes right to the heart of that big takeaway for people uh listening and watching symbol management symbol right I love that when you said that on the webinar I was like never heard of that I love that idea and simple management is the Small Things the small things you do that send really big messages you know we can put it at the at the positive one and I always use this example the person who picks up the garbage in the parking lot on the way into the office right or sees that you know there's a spill someplace runs and get paper towel to clean it all up at the other end of it it's losing your temper in a meeting right uh be being an avoider uh refusing to speak up saying things that are inappropriate uh all those things send messages I I have worked in companies where the CEO would lose their temper and yell and scream you better bet that the next level's going to do that and the next level's going to do that because they look up and say well this is apparently the way our organization runs this is the way we treat each other so I'd like everybody to think about in this last 8% and what we're talking about about psychological safety is when you're a leader again at any level or an employee an employee you live under a microscope yeah people watch everything you do they hear everything you say they see what you you don't do they hear listen to this what you don't say and they make up a story about it and it's usually not a very good story so great leaders yeah are great at symbol management yeah also go ahead go ahead no please John please I was just gonna underline something you said project Aristotle from Google looking at I think 10,000 of their top teams and Google's pretty good at data analysis uh the single most important factor in a high performance team by far was Psy olical safety what exactly what we're talking about today yeah yeah I'll pick up on that Aristotle work in a second but I just love what you're saying that symbol management um everyone who's watching you're a walking model especially if you're people leader but you're a walking model for the many things but including the culture on your team the number of times you know when I see values on a wall and yet we found in data 64 % of people can't even name all their values in an organization so I'm not sure it's values that represents the culture of an organization even though we want it to I'm not sure that's the case what we do know though is that culture is driven more by not the values on the wall but again but because of the cortisol effect what you do in that hard moment what you do when you're modeling as you just described John because that's what gets especially in the hard moments because that's people have more cortisol get seared in and you know culture really is a story in an organization about this is how we do things around here and what drives that this is how we do things around here are the stories of what you do in those hard moments like you just described John and so you know what's at stake in the last 8% our results our reputation but also the culture on our team and um you know I wanted to um let me ask you question before I I want to share something John but let me ask you a question why do you think people struggle like what stops them from having the last eight% in your mind I don't know that they've been trained in it to understand how to handle conflict well I mean I've been teaching conflict resolution for many years and I think it should be taught in high school I mean there's some very simple tools to handle getting and but most people don't have those tools so they don't know how to walk into ation like that and then I think the greatest thing is fear fear of Retribution fear of uh humiliation fear of uh you know um people thinking less of you and it's easier from what I've seen for most people to avoid that pretended isn't happening get out shut down than it is to go that last little bit and be brave and courageous and honest uh and do both of you a favor in building your reput your reputation and your uh relationship ship uh but it's just not a skill that most people not most people have and that is super prised in unfortunately a lot of cultures yeah yeah I think I think you're right on with that um it's interesting because when we think of what drives the execution of a behavior let's say it's risk-taking nameing An Inconvenient Truth in our data by the way that's the one we find is the lowest amongst most organizations and on most teams which is interesting so as we're thinking about culture you know what are the things that drive people executing a behavior like risk-taking nameing Inconvenient Truth half fully comes from inside the individual right we call it individual difference their their um kind of as you're saying the skills the capabilities the confidence to use those capabilities that's half half is in the environment half is are you in an environment where you as you said feel psychologically safe are you in an environment where there risk taking that you feel the environment is yielding to your taking a risk to your efforts is it yielding to your efforts and so what we did is we created this map of a study of 34 actually this is this one 72,000 people and I want to share that because it picks up on what you said about project Aristotle so for those who aren't familiar with that that is the work that Google did and so we using that as well looking at all the data we found two pillars of a high performance culture and John named the first one which is really that you feel connected you feel this psychological safety that you can take a risk and you will not be humiliated by the way for the record humiliation is the most toxic damaging of emotions so if you want a recipe to ruin a relationship just humiliate someone you know um so but but what we also found is that you also need to skills and this is your point John to step in to do hard things so it's kind of we need both this feeling that it's safe but even when it's safe we still might not make the we still might make the choice not to step in and so we also need