The Vision Architect

Episode 203
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[00:00:25] Simon Vetter: Welcome to the Vision Architect, the podcast where we explore the powerful forces that shape successful organizations. I'm your host Simon Vetter, and I am thrilled to dive into this episode focusing on vision and culture, two essential elements that can make or break any company. Get ready for an enlightening conversation.

I'm excited for our podcast today about vision and culture. I have Robert Richmond, expert on culture and the author of the Culture Blueprint. He was a culture strategist at SPOs and travels around the world, speaks to organizations and companies about values and culture and how to create great customer experiences.

Robert, welcome.

[00:01:13] Robert Richmond: Thank you, Simon. Great to be here.

[00:01:14] Simon Vetter: Culture. Give me a, a quick, uh, overview. What is a culture? How do you define it, and why is it so important?

[00:01:21] Robert Richmond: Yeah. There's a few ways to go about it. One is I really think everybody's a culture expert at heart because if you think about it, if you've walked into any group of.

People, a, a, a a party, a dinner, a company, an event, you get a feel for it immediately. And so that's what it is at its core is you can tell me your culture is this, this, or that, but however you feel in the culture tends to predominate whatever that is. So you might feel all kinds of different emotions. So at its core, culture is a feeling.

What is it? It's whatever happens in communication between two or more people. That's, that's where culture happens. There's no culture with one person. It's two or more. And then it's a lot of things within there that's behaviors, beliefs, values, actions, results. All these things are within culture. They're not culture itself.

But the biggest factor in any culture, whether that be a, uh, a, a group, a tribe, a nonprofit, an organization, a company, is they are held together by two bookends, if you will. These are the key to defining what's inside the culture, and those two bookends are who we let in and who we kick out. Those are the biggest, like of the permeable boundary of culture that determines it.

Why? Because you can't really control people inside of it. You can guide behaviors, you can reward, you can have consequences, but the biggest two factors are who you let in and why, and who you kick out and why.

[00:02:49] Simon Vetter: So consequently, the two most important things then is hiring and firing.

[00:02:55] Robert Richmond: Exactly.

[00:02:55] Simon Vetter: Yeah. Are there any other levers as a, um, leader to shape culture, to influence culture, to build a culture that is more intentional?

[00:03:06] Robert Richmond: Yeah, absolutely. So first, you know, if the company and leaders know their values, um, that's a great place to start because once they determine those, actually living them and demonstrating them is. Is very much key, and not just on a one-time basis, but on a regular basis, ideally through rituals. So for example, at Zappos we have the core value of being humble.

And the CEO Tony would on the regular serve people food at the cafeteria regularly. To, to be humble, like one of the other workers there. So, right. So knowing the values of the organization and the leaders to demonstrate that that's number one, because people will react more to what you do than what you say, especially if those things are out of alignment with each other.

So that's the number one thing I would say. But it also comes down to some little things like thi this is, this is what I've found to be kind of one of the key, there's two key differentiators. One is that if you think about what holds a culture together, this took me like 12 years to figure out that what holds any group of people together?

Is this their agreements? Agreements, you know, and that's any group and one that begs the question, are they clear? Do you know what the agreements are? And then do you uphold them? I've found that if an organization or group of people is clear on the agreements and upholds them, that's strong culture. So the CEO, the leaders are really in charge of understanding what do those agreements need to be.

And everything is an agreement from a job description to a task I give you to a project, um, to even agreeing to show up when and where. Right? These are all agreements. And so the CEO I've, I've seen the best one, the leaders. Be masters at this because they understand they need to invite people in, they need to base it on their passions and interests.

And they, I ideally even keep track of them. Um, I remember Tony would keep track of all his delegations that he did, which are essentially all agreements that people made to uphold. And, and that's the like underlying structure, um, within a culture. And if a leader is aware of that, then that can be very, very powerful.

[00:05:13] Simon Vetter: Yeah. And when we set agreements and. Meet those agreements, then it creates, uh, it's a matter of integrity.

[00:05:20] Robert Richmond: Exactly

[00:05:21] Simon Vetter: fulfilling what we are saying and doing and there is congruence about that. Do you see a difference in industries, in sectors around culture? And if so, what are the differences?

