Book Review
Culture Is The Way Published 2023 Reviewed January 2024 |
Most Notable Quote:
"One leader can't build a team or change an entire organization,
but one leader can certainly break a team and destroy the culture" (175).
"One leader can't build a team or change an entire organization,
but one leader can certainly break a team and destroy the culture" (175).
January 20, 2024
This is a necessary book.
I chanced upon it when, after working with a client for eight years, I realized that real growth and progress were being hindered by personal and business culture. Plans, projections, accounting, and meetings - all of the usual stuff that I do - were not enough.
We were spinning our wheels.
In many ways, I felt like a broken record.
How to do so without starting a quarrel, causing offense, and getting fired? I needed help.
Even if I chose to "go there" without help, I felt unequal to the task.
For one thing, how do you define Culture? I didn't even know how to do that.
It was a can of worms, a minefield.
Fortunately: Matt Mayberry to the rescue.
This is a necessary book.
I chanced upon it when, after working with a client for eight years, I realized that real growth and progress were being hindered by personal and business culture. Plans, projections, accounting, and meetings - all of the usual stuff that I do - were not enough.
We were spinning our wheels.
In many ways, I felt like a broken record.
How to do so without starting a quarrel, causing offense, and getting fired? I needed help.
Even if I chose to "go there" without help, I felt unequal to the task.
For one thing, how do you define Culture? I didn't even know how to do that.
It was a can of worms, a minefield.
Fortunately: Matt Mayberry to the rescue.
Definition
For starters, quoting psychologist and author Edgar Schein, at the beginning of the second chapter, here is the definition of Culture that he offers:
"Culture is the deeper level of basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by members of an organization, that operate unconsciously and define in a basic 'taken for granted' fashion an organization's view of itself and its environment."
(The underlining is my emphasis.)
That definition right there is worth the 9.9 hours of reading and cost of admission. Without it, I would have certainly spent more than 9.9 hours in ongoing futility, trying to define it on my own and getting myself drawn into disputes.
For one thing, there's the Unconscious piece of the definition.
Not subconscious.
Unconscious.
Like, sleeping, you know?
Sleepwalking!
Total autopilot!
Habits!
It makes a fellow think, and reevaluate EVERYTHING.
How can you get a fish to notice water? Waking up, noticing, and trying to evaluate Culture is that challenging.
Then there's the Depth piece. Culture exists at a deeper level.
How many people do you know who are interested in going deep, about anything? Most people are contentedly skipping along the surface in the shallows . . . expeditious.
I don't know anyone who is interested in slowing down and taking the time to go deep. After sixty trips around the sun, my experience has been that even those who profess to value depth (spiritual leaders), who pay lip service to it, do not, in the final analysis, do it. They're shallow and expeditious, too.
They, too, have people to see, places to go, things to do . . .
. . . secrets to keep, and manage . . . .
No time.
TLDR.
Like Mr. Toad, they too are merrily on their way to nowhere.
Everyone is in a hurry and . . . expeditious . . . afraid to know or be known . . .
. . . which is, in the final analysis, Love:
Knowing.
Really knowing.
I think people are terrified of this.
Because, God is Love, and they're afraid of God.
Instead, they stay busy, spending their whole lives skipping expeditiously along the surface, fastidiously avoiding the depths at all cost . . . yearning for love, but continually frustrating themselves by refusing to do the one thing that is necessary to get it: going deep, and really knowing.
So the Depth piece is challenging, too.
And the View piece. If you had asked me to define Culture on my own, I would have missed that.
I think that most people take for granted that their view is THE view. They're totally subjective, stuck inside their own heads, seeing life through their own eyes, unaware that there might be more than their perspective. They don't realize they have an angle. They just look at a thing and say to themselves, "There it is."
This is the human dilemma, to transcend our own constraints, to realize that our vision is limited and always from a certain angle or position, to get out of our own heads, become truly objective, and see things as they really are, not as they might first appear to us.
How can you see your own blind spots? How can you see your own blindness?
What a challenge! What a daunting personal growth hurdle!
I'm grateful to Matt (and Dr. Schein) for opening my eyes to all of this.