skills as you're St John to do that and so we created this map and I want to share this with everyone because it's something we're we're kind of like excited about at IP this is based on a study of 72,000 people where we found four clusters and so in the upper left hand quadrant you can see we have courage on the vertical connection on the horizontal and in the upper left where there's courage below connection we'd call that a transactional culture where it's results matter more than relationships and in fact I mentioned earlier um to everyone when we hit a last % 68% of us avoid 32% of us make a mess like we come on too strong well the manager and John said this models of behavior the manager in this kind of on this kind of team they make a mess they blame they but they come on way too strong they make a mess in this kind of upper leftand quadrant culture because short-term results matter more than anything else including relationships people have to endure toxic bad apples what does that mean well you know you've got that one person on a team who's just in all the different ways they show up and they affect everyone else on the team maybe they are make a messages themselves maybe they withhold information maybe they talk behind people's backs but the truth is is that even if they hit their individual kpis we now know they will diminish the performance of a team by 30 to 40% which is incredible by the way really important point of all of this is that what I'm describing here with this map is that culture exists on teams right we we now know culture exists less across an organization there's some signal there but it's less across an organization it's more on individual teams that's why you can be on two teams and they can have different cultures but so I want you to think about your team as you look at this um the group think where people choose Unity over naming An Inconvenient Truth and kind of speaking up so group think in the upper left is that people don't speak up because they're afraid they're going to get punished so they don't high anxiety High burnout it's not a great place to be so that's the upper left hand quadrant bottom right is what we call a family so it's high connection but it's low courage and this is where it's a nice culture right being a Canadian I know exactly what this is and being an avoider by the way I know exactly what this is but it's you know nice culture but unwilling unable to do hard things and so it's more not make a mess which is upper left it's a void it's mediocre standards low accountability right we're going to talk about accountability here in a minute it's slow we got to get consensus right we don't want to do anything unless everyone has a voice and the group think here is not I don't want to speak up upper left because I don't want to get hammered I don't want to speak up because I don't want to upset others uh fear-based is bottom left where it's both low connection low courage and really the key here is that it's about in consistency right people don't take risks because they don't feel connected there sometimes get you know feedback sometimes they don't sometimes they feel valued sometimes they don't they have to endure toxic bad apps because again you know risk you know results matter so we found that 67% of our sample of 72,000 individuals fell into one of these three and in fact family was the highest 37% which makes sense because that correlates with the fact that 68% of our of us are avoiders that kind of makes sense now there is an alternative and it's kind of what you're talk about John to speak up people need to feel safe and they need to have skills to actually do the speaking up and so when you have both High courage and high connection we call that a last 8% culture and there's really two key pillars High accountability and high care and as you have John some of the folks I've coached when I think of coaches that I've coached in you know professional sports or Olympic those coaches who really got it together their athlete feels and I use this word literally that their coach loves them there's such high care and in fact because there's High care that athlete will be able to and does accept can uh withstand I might even say high accountability High feedback right if you know the intention of your coach that they love you that they're doing this because they want the best for you you will take that information very differently than when you don't and so that's the critical piece and in fact I would even go further and say for any organization that's going through a lot of change where you need more accountability it means you need more High care because people are now vulnerable and so in an upper right hand quadrant when you have high cter high accountability in high care it leads to people feeling trust I know where I stand because my manager being straight with me I know they love me and because you have that trust now you can take that smart risk and that's the key to you know everything else it creates more feedback there's this balance of results and relationships but this is the big one and it's really about what we talked about at the front end John around the you know challenges organizations are facing there is a lot of change there's a lot of challenge everyone out there you need to and John and I in our organizations you need to take risks you need to take experiments we know about Innovation it's not some people are clever and some are not it's no some people do more experimentation because just the volume of experiments lead to more Innovation that's it and so you want to unleash your people to take more experiments and then drive more Innovation so John love to hear your thoughts on on our on our map because you know because I love your opinion on all things leadership and culture so this is classic again everybody we we just figure we get on here and share ideas so this aligns so well with what I'm seeing right now so couple of things I I teach in my classes and this is the transactional and fear-based side here's a here's a question I ask the people and I'm asking