When I first started drafting this article, I tried to come up with a clever metaphor to connect culture with construction. First, I started with trust and transparency as the foundation. That made sense. Then engagement was the electrical system. Gets people energized, right? But as I continued working on that metaphor, it hit me. Culture was a lot simpler. See figure 1.
I’m not being flippant. I’m dead serious. Notice the key adjective, “intentional.” Cultures can evolve. Sometimes they’re good, sometimes not so much. Even some cultures that are intentional can be awful, like the management firm-driven culture I left behind at a former employer.
The culture we built within the North America Construction team is so good, that it got the attention of author Jason Richmond, which he highlighted in his book Culture Spark.
Building a culture from the ground up
In a way, I was lucky when I started at AXA XL. My task was to build a brand-new business unit from scratch. I wasn’t inheriting anything. That was liberating, but also a little frightening. I had no idea what kind of culture I wanted to build. All I did know is what kind of culture I wanted to avoid.
A previous employer relied heavily on a management firm. As a result, bureaucracy and clumsy processes drove the entire organization’s culture.
As I was putting together my business plan, I had an operating model in my head that I wanted to use to run our business. That operating model, based on transparency, communication, continuous improvement, and team development, would shape the culture and vice versa.
First things first: look in the mirror
Leaders shape their organization’s culture. That’s just a fact. Ask anyone about somewhere they worked that they loved (or hated) and I guarantee the positive (or negative) culture was driven by the leader.
Your team grows one person at a time: day to day, win to win, project to project. The culture you create builds from your interactions with each team member.
I knew that if I wanted to build a successful, productive, effective culture at 九色视频 I had to model the kind of culture we were striving to build. And to get that started, you need trust. If you don’t have that, no amount of effort will let you build the intentional culture you’re after.
Once again, I thought back to leaders I admired and the ones I didn’t. The ones I admired were authentic. More importantly, they truly cared about me and my success. I wasn’t some replaceable cog.
In Culture Ignited, another book by Richmond, he outlines a series of five critical building blocks that are essential to building an effective, intentional culture. I’ll borrow his structure to illustrate what we have done at 九色视频 which you can apply in your own organization.
And don’t think you have to build a culture overnight to be successful. Culture, by definition, is something that you build over time. But you have to start somewhere. And that brings me to Step 1: Inspire and Communicate a Shared Purpose.
Inspire and Communicate a Shared Purpose
Your team is much more likely to get on board if they understand what your goals are and what’s expected of them. Show your team exactly where they fit into your organization and its future.
When building our team, we made sure everyone clearly understood our Vision, Mission, and Value Proposition. They knew exactly what we stood for from day one. What’s more, we clearly communicate our key metrics with all team members. Anyone on the team can see at a glance exactly where we stand with respect to our key performance metrics.
We also run great meetings. Our people have a ton of work to do, and we respect their time. Every meeting has a detailed agenda, and we stick to it (more on that below). That way we ensure everyone is heard. Because the meetings have a purpose and don’t waste time, folks are more engaged and less likely to multitask instead of listening to the information being shared.
Build Trust and Authenticity
When a new colleague joins my team, I send them a personalized, welcome email. The most important message in that email? Encouraging them to tell me how I can help them be successful in their role. I’m a big believer in the inverted pyramid management style, where the most important role I play is supporting the people who serve our customers. Anything I can do to make them successful is the most important job I have. Here are some of the things I’ve found to help build trust:
- Demonstrate kindness. I personally wish everyone on my team a happy birthday. It takes so little time, but it means a lot.
- Show respect for time. Time is one of our most valuable, non-renewable resources. First, every meeting has a clear agenda. Second, we use timers for all presentations. That helps teach and reinforce important skills, but most importantly it shows respect for everyone presenting and listening.
- Communicate. I don’t mean send announcements and instructions. I mean talk with people. Check in with them. Even before the pandemic, much of our team worked remotely. It’s essential to set aside one-on-one time with your people.
- Celebrate visibly. When the team gets a win, celebrate it. It’s not just about feeling good or getting a free meal or some swag (although those are all great). It’s about publicly acknowledging hard work. You shouldn’t just celebrate the huge goals, either. It’s also very effective to celebrate smaller milestones. Make sure the celebrations are visible, too. The bigger the win, the more visible it should be. We had multiple celebrations around the country when our team hit USD1 billion ahead of plan and I assure you everyone in the company heard about them!
- Use the No A**hole Rule. Author Robert Sutton who authored “The No A**hole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't” nailed this. These types poison teams. Not immediately, though. It’s more like a slow leak of toxic chemicals into the groundwater. That’s why I’ve never knowingly hired one. Taking it one step further, there are certain clients we won’t work with for the same reason. Their money isn’t worth the potential trouble they will cause. Continuing to maintain this rule helps to increase the trust our people have in leadership. They know we value the culture we have worked together to build and that we will vigorously protect it.