So much for the definition of Culture. It alone inspired me to write this much which, if printed, would occupy four pages.
How shall I ever review the whole book without writing something as long as it, or longer . . . a veritable tome?
That definition right there is worth the 9.9 hours of reading and cost of admission. Without it, I would have certainly spent more than 9.9 hours in ongoing futility, trying to define it on my own and getting myself drawn into disputes.
For one thing, there's the Unconscious piece of the definition.
Not subconscious.
Unconscious.
Like, sleeping, you know?
Sleepwalking!
Total autopilot!
Habits!
It makes a fellow think, and reevaluate EVERYTHING.
How can you get a fish to notice water? Waking up, noticing, and trying to evaluate Culture is that challenging.
Then there's the Depth piece. Culture exists at a deeper level.
How many people do you know who are interested in going deep, about anything? Most people are contentedly skipping along the surface in the shallows . . . expeditious.
I don't know anyone who is interested in slowing down and taking the time to go deep. After sixty trips around the sun, my experience has been that even those who profess to value depth (spiritual leaders), who pay lip service to it, do not, in the final analysis, do it. They're shallow and expeditious, too.
They, too, have people to see, places to go, things to do . . .
. . . secrets to keep, and manage . . . .
No time.
TLDR.
Like Mr. Toad, they too are merrily on their way to nowhere.
Everyone is in a hurry and . . . expeditious . . . afraid to know or be known . . .
. . . which is, in the final analysis, Love:
Knowing.
Really knowing.
I think people are terrified of this.
Because, God is Love, and they're afraid of God.
Instead, they stay busy, spending their whole lives skipping expeditiously along the surface, fastidiously avoiding the depths at all cost . . . yearning for love, but continually frustrating themselves by refusing to do the one thing that is necessary to get it: going deep, and really knowing.
So the Depth piece is challenging, too.
And the View piece. If you had asked me to define Culture on my own, I would have missed that.
I think that most people take for granted that their view is THE view. They're totally subjective, stuck inside their own heads, seeing life through their own eyes, unaware that there might be more than their perspective. They don't realize they have an angle. They just look at a thing and say to themselves, "There it is."
This is the human dilemma, to transcend our own constraints, to realize that our vision is limited and always from a certain angle or position, to get out of our own heads, become truly objective, and see things as they really are, not as they might first appear to us.
How can you see your own blind spots? How can you see your own blindness?
What a challenge! What a daunting personal growth hurdle!
I'm grateful to Matt (and Dr. Schein) for opening my eyes to all of this.
So much for the definition of Culture. It alone inspired me to write this much which, if printed, would occupy four pages.
How shall I ever review the whole book without writing something as long as it, or longer . . . a veritable tome?
Key Concepts . . . in both secular and sacred vernacular
As I progressed through the book . . . tabbing, scribbling, and underlining, as is my custom (whenever I read a book I really try to "grok" it), I came to realize that keeping a review short would be a bit of a challenge. So besides the above, I also scribbled a few key words on the inside front cover. Here they are, in no particular order:
Leadership. Matt had a lot to say about this. In a nutshell, leaders try to "delegate" culture but Matt says, no. You can't do that. Culture is lived, moment by moment, by example.
He used tired cliches that we all know: "Practice what you preach." "Lead by example." "Walk your talk." Nobody needs to read a new book, published in 2023, to know these things.
His message to leaders: "Do you believe your organization has a culture problem? Guess what: it's your fault. Own it."
Well, that's a harsh message, so much of the book's length is about softening the blow. But there it is, nonetheless.
There's one word well known in religious communities for what he uses many secular words to describe:
Hypocrisy.
Behavior. Culture all boils down to behavior; so if you want to improve culture, you need to change behavior.
In religious language, we call this repentance. But since it's a secular book, he didn't use that word, and had to use a lot more instead. This also accounts for much of the book's length: beating around the repentance bush.
Persistence. Another tendency in top company leadership is distractibility or the Shiny Object Syndrome. Matt says if you really want to improve your culture, you have to be persistent. He wrote at length about this in several chapters, not just in one or two places . . . and I got to thinking, "This sounds kind of like nagging. How do you persist in improving culture without crossing the Nagging Line?"