[00:05:33] Robert Richmond: The biggest difference I see with this is, is it a culture that values team and.

Or the values individuals. So for example, with a very sales driven culture, that's very individual. You know, you need the high performance of individuals with that. Also with a law firm that's very much independent, people working together, right? So those are environments where culture is very, very challenging.

Environments where you need a team have to work together as a. Something like, uh, like movie productions, right? You need everybody to come together on that. That's where culture becomes, uh, really, really important. And so it's less about a particular industry, though. Those are examples of them. But at its core, what I've been amazed by, no matter what the group, no matter what the country, there are certain things that work.

Right. So I, I don't think you could tell me, is there an organization where you'd say. Yeah, we, we don't keep our agreements, but it's a great culture. Like, I don't think you'd see that, that's a breakdown in trust. So, you know, if I, I tend to see if the word trust comes up, it's usually missing in your highest trust relationships.

You don't talk about it a lot, right? But you talk about it when it breaks down. So these high trust organizations are one that really like clear based on, on these agreements. And this, this goes past any type of international or industry type of, uh, designations.

[00:06:46] Simon Vetter: Let's talk about the intersection between vision.

And culture and values. Can you gimme a, a quick definition, and then what is that intersection? What happens when a vision is vague or unclear, and what's the impact on the culture?

[00:07:01] Robert Richmond: Yeah, so the vision I describe as, as the, what, what are we doing here? And the values are the how. These are the ways that we're gonna behave to achieve that vision.

And ideally what happens with a vision is that it's, it's clear enough that you can a verify it. In reality, and B, see yourself as part of it. So for example, if you were to say, you know, I am going to be the best business consultancy in my country, or whatever that is, how do you know? How do you know you achieve that?

Is there some type of metric that does that? And. If there is, can that be achieved in two to five years? Because if it's longer than that, then I, a lot of employees will start to leave because they don't have that sense of fulfillment. So I encourage leaders to think about that. What, how is it achievable and verifiably achievable, and can it be achieved in two to five years?

[00:07:52] Simon Vetter: Yeah, yeah. You said behaviors are so critical and, and part of the connection to the values. How do you. Teach leaders to be clear about the values and be clear about the behaviors, and also live up in the role model those,

[00:08:09] Robert Richmond: so you can really see the values, the way people literally value something. So where do we spend our time?

Our attention, our energy, our money, these and and our language. Where are we really well organized? These are questions to ask to see because what I believe is that values are always present because if it's valuable, it's a value, right? It might not be what you want to value, but the way that you look at, okay, how are we spending our time?

How are we spending our, our money? How are we. Directing our attention. These are the questions to ask and realize like, oh, this is not just a crafting process. This is a realization process of where our values currently are and then consciously deciding if we want to shift them or not.

[00:08:56] Simon Vetter: Right. What are the some practical.

Culture building practices, where would you start? You say kinda let people in, make sure when they leave, and then role modeling. Can you gimme a little bit more specifics about strategies, how to build good culture?

[00:09:13] Robert Richmond: Yeah, so there's, there's the micro and the macro. So the macro is really involved in who you led into the organization, right?

So making the interview process one that reflects values is absolutely key. So for example, with a high value of service, we would ask. Uh, tell me about a time when you ha when you helped somebody out when you didn't have to. That's better than saying, do you like to be of service? You don't wanna be on the nose, you don't wanna go direct.

You want to ask questions that show that they value this in their life. That's the macro in terms of bringing people in, in terms of more of the micro, this is, this is where I notice that what, what connects people together in any culture. Think about this for yourself, even like. In any culture, you've got different personalities, different salary levels, different ideas.

Even with the visions, people have different relationships to the vision. Um, they might have different interpretations of it. All these things are different. There's only been one thing so far, at least that I can find is the same for everybody. 'cause again, people have different budgets, different all kinds of things.

But I would say that you and I, we both have the same 24 hours in a day. And we both can agree that right now in Pacific Time, it's 8:15 AM right? If you were to tell me, no, it's 10:15 AM Pacific time, you'd be crazy, right? So how does that help us? Well, if we know that this is a point of reality that we all understand, then we can synchronize everybody according to this reality.