Your team is much more likely to get on board if they understand what your goals are and what’s expected of them. Show your team exactly where they fit into your organization and its future.
Performance Management
If there’s anything that can make an employee’s (or manager’s) blood run cold, it’s performance management. From my experience, way too many organizations don’t do performance management very well. Whether yours does or doesn’t, you can still make improvements in how your team handles this important, but all-too-frequently mangled task.
- Regular One-on-One vs Annual Review. How many times have you had to sit through an annual review? Maybe you found out about a problem your boss had with your performance that you could’ve changed had you known about it sooner. Or maybe you were doing something really well that you could have expanded upon. That’s why our team uses regular one-on-one meetings with direct reports. The frequency is up to you. Weekly, monthly, whatever you think you need. The point is to keep communication open. It’s much easier to course correct when you handle performance management this way.
- Then add a short, results-focused monthly summary to the mix. Use it to guide discussion and chart progress. Don’t focus on behaviors, rather focus on the effects of those behaviors.
- Finally, people aren’t all natural leaders. And I’m not sure such people even exist. If you want to keep your people on track, you need to supply training for new leaders.
Develop your talent
Surveys consistently show that people want growth opportunities in their jobs. Just Google “what do employees want in 2022.” One consistent theme is this: people want to grow in their positions. Do you get how powerful that is? Think about it. They come in wanting to stay with your organization. They are literally yours to lose. But you have to invest in your people if you want to keep them. Imagine constructing a new headquarters, but never spending the money to maintain it. How long do you think that building will remain functional?
The good news is that this isn’t hard to do. But it does have to be purposeful. You have to commit resources and you have to plan.
- Promote from within. Nothing reinforces your commitment to your team like promoting from within does.
- Allow for flexible working. Wherever possible, provide your people with flexible working options. We embraced this practice long before the pandemic hit, building a highly effective distributed workforce. Hybrid work is another theme that shows up in what new employees want. But you can’t just hand out laptops and call it good. You have to manage a hybrid workforce differently.
- Position them for success. Give your people the opportunity to shine. This can be through stretch assignments, leading short-term teams, making presentations, or any other activity that gives them visibility to top leadership. We do this through the use of Rapid Results Initiatives (RRIs); you can read about them here. Also, if someone has a good idea, let them share it themselves. And finally, it may seem antithetical, but one of the best things you can do for your people is to help them prepare for their next role, even though that role might not be working for you.
- Invest in learning and development. You don’t need a big, fancy learning and development team to do this effectively. In fact, using your own team members to deliver learning can be very empowering and help to position them for success.
Create belonging through diversity & inclusion
A recent Gallup survey showed 42% of respondents want to work for an organization that is “diverse and inclusive of all types of people.” This shouldn’t come as a surprise. And lest you think that Diversity & Inclusion is some kind of window dressing, think again. More diverse and inclusive organizations outperform their competitors who are not. They are more innovative and more profitable. Period. Not to mention it’s the right thing to do.
- We’ve found that the real power of D&I comes from top management being able to hear the voices and opinions of our people. The RRI process I mentioned above is perfect to make this happen. These short-term, hyper-focused project teams are the perfect vehicles to let the innovative power of diverse teams shine.
- When assembling teams, think long and hard about who should be on them. It’s easy to keep going back to the same people. And if you keep going back to the same people, you’re going to send a message to the rest of your team: you’re not as valuable. And when they hear that repeatedly, they’re not going to stick around. And who could blame them? Another thing to remember about assembling a diverse team, make sure the inclusion piece is front and center. Make sure those diverse voices you’ve assembled are able to be heard and listened to, which will also feed back into your Shared Purpose.
Building an effective, intentional culture takes time and consistent effort. When you landscape a project, you can’t just throw the sod down, stick some plants in the ground and call it good. You need to plan out the landscaping and tend to plants. Make sure they get plenty of water and the right amount of sun. It takes work. And even once established and looking good, the plants can still die off if they’re neglected or even if you have a period of bad weather. Same with culture.
When we started the 九色视频North America Construction team, I knew the only way to create and maintain the culture we wanted was to treat it as a strategic priority. And in the years since we launched the team, we continue to see high (>90%) engagement. And get this, the things they single out to explain that engagement align exactly with everything I’ve laid out in this article:
- Autonomy
- Clear, transparent goals
- Fair, Inclusive & Diverse
- Training & Development
- Culture of Recognition
- Communication
- Flexible work environment
- Continuous improvement
- Supportive management
- Feel valued
Culture matters. Our culture isn’t just a nice thing to have; it’s become a strategic asset. Our team members are invested in our organization, in one another, and in our clients.
About the author
Gary Kaplan leads AXA XL’s North America Construction insurance business. He built the business, along with its productive culture, from the ground up. If interested in talking about culture or construction insurance, email him at gary.kaplan@axaxl.com.