I don't know the answer to that question, but I do know that if you would persist in improving culture, you'll do so at the risk of nagging. So, be careful.
Fanaticism. He says that to improve culture, leaders must be fanatical about it. He writes at length about fanaticism. You can't be half-hearted or lukewarm about it. You have to be hot and fierce. You can't dabble occasionally. You have to be all in, 110%.
This got me thinking about motivation, fatigue, and burnout, which is what I see in the trenches, working with business owners and leaders. They're just tired and they wanted to be done five years ago, but this young author is telling them they need to be fanatical. I wondered to myself, how to bridge the motivation gap, how to shift from Fatigued to Fanatical?
In the Marine Corps we ran in formation chanting about Motivation. Is that how it's done? Well, it's one way.
But I have a different one, that I get from my familiarity with Stoicism, which I also learned in the Marines, although they never mentioned Stoicism as such.
Instead, they modeled it.
Make no mistake: Marines are stoic.
When you're the tip of the spear, you have to be.
What if your emotions didn't matter?
What if they were unimportant?
What if you didn't have to be emotionally charged to achieve your goals? What if you became independent of that kind of fuel? What if you had a different source of energy than hype? What if you had a different, better fuel than emotional hype?
Well, what fuel is that?
How can I describe it?
It's the kind of force that comes from knowing that you're Doing the Right Thing. You don't have to be excited about it because the Truth is always there, regardless how you feel about it, whether you're up or down, awake or asleep, energetic or tired . . . it's always there, always the same.
This is how I've always lived my life. This is my perspective, my view, and I'm always kind of surprised when I find that not everyone shares it.
As it turns out, a lot of people are dependent on something external to get them going, to recharge their batteries. Some of them are like cars idling in neutral, waiting for some external prompting to shift into gear and progress. Perhaps they're waiting for a harsh rebuke, or physical pain.
I've seen a lot of that. The Bible says "The rod is for the backs of fools" which means, the only thing that moves them is physical pain; they don't respond to warnings or reason.
But what if you didn't need the prompting, the rebuke, or the pain? What if you were internally motivated? What if you were independent?
What if you were dispassionate: free from the prison of your own feelings?
I would personally suggest this is, ironically, the way toward the kind of "fanaticism" that is necessary to improve culture.
Regardless of your feelings, just get over yourself and do the right thing,
This is Stoicism.
Axiology.
Huh?
No, he didn't use this word anywhere in the book.
But I am.
Why?
In Philosophy, Axiology is a sub-branch of Ethics that deals with Value. Axiology asks, how can we know what is absolutely good or bad, and relatively better or worse?
How can we know?
This is an important question to ask, and not take for granted that, well of course, everyone knows what's good or bad. We don't have to discuss that.
Oh, really?
Do you really believe that living in a country that is divided 51% - 49% about pretty much everything? Don't you see that those divisions happen because people don't agree about what's good or bad, better or worse?
Yes, Axiology is profoundly relevant. Any time you talk about "better" or "improve", you're being axiological.
For example, profit: is more profit "better"?
Well, generally, yes.
But not if you're Boeing. He writes about this in Chapter 3 (43-45). They've also been in the news.
So, say you lead an organization of any size and you say to yourself, "We need to improve our culture."
I would ask, "What exactly do you mean by 'improve'? Let's unpack that. Let's get axiological."
And you might point at your employees and say, "They're being disdainful toward our customers. That's bad. We need to improve that."
And Matt would say, when you point one finger at your employees, three others are pointing back at you, their leader. Might you be modeling disdain for them in your own dealings, perhaps in your interactions directly with them, and they're just following your lead?
So, what's improvement? An employee training program for employees about being nice to customers?
Or might it be your own repentance, setting a different tone for the organization by improving your own behavior?
Ouch.
The Truth hurts.
But it also sets you free.
This is why Axiology matters.
So whenever you or anyone feel the itch to make a value judgment, practice a little healthy skepticism. Get axiological. Don't take things like good, bad, better, worse, improve, degrade, etc. for granted. Unpack them. Define them. Inquire into root causes.