So where I see cultures, uh, really strong are when they start meetings on time, end on time, and deliver on time. Now think about the contrast of that, where people are just running late. What does that mean? That means they're valuing their individual agendas or even their team's agendas over the company's agendas, right?

So we, we wanna do is show that everybody, because late. Is subjective, right? You might say late is two minutes late. I might say late is an hour, whatever, depending on, on cultures and countries even, right? But we can all agree what on time means there's no question of it. So again, agreements. If we can find a point of agreement.

And the highest leverage one I've seen is time.

[00:11:27] Simon Vetter: What's another one besides time?

[00:11:29] Robert Richmond: Yeah, so what we found is, and, and Tony was, was really, uh, instrumental in this, was realizing how much the four factors of, of happiness as discovered in the field of positive psychology are really, really important. That if you have these four people tend to stay in an organization.

If you don't, they tend to leave. Right. So those four factors are one, do you feel like you're making progress? If I'm making progress, I wanna make more progress. Second is, do I feel like I'm in control in some way? If I feel like it's random, like John just got a raise, I didn't, it seems really random. Um, I don't have a way to progress.

That's when things break down. But if I clearly have a way to things that are in my control, how I educate myself, the tasks I do, the projects I take on, then I'm happy because I have a sense of agency. Agency and autonomy there. Um, the third is having a, uh, best friend at work, a relationship, strong relationships with your manager, strong relationships with the best friend there.

I don't wanna leave my best friend. I don't wanna leave a great manager who's there with me. Right? And the last is having some sort of purpose that is beyond money. That we have to come together as a team to achieve that I'm passionate about that is not just dominating in revenue and profits. Right? So these four factors progress control over progress, great relationships, and having a purpose beyond money.

If we have these four factors in a culture, then people tend to enjoy it and tend to stay.

[00:12:55] Simon Vetter: So if you are a leader or if you have a work with a, a HR leader or. Executive, how do you help this person based on that lead, in order to create that high trust, high functioning culture? Where do you start as a coach or as a consultant?

[00:13:14] Robert Richmond: Yeah. Uh, a great part is with, with, with trust is one, figuring it out. Where's it broken down? Was there a broken agreement? Um, did somebody not fulfill a responsibility? Right? That's where te, where trust tends to break down, or a lack of information. Are we not transparent enough with information? Because if people don't feel like either they're lied to or they feel like they're not getting the right information, then there's a lack of trust there.

So how do we build that up? Well, one of the most powerful questions I've found within the culture is to ask somebody face to face. Eye to eye. Not an email, not in a survey, but asking face to face. You know, if I say. Say like, let's say even the situation at the end of this podcast, I say to you, Simon, would you please give me some feedback about that?

But that's not the key question, but I start with that. Would you please give me some feedback about how I did? And you'd say, yeah, you were on point with this, this, and that. And then I say, great. And Simon, would you please tell me? What you think I don't want to hear, and now you have the safety to tell me what's really on your mind.

And if you have the safety to tell me what's really on your mind and what you're really thinking, then that's going to build up trust because you feel like you can totally be real and and honest. So that's what I recommend.

[00:14:25] Simon Vetter: That's a really good question. Here's the thing, when the trust is not there.

People might be a little bit reluctant to be honest. If there's a high level of trust, people feel comfortable and safe. Yes. So as a, as a leader, if I, you ask your direct reports, might they fully be transparent and honest with you?

[00:14:43] Robert Richmond: What I've seen is they are, because if I'm not, I've already divided a, a, an order.

You know, you're the, the leader is telling you to do this, and if you don't do this. You did not satisfy the task. Right. So what it does, I found is takes a very, very confident leader to be able to ask that question and stay present with it, and also respond to it, not defensively, but to take it in and then make any changes or, or do anything that needs to be done to, to shift that situation.

But what I've found that first building of trust is really in about hearing people. Mm-hmm. So that they feel seen and heard. So for example, if we start out a new initiative. And I don't tell you about it, that's gonna be a breakdown. But if I talk to you about it first and I get to hear your opinion and your thoughts, even if I don't use them, you at least felt like you contributed and you were heard.

