Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and GOLA giving.
Speaker 1: This is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host
Speaker 1: Paul Fellavledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to this seven minute leadership podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode seven thirty eight. Today, I want to talk
Speaker 2: about something that almost every organization claims to care about,
Speaker 2: yet very few organizations ever test culture. Most leaders talk
Speaker 2: about culture when things are going well. The office is calm,
Speaker 2: the team is getting along, the metrics look good, the
Speaker 2: customers are happy, everyone is smiling in the annual report.
Speaker 2: And that's not culture. That's comfort. Culture is revealed when
Speaker 2: comfort disappears. Think about it this way. You don't know
Speaker 2: if a bridge is strong because cars drive across it
Speaker 2: every day. You know it's strong because engineers stress test it,
Speaker 2: they push it, they challenge it, they expose weaknesses before
Speaker 2: those weaknesses become disasters. The same should happen with culture.
Speaker 2: The problem is most organizations never run culture stress tests.
Speaker 2: They assume everything is fine until something breaks. So today
Speaker 2: I want to share several culture stress tests that many
Speaker 2: organizations never run, and if you're brave enough to examine them,
Speaker 2: you may learn more about your culture in one week
Speaker 2: than you've learned in the last year. The first stress
Speaker 2: test is what I call the bad news test. How
Speaker 2: does your organization react when someone delivers bad news. Imagine
Speaker 2: an employee walks into your office and says, we lost
Speaker 2: the account, the project failed, I made a mistake. The
Speaker 2: customer is furious. What happens next? Do leaders immediately start
Speaker 2: looking for someone to blame? Do people become defensive to
Speaker 2: employees hide information because they're afraid, or do people focus
Speaker 2: on solving the problem. The speed at which bad news
Speaker 2: travels through an organization tells you everything about culture. In
Speaker 2: healthy cultures, bad news moves quickly. In unhealthy cultures, bad
Speaker 2: news moves slowly because people fear the consequences of honesty.
Speaker 2: If your employees are afraid to bring you problems, your
Speaker 2: culture is already failing the stress test. The second stress
Speaker 2: test is the absent leader test. What happens when the
Speaker 2: leader isn't there? And this one is powerful. Take a vacation,
Speaker 2: leave for a conference, step away for a few days,
Speaker 2: and then observe. Do standards remain intact, Do people continue
Speaker 2: doing the right things? Do employees make good decisions? Or
Speaker 2: does everything fall apart the moment you disappear. A culture
Speaker 2: dependent upon constant supervision is not culture, its compliance. Real
Speaker 2: culture exists when people continue doing the right thing when
Speaker 2: nobody is watching. The third stress test is the new
Speaker 2: employee test, and this one is simple. Ask a new
Speaker 2: employee what they think after their first thirty days, not
Speaker 2: after three months, not after they've learned all the political rules.
Speaker 2: Ask them now. Fresh eyes see things. Veterans stop noticing.
Speaker 2: New employees notice broken systems, They notice confusing processes. They
Speaker 2: notice behaviors everyone else has accepted. Many leaders spend thousands
Speaker 2: of dollars on consultants when the answers are sitting in
Speaker 2: the breakroom wearing a new uniform. The fourth stress test
Speaker 2: is the pressure test. What happens when things get busy.
Speaker 2: Anybody can be respectful when call volume is low. Anybody
Speaker 2: can be patient when sales are high. Anybody can be
Speaker 2: kind when deadlines are easy. Pressure exposes character, Pressure exposes priorities,
Speaker 2: Pressure exposes culture. When things become chaotic? Do your leaders
Speaker 2: remain professional? Do employees help one another another? Do departments cooperate?
Speaker 2: Or does everyone retreat into survival mode? As an EMS chief,
Speaker 2: I've watched organizations reveal their true identity during a crisis.
Speaker 2: The same thing happens in every industry. Stress does not
Speaker 2: create culture. Stress reveals culture. The fifth stress test is
Speaker 2: the truth test. Can people disagree safely? Think about that question?
Speaker 2: When someone challenges an idea of what happens? Are they respectful, ignored, punished,
Speaker 2: labeled as difficult. One of the most dangerous organizations in
Speaker 2: the world is the one where everybody just nods their head.
Speaker 2: You've heard me talk about the nodding leaders before, the
Speaker 2: people who privately agree with concerns but publicly stay silent.
Speaker 2: Those environments create blind spots, and those blind spots eventually
Speaker 2: create disasters. If employees cannot tell the truth, leaders cannot
Speaker 2: make good decisions. And if leaders cannot make good decisions,
Speaker 2: culture begins to deteriorate. The sixth stress test is the
Speaker 2: promotion test. Watch what happens when someone gets promoted. Pay
Speaker 2: close attention. How does the team react or people genuinely
Speaker 2: happy or are they cynical? Do they trust the process
Speaker 2: or do they immediately assume politics played a role. Promotions
Speaker 2: reveal whether employees believe the organization rewards performance or favoritism.
Speaker 2: The reaction tells you far more than the promotion itself.
Speaker 2: And here's the final culture stress test, the Monday Morning test.
Speaker 2: What energy walks through your doors on Monday morning. I
Speaker 2: love this one because it's impossible to fake. Watch the
Speaker 2: parking lot, watch the hallways, watch the break room, Listen
Speaker 2: to conversations. Do people arrive with purpose or do they
Speaker 2: arrive defeated? Do employees engage with each other or do
Speaker 2: they immediately begin counting the hours until Friday. Every organization
Speaker 2: has challenges, Every organization has stress, Every organization has frustrations.
Speaker 2: The question is whether people still believe their work matters.
Speaker 2: When they stop believe, that culture begins to crack. And
Speaker 2: here's why all of this matters. Most leaders measure the
Speaker 2: wrong things. They measure productivity, revenue, response times, attendance, customer satisfaction,
Speaker 2: all important metrics. Yes, culture operates underneath every one of
Speaker 2: those numbers. Culture determines whether people tell the truth, whether
Speaker 2: people stay, whether people help one another. Culture determines whether
Speaker 2: problems get solved or hidden, or whether trust grows or disappears.
Speaker 2: The strongest cultures are not the ones with the nicest
Speaker 2: mission statement hanging on the wall. They're the ones that
Speaker 2: can survive the stress test. They're the ones where people
Speaker 2: tell the truth even when it's uncomfortable. They're the ones
Speaker 2: where standards remain high when leaders are absent. They're the
Speaker 2: ones where pressure brings people together instead of driving them apart.
Speaker 2: And they're the ones where employees feel safe enough to
Speaker 2: speak honestly, challenge respectfully, and contribute fully. Culture isn't what
Speaker 2: your organization says. Culture is what your organization does when
Speaker 2: conditions become difficult. That's the real test, and chances are
Speaker 2: there are a few culture stress tests you've never run.
Speaker 2: The question is what would you discover if you started tomorrow.
Speaker 2: So leadership is not measured by the posters on your wall,
Speaker 2: the slogans on your website, or the speech you gave
Speaker 2: at the last staff meeting. Leadership is measured by how
Speaker 2: your people behave when the pressure is on and nobody
Speaker 2: is watching. So this week, pick one culture stress test
Speaker 2: and evaluate your organization honestly. The answers may be uncomfortable,
Speaker 2: but they will be incredibly valuable. This has been the
Speaker 2: seven Minute Leadership Podcast, and I thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more, Paul fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfelloalito dot com,