THEN act.
Epistemology.
No, that word wasn't in the book either. But it also matters.
Just as Axiology asks how we can know what is good or bad, Epistemology asks, how do we know? How can we be sure . . . of anything?
If you would improve your culture, you need to be sure about what is going on and of what you are doing.
For example, he wrote about an instance in the book when inmates were running the asylum (204-207). Employees thought culture was great because employee well being had been given highest priority. Customers were suffering, products and services were problematic, but the employees were happy!
Well . . . that won't work. Not sustainable.
Or, take Survey Fatigue. Say you're an organization that surveys its employees, and ignores the findings, just going through the motions, because somebody thought doing employee surveys is a "good" (there's that pesky Axiology again) idea.
And, say you're basing your decisions on employee survey data. But the employees aren't telling you the truth because they've become cynical and discouraged about the whole exercise.
Well, you have an Epistemology Problem.
Same with Groupthink and Sycophancy, telling a boss what you think s/he wants to hear instead of telling the truth, fear of the Persian Messenger Syndrome. If these happen in your organization, you have an Epistemology Problem. You need to get skeptical and curious about your data before you draw conclusions and act.
Training.
Matt is a football player, so he uses a lot of football analogies. Not being a sports fan, I found them a little tedious after a while.
But something I learned is, the military and sports are great at Training, while private sector businesses suck at it.
Repeat: they suck! They treat it as an afterthought, yet expect their employees to be competent.
Inane! Absurd!
But that's life in the private sector!
So, yes: in the book, Matt says, put a solid training regimen in place, and embed teaching good (there's that pesky Axiology again . . . ) Culture into it.
Bro! Easier said than done! Throw us a bone here!
Well, he says you should have a "playbook" but he doesn't get real specific about what's in it. He gave examples of a couple of companies with whom he has worked. But we don't see the content. We just know ABOUT them.
So for me, one take-away that I got from this book was, private sector businesses need a lot of training help: writing playbooks and executing them. If they can't afford a HR department, they should at least have someone in the company who is a training specialist, who is tasked with writing the playbook and conducting ongoing training sessions. Like a teacher.
And if they can't do that, they should bring in a part time independent contractor, whatever they can afford.
In Chapter Nine, "Be Fanatical About Sustained Impact", he quotes Tom Peters:
"Training is a capital investment, not a business expense" (159).
In my own experience, with one client we made great strides toward improving the Training situation. In an app I developed for them, we created what we call a Competency Grid, showing which employees could deliver which of the various services the company offered its customers. This was a huge help in effective dispatching, risk reduction, and loss prevention. It ensured that only those employees who were qualified to do a job were assigned to it.
I also added a time keeping piece that tracked not just billable time, but ALL time that employees worked, including Training Time. In this way we created a self-maintaining Training Log that helped us keep the Competency Grid up to date, understand where all employees were in their training processes, and plan and budget for future training.
All of this was Real Time, and supported cross-training. Because in modern business, you can't just erect specialty silos then ignore them. Things are constantly changing and, as Matt pointed out in the book, skills have half-lives of 5-7 years. They expire, and must be updated and/or replaced altogether.
But this was exceptional, outstanding. I daresay most private sector businesses don't have a tool like this. They're winging it, crossing their fingers, and hoping for the best.
In the military and sports, such carelessness and neglect would be unheard of! But in the private sector, it's normal! No playbook! No program! Just throw employees against a wall and see if they stick!
Well . . . Matt says this is nonsense, and I agree. He throws down the gauntlet and challenges private sector businesses to get their training program together.
So do I.
Essence.
Throughout the book, he alludes to "Cultural DNA."
Huh? Seems kinda squishy to me.
But in one place he paraphrases and calls it "Essence."
Aha! Now I understand.
What is your organization's essence? What makes it unique, in a good way?
Matt says, build your culture around the answer.
Maybe it's attentive personal service: a real person on the other end of the phone instead of a computer system. Personal handwritten notes instead of texts or emails. He gave the example of a chef in a Disney restaurant who went out of her way to make a special trip to the grocery store to prepare a boy's favorite gluten free apple pancake breakfast (211-214).