everybody I want you to think of the lowest performing employee in your entire company the toxic one the one that uh is mediocre or even the one that hits all their numbers you know and crushes it but they're toxic they're I work with one company that so our best sales person is amazing but he has three sexual harassment suits against him and they're like how much did the suits cost only a million dollars oh don't worry about it how does that match the value but think of the lowest performing or the most toxic person in your company and ask yourself you know would I like 10 more people like that on the team tomorrow yeah then then I always follow yeah you said a woo uh then I follow up with this question then why do you have one because that person is as you said shaping the culture they saying this behavior is acceptable you make your numbers treat people horribly that's fine in this culture that's the way we do things that's it now I go ahead if you've got something well I just love that point that that becomes the stories that people tell about this is how we do things around here that if John or Sally can get away with that but because they hit their numbers they can stay that's a signal that's symbol management isn't it in your words that say this is what we do around here and so don't put on the wall that you believe in you know I don't know treating employees right don't do that because it's a joke and everyone will see it as a joke and and you're going to create a cynical environment in this particular company which was a Fortune 50 uh I was in the boardroom with the CEO and the senior executive team and they asked me what should we do about this person and I turned and looked at the wall and their values were in a giant bronze plaque on the wall I said you have two choices and one of their values was respect I said you can grind respect off of that or you fire the person uh here's what happened they fired me they didn't feedback yeah they didn't want to hear that they wanted to hear I did not give them the last 8% information they wanted to hear so they terminated me now let's go to something else is I just got uh asked on another panel about is should companies feel like a family yeah and here's sort of the thing that I said I think it's great to love your employees like we're talking about but you're not a family yeah and part of it is is the accountability that's it you know you said in a family everybody's nice we don't want to upset rock the boat we you know we're you're we're Canadian Ice you know you wear the stupidest hat you've ever seen in your life you've go oh that's an interesting hat hat you're wearing but the other side of that is I do think you need a culture of very strong love and a and moral love not romantic love but moral love which is integrity and fairness and respect and empathy and compassion where you're not my family member but you are somebody I care about as a person not just as employee I want to put a hand out to you and help you I want you to be happy I want you to be successful which this gets to the heart of our our our title accountability love is and if you love someone that much like the coach you will hold them accountable that's it and you will expect the people that love you to hold you accountable because you believe that they want the best for you and holding you accountable is what allows you to be your best I I love what you're saying and you know as we like to say um teams organizations but teams might think of themselves as families but they're not a family right in a family you don't let go of your lowest performing kid right so everyone you're not a family right that's that's called non-contingent love that's not what we're talking about we're in organizations where it is about results it is about accountability but but here's the difference and I think you just said it right everyone out there you're not a family but it doesn't mean you don't want to have high care but then and this is the whole point of this kind of webinar to marry High care with high accountability oy right so John speak to that because that's like a term you've come up up with accountability is love and I love it to speak to that a little bit because I think I think it's hard for people I think you know the idea of taking risks or gives risk to hold accountable it's hard for people and I think they're maybe not framing it in the way that maybe you and I think about it so I'd love to hear you know your frame because I think that might help people so there's the main reason that I hear uh is that people don't want to be mean they don't want to feel like they're hurting the other person's feeling right or you know talking down to them or telling them they're not doing a good job and then and we just put all in their umbrellas they they feel like they're being mean but the truth of the matter is if you don't hold that person accountable it will hurt their career it will hurt their team members it might hurt the company um at at the extreme if you if you're a manager who doesn't hold someone accountable eventually they might lose their job because they're constantly underperforming the other thing is if you're a manager who can't hold people accountable because you don't want to be mean there's a good chance you will lose your job uh so the idea is holding someone accountable isn't being mean it's loving them yeah it's loving them enough to hold them accountable and help them do their best for themselves individually for their family for the company for their team uh so that's how I marry those two things is you have to love someone enough to to hold them accountable yeah I I think you're right on with that and in fact I would even say it's a selfish motive not to give that feedback have the last 8% conversation hold accountable because we don't want what's going to potentially come back at us so I think it's actually selfish the the opposite of Love moral love that we talking about so I actually think so so I think what I want everyone to couple things one is to look at this map and think on your team where is