So being heard is absolutely that, that that first step

[00:15:33] Simon Vetter: Yeah. Goes back to communication. And one of the, the simple tools of leaders is effective listening. Give people a chance to express what's in, what, what's on their mind. Do you have a, a company that you work with or know of that has a compelling.

Culture, but also a compelling future and vision?

[00:15:52] Robert Richmond: Mm, that's a good question. You know, there are a lot of companies that just, you know, they, they have a strong culture. I think that the strongest I'd say, that I've seen is probably the Navy Seals. Mm-hmm. Because they need to pay so much attention to culture, hiring, firing, communication, all these things that if they don't, people will die.

And when they have a mission, it's very, very clear of what that is and how to achieve it. So that's the, that's the absolute strongest I've seen. And strong also means what we believe, what we say, and what we do are all in alignment, right? So that is, you know, when I ask audiences or groups, I say, who do you think has the best culture, the strongest?

They'll say, Google, Disney, you know, Zappos, all these other ones. And I say, no, those are good. Those are strong. But the strongest I've seen is actually the Navy Seals.

[00:16:34] Simon Vetter: Even sometimes sports teams have a great culture, for sure, especially winning teams. They have a morale and they have each other's back, and they're there for each other and they have a clear purpose.

They wanna win.

[00:16:45] Robert Richmond: Yeah, that's, sports analogies make it definitely easy because the, the goal is so simple and clear, and I think I, I, I don't always mention sports because people will say, oh, that's, that's so simple. I need to get the ball in the hoop. Right? I, but in the corporation, you've got 20 different priorities you're working on and trying to figure that out and what's even gonna be the goal.

That's the hard part sometimes is just even. Figuring out like your work and what people help you help people with. Right, right. Is is, well, what do I do? What is the vision? I've got 20 things I want to do, but if I tell people I'm doing 20 things, they'll do none of them. Or, or just they'll pick ones.

Right. So that's where it gets harder for, for companies and organizations, is to really understand and then really articulate what that vision is.

[00:17:27] Simon Vetter: Yeah. And in sports, winning is clearly defined.

[00:17:30] Robert Richmond: Yes.

[00:17:30] Simon Vetter: In in business winning. Yes. Depends on people's interests and different definitions. And so you mentioned companies, they have 20 different priorities.

How do you help a company clarify the mission? What's really why we are here and where we're going, that you don't have 20 priorities. You have a few. Important priorities, people understand. How do you narrow that down?

[00:17:58] Robert Richmond: Yeah, it's, it's, it's a great question. I'd say sometimes there, there's, there's kind of the soft angle and the harder angle too.

The softer angle is where, where's the most energy? Where do you feel lit up? Where is that like yes, feeling, and that can sometimes make it very, very clear very quickly. But if you want to be a little more, um, detail oriented or data oriented with it, for example, is you take those 20 or 10 or however many they are, and then you take them each one by one to stack rank them.

So for example, let's say you have the, the vision to be the best vision consultant. The, a revenue of this target, a customer service rating of this, this many people referring you to others. Right? So you take each of those and say, for example, is revenue more important than customer score? Hmm. You know, if you're in a revenue crunch, it is.

You know, if you're not, I'd say you probably wanna prioritize the customer score, right? But you run each priority against it. And if you do that. Then a natural order happens of which is the most winning one that beats the others. Right? And so by doing that simple exercise, you can then stack rank the priorities.

[00:19:06] Simon Vetter: What I often see is for A CEO, one of the most important things is, is financials. Mm-hmm. Because that's what he's tasked to do by the shareholders.

[00:19:16] Robert Richmond: Well, let's think about this though. That's, that's what the accountability is, but that's not necessarily the strategy, right? Yeah. That begs the question, what is the strategy?

Because like in sports, like you said. Every coach needs to win, but they don't keep talking about the scoreboard and saying Score, Hey, we're down by 20, we're down by 10. No, that's a horrible strategy. So when CEOs focus too much on the money without the how, then things go off the rails. And so I think the best example of this was from the book, the Power of Habit, and it talked about Alcoa Steel and the new CEO came in, was supposed to fix revenue and profitability and said, you know what?