Does your organization do that kind of thing? Well, that's part of your Essence, and you should raise awareness of it in your cultural training.
But if a flip-side of those virtues is hostility toward technology and systems, well, we might have a cultural problem . . . you might have an incompetent (literally, can't compete) Luddite culture on your hands where the organization might be missing out on advantages to be enjoyed from appropriately used tech that doesn't compromise the quality of the customer experience, but rather, enhances it.
I also added a time keeping piece that tracked not just billable time, but ALL time that employees worked, including Training Time. In this way we created a self-maintaining Training Log that helped us keep the Competency Grid up to date, understand where all employees were in their training processes, and plan and budget for future training.
All of this was Real Time, and supported cross-training. Because in modern business, you can't just erect specialty silos then ignore them. Things are constantly changing and, as Matt pointed out in the book, skills have half-lives of 5-7 years. They expire, and must be updated and/or replaced altogether.
But this was exceptional, outstanding. I daresay most private sector businesses don't have a tool like this. They're winging it, crossing their fingers, and hoping for the best.
In the military and sports, such carelessness and neglect would be unheard of! But in the private sector, it's normal! No playbook! No program! Just throw employees against a wall and see if they stick!
Well . . . Matt says this is nonsense, and I agree. He throws down the gauntlet and challenges private sector businesses to get their training program together.
So do I.
Essence.
Throughout the book, he alludes to "Cultural DNA."
Huh? Seems kinda squishy to me.
But in one place he paraphrases and calls it "Essence."
Aha! Now I understand.
What is your organization's essence? What makes it unique, in a good way?
Matt says, build your culture around the answer.
Maybe it's attentive personal service: a real person on the other end of the phone instead of a computer system. Personal handwritten notes instead of texts or emails. He gave the example of a chef in a Disney restaurant who went out of her way to make a special trip to the grocery store to prepare a boy's favorite gluten free apple pancake breakfast (211-214).
Does your organization do that kind of thing? Well, that's part of your Essence, and you should raise awareness of it in your cultural training.
But if a flip-side of those virtues is hostility toward technology and systems, well, we might have a cultural problem . . . you might have an incompetent (literally, can't compete) Luddite culture on your hands where the organization might be missing out on advantages to be enjoyed from appropriately used tech that doesn't compromise the quality of the customer experience, but rather, enhances it.
The Parting Challenge
As I contemplate the whole book, having progressed this far in my review, the most striking thing to me about it is something he only touched upon very lightly, and that is really the first step in working with Culture at all: admitting that you have one, and describing it. Taking stock, so to speak. Establishing the baseline.
How would you describe your organization's culture?
What adjectives would you use?
In my mind, that is really the first, and most difficult, challenging step, because it requires pausing, first of all, from the usual tactical day to day routine.
Secondly, it requires brutal honesty that would make many a business leader wince.
But once you've done that . . . however you do it, whether it be personal journaling, informal conversations with your team, formal surveys . . . once you have that baseline . . . then I should suppose it will become pretty obvious what you need to do. Now it becomes possible to define "improvement" and "better."
Thinking about this challenge - taking stock of existing culture, assessing it so to speak - has inspired me to Google around. I've just begun so I don't have a "best" tool to recommend yet.
But it's a thing.
Cultural Assessment.
In my opinion, that would be Step One.
I hope you've found this review helpful.
How would you describe your organization's culture?
What adjectives would you use?
In my mind, that is really the first, and most difficult, challenging step, because it requires pausing, first of all, from the usual tactical day to day routine.
Secondly, it requires brutal honesty that would make many a business leader wince.
But once you've done that . . . however you do it, whether it be personal journaling, informal conversations with your team, formal surveys . . . once you have that baseline . . . then I should suppose it will become pretty obvious what you need to do. Now it becomes possible to define "improvement" and "better."
Thinking about this challenge - taking stock of existing culture, assessing it so to speak - has inspired me to Google around. I've just begun so I don't have a "best" tool to recommend yet.
But it's a thing.
Cultural Assessment.
In my opinion, that would be Step One.
I hope you've found this review helpful.