our team are we a bit more family are we a bit more transactional or somewhere else number one number two what's your contribution to creating the kind of environment remember 50% of a person's behavior is driven by the environment they're in so what are you doing to contribute to moving to that upper right hand quadrant culture then number three and this is a thing that I mean I feel like for 25 years I've been passionate about and I continue to be at the end of the day if we're not able to self-regulate in a hard moment we're not going to be able to meet our goals be in a relationship build a culture on a team so really at the end of the day it's what do you do to manage your brain under pressure you so you can stay and not run so you can stay and have the hard conversation hold someone accountable and so I want to push it at everyone here because the thing I know you you experienced John and I do at times is people are like oh yeah this is true and it's them there's someone outside of me and honestly I just got to say to everyone no no no no you have agency right if culture if the fundamental unit where culture exists is the team and you lead a team you've got a agency to take ownership of your team by the way use this map put it in front of your team and say hey team where are we how could we be better and then what can I be doing as a manager you know to take ownership to to be a better manager for you you know what am I not doing am I avoiding am I making a mess whatever it is and I think everyone listening I think you'll find that you will get have the richest conversations that you probably ever had that's our experience of bringing our last 8% culture system into organizations are like oh my gosh we've just like we've just had a rich the richest conversation we've ever had and so we there's a lot here that we can do because I I John I know you know this sometimes people go like oh culture it's so ambiguous it's so intangible I don't know where to start and so they kind of give up even before they start well I'm a big fan of the idea that you know some parts of culture are discovered oh it's just this is how we do it I think other parts are designed that you sit down and say this is the kind of culture we're trying to build this is these are the acceptable behaviors these behaviors are unacceptable um and I've got a couple things I want to talk about but I what other things do you and I I don't know this JP do you guys were uh talk about team Charters at all we do actually so I love that you asked that question John so in our culture change system we we without going into too much detail Hill what we would do is have um kind of communication one to many to open this culture change system where we'd interview the CEO but it's to the whole organization then we'd have a separate learning training for the people leader right so that they get these skills mainly to understand this content but also to then deliver what we call our Sprints we've got these four-week Sprints where it's not the third part third party vendor it's not the CEO CA who's running it it's the people leader takes this Sprint Technology and goes to their teams and and the Sprint is essentially 30 minutes at the beginning of each of their team meetings for four meetings in a row where there's a video of me talking about this stuff discussion at the team level and there's a whole guide to do that just a PowerPoint and then there's at the end this okay what are the commitments we're going to make and so it's a long wave can I say that in fewer words probably but it's a longwa saying what we want them to get to is building a team charter a a group of commitment set that happened before you hit the rocky Waters of the last %c right so it's like do this so that when you do hit a hard moment you know for instance you've agreed we want to be an upper rightand quadrant culture okay right so that means that we're all going to be a little less comfortable there's going to be more discomfort not less and so that's part of the agreements you make and you know another one might be assume positive intention if John and I are having a hard conversation because we've agreed we want to be an upper rightand quadrant culture I can say hey John I'd love to have a last % conversation with you and and he and and we've agreed in our Charter let's say that we're going to assume positive intention maybe we did that maybe we didn't but if we did then John knows even though I'm because I'm under pressure I might not becoming I might not be showing up at my best I might be a little less skillful but know that my intention is not to you know cut you off at the knees it's because I in fact I'm feeling anxious to have this John because I want to have a good relationship with you and I want to have an upper rightand quadrum and that's part of how we see team charter but tell me how you kind of think of team charter well I it's it's basically the same way you do I sort of a uh an agreement rules of the road if you will right these are the ways we're going to treat each other you're going to show up on time we're going to turn off Electronics we're going to assume good intent we're going to you know a whole list of things that all of us on the team agree that this is you know a decision making Authority how we'll make decisions but you've made the key point is do it before you hit the rock Rocky spot do it while every while the team is doing well sit down and say all right let's let's talk about how we build this into a a last 8% culture one of the one of the tools I use and I want to make sure I have enough time to talk about the steps to accountability is I will ask your group and and you guys do this with your teams like JP just gave you a great thing show them the map talk about that another one I do is I'll sit down and say I'd like everyone to to share just for a minute or so I want you to think about the best team you've ever been on in your life could have been sport might have been in school might have been in college might be in a business might be in your community whatever it might be I want you to reflect on what are the elements that made that team so spectacular and what you're going to find out is that the stuff we're talking about here we could we could talk about anything we had each other's back we trusted each other we were doing something that was important everybody on the team was good but they wanted to get better we pushed each other and I'm sure a lot of you as you're listening now you're thinking about that team you were on and you're saying a lot of the things John and JP are talking about were elements that were on the very best team the neat thing and kind of like you said an amazing conversation comes from looking at this map but a pretty cool conversation comes out of people sharing I was on this team in high school my basketball team and people get emotional but the fun thing is everybody realizes we're all saying the same sort of stuff right about high trust High accountability all those things yeah almost independent of the context Sports non-sports yeah technology company you know Service Company it almost doesn't matter right I I think I think that's a great part you know in our minds the reason that we suggest you take this map is what is a map it's helps us to understand where we where we are at and where we want to get to and so we find because more organizations 37% are in the family quadrant question we often get is how do I move to the upper right hand quadrant it's a great question right well first of all it's you in your Charter you you you say yes we want to be in the upper right hand quadrant by the way you're not actually agreeing to be in the upper right hand quadrant what you're agreen to are the consequences of being in the upper right hand quadrant which means there'll be more discomfort not less there's going to be more growth there's going to be more times when you don't know and but you're you're agreeing to that right there are times when people are going to give you feedback that may not feel very good and you're agreeing to that but but how do we move to upper right hand quadrant let's say from family because that's the biggest move that we're seen in most of the data that we collect right now so I think team charter number one I think another one is as a manager to to to be ah I mean first of all I would say get coaching as a manager you and I think of myself I've had a coach or a therapist for like 13 years you know when life's going well it's a coach when it's not going so well it's a therapist but in every situation I sit there with my coach and I talk to them and they're my kind of third party no skin in the game who can give me some real reality testing John you coach a lot and you know how this works you know a good coach will sit there and challenge so I get challenged and you know what I'm way better now at last %. I started off as an avoider and I still at times avoid but not nearly as much by the way one other thing I you know why I know that well I mean because Bill Benjamin my business partner and Tams and plaxton tell me my business partners tell me um that I'm you know uh maybe not avoiding as much but but I'll say this um there's another consequence when we avoid the last 8% so we talked about to results we talked about to our external reputation talked about to our culture but there's someone else watching we're watching when I see myself a void I feel a bit of Shame and embarrassment and it starts to kind of be a bit of a downward cycle down and I feel shame embarrassment and it eats away at my confidence and I have to say be and again I I have a long way to go I'm a work in progress as anyone is but I definitely am I know I avoid a lot less now and it actually builds my confidence that's the other thing a last day per I'd love everyone to reframe a last % situation accountability differently so not as something that feels horrible and we want to avoid which you might still experience that but different I want you to reframe how that feels so it's it feels bad last % but I want you to reframe that as a last % opportunity you're biggest opportunity to grow yourself your biggest opportunity to grow a relationship to grow Intimacy in a relationship your biggest opportunity to grow the culture on your team so you actually want last eight percent so that you can actually build the kind of culture on your team that can really make a big difference now John one of the things that you talked about is kind of steps to accountability love love to hear that if if that makes sense to talk about now we'll go I see a lot of questions coming up so I'll I'll go through this rather quickly and um if you go to my YouTube channel there's some videos on this there send me an email um John Johns spins.com and I'll shoot you a video on this but there are the the key thing to understand with accountability it's all around Clarity of expectations that when people when it's very very clear what I'm going to be held accountable for and I agree to it we've got a much better much better opportunity so here's the step step one is 100% Clarity plus appropriate Authority and resources I'm going to get if and you know not everything but if it's a mission critical project I need to invest the time to sit down with that person and explain in excruciating detail this is what success looks like here's how we're going to measure it here's the due dates here's your budget here's your decision-making Authority and make sure they've got all that step two then is 100% agreement the person needs to say I understand what I'm going to be held accountable for here's my budget here's the DU dates here's the kpis here's my resources here's my decision making Authority and then there's two words or two sentences go by that I I have everything I need to accomplish this and I accept 100% accountability I agree this is a reasonable goal I accept accountability for it y uh number three is to track progress follow the kpis and there's a big idea with the kpis is whenever possible make them binary it's one zero black white yes no here's a key word no guessing yeah one of my favorite phrases is ambiguity breeds mediocrity uh and if we can and we we'll take this to lot last 8% conversation if the goals are binary the kpi it's not me versus you JP and it's not my opinion or my emotions or not favoritism if we're in the family it's data yeah you know you and I are friends I love you we work together however uh you said you were going to sell two million this month you sold 1.7 how can we get the last 300,000 together yeah yeah the next so most people think you track them to punish them that's why they're afraid of it they're afraid being humiliated in meeting for not making their numbers the next step is to mentor and support them to coach them so when someone slips and I use green yellow red from green to Yellow they don't get yelled at they get coached and mentored and supported right right which leads to allows you celebrate success lavishly and I don't mean throw money at them if you can you will but you know reinforce positive behavior with you know celebrating exciting making a good role model of them then the last one is refuse to tolerate mediocrity yeah if someone is consistently not meeting their goals you're coaching them you're tracking them they they know what they're supposed to do and it isn't happening then you've then you've got a really tough last % conversation so I see we've got about eight minutes left you do what you what you want to do and I do leave a little time for a few questions I saw bunch of yeah so so let me I'll I'll ask one of the questions um one of the things that I would say is as you everyone are going through change and Challenge and you're going to need more accountability just remember that means you're gonna have to dial up more care that's really important and and part of our model and John I know you probably this fits with you but people will not take a risk not be courageous unless they feel connected that's that Aristotle work the psychological safety work right so John what are some of the most effective ways here's one of the questions from one of the attendees what are the most effective ways to authentically truly uh develop a connection to get to know that the indivi your employee as a true individual to find out their Hobbies what's important to them their background you know I I'm wasn't really I don't didn't have high level of empathy early in my career so I actually kept a file on everybody that reported to me on their kids names their favorite sports teams um I even went to my team and asked him what is something small and meaningful I could give you if you did a great job what's something a little bit bigger what's something really big which was usually money but I tried to show them that I I'm connect to you because I'm going out of my way to do something special I'm going to show up at your kids graduation I'm G to give you you know I might give someone a young lady to work for me I love flowers so I went down to the local flower shop and arranged to have the flowers they couldn't sell at the end of the week delivered to her every Monday big bouquet of flowers that was my attempt to say you're important to me so I'm trying to do something that's important for you and I I think that's the best way is you can't do it if you don't know them don't understand them yeah yeah um my mom and I would have an argument so I was brought up Catholic she's still the president of the Catholic women's league she's 91 26 years now and like twice she's left but like and then something happened so she was you know kind of uh volun told or she was recruited back to be president but anyway you know I don't believe in the Golden Rule you know for just everyone you know golden rule is you want to treat people as you want to be treated I'm like no the best coaches that I've observed they treat athletes as they need to be treated not how I want to be treated right because you know there's some athletes who are hard on themselves so you don't need to pile on you want to actually bring empathy and high care because that's what's going to bring out their best then you have some athletes who don't hold themselves accountable enough so it's not that Platinum rule yes thanks Nicole it it's no no they need you to get them to their best performance to to bring a bit more Edge bring a bit more High accountability and be a bit stronger and so it's just it's not the Golden Rule so we would we would argue over that but I I think that's a really important piece but what it comes down to I'm just trying to underline your point you got to know your people right you got to understand them I I'll say one more thing and then I'm I'm I'm wondering if um Adrian if there's other questions you want us to answer but I'll just say this the other thing is I want everyone to see that it's actually through a last eight% situation that you can build intimacy so our experience has been and certainly my life when I've actually dug into a hard conversation we often think it's going to go horrible and look at times it doesn't go great but the vast majority of times what comes out of it is this intimacy all of a sudden I've kind of really shared with John about you know what's not working for me in the relationship or where I'm frustrated and you know he now has more information now I get more information and and in fact as opposed to break down we get break through and so I I just want to challenge everyone to when you're going through that hard last %c as opposed to asking your like as opposed to going to this default of like you know last % sucks excuse my language it feels horrible and as opposed to being a victim and saying why is this happening to me I want you to flip it and say why is this happening for me what's what's the opportunity here how could this might you know might how might this help me transform myself to be better in these kind of situations but how can it maybe help me build the better relationship with this person so um I I love how our work Just Dub tals so well John it's awesome um Adrian are there any other questions or are we come to a close tell give me a sense of where we're at big fellow yeah again everyone so we did actually have a couple of great other questions come in JP okay um the first one here was how long does it take to change the culture of an organization wow great question do you want to go with that one John I would love to see what you say um if you're if you're going to make a major culture change it's my belief that it's 18 to 24 months minimum minimum if you're communicating you're you've put the energy the effort the time the training the systems the processes all the things it takes to change a culture you have not even earned the right to look up for a year and it's going to be beating your head against the wall and and you're the same message over and over and over again at about a year you could look up and you'll see a little progress at 18 months things are going to start to get going and at 24 months I believe the culture is starting to turn that's been my experience JP yeah so um because you feel so strongly about defining culture uh as really being on that team level like that's the fundamental unit of where culture exists that that we we think about it as what's the amount of time you need to change the culture on a team and then if you do that across an organization we think you can scale culture on a team in months not years in fact so so it's slightly different but but only maybe because we're just thinking about it in smaller unit sizes I would agree with you a team months yeah yeah months not years and organization and especially a large organization right right for sure over over 500 employees you know maybe even over a thousand it's two years uh a team I'm in full agreement with you you can change the culture of a team rather quickly so good clarification yeah any other questions Adrien there was one other JP this one was culture map related okay so yes how do you move from a family to a last 8% culture without seeming to employees like you are transactional or even fear-based ah h so that's a good question I I in some ways I think John do you have a ready answer I'm happy to answer but do you have anything the um I just look at the change process and say there's a couple of of three or four things I look at number one is we need to understand that we need to change what I would call an irresistible chase case for change right that is I guess looking at the culture map and saying where we are does work yeah uh people need a Clear Vision of what the new culture will look like something that's compelling and exciting and how we're going to work together better and we're going to be more honest and more vulnerable uh and then a sense of urgency to start doing the things now that will move us there because if there's a big gap people just you know this is going to pass this to Shall Pass um that's how I look at changing things you I'm sure you have more information to add on not making it seem like you're transactional or fear-based yeah yeah so I I love what you're saying so there's a couple of layers here um that I'm thinking Adrian one is that the change process is an emotional process right um all change is personal as some of you know I wrote a white paper on that but and so people don't really resist change they resist loss and so it's it's loss oh this is the way we used to be and it felt comfortable and for people to understand how we're going to move comes back to what John just said is like why do we need to move like it just can't be oh we're g to no it's because we are working on our culture so that we can and and then you've got to fill that in for what really meets your needs and so it's really clear for folks in our opinion you don't change culture because you know you want to focus on engagement you want to do this you want you do culture for one reason and one reason only because it's going to help you execute your Str more effectively and what's interesting is that if you really get clear on that and it's like oh this is going to help me as a person in the organization get my work done easier with less you know kind of um kind of cost to me that actually is really interesting to folks you know how you do it it actually does increase engagement it does increase emotional commitment discretionary effort it does do all those things but it's got to be really clear and I think if people are clear about the why then as you to move and you have discussions about what does it look like to be upper rightand quadrant and you name I don't want us to fall into fear or transactional because as we bring in more accountability it might feel that way so if you have the conversations at the team level and you're really explicit then you got a shot to to get there with and manage that risk John were you gonna say something to that no no I was just smiling because I'm I'm it what you and I do and again team we didn't sit down and figure this out is so well aligned yeah uh and just been a joy to talk to you about this an absolute joy to spend time with you John I honestly you've been a such a benefit to our organization to coaching people on our team to you know being a support for me and for us I I can't thank you enough really and so I want to thank everyone for taking time out of your busy days to be here with John and I Adrian and Olivia and everyone at IP thank you guys so much for just putting on such a great show making it easy for John to step in and do our thing so Adrian I'll I'll leave it to you this was so good guys and I just want to thank you guys and I want to thank everyone for attending and spending your time with us today uh feel free to visit our website at ip.com you can learn more about our emotional intelligence Solutions and our last 8% culture system and I saw there a few questions came in about sharing the replay so please check your email as we will be sending you a recording of the webinar and lots of additional information and resources and once again thank you JP and John again for this great insightful conversation you guys were great I learned a lot I hope everyone else did and we hope to see you all again on our next webinar so thanks again everyone enjoy the rest of your day
