A lot of companies put all of their eggs in the basket of strategy. They invest in financial planning software, predictive AI models, and the latest approaches to marketing and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars training employees and purchasing the latest tech. But at the end of the day, many still suffer from high turnover rates, faltering key performance indicators KPIs, and frustrated customers.
What’s going wrong here?
In many cases, the problem comes down to culture. Corporate strategy is important, but if it doesn’t align with your company’s internal identity, it’s kneecapped from the start. Some of the best business strategy speakers in the world have discussed this very topic If culture doesn’t change, business doesn’t change. And that change starts with leadership.
Merging Human-Centered Leadership and Strategy Execution
Humancentered leadership is a management style that motivates employees to participate in strategy execution because it understands and values them. It’s a practical, empathetic approach that leaders across industries have adopted to great success.
Traditional management models often work from the top down, ordering changes to day to day operations without acknowledging the needs of those who must implement them. What sets human-centered leadership apart is its approach to behavior. Instead of keeping corporate goals from employees, it breaks goals into actionable tasks for each employee. Many leaders address these tasks directly with their employees to increase buy-in. Employees can then get invested in the work because it has tangible meaning and connection.
How to Turn Strategy Into Everyday Behaviors
Human-centered leadership is all about using the little things to build a culture that aligns with your company’s strategy. A new logo or a catchy tagline isn’t enough. The actual day to day processes must change to reflect the needs of those doing the work. After all, strategy execution and culture alignment start on the ground, not the top floor.
Here are three ways you can change the culture:
- Clarify Who Is Responsible for What Strategy changes often accompany new or evolving responsibilities. That can create a lot of ambiguity, which in turn causes interpersonal friction and slows everybody down. A RAPID decisionmaking model which stands for Recommend, Agree, Perform, Input, and Decide can be helpful, but the best thing you can do is communicate. When changes occur, notify everyone publicly so that employees are aware of how work should flow and who they can consult for questions and approvals. This supports a faster, easier, and more coordinated transition.
- Incentivize and Recognize Famed scientist BF Skinner, the father of operant conditioning learning theory, was able to train rats to pull levers and complete other tasks in exchange for food. Despite the difference in size, humans aren’t that different. We also appreciate being rewarded and recognized for our efforts. If you truly want to change the culture, you need to motivate the people within it to change. You can achieve this by offering bonuses to teams that meet strategic goals and recognizing individual high performers on a monthly or quarterly basis, and auditing promotional criteria to ensure it aligns with your company’s strategy.
- Start Meaningful Rituals When we refer to “rituals,” we mean the recurring practices that help build and reinforce a workplace culture. Your standard weekly team meeting is one example. You can leverage rituals to reinforce values of cooperation, open communication, and innovation. For instance, you might encourage each employee to offer monthly feedback on ways to improve team efficiency or display an achievement board in the office that celebrates the team’s successes. These rituals might seem small, but they are the key to building a strategically aligned culture from the ground up.
How to Build a Cultural Scorecard
When you want to change culture, you need a measuring stick Accountability and adaptation are core parts of humancentered leadership, after all It doesn’t have to be too complicated either All you have to do is build a scorecard that tracks at least one metric in three key areas behavior, culture, and business outcomes:
- Behavior: You can track the percentage of employees who participate in a new ritual over time. To use our earlier example, you might start by looking at how many choose to offer monthly feedback.
- Culture: For this category, turn inward. Survey employees to gauge their satisfaction with the company’s new direction. Ideally, the percentage of satisfied employees will increase over time.
- Business outcomes: Track this metric using numbers. Identify the most relevant KPI to your new strategy and monitor how it changes in relation to the other two areas. If all goes well, it should rise as employee satisfaction does. If it doesn’t, it may be time to change something about the culture.
A 30-60-90 Plan for Cultural Transformation
In human-centered leadership, transformation should be a gradual process. If everything changes all at once, no one can keep up. That’s why you need a 30-60-90 plan It will help you roll things out at a pace that’s comfortable and inclusive for everyone. It also lets you adapt your approach based on what your employees need.
Days 1-30: Listen and Decide
The first 30 days are all about learning. Start by talking with employees about their needs and what changes they would make if they could You can do this through email, in person, or in a range of other ways.
Then, it’s time to talk with other parts of leadership. Work together to decide which critical behaviors align with both employee needs and the new corporate strategy In some cases, you may also need to identify problematic rituals that are stalling progress. Edit media
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Days 31-60: Communicate and Implement
It’s important to take the time to explain why things are changing. Start the second set of 30 days by updating everyone on the changes your team has decided on. Then, softlaunch one or two of the new rituals You can also participate to show commitment. Once the rituals have had a couple of weeks to settle in, celebrate the team members who have embraced them!
Days 61-90: Measure and Refine
In the final 30 days, it’s time to gather feedback and adapt. Your cultural scorecard is a great tool here. Review the data with other members of the leadership team and identify areas for improvement. Ask your employees, too! They can provide ontheground insights into how people are feeling and which changes are working.
From there, adapt your cultural strategy to better meet your employees’ needs. Make sure to highlight everyone’s successes along the way!
Learn More About Leadership With LAI Speakers
The best way to learn about human-centered leadership is to hear from those who’ve done it. LAI Speakers connects you with eloquent and educational speakers whose knowledge and experience can empower your business strategy and help you transform your workplace culture for the better.
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