We're gonna focus on. We're gonna focus on safety. That's our number one concern. And people thought it was crazy for not focusing on the revenue and, and cutting back and things like that. But what happened by focusing on safety, the employees loved it because they wanna live, they want, don't wanna be injured, but in order to be safe, they have to be meticulous and excellent in their practice.

And by focusing on safety, which actually generated excellence. The company was able to do a turnaround on revenue and profitability. And not only that, the workers had a mural painted of the CEO because they loved him for saving their arms and legs and lives that way. Right? So that's where you could say, yes, money's important, but it can't be the focus as the strategy.

[00:20:33] Simon Vetter: Yeah. I also talk about. Leading and lagging indicators.

[00:20:37] Robert Richmond: Yeah, I love that distinction. Love

[00:20:39] Simon Vetter: that. And lagging financials are lagging. What are the leading indicators? And, and I think safety or customer experience or a good team environment are leading indicators, so totally makes sense. And also within there you can focus on the values and behaviors and what are the agreements, how we fulfill.

A great customer service strategy. Yeah, love that. In your personal life, what, how do you apply this values and behaviors and agreements? Uh, how do you apply that in your personal life?

[00:21:12] Robert Richmond: It's a great question. Well, for me, I've definitely found that when I'm on time for things and deliver on time, my life goes well when I'm late.

Stress breakdowns in fulfillments of promises, things like that. So, you know, the practice not only being on time, but being early has a, a very big impact for me. I'd say. The second is realizing like how much culture is important and that, you know, I'm, especially me, somebody who, who, who lives alone, that I need to consciously bring in community, consciously bring people together.

And I think that does apply to companies too, where you have to consciously say, we're gonna get together once a year, or this is gonna be our meetings focused on, on getting together. This is how we're gonna get to know each other and, and, and build more. And so I find that I have to do that with that is consciously pick out times to see people, bring people together, have them over for dinner.

You know, it doesn't just happen where 10 people show up at my house for dinner. Right. Like I need to actually work on that and bring people in and, and consciously create culture in my life.

[00:22:10] Simon Vetter: Yeah. Good. Any, uh, final advice or any tips for listeners how to create that, uh, amazing culture and,

[00:22:17] Robert Richmond: yeah. I'd say one more thing would be, uh, this distinction that I actually learned from the seals, which is this idea of hunters.

Farmers. So a hunter is somebody who, who, who really wants to get the thing done and go out and make it happen and do this, and they, they, they work like a project and then they need the next one. Right? And so the way it was described to me was that the seals are hunters, but there are hundred hunters supported by 400 farmers who are farmers.

They're the people. Make sure the processes get done, make sure that things keep going. And where I've seen problems go with organizations is you try to turn a hunter into a farmer or a farmer into a hunter. What does that look like? Well, you take your best programmer, for example, and say they're great at programming, which is more of a hunter's job, and let's make them into a manager of the others, which is a farmer's job.

And then they don't like it, and then things go off the rails. Or you take a farmer, like let's say a customer service agent, somebody keeping the process going and you say. You should be more of a hunter. I want you to innovate. I want you to change things. I want you to propose ideas. They don't want that, right?

So it's really important to see who is a hunter and a farmer keeping them in that role, unless they really, really want to become one of the others, then you can work with that. So not trying to force it. And then working with that rather than against the people that you have. That's a, that's a key distinction I've seen help companies.

[00:23:35] Simon Vetter: Fantastic. This is wonderful, Robert. Thank you so much for all your examples, insights, and advice. I appreciate that. And, um, I hope, uh, we'll connect soon again in person next time.

[00:23:47] Robert Richmond: My pleasure. My pleasure. It's great to talk to you. Thanks Simon.

[00:23:50] Simon Vetter: Thank you. Thank you for joining us on The Vision Architect today.

Until next time, I am your host, Simon Vetter. Speaker and Vision architect. I hope you found this conversation with Robert Richman, insightful and valuable for building stronger organizational culture. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast For more discussions on vision, leadership, and organizational transformation, check out the show notes for useful links and resources.

Keep architecting